Chapter 22: The Quay

Lydia's POV

I came down the stairs at dawn and found my husband standing in the hall in his shirt.

He was staring at my trunk.

"Henry."

He turned.

His face was grey, and he was holding himself so still that I understood at once.

"It is my still room," I said. "Jars, scales, my mortar and the good brass pestle. My father's men brought it from his house in the night."

He said nothing.

"I wish to put it in the little room off the kitchen, next to the herb garden. If you do not object."

"The carriage," said Henry hoarsely.

"Is my father's, and it is for the Quay. The King honours him at nine, and I am not letting him go alone."

He sat down on the stairs.

He put his hands over his face, and his shoulders shook once, and I knelt in front of him in my morning gown.

"You thought I was leaving."

"I thought you had answered."

"I have," I said. "Take your hands down."

I held out the folded paper from my pocket.

Under his careful lines I had written two of my own, in ink, in the plain hand he had once feared to find on a label.

I do not accept. I stay.

And below it, for the first time in my life, I had signed it: Lydia Barrington.

He read it three times.

"That is not an answer with more than your mouth," he said unsteadily.

"That is the first part."

"What is the second?"

"Tonight," I said. "Now get dressed. My father will weep, and I want you beside me."

The Customs Quay was loud with gulls and people.

Half the port had come out, and the King's carriage stood at the head of the wharf with a herald in royal blue.

My father stood on the quay in his best brown coat, white whiskers combed, shifting from foot to foot.

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