Chapter 25
The landlady of the Black Cross hailed Daniel like an old friend and directed him to the same private chamber he had occupied on his recent stay. Daniel stood looking at the door for a long moment before rapping firmly on the dark oak.
‘Enter.’
Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped inside.
Kit had been sitting at the table, a half-eaten meal set before him.
Seeing Daniel, he rose slowly to his feet, apprehension momentarily clouding his face.
His eyebrow quirked in a manner so familiar that Daniel felt transported back to his childhood.
This really was his brother, the idolised Kit.
All the anger and resentment that had suffused him on the previous day began to slough away.
‘You came,’ Kit said.
‘There seems to be a consensus at Seven Ways that I should hear your side of the story before I pass judgment on your actions. I want to know why you turned coat.’
Kit nodded. He walked over to a table and poured two cups of wine from a jug. Although Kit tried to disguise a shaking hand, the wine slopped in the cup as he handed it to his brother. Daniel took the cup but didn’t drink.
‘It is probably a little early for wine,’ Kit said, taking a draught and setting the cup down on the table.
He turned and paced the floor to the window and stood looking down into the street below. His shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh before he turned to face his brother, casting his face into shadow.
‘The answer is simple. I was offered a choice,’ he said. ‘My life for yours.’
My life for yours?
Daniel sank onto the nearest chair, bereft of words.
‘On condition I became an agent of the Commonwealth, I would win your freedom. Please understand, I had been very badly wounded and maybe was not thinking as clearly as I should have done but it seemed quite a simple decision at the time. It was no choice … not for me. Passing on scraps and snippets of gossip seemed harmless enough, but as time went on they — should I say John Thurloe — wanted more and more and I got drawn further and further into the plots, but still I justified it. What were the lives of a few old comrades for that of my brother?’
‘Jonathan Thornton was offered the same choice,’ Daniel said.
‘No, he wasn’t. Thurloe was not holding his brother hostage,’ Kit replied.
‘But he would have died rather than turn his coat … ’ Daniel persisted.
‘No!’ Kit’s voice cracked. ‘You’re not listening to me.
This is not about Jonathan Thornton. This is about you and me, Daniel.
You were a boy who had followed me to war because of my foolish tales.
You should never have been at Worcester, but the blame that you were there rests entirely on me.
Thurloe offered me a chance to make it right. I took it.’
Daniel stared at this man he hardly knew. Had Kit really been prepared to sacrifice other lives for his, or had there been a baser motive?
‘But men died because of you,’ he said, between tight lips.
Kit turned back to the window. ‘Yes … good men who didn’t deserve to die.
Don’t think for a moment that I don’t live with their ghosts on my conscience.
I would have saved them if I could but I …
’ He broke off. Daniel saw his brother’s reflection in the mottled glass, his face contorted with pain. ‘I was too late.’ Kit concluded.
‘And you? Is it true that you were tried and what of the stories you were hanged?’
Kit took a shuddering breath. ‘I found myself caught on my own petard, which suited the authorities. My death was staged to convince the world that I was not the turncoat. But make no mistake, they hanged me, Dan.’
‘That was the story I hear. But did they actually hang you?’
‘They were very convincing. I went to the scaffold, truly believing I was going to my death.’
He turned back to face Daniel and undid his carefully tied neckcloth to reveal a faint white mark circling his neck.
Daniel stared at the scar the rope had left.
When Outhwaite had tortured him there had been a time when he had prayed for death, but he could not imagine going to the gallows, feeling the rope around his neck tighten.
For a long moment, the two brothers stood staring at each other.
‘And this bought my pardon?’ Daniel said at last, hardly able to voice the words.
Kit nodded. ‘Only to be given the news that you were dead.’
Daniel looked down at the cup of wine in his hand and drained it in one swallow, setting the empty cup down on the table.
He crossed the floor to face his brother, surprised that he now looked Kit in the eye.
The Kit of his memory had always been taller …
and stronger. But the Kit of his memory had died on the battlefield of Worcester, just as the boy who had been Daniel had perished.
Now he faced his brother as a man, an equal.
‘They know,’ Daniel said, ‘or at least they suspect that you may have been the traitor.’
‘They?’
‘The Court.’
A muscle at the corner of Kit’s lip twitched. ‘Ah. Hardly surprising. I was not the only agent among the King’s men. Some were double agents who knew I was in the pay of the Commonwealth.’
