sitting with him. No sound came from the baby either, though that could never last.
In the main room on the first floor, Lovell eased himself into a large, ancient armchair with a carved scallop- shell back that stood beside the empty hearth. From the doorway, Juliana exclaimed faintly. 'You are in my father's chair!'
'It's damnably hard.'
'I should warn you, Father died in it.'
'When was that?'
'During the siege of Colchester.'
'He lived so long! You kept that from me. You kept a lot from me, I now suspect.'
'Nothing important,' replied Juliana matter-of-factly. 'I was true.'
'So true that you rushed into bigamy!' Obsessed, Lovell demanded in a low voice, 'Did you know this man Jukes while you knew me?'
'I met him long afterwards.'
'You were my wife, but he propositioned you?'
Tired of this, Juliana exclaimed, 'Oh be reasonable! You were long gone. I could see Gideon Jukes might love me. I could see I might love him. You were supposed to be in the ship lost with Prince Maurice — '
'That would have been convenient!'
A faint sheen on the forehead, combined with Lovell's hectic colour, now began to warn her he might be unwell. It made him unpredictable. Deeper unease overcame her when he began abstractedly unbuttoning his coat so he could rub at his shoulder.
Lovell waved a hand around what he recognised was the most used room in the house. Shelves held books; he had seen books everywhere and he flattered himself some had been given to his wife by him. 'This is what you want? Your Commonwealth love-nest?' Juliana noticed warily that his tone became cajoling. 'Well, I see no objection to living this way. Come back to me, as you are meant to do. You shall have this in a house of ours, and I shall enjoy it with you.'
The request was so unreasonable, Juliana felt exhausted. 'This was what I always wanted. You and I never had it.'
'I gave you love.'
'And I to you — or so I tried, but I could not love the perpetually absent.' Juliana hated to engage with Lovell, but suddenly her anger came out strongly. 'You left me, Orlando, for year after year after year. You never told me your plans. You abandoned me and your children. You might never have come back to us at all, were it not for these plots I know you are tangled in. So now it is a convenience for you to say, 'I am in England for my wife'. But being a convenience is not enough for me. It is not marriage.'
From the high- backed, throne- like, Jacobean oak chair that had been her father's, Orlando Lovell gazed at his wife. She could see blood seeping through his shirt now, as he tried to ease his shoulder. 'I am wounded… Oh sweetheart, I am tired as well. Tired of constantly fighting… weary of squabbling with you.' He was lying. 'What would I give to have this domestic retreat? — Let us be sensible, Juliana. Protector Cromwell is elderly; he cannot last, even if he escapes murder. What will happen once he dies? He has no successor. There will be chaos. Then the King will be restored, to great rejoicing. All the King's supporters will return — I among them.' He leaned forwards. Juliana, still standing, went rigid. 'I want you back, dear heart. I want us to have the full and rich life that we have earned; I want that with you, the woman I chose, the woman who is bound to me before God and the law.'
'I will not come.'
'Must I beg you, my love?'
'I believe in divorce,' stated Juliana, without apology, regret or pity.
She had lived with a man of liberal ideals for so long, she was amazed at just how angry her declaration made Orlando Lovell. That devotee of traditional conservatism was in too much physical pain to berate her. He could only express his breath furiously, to show his disgust.
For a while Lovell closed his eyes, blotting her out, as he tried to deal with the pain in his shoulder. Juliana sat herself on a long form on one side of her dining table. Her left hand stroked the soft leather cloth that covered it in the daytime, where some people would use a turkey carpet to protect the wood from knocks. As Lovell fell silent, she considered what he had said about the political future.
Even in the dying days of the Protectorate, Juliana saw this as no moment to abandon Gideon Jukes. To return to Orlando Lovell simply because he would be among the victorious party held no appeal. She had invested her hopes too deeply elsewhere. She knew that in his heart, Gideon was preparing himself to lose all he had fought for. Her task, which she would enter into willingly and cheerfully, would be to support him as he tried to reconcile himself to whatever happened next.
A window was open, to air the room that sunny day. From somewhere below, came the cry of a very young child, calling for attention.
Juliana reacted, but stopped. Lovell saw it. He swung out of the chair and in three strides was at the window. With one hand gripping the sill, he stared down below into the small enclosed yard at the back of the property. On a rug in the sun he saw the baby playing: Celia Jukes, now nine months old, in a white dress to which were sewn long leading- reins, one of which she was devotedly chewing. She had become a beautiful baby, fair-haired, blue-eyed, bright- natured, the delight of both her parents.
Lovell realised at once whose child it was.
Juliana said nothing. There was nothing to say.
Resting in the chair had revived Lovell. He had enough energy to move. The enclosed yard reminded him that he had brought himself into a rat-trap, a cul-de-sac with no back exit. If anyone came in at the shop door, he had no escape.
He snapped into a plan. 'I shall leave your house. Do not look relieved too soon! I see you have that horse there.'
'Rumour? He was hidden when serviceable mounts were being seized to prevent rebel cavaliers taking them.'
Lovell laughed. 'Delicious! Well, a rebel cavalier is having him now! How is he brought out of your yard?'
'He has to be led through the shop — '
'You jest?'
'Unfortunately not.'
'Here is what will happen. You will saddle up your nag; I shall ride him. You will be up behind me — '
'I will not.'
'Oh, you will, my dear. Now — ' On the table Lovell had found paper that Valentine been using earlier. He did not notice the significance of the boy's used juice beaker and the delft jug full of cooled friar's balsam. He still had no idea Valentine was upstairs. 'Write instructions. Tell Jukes, I will do a fair exchange — his golden child for my Tom.'
Juliana went cold. 'You are taking my baby?'
'You too. Jukes must bring Thomas to the Blue Boar in King Street at ten o'clock sharp tonight. He will be alone, unarmed, and give me no trouble. When he produces Tom, I shall return you and the pretty one. Write it.'
'No.'
Without thinking twice, Orlando Lovell put his boot on the back of a dining chair and kicked it over. As Juliana covered her mouth with her hand in horror, he pushed another sideways viciously, breaking a third. Destruction, noise and terror had arrived. 'Write!'
Chairs are just things, thought Juliana weakly. Chairs can be mended, or replaced…
While she stood rooted to the spot, Lovell, despite his wound, lifted a stool one — handed and hurled it. It smashed against a wall, scarring the delicate painted plaster.
'Stop it! Be quiet and I will do it — '
Lovell behaved as cavaliers did. Pointlessly, he ripped the leather cloth from the table; everything on it cascaded to the floor. To pacify him, Juliana salvaged paper, quill and ink. Lovell kicked at the empty coal scuttle. Juliana began writing. Despite her submission, Lovell continued to destroy her home. Fired up by his personal enmity for Gideon, he wrenched the curtains from their pole, pulling the pole from the wall with them, then dragged
