Chapter 12
Agnes
‘Tell me again.’ Agnes wiped her hands on her skirts, peering at the men sitting across the table from her. ‘So his father shot you? With a crossbow?’
‘Yes.’ Raff seemed more amused than insulted.
‘And now you’ – she gestured at Penn, who was grinning – ‘are Ash’s hostage?’
‘I was his father’s hostage, really,’ said Penn. ‘I suppose given that both of the men who bargained the deal are dead it no longer stands … but no one has seen fit to point that out, yet.’
Agnes frowned. ‘I heard all sorts of wild stories about what had happened to the Barden and de Foucart families, and yet the truth baffles me even more.’
Penn shrugged. ‘If it helps at all, becoming a hostage was my idea. I just had to ensure Father thought it was his.’
‘You chose this?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why?’
Penn shot a look at Raff. Raff looked down, his ears going red.
‘I have my reasons.’
She watched them carefully. The way they were around one another did not speak to the relationship between a man and the person whose actions had caused him to be held hostage.
They were clearly friends, and judging by the tale they had told her of Penn’s escape from his cruel father’s clutches, he owed Raff far more than just the aid he supplied when Raff’s wounded arm pained him most. It was pleasing that they remained friends, after all that had happened; it put her in mind of one of the tales of Arthur and his band of knights, loyal to the quick, deeply enmeshed in one another’s lives.
There seemed to be something more there, though. Something beyond just friendship – something like love. Both the church and society damned such a relationship, yet they did not seem to be taking great pains to hide it.
It would not do to ask. It would sound like an accusation, one that would certainly not win her any favours with the rest of the household.
The pair of them seemed keen to get to know her.
They were excellent hosts – Penn more than Raff, who eagerly talked while Raff listened on.
Upon her entrance into the hall that morning, Raff had effusively apologised for Ash’s absence the previous night after going to speak to their prisoner.
His words went some way to soothing her after she asked after Ash’s health, worried that he had suffered another fit.
Their sister Lily – whom Agnes was waiting to learn more of, given her own predilection for blurring boundaries – was not present. Raff had apologised again, reassuring her that no doubt she would return to the keep soon enough.
‘And when she does return, you will meet Jo as well,’ Penn added.
‘Jo?’
‘My sister.’ Penn said it so casually that Agnes was almost unsure if she had heard him correctly. ‘They own a brewery together, somewhere near Oxford.’
Agnes tried to not appear shocked. She had known that Ash’s sister had such a common job but had not realised that she ran it with another woman. Penn started to laugh.
‘Yes, it is rather odd, isn’t it? Both the sisters of earls, now common as muck – not that I would allow Jo to hear me say so. But they’re very happy, and for that I cannot judge any oddity.’
With every story she heard and every fact she learned about the Barden family, Agnes felt surer and surer that she had trapped herself not with a monster, but with an entire family of lunatics.
She had never heard such scandal and oddness confined within one family.
Two, she supposed, were one to consider Penn and his sister.
‘… I see,’ she managed weakly.
Raff gave her a warm smile across the table. ‘You will get used to us eventually,’ he said. ‘I swear we are all drawn to each other.’
‘We?’
‘Eccentrics and degenerates,’ Penn clarified with a sharp smile.
‘Penn!’
‘What?’
Before they could launch into bickering, there was a noise from the opposite side of the room.
All three of them looked around to see Ash in the open doorway.
He looked exhausted, his hair a mess, still wearing yesterday’s clothes with great purple bags beneath his eyes.
But his eyes themselves were sparkling, his head held high.
He looked … free. As if a great weight had fallen from his shoulders in the night.
Raff stood, the bench creaking beside him as Penn wobbled on it. ‘Ash—’
Ash ignored him, heading instead for Agnes. Agnes rose to her feet instinctually.
‘Would you join me on a walk?’ he said. ‘So we may talk?’
She didn’t even need to think. ‘Of course.’ He looked so nervous. ‘Should we fetch the dogs?’
She could see the relief wash over him. ‘Please.’
The grounds around Dunlyn Castle were beautiful, if steep.
In the early morning light, the grass still speckled with dew, they sparkled.
The keep itself was built into the hill, overlooking the lands beyond, and it was a long walk down into the valley below.
The valley itself was split with a long, fast-moving river overhung with trees, heavy with new leaves.
It was a beautiful place – certainly the sort of place Agnes could enjoy living in.
