Chapter 22
With her back braced against the door to her bedchamber as if she expected Daniel to come rampaging down the corridor, Agnes fought to control her breathing and push away the hurt intended by his words.
Her brother had once taken her into the woods on a tour of some rabbit traps he had set up.
They had come across a young fox, clearly terrified and in pain, caught in the teeth of a larger trap set by the gamekeeper.
She had begun to cry as the animal attacked George with bared teeth and claws, resisting all his efforts to help.
‘Hurt animals will lash out,’ George had said, as he loosed the teeth of the trap and the animal made a bid for freedom.
She had told Kit not to give up on him. She could not disregard her own words.
Her breathing stilled and she opened the door onto the silent corridor. Faint light spilled from the half-open door to Daniel’s bedchamber. For a long moment, she hesitated, torn between slamming her door on him forever or returning to face his anger once more.
Hesitantly, she pushed open the door, prepared to flee if he rounded on her again, but somehow she didn’t think he would. Like that hurt fox, he had lashed out at her because she was there, for no other reason.
Daniel stood at the window, looking out over the peaceful countryside, painted a silvery white by the full moon that had broken through the rain clouds.
He didn’t look around or move as she came to stand beside him, although he must have heard the creak of the floorboards.
His hands rested on the windowsill, the fingers of his right hand curled around a crumpled sheet of paper.
They stood side by side for a long, long minute in total silence.
‘Why? Why did he turn his coat? Why did men have to die?’ Daniel’s words were slurred, but with emotion, not drink.
That was not a question she could answer. Instead, she touched the paper he held. ‘What’s that?’
He glanced down at his hand as if seeing the paper for the first time, and with a heavy sigh slid it across the sill toward her.
As she picked it up, he gave a hollow, humourless laugh.
‘It’s an official Pardon for all my sins.
All this time I have been a free man, Agnes.
I could have come back to England years ago — I could have just walked away from the plantation.
Instead … ’ He broke off. ‘He told me that he came looking for me in Barbados, to give me this. He was too late. Outhwaite had already done his worst.’
She swallowed. ‘Who is this Outhwaite?’
He looked sideways at her. ‘He was the overseer of the plantation to which they sent me with the Scottish prisoners after Worcester.’
She held her breath, hoping her silence would be invitation enough for him to confide in her.
‘I don’t know if it was because I was English or I was the son of a viscount, but my case was quite different to those of my fellow captives.
I was given a cabin and allowed to walk the deck, and when we arrived in Barbados I was assigned to a sugar plantation.
I could read and write and I became the clerk of the estate.
The owner of the plantation treated me as he would a respected paid employee.
I had a room in the house and the freedom to come and go. It was — endurable.’
He balled and unballed his hands, stretching his fingers as if trying to steady himself.
‘Despite being a prisoner, I had no complaint about my life. Pritchard’s daughter Jennet and I formed an attachment of sorts.’
A flutter of disquiet stirred in Agnes’s heart.
‘You were in love?’ she asked through tight lips.
Daniel gave her a sharp glance and shook his head. ‘She loved me,’ he said in a flat tone, ‘but my motives were not prompted by anything more than a liking for her. Pritchard dropped hints that were we to marry, my release could be secured, my future guaranteed as his son-in-law, so I agreed.’
The flutter grew to the full-scale beating of a bird’s wing and she acknowledged with a shock that what she felt were pangs of jealousy. She hadn’t realised how much this man had come to mean to her in the past few weeks.
‘You married her?’
‘No. She died of yellow fever a week before our wedding.’
Agnes bit her lip as the jealousy died away as quickly as it had arisen. The death of Jennet Pritchard had been merely a marker on the journey that had brought him here.
‘Pritchard’s grief was so great he had a seizure and became paralysed and unable to speak.
Management of the plantation fell to me.
Of course, if I had married Jennet it would have been quite different.
But with Pritchard ill, to all intents and purposes I was still a prisoner with no right to claim management, and the overseer of the prisoners, a man called Outhwaite, did not hesitate to remind me of my station. ’
At the mention of the name, every muscle in his face contracted, stretching the skin tightly across the high cheekbones. His eyes became dark smudges, filled with an unimagined pain.
Agnes reached out and put her hand over his. A secret for a secret? Could she, would she dare, confide in him as she was asking him to confide in her? Maybe … but not yet.
‘He … ?’ She swallowed. ‘Your back?’
He flexed his shoulders as if he still felt the fall of the metal-tipped scourge. ‘Among other atrocities he committed, and not just on me.’
‘Sometimes,’ she said, her fingers tightening on his. ‘It helps to speak of what troubles you.’
He pulled his hand away and gave a harsh, humourless laugh.
‘You are always ready with advice, Agnes. Outhwaite is dead. Dead these four years past but he still haunts my nightmares. I came across a newssheet that reported that he and three of his men had been hanged in Holetown for murder — my murder and another’s.
