Chapter 44
Agnes shivered, wrapping her arms around herself in a vain attempt to keep warm as she paced the floor.
The room into which they had been thrown must have been a buttery or something similar in a past life.
A long, low, heavy stone bench ran along one wall, below two small windows so grimed with dirt and cobwebs as to admit only the faintest light.
Kit sat on the cold, filthy, flag-tiled floor, with his back to the wall and his eyes closed. Peg huddled in a corner, drawn in on herself. The shock of her capture and the brutal means that had been used to drag her to the castle had broken the old woman.
‘Sit down,’ Kit grumbled. ‘You’re making me tired.’
Agnes turned to face him. ‘How can you be so calm?’
‘I have already been hanged once in my life,’ Kit said, all humour gone from his voice. ‘Death holds no fears for me anymore.’
Agnes turned away so he could not see her face. ‘I don’t want to die, Kit.’ She choked back the sob that rose unbidden and turned back to face him. ‘Why can’t we just let him have the gold?’
Kit blew out his breath, making a cloud in the cold air. ‘I don’t know where it is. Thornton’s hidden it somewhere. Anyway, lass, we’re not going to die. Ashby’s all bluster and Dan and Thornton will find a way to get us out.’
Agnes, who had already envisaged Jonathan and Daniel halfway to Seven Ways, narrowed her eyes. ‘You believe that?’
‘I know,’ Kit said and smiled without humour. ‘They don’t have a horse between them and they will hardly be setting off on foot with Ashby’s men on the rampage.’
In her corner, Peg cried out, and Agnes hunched down beside the old woman, wrapping her arms around her, trying to instil some warmth into the frail old body, but she got no response. Peg threw off her arms and looked at her with unseeing eyes.
The hours passed and the light faded from the window, plunging the room into darkness. Agnes drew the woman tighter into her arms.
The click of the key in the lock made her start to her feet and she braced, every muscle tensed, as the door opened to admit Leah Turner, carrying a basket and a lantern.
Agnes rose to her feet, standing like a lioness over her two charges.
The two women faced each other across the length of the room.
Leah met Agnes’s fierce gaze and gestured at Kit. ‘I’ve brought bandages for him,’ she said, ‘and some food and drink.’
‘Really?’ The magnanimity of the gesture caused Agnes’s anger with the woman to falter. ‘Thank you.’
Leah sniffed. ‘I only do what my Christian duty commands.’
‘Did you come alone?’ Agnes enquired.
Leah set the basket down on the floor beside Kit and held the lantern up to scan his face.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Kit Lovell, and you, Madame?’
‘Leah Turner. How badly are you hurt?’
‘It wasn’t too bad until your friend upstairs decided to drag me through the slush by my wrists,’ Kit grumbled.
Leah’s thin lips tightened. ‘The Colonel is enraged,’ she said. ‘I have never seen him like this.’
‘I have,’ Kit said, holding her gaze with his own.
Leah sighed. ‘I try to be a good Christian and not think ill of people.’ Her gaze flicked to Agnes. ‘Despite what you might think.’
Kit studied her face. ‘We can’t always help our hearts, can we?’ he said softly.
Leah started as if he had pricked her with a knife.
Kit looked up at Agnes. ‘Mistress Turner is, I suspect, more than a little in love with the good Colonel,’ he said.
‘You are talking nonsense,’ Leah replied, her acerbic tone restored. ‘I need your help here, Mistress Fletcher. There is water in that flask and clean cloths.’
Agnes wiped most of the mud from Kit’s haggard, unshaven face and turned her attention to his arm. ‘Nasty,’ Agnes remarked, looking at the angry, seeping gash that Leah was attempting to clean with another cloth.
Kit glanced at his arm and flinched. ‘At least you don’t faint at the sight of blood,’ he said.
‘No. Why? Who does?’ Agnes asked.
‘My wife. She’s utterly useless when it comes to tending to my hurts.’
Kit closed his eyes and endured Leah’s efficient ministrations in silence, his lips compressed into a tight line.
‘You’ve done that before,’ Agnes said.
Leah looked up. ‘In the last years of the war,’ she said, ‘the King’s men took refuge in our town. The fighting was fierce and many were wounded. I was only a girl but we all had to lend what aid we could. I saw things no girl of my age should see.’
Kit’s eyes flickered open and he laid his right hand on Leah’s arm. ‘Thank you, Mistress Turner.’
The woman glanced down, her eyes widening at the sight of his crooked fingers, but she said nothing.
‘As I said, I only do what I consider my Christian duty.’
‘Perhaps you may find it in your Christian duty to provide us with some blankets. This woman,’ Agnes rose and crossed to Peg, ‘is blameless and yet she is treated like a common criminal.’
Leah turned her attention to Peg, crouching down beside her. ‘Mistress Truscott, can you hear me?’
When Peg didn’t respond, Leah looked up at Agnes. ‘Her senses are addled?’
‘As yours would be, had you been treated as she has.’
Leah sighed. ‘I thought I knew Tobias … ’ she began but broke off.
She rose to her feet and turned to face Agnes, once again the Leah Turner Agnes knew, stiff and unbending and convinced of the rightness of her cause.
‘I will find some blankets,’ she said. ‘But I would entreat you to spend your time in prayer and contemplation, Mistress Fletcher. You do not wish to face your God without repentance in your heart.’
‘Repentance for what?’ Agnes’s voice rose. ‘I have nothing in this life I repent or regret.’
Leah’s brows drew together. ‘You are a whore, Mistress Fletcher. You shared your bed and your body with a man, not your husband.’
Two men, not my husband.
Agnes thought of Daniel and a physical ache clutched at her heart. God, keep him safe, she prayed as Leah bent over Peg, trying to wash the worst of the mud from the woman’s face and hands.