Chapter 8
Returning from his visit to the Ship Inn, Daniel arrived in time to witness the spectacle unfolding in the inn’s courtyard.
He recognized Agnes Fletcher kneeling on the muddy cobbles and his gaze moved from the sobbing woman to a large, portly man who stepped around the coach to harry the children inside.
The man glanced in his direction and Daniel drew back into the shadows, letting out a long exhalation of breath as he recognized the face of the man he had come to kill.
Tobias Ashby.
Ten years had not been kind to Ashby, but despite the portly belly and high colour, he was still recognisable as the man who had ordered the cold-blooded execution of Thomas Lovell on the steps of his own home.
Daniel’s hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, his breath quickening. If he had his pistol to hand …
He steadied his breath. Here and now was not the time to mete out his own vengeance, not if he wanted to avoid his brother’s fate.
Besides, he had another purpose now, and he needed Colonel Tobias Ashby alive for the time being if the King’s gold would be his.
A few onlookers had gathered to gawk at the woman’s distress but no one moved to help her.
Even as the coach rumbled out into the street, passing Daniel, Agnes Fletcher still knelt in the inn yard, her arms wrapped around herself, her body wracked with great gulping sobs.
The innkeeper’s wife touched her shoulder but she threw off the kindly hand and rose to her feet, glancing toward the street where the coach had turned.
‘Henry!’ she screamed, and seemingly oblivious to the stares and murmurs of the other patrons of the inn and the servants, she ran out into the street, passing Daniel, who hesitated only a fleeting moment before turning to follow her.
Passers-by stepped aside for the “mad” woman, and as the great black coach turned a corner Agnes ran after it, slipping on the mired street, screaming the children’s names.
Daniel slowed his step as the coach trundled away, swallowed up by the press of people and vehicles. Agnes Fletcher stood in the middle of the road staring after it, tears pouring down her cheeks unchecked, oblivious to the angry shouts from a carter whose way she blocked.
Reaching her, Daniel touched her shoulder and put an arm around her to steady her, drawing her aside so the carter could pass. He drew her into the shelter of a doorway and she fell against him, her body wracked with heart-rending sobs.
‘Calm yourself, madam,’ he said, patting her ineffectually on the back.
The sobs slowed to gulps and she drooped in his arms as if all the fight had gone from her. Her voice muffled by his cloak, she said, ‘They’re gone. He’s taken Henry and Lizzie. I’ll never see them again.’
Her obvious pain twisted like a knife in Daniel’s heart. God rot Tobias Ashby, he thought, glaring at the curious crowd who had gathered to gawk at the spectacle.
‘Let’s get you back to the inn,’ he said, and even as he spoke her knees buckled and only his arm around her stopped her from falling.
He swung her into his arms, where she lay limp and unresponsive. As he hefted her against his chest, she seemed to weigh no more than a child herself, but looking down into her grief-ravaged, half-senseless face, he realised she was a woman well into her twenties.
He carried her back to the inn and laid her down on one of the large oak settles in the parlour.
She lay quite still, like a broken doll, and he felt a qualm of concern.
Hunkering down beside her, he chafed her hands, relieved when her eyelids flickered and she opened her eyes.
For a moment she stared at him, uncomprehending, and then memory must have returned.
Her face crumpled and large tears rolled unheeded down her cheeks as she sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees.
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘I don’t need your sympathy.’
Daniel cocked an eyebrow. ‘There’s gratitude for you,’ he said.
The landlord’s wife came over with a glass filled with a ruby liquid.
‘For the poor lady,’ she said, indicating the hunched, weeping woman.
Daniel drew the woman away out of earshot. ‘What happened?’
The landlord’s wife shrugged. ‘A man came and took the children away.’ She shook her head.
‘Such a to-do!’ She lowered her voice and jerked her head in Agnes’s direction.
‘I don’t know what she’ll do now. She is already a week behind in the rent.
My ‘usband’s not going to stand for letting her spend another night under this roof unless she pays up.
He’s only let it go on this long for the sake of the children and their poor father. ’
Daniel glanced at the broken woman and fumbled in his purse for the coins. The woman’s face brightened as he handed over the coins that ensured Agnes Fletcher could spend at least one more night in the comfort of the Blue Boar.