When I read the news it filled me with anger that he had not died at my hands. Hanging was a merciful death.’
His mouth clamped shut, a hard, thin line, and Agnes knew that she would hear no more. Whatever had lain between Outhwaite and this man still ran too deep for the whole truth.
Wherever Outhwaite was, Agnes hoped he was rotting in Hell.
She smoothed the paper against the sill of the window and lifted it, squinting as she tried to make out the words, but they were illegible in the poor light of the moon.
Only the heavy scrawled signature and the seal proved its authenticity.
She looked up at Daniel. ‘Was this the price demanded of Kit for turning coat?’
He drew a sharp audible breath. ‘What do you mean?’
‘He could surely not have obtained a Pardon for you unless … ’
Daniel looked down at her. ‘Are you saying that he bought my freedom with his life and his conscience?’
‘Only he can tell you that, Daniel.’
He looked away. ‘I let him go without giving him the chance to explain.’
She folded the paper and handed it back to him. He took it, turning it over in his fingers.
‘Agnes, I owe you an apology for what I said.’
‘Yes, you do,’ she replied. ‘I’m not a whore, Daniel. My reasons for becoming James Ashby’s mistress are … my own.’
‘Is he the father of your child? Henry is your son, not your sister’s, isn’t he?’
She drew a deep breath. He knew. ‘We called it The Great Secret, Daniel. I am sworn to keep it.’
His gaze didn’t move from her face. ‘Secrets are always dangerous, Agnes. Ashby’s dead, what difference can it make now?’
She shook her head. ‘There is too much at stake.’
He could make whatever suppositions he liked. They both had their secrets.
They stood in silence once more, their hands on the windowsill. Daniel covered her left hand with his right, running his calloused thumb in a circle across the back of her hand.
‘You have such a tiny hand, Agnes,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I fear I might crush it.’ He lifted it, pressing her fingers to his lips. ‘If I could only take back those terrible things I said to you.’
Agnes swallowed. The touch of his lips on the tips of her finger was sending her stomach into a roiling mess, stealing the very breath from her lungs. ‘They were spoken in haste and anger,’ she said, finding her voice. ‘I know they were not meant for me.’
His hand strayed to her hair, smoothing the disordered curls away from her face.
‘Don’t go. Stay with me, Agnes,’ he said, in a voice hoarse with emotion.
Her heart skipped a beat but she forced herself to step back and he dropped his hand.
‘Is this another pleasant invitation to lie on your bed and spread my legs?’ she asked.
He flinched and caught her hand again, drawing her toward him, his gaze, even in the thin light of the moon, steady.
‘I’m not asking for anything more than companionship, Agnes. I just don’t want to be alone … not tonight.’
Every nerve in her body tensed, her need for companionship, for human touch, every bit as great as his. She choked back the sob but it escaped unbidden and her body convulsed as he drew her into his arms, kissing her hair.
‘Please don’t cry.’ He raised his hand, smoothing the hair away from her face, wiping away her tears with his thumb. ‘Forget what I said and go back to your bed.’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to go back to bed.’ She cupped his face in her hands, forcing his gaze to meet hers. ‘I’m crying because it is the first time in a very long time … ’ she struggled to find the words ‘ … that I feel wanted for who I am.’
His fingers meshed in her hair as he pressed her to his hard, lean body. ‘Is that all we are to each other, Agnes? Two lonely people finding solace in the dark?’
‘Is that such a terrible thing?’ she ventured.
‘I would like to think that maybe it is more than that,’ he said.
She found her voice. ‘I would truly like to think we were friends, Daniel Lovell, despite what you might have said.’
The moon appeared from behind a cloud, lighting the ghostly smile that caught Daniel’s mouth. ‘I would like to think of you as a friend, Agnes, however short our acquaintance. Probably my only friend.’
He slid his arms around her, drawing her in against him. She closed her eyes, breathing in the scent of him. He was not James Ashby. He was something quite different from James. Younger, leaner, harder. Tempered by suffering, scarred by war and worse.
Her pulse quickened and as their lips met she closed her eyes, succumbing to a hunger she had never known before, her body melting against his until it seemed they were just one being. Still entwined they fell onto the bed, fingers grappling at laces and buckles.
Agnes pushed away from him, searching his face, losing herself in those grey eyes, now hazy with desire.
‘I … I am not a virgin.’ She pushed the hair from her face with a self-deprecating laugh. ‘Stupid of me, you know that.’
A chuckle rumbled in his chest. ‘Neither am I, but I’ve never tumbled a girl who wasn’t willing. Agnes …?’
All she had to do was say “no” and he would let her go. She would go back to her own bed and life, such as it was, would go on as it had before. But what sort of life did she have? Did either of them have?
They were both waiting for something to happen. Perhaps this would be part of it?