Chapter 20
The horse fidgeted, shaking its head with a jingle of the bridle. Its rider sighed. He had been watching the red brick house for too long. He was cold and his horse sensed that a warm stable and food lay within its reach.
He had never been a coward, had always faced whatever life threw at him — even death — but now he felt fear clutching at his heart as it had never done before.
A hundred questions crowded his mind, deafening him from one big question. What if the note had been wrong?
The horse shifted its feet, its ears swivelling.
‘You’re right,’ the man said aloud. ‘If nothing else I get to see an old friend, although what in God’s name am I to say to him … ’
He straightened in the saddle and kicked the beast forward.
As he rode into the courtyard and looked up at the red walls and mullioned windows, he tried to recall if he had been here before. It seemed familiar, but those harum-scarum days of the war had begun to merge and blend.
Leaving the horse with a groom, he asked to see Sir Jonathan Thornton but refused to give his name.
The elderly steward seemed to take this lack of courtesy in his stride and showed him into a room that may have once been a parlour, but the chill in the air indicated that it was now only be used for suspicious visitors.
He removed his hat and gloves and set them on the table, and was in the act of untying the strings of his cloak when the door opened. The two men stood staring at each other for a long, long moment.
‘Christ!’ Sir Jonathan Thornton blasphemed.
‘I have been called many things but never, ever compared to the Good Lord,’ Kit Lovell replied.
Jonathan closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment.
‘Like our Good Lord, it appears you have the ability to rise from the dead,’ he observed.
Kit held up his hand to stay the inevitable questions. ‘A long … very long story, Thornton.’
Thornton continued to stare at him as if he were indeed a ghost. ‘What brings you here? … Of course, your brother … But how?’
Kit’s heart skipped a beat. ‘So it’s true? He’s here?’
Jonathan nodded. ‘Been here just over a week. He’s recovering from a bout of marsh fever. How the hell did you know?’
Kit afforded himself the luxury of a small smile. ‘I have friends in London who sent me a message.’
It had been a cursory note, written in Nan Marsh’s poor hand.
Daniel. Seven Ways.
Just three words, but it had been enough. No one ever forgot a name like Seven Ways.
‘He’s in the library,’ Jonathan said at last. ‘He … thinks … knows … you are dead. Do you want me to speak to him?’
Kit shook his head. ‘No. This is between the two of us.’
Jonathan nodded. ‘This way, then.’
Picking up his hat, gloves and cloak, Kit followed his old friend through the winding maze of corridors of the old house. Jonathan stopped outside a carved oak door and looked across at Kit with a question in his eyes. Kit shook his head. He would face this meeting alone.
He opened the door, revealing a long, low, pleasant room overlooking the front entrance to Seven Ways and the ancient moat that surrounded the manor house.
In the scene he had rehearsed a hundred times on the long ride from Hampshire, Kit had seen Daniel as a nineteen-year-old …
still, to his way of thinking, a boy. But the man by the fire, who looked up with enquiry in his eyes, was not a boy but a man, lean and hard, with lines around his eyes and mouth that spoke of hardship and suffering.
Daniel let the book he held slide unregarded to the floor as he rose to his feet.
‘You …’ The word came out as a hoarse whisper.
‘Good morning,’ Kit said, affecting a bravado he did not feel. ‘I believe you have been looking for me?’
‘Daniel, I found that … ’ A woman’s voice jolted him and he turned to see a young woman standing by a bookshelf, a slim volume in her hand.
She looked from one man to the other, her brow creasing in puzzlement.
‘Daniel, are you all right?’ she enquired.
When Daniel didn’t move or speak, Kit recovered himself sufficiently to sweep her a courtly bow.
‘Please excuse my brother,’ he said. ‘He seems to have lost his tongue and his manners. Christopher Lovell, sometimes known as the Comte D’Anvers, but to my family just Kit.’ He forced himself to smile. ‘You, mademoiselle?’
‘Kit?’ She swung her gaze to Daniel. ‘But you’re … ’
‘Dead?’ Kit suggested. ‘One evening, when we are better acquainted, I shall tell you a most interesting story, Mistress …?’
The girl coloured and sank into a curtsey. ‘Agnes Fletcher, sir.’
Kit turned his attention back to Daniel, seeing now the pallor of recent illness beneath the tan and the dark smudges that shadowed his brother’s eyes.
‘You’ve been ill. Are you recovered?’ he enquired.
Daniel found his voice. ‘A bout of marsh fever.’ He glanced at the woman. ‘Agnes, can you leave us?’
She set the book down and hurried toward the door. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Can I fetch refreshments … ?’ When neither man answered she ducked her head and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving the two men alone.
‘How did you find me?’ Daniel asked with a noticeable crack in his voice.
Kit shrugged. ‘I received word that you were in England.’
Daniel narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘It could only be from the Ship Inn.’
No point in lying. ‘Jem and Nan Marsh have been loyal friends. They know the whole sordid story. Of course, they told me of your unexpected reappearance in civilization.’ Kit searched his brother’s face, at once so familiar and yet the face of a stranger.
So many questions to ask, so much to say, but all he could manage was a strangled, ‘When I received Jem’s message, I thought it best to see for myself before I break the happy news to the rest of the family. We’ve been … disappointed before.’
‘The family?’ Daniel asked in a tight voice.
‘Your mother, your sister, my wife, our children … our adopted children,’ Kit said, realizing as he said it how much had happened in the intervening years. He didn’t even know where to start. He took a deep, steadying breath, struggling to keep his emotions under control.
Daniel turned away and paced the room for a long moment. He stopped in front of Kit and cleared his throat.