‘The King will return,’ Daniel said.
‘It seems so,’ Kit gave a careless shrug as if the return of men who knew his sordid past was of no concern to him.
‘What will you do?’
Kit heaved a sigh and looked away. ‘Kit Lovell died at the end of a hangman’s noose. To the world, I am the Comte D’Anvers, who lives a quiet domestic existence in the Hampshire countryside in a house of women.’
Daniel smiled. ‘A house of women?’
‘Thamsine … did I tell you I am married? My wife tells me that it is a kind of poetic justice. I’m not sure I quite understand what she means. But between my wife, my sister, my stepmother, Thamsine’s two nieces, and my own daughters, I am completely outnumbered and defeated.’
Daniel caught his breath. ‘Mother and Frances are with you?’
He nodded. ‘Your mother took some persuasion, but Eveleigh is completely uninhabitable.’ He paused. ‘They are both well.’
Daniel tried to order his thoughts. He put the questions about his mother and sister to one side.
‘And Grandfather?’
‘Dead these six years.’
Daniel reached for the jug of wine and poured them both another cup. ‘If the King returns will you go on being the Comte D’Anvers?’ he asked as he handed the cup to Kit.
Kit shrugged. ‘I have no choice. Kit Lovell is dead.’
‘Where does that leave me?’
‘You, brother, are the rightful heir to the title and the estates. You are now Lord Midhurst. I have a clever lawyer in London who can sort through the mess.’
Kit gestured for Daniel to sit and resumed his chair, taking a draught of the wine.
Daniel swirled the wine in his cup, watching the blood-red eddy he created. ‘One thing I don’t understand. If I was being used as a hostage for your loyalty, why did they send me to Barbados?’
He looked up to see a smile lighten his brother’s face.
‘Because if they’d left you in England, Thurloe knew damn well I would have moved heaven and earth to help you to escape, and we’d have both been safely on the Continent before he had time to react.
I was too valuable to Thurloe to let that happen. ’
‘That explains my relatively civilised treatment,’ Daniel said. ‘That is until … ’
‘Until Pritchard’s health failed?’ Kit leaned forward. ‘I told you yesterday. I know the story, Dan. I know what Outhwaite did.’
Daniel sighed, flexing the muscles in his back and feeling the scars contract.
The gesture did not escape Kit. All humour drained from his brother’s face. ‘Show me.’
Slowly Daniel rose to his feet, removed his jacket and lifted his shirt, revealing his back to his brother. He heard Kit’s sharp, indrawn breath and hastily restored his clothing.
‘It was all I could do not to kill the charmer there and then,’ Kit said.
‘You met him?’ Daniel resumed his seat and reached for the wine, his hand shaking.
Kit nodded. Thamsine and I went to Barbados. We had to see for ourselves that you were truly dead. We saw to it that Outhwaite met his just end but we left with more questions that no one could answer.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you ready to tell me how you got away from Outhwaite?’
Daniel sucked in his breath. He had never once spoken in detail of those dark months between Jennet’s death and Outhwaite’s attempt to kill him. Not even to the man who had rescued him. He refilled his cup and took another deep draught of the wine. At this rate, he would be soused before lunch.
‘Outhwaite — you met him. Black, white, male or female — to him we were no more than chattels to be used and dealt with at his whim. If he had been hanged six times over it would be no compensation for the crimes he committed.’ Daniel licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry.
‘He fancied himself a suitor to Jennet Pritchard’s hand.
Neither Jennet nor her father ever countenanced that match.
Jennet fancied herself in love with me, and …
’ he looked away, ‘I’m not proud of the fact I encouraged her.
If I had married Jennet I would have gained my freedom and become heir to Pritchard’s estates in Barbados.
It didn’t seem such a bad lot in life. Unfortunately, Outhwaite saw me as the rival to Jennet’s hand, and in his cups one night promised, rather melodramatically I thought at the time, vengeance. ’
‘Ah, why else do people kill?’ Kit said. ‘Love, money … power.’
‘He wanted all three, but most particularly money and power,’ Daniel agreed.
‘My pleasant future came to an end when Jennet contracted a fever and died. Pritchard succumbed to the palsy that left him bedridden and I was left alone in a power struggle with Outhwaite. He had the law on his side and I was quickly disabused of any thought I might have had of continuing to run the plantation on behalf of the sick man. After all, what was I? Just another prisoner, who had enjoyed some privileges denied to most.’