At her side, Ash remained stoically silent. It seemed he did not want to talk until they were far away from the keep – likely to ensure they really were alone.
He led her down towards the river, watched the dogs chase each other around for a moment, and then, finally, spoke.
‘Last night …’
She tried to help. ‘You vanished,’ she said. ‘Was it another of those fits?’
He gave a low, mirthless chuckle. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not quite. Agnes … the man who attacked us on the road. I know him.’
Agnes’s mouth hung open. ‘What?’ she breathed. ‘How?’
Ash looked steadfastly ahead, unblinking.
‘He … he is the man I told you of. The man who I thought I lost in France.’
‘But … but you said he was dead?’
‘He was. When he attacked us on the road, I saw his eyes, only briefly. I thought I had imagined it. But—’ His voice cracked. ‘But I had not. He is alive.’
Agnes swallowed. Ash’s hands were shaking.
‘What was … what is his name?’ she asked.
Ash took a deep breath. ‘Oliver.’
‘How did you know him?’
‘We squired together. Or rather: I squired beneath his father. We became friends. We—’ A sharp breath, pained. The river rushed noisily beside them. ‘I have never known anyone like him. We were inseparable.’
Agnes stood beside him. Despite every urge telling her not to, she reached out, putting what she hoped was a comforting hand upon his arm.
‘When we spoke of marriage,’ she said, ‘you said you had made vows to another. I had assumed it was a woman, but … was it him?’
Ash still stared at the water. Agnes half-suspected he was considering throwing himself in.
‘We swore an oath to each other – in the eyes of God, we swore to protect each other. To share all we had. To be … to be beside each other.’ His eyes were shimmering. He did not move. ‘Forever.’
‘What happened for you to believe he was dead?’
‘His bloody father rode off into a petty squabble in France. Olly insisted on joining him. He wanted to prove himself. I would not let him go alone. I promised to protect him, but I couldn’t. He took a mace to the side of the head.’
Agnes hissed through her teeth. ‘My God.’
‘He just … he just fell. I tried to reach him, but this’ – he pressed a hand against the scar that twisted over his face – ‘is all I earned for my efforts. They wouldn’t even let me find his body.’
Agnes could feel the grief coming off him in waves. The loss. The guilt. She joined him in staring at the water. She had one single question: the only question that truly mattered.
‘Were you lovers?’
The river rushed on. She forced herself to glance at Ash. He looked broken. His lips moved wordlessly.
‘I do not want to lie to you,’ he said at last.
‘Then don’t.’
‘And … I do not want you to hate me.’
That was as good as a confession. Agnes swallowed.
‘I will not. I had assumed since that conversation that you had given your heart away some time ago. It seemed obvious. And it answered many of my questions about you, as well. To have loved someone and have them snatched away … it made sense. Ash, you know of my own oddities. My own sins, as others would understand them.’
‘It is not the same.’
Agnes held back a retort. It was. She knew it was: both were tarred with the same sin against nature, of subversion. She did not say that out loud – it would not help to force herself into Ash’s fear.
‘In the eyes of the law I suspect it would be,’ she said instead.
‘Ash, I am not asking you so I can judge you. If you and he were lovers – if your vows to him were the same as the vows I made to my husband – then I am not intending to damn you or curse you or … or set the law on you. I need you to know that.’
Ash didn’t look as if he believed her.
‘If I were to take this to the church, or the court, then you could easily accuse me of the sin of pretending to be something I am not,’ Agnes continued. ‘We both could damn each other. I hope that neither of us want to do that.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Then tell me what happened, Ash.’
‘I— we— yes. Fine!’ He shouted the final word so loud that birds perched in the nearby trees took sudden flight.
‘We were,’ he said, quieter. ‘He was my world, Agnes. He was everything. I vowed myself to him with the words of brotherhood but … ah, they are not so different from the promises made between husband and wife. I loved him. And they took him from me—’ His words collapsed into a choke.
‘If he had not come back, I would not need to tell you all of this. But now …’
‘Things are different?’
‘They are. And I cannot ask you to marry me if you do not know all of me. Not like this, not in a way where I could tarnish you with my own crimes.’
She swallowed. ‘And are you lovers? Still?’
‘Excuse me?’ Ash spluttered. ‘I have assumed him dead for years! How could we have—’
‘You spent all night together.’
Ash fell silent. It was an assumption alone, but Agnes could tell by Ash’s expression that she was correct.
‘Let me ask again: are you lovers?’