‘Everyone told me that you died … executed for your part in a plot. How … ’
‘When it comes to Lazarene resurrections, Daniel,’ Kit interrupted, ‘I could ask you the same question. We went to Barbados to bring you home, Thamsine and I.’
Daniel frowned. ‘Who’s Thamsine?’
‘My wife.’
Daniel let out a long breath. ‘You went all the way to Barbados? Why? Did you think you could spirit me away?’
Kit flinched at the bitterness in Daniel’s tone.
‘Yes,’ he replied, reaching into his jacket, and tossing a paper down on the table between them. Daniel picked it up. Yellowed and brittle with age, it crinkled as he unfolded it. He scanned the contents and let it fall back.
‘It’s a Pardon … my Pardon.’ He ran his hands down his face and stared down at the seemingly innocuous paper. ‘All the time I was a free man and I never knew?’
‘They told us you were dead,’ Kit said. ‘Dead of a fever.’
Daniel looked up. ‘Outhwaite,’ he said, and this time Kit heard the hatred in his brother’s voice.
He laid a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.
‘I know the truth, Dan. I know what that man, Outhwaite, did to you. I made sure he went to the gallows.’
His brother’s throat worked, his lips compressed so tightly they looked bloodless. He shook off Kit’s hand, turned away and walked over to the window where he leaned on the windowsill, taking deep breaths before he turned back to face Kit.
‘And what of you? They told me you died at the end of a rope.’
All humour went from Kit’s face. ‘I did.’
‘Then how are you standing there?’
Kit subsided into a chair and ran the fingers of his crooked hand through his hair. ‘It is such a long story … ’
A spark of anger flared in Daniel’s face and he held up a hand. ‘Only one thing matters. Is it true? Are you a turncoat?’
Kit felt the breath leave his body as surely as if Daniel had hit him. ‘Who … where did you hear?’ His bluster died away. He wanted to deny the truth but he knew from the look of growing revulsion on Daniel’s face that his face betrayed him.
Daniel took a step back. ‘It is true? You betrayed your friends, everything you believed in?’
Kit rose to his feet. ‘You don’t understand. I have to explain … ’
‘No, you don’t!’ The spark flashed into a blaze of anger. ‘While I suffered in Barbados, you betrayed the cause we believed in. Damn it, Kit. Good, loyal men died because of you.’
Kit closed his eyes. It was easier to allow Daniel to rage and rail at him than deal with the unspoken lies between them.
Daniel continued, his voice tight with rage. ‘So you live in obscurity, under an assumed name … Do you jump at shadows, Kit Lovell? Because the King will return and what will be your reckoning then?’
Kit held up a placatory hand. ‘Daniel, please— ’
Daniel stood aside and opened the door. ‘I don’t want to hear excuses. You’re a filthy turncoat. It would have been better for both of us if I had never set foot in the Ship Inn. Go back to whatever hole the Comte D’Anvers occupies. I never want to see you again.’
For a long, long moment Kit couldn’t move. He understood Daniel’s anger, probably better than Daniel himself. Perhaps in time they could meet again and he could tell his brother that everything he had done was for his sake, but not now … not here.
With deliberate care, he turned and collected his belongings.
‘You will always be welcome at my home — Hartley Court in Hampshire.’
Daniel glared at him. ‘I will never set foot in any place where I will find you,’ he said. ‘Does mother and Frances know you are alive?’
‘Yes. Do they know about you?’
Daniel shook his head. ‘No.’
‘Then it would be a kindness to advise them. I have no doubt they will be anxious to be reunited with you, but they deserve better than a surprise on their doorstep.’
He swept past Daniel, nearly colliding with the woman … Agnes? Was that her name?
She set down the tray she carried. ‘I was just bringing you some refreshment,’ she said. ‘Are you leaving so soon?’
Kit glanced back seeing Daniel standing by the window, looking out at the grey, autumnal day.
‘Please present my apologies to Sir Jonathan, ma’m’selle, but I cannot stay. I have done what I came to do.’
He inclined his head and walked out of the house. Gathering up the reins of his horse from the waiting groom, he swung into the saddle.
‘Wait.’
He turned to see Agnes running from the house, her skirts caught up in her hand. She laid a hand on the horse’s bridle.
‘Please don’t give up on him,’ she said.
He looked down into her face, rather a pretty face, he thought, with her upturned nose and smattering of freckles, but there were lines of anxiety creasing her brow and he wondered for a moment what part this woman played in his brother’s life.
‘Mistress Fletcher, whatever he might think, I have never given up on my brother,’ Kit replied stiffly, ‘but he needs time, maybe we both need time.’ Kit managed a smile. ‘Daniel is fortunate to have a friend in you, Mistress Fletcher.’
A sprinkle of colour stained her cheekbones. ‘Just an acquaintance, Master Lovell. Nothing more.’
She turned and walked back into the house, passing Jonathan Thornton at the doorway.
Kit watched her go. ‘Just an acquaintance?’ he mused aloud.
Jonathan laid a hand on the bridle. ‘You’re right. You both need time. Christ, Lovell, you have to expect your arrival to have come as a shock. I advise you to go to Bromsgrove and take a room at the Black Cross.’
Kit looked down at his old friend. ‘Thornton, it is not my appearance that is the shock, it is the realisation that his brother has feet of clay.’
Jonathan Thornton looked up at him, holding his gaze. ‘I think you owe me at least the courtesy of the whole story, Lovell. Dismount and walk with me to the gate. Dead men should not be appearing at my front door unless there is a very good reason, and you are the second one this month.’