As she counted the coins, she asked. ‘Is she a friend of yours?’
‘Never met her before,’ Daniel said.
‘Then you’re a good man. God bless you, sir.’
He took the port and sat down on the settle beside Agnes Fletcher. She hunched away from him, her tangled curls of brown hair hiding her face from view.
He proffered her the glass. ‘Drink this. Your room is paid for. Nothing more to worry about.’
Agnes hunched her shoulders and straightened, looking up at him. Life flickered back into her blotched and tear-stained face.
‘Who are you? Why are you being so kind to me?’ she said, wiping her face in a most un-genteel fashion on the sleeve of her gown.
Daniel set the glass down on the nearest table and swept his hat from his head. ‘Daniel Lucas, madam. If you wish to be left alone, I will … ’
She laid a hand on his sleeve and her lips began to tremble again. ‘You have been very kind and I am being ungrateful. Sit with me a while longer, sir, I beg you. I don’t want to be alone, not just yet.’ She frowned, recognition flashing in her swollen, red-rimmed eyes. ‘But I know you, don’t I?’
‘A little altercation over a ball,’ Daniel reminded her.
‘Oh yes, Master Lucas. Henry thought you were a pirate.’ Tears welled in her eyes again and she dashed them away. Taking a shuddering breath she glanced down at the glass on the table, picked it up, and downed the contents in one gulp.
She managed a wan smile. ‘I’m sorry. I must look a fright.’
Daniel had to agree that she did not present a very attractive picture, with her swollen and blotched face and red-rimmed eyes and lank curls. So much for the comely wench. Agnes Fletcher was not one of those women who could cry prettily.
He kept his peace. ‘A pirate? Really. What on earth made him think that?’
She touched her cheek in the approximate position of the scar on his face. ‘That, probably.’
Daniel fingered the old injury, sustained in battle, not in any act of piracy. ‘Ah. A childhood accident.’ He assumed a solicitous expression and leaned toward her. ‘I hope you don’t think me impertinent, but your circumstances seem somewhat strained.’
She shook her head and looked around the room. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do, Master Lucas. I’ve lost everything. And now he has taken the children.’
‘And are they your children?’ Daniel enquired.
Her throat visibly contracted and she shook her head.
‘They are my sister’s children. Their mother is dead and they have just lost their father.
I am all they have left … apart from that man.
’ She spat out the last word as if it left a vile taste in her mouth and tears spilled from her eyes again.
The woman was a veritable water well. ‘What are they going to do without me?’
Daniel’s lips tightened. Even if their new guardian was anyone except Tobias Ashby, it seemed a heartless act to separate the newly orphaned children from the one steady and loving person in their lives.
He signalled the innkeeper for another glass of port and Agnes consumed it as she had the first — in one gulp. She pushed the disordered curls back behind her ear. It did not improve her appearance.
He thought in normal circumstances she probably had very fine hazel eyes and an attractive smattering of freckles across a neat, pert nose. That nose was now scarlet and her eyes bloodshot and red-ringed.
She cleared her throat and said in a voice, thick with her recent grief. ‘I crave your pardon, sir. You’ve been very kind, but I’ve troubled you long enough. Please return to your business and do not concern yourself for me anymore.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘I’m not leaving ‘til the morning. Can I at least buy you a meal?’ Her lips parted for a moment, revealing neat, even teeth.
She sighed deeply and lowered her gaze. ‘You are very kind, sir, and I would welcome some company this evening, even though I may not be at my best.’ She ran a hand through her disordered hair and looked up at him again, the ghost of a smile catching at the corners of her mouth.
‘Perhaps allow me a moment or two to restore myself.’
Daniel smiled and inclined his head. ‘It will be my pleasure. Take whatever time you need. I’ll be waiting here.’
She stood up, running her hands down the stained and crumpled skirts of what had once been a gown of a fine quality green wool. He watched her weave between the tables and stools, the two glasses of port taking effect, and ordered a flagon of the landlord’s finest red wine.
Perfect, Daniel thought. This could not have worked out better if I had planned it.