The hour was late and everyone had gone to bed, yet Mary still stood alone in the dark staring out the window of John's well cleaned bed chamber. She heard her husband's footsteps in the assembly room first, then listened as he climbed the stairs. She took a deep breath and brushed the hair from her face, but she didn't turn toward him when he opened the door.

Uriah set his candle down. Her beauty took his breath away. He watched her for a moment, then leaned down to gently touch the hair on his sleeping son's head. "How does he do?"

She kept her gaze out the window. Beyond the leafless tree tops, she could see lanterns on barges drifting down the river and the dim light in the window of a house far away. "He is well. He does not wake in the night as he did before."

"Good. Our chamber is the one next to his."

"Fine." She brushed past him and walked out. She waited on the balcony while he closed John's door, opened the next and stood aside. She quickly glanced around. It was a clean, large room with a tall chest of drawers at one end and a four poster bed at the other. In the middle sat a small round table with two chairs. A landscape painting was the only wall decoration and on the floor lay a pale yellow rug.