Page 83 of Dawnlands

“At noon,” she agreed, and wearily started to climb the stairs.

BERRY STREET, LONDON, AUTUMN 1685

The hired coach drew up outside Johnnie’s little townhouse on Berry Street.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go on to the wharf?” he asked Ned. “You can have the carriage.”

“Nay, I’ll come in with you. Happen Sarah’s girls will be in myold room already, and if I’m here, we can start raising the money for Rowan’s pardon at once.”

Johnnie paid off the coach, picked up his portmanteau, and opened his own door.

“I don’t like servants in the house,” he explained to his uncle. “I’ll send for my housekeeper now.” He whistled for a link boy, gave him a small coin and an instruction, and then showed Ned into the narrow hall.

“When Mrs. Wales comes, she’ll make up a bed for you. She just lives down the street, she’ll be here in a moment. And tomorrow we’ll go to court. She’ll know where they are, St. James’s or Windsor.” He smiled. “She’s a great enthusiast for the royals.”

“Papistical?”

“Fashionable. She likes the clothes.”

“We can’t go tonight?”

“Easier to get admittance in the morning, and we’ll have to smarten up. We won’t get in if we don’t look like gentlemen.”

The front door behind Ned opened, and Johnnie’s housekeeper bustled in and dropped the two of them a curtsey. “I came at once,” she told Johnnie. “I’ve been in every day to dust. I didn’t expect you to be away so long.”

“I was detained,” Johnnie said shortly. “This is my uncle, Mr. Ferryman. Can you make up a bed for him in my dressing room, and send out to the bakehouse for dinner for us both? And I’ll have a bath.”

“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll get the hot water on at once. Shall I bring some wine and biscuits to the parlor?”

“Yes please,” Johnnie said, and the two men went into the little room at the front of the house, overlooking the street.

“I’ll light the fire,” Ned said, looking at the kindling ready laid in the grate. He smiled at the housekeeper when she demurred. “Nay, it’s no trouble.”

“I’ve got your letters, sir,” she said to Johnnie, bringing them in on a leather tray.

“I’d better send a note to my grandmother to tell her you’re safe,” Johnnie said to Ned. He turned over his letters. “Oh, this one is from Ma,” he said, surprised, and broke the seal. “She’s not at the wharf,whoa—” He broke off. “We’ve been away too long, Uncle! All sorts of changes. Matthew’s been given Foulmire for services to the queen, and they’ve gone down there in the Avery carriage!”

“What?” Ned demanded incredulously.

“See for yourself.” Johnnie flicked the letter into Ned’s hands.

“Sir James Avery?” Ned demanded. “He’s the very one we should see about getting a pardon for Rowan.”

“D’you know him?” Johnnie asked curiously.

He saw one of Ned’s rare smiles. “We were on opposite sides of the king’s war,” he admitted. “But he owes my sister his life.”

“I thought they were enemies? Ma and Grandmother and the Nobildonna and Sir James?”

“Your grandma hid him when he was a royalist spy,” Ned said shortly to Johnnie’s shocked face.

“She did?”

“And he betrayed her. It was years later that the Nobildonna turned up, dumped Matthew on them, nearly ruined the business, and scooped him up. They never spoke after that. But if your ma and grandmother will use his carriage now, then I can ask him for a favor. Besides, he’s the only man we know at court.”

“We could ask the Nobildonna?”

“Her, I wouldn’t trust at all.”