The King's Man

by Alison Stuart

  ‘Kit!’

  He barely had time to shut the door against the snow as Lucy hurled herself down the stairs and into his arms, covering his face with kisses.

  ‘Where have you been?’ she cried, repeating the phrase between kisses.

  He disengaged her, allowing himself the luxury of one last, lingering kiss. ‘Lucy, dearest, I’m cold and wet and longing for the warmth of your fire.’

  She fumbled at the sodden knot on his cloak, pulling the wet garment from his shoulders and abandoning it in a soggy pile on the floor. Kit picked it up and, carrying it before him, escaped upstairs into the warmth of Lucy’s parlour. He flung the cloak over the back of a chair to dry, together with his hat and gloves. He gave the dispirited feather in his new hat a regretful glance, setting it down to take the glass of wine that Lucy offered him.

  He held up the fine glass, his fingers ridiculously large for the slender, twisted stem, and swirled the ruby contents, watching the play of light from the candles through the liquid before taking a deep draught. He silently thanked the good fortune that had thrown him in the path of a wealthy wine merchant’s widow.

  ‘You haven’t answered my question,’ Lucy pouted. ‘Where have you been these last weeks?’

  ‘Ah!’ Kit set the glass down and took a seat by the fire, stretching out his long legs to dry the damp boots. He took Lucy’s small hand and drew her down onto his lap. ‘I have a confession, Mistress Mouse.’

  Lucy traced a finger across his brow and down his nose. Her touch sent lightning bolts of desire shooting through his body.

  ‘What confession?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve been in the Clink.’

  ‘Again!’ Lucy gave a squeak of indignation and thumped him firmly in the chest. ‘What over this time?’

  ‘The small matter of a horse.’

  ‘A horse is not a small matter!’

  ‘Well, no, it was quite a large horse.’

  ‘And who paid your debts this time?’ Her lip curled in derision.

  ‘The matter was settled amicably.’

  ‘Cards, I wager!’ she spat at him. ‘Really, Kit Lovell, you are incorrigible.’

  ‘But you must admit you missed me,’ he wheedled, curling his mistress’ blonde locks around his finger.

  ‘Not for a moment!’ she protested without conviction, her head tilting backward as his fingers strayed to the soft part of her throat, tracing a line down to the top of the bodice.

  He replaced his finger with his mouth, blowing soft butterfly kisses on her clean, soft, white skin, while his fingers grappled with the knot on her bodice laces. She moaned as his kisses dropped lower, the bodice laces giving way and allowing access to her full, pert breasts.

  His hand fought with the layers of skirts and petticoats, finding its way up past the wool of her stockings to the smooth skin of her upper thigh and heaven where he could lose himself.

  As he fumbled with his own belt, Lucy took advantage of the distraction and with a shriek of laughter, gathered up her skirts and ran from the room. He caught her on the staircase and together they slithered and tripped up the stairs to her large tester bed. He threw her back on the coverlet and lifted her skirts. Her back arched beneath him, her need for release as great as his own.

  Desire spent, he rolled off her and lay on his back beside her. She propped herself up on one elbow and smiled down at him.

  ‘Haven’t done that for a while, have you?’

  ‘No,’ he agreed.

  Her fingers pulled at the laces of his shirt, dancing provocatively through the hairs on his chest. ‘So was that it?’ she teased, dropping small kisses onto his face, his nose and his lips.

  ‘Demanding wench, aren’t you?’ Kit grinned and, pinning her to the bed, rolled over on her again.

  ~ * ~

  Thamsine wiped her hands on a dirty rag and surveyed the pile of dishes stacked neatly on the kitchen table. She looked down at her fingers and sniffed them, wrinkling her nose. The tips were shrivelled like dried sweetmeats and smelt of grease. She wiped her hands again and sighed.

  Her father would turn in his grave if he could see her now, but when she considered the alternative, she gave a silent prayer of thanks. The Ship Inn offered her a respite, time to consider what path to take. For now, the mindless repetition of physical tasks was a balm to her weary soul and she turned to the basket of carrots that Nan had set her to peel.

  She sat down on a rickety stool, picked up the first carrot and regarded it from all angles. Her life, until recently, had never required the skill of peeling carrots. She picked up the knife. Flinching from its sharp blade she attacked the vegetable.

  ‘You don’t hold the knife like that.’

  Thamsine looked up to see Kit Lovell standing over her, his well-shaped lips curved in amusement. Flustered, Thamsine nicked her finger. With a yelp of pain she dropped both carrot and knife. ‘Didn’t your mother teach you anything?’ he asked.

  ‘My mother? No she didn’t.’ Thamsine retorted, removing her cut finger from her mouth and picking up another carrot from the pile. ‘She died when I was nine after a long illness that kept her from teaching me any form of useful domestic skill.’

  ‘So how did you occupy your time instead?’

  ‘I shared the schoolroom with my brother. Nowhere did my books include a lesson on how to peel carrots.’

  Kit pulled up a stool. ‘Look, I’ll demonstrate.’ He picked up a carrot and a knife from the table and with remarkable dexterity peeled four carrots in the time it had taken Thamsine to produce one badly mutilated vegetable.

  ‘Well, well, look who’s here?’ Nan swaggered in carrying a tray of empty platters. She set them down and put her arms around Kit’s neck, pressing her ample bosom to his back and blowing in his ear. ‘Where’ve you been, lover?’ She sniffed. ‘You smell nice. Been off visiting your lady friend?’

  Kit looked up at her and winked.

  Nan straightened and cuffed his ear. ‘Ah, you’re no fun these days, Cap’n Lovell.’ She shook her head and sauntered out of the kitchen.

  Thamsine stifled her laughter as Kit turned to regard her through narrowed eyes.

  ‘What are you smiling at?’

  ‘Is there a woman in London you don’t share a bed with?’

  Kit returned his attention to the carrot. ‘That is a harsh remark given I barely know you, Mistress Granville and, indeed, the circumstances of our meeting.’

  Thamsine gave the carrot in her hands a couple of vicious swipes.

  ‘The idea is to remove the skin, not the entire carrot,’ Kit remarked. ‘And I apologise. I didn’t mean to remind you of events you’d rather forget.’

  Thamsine sighed and looked up at Kit Lovell. She could see the attraction that seemed to set half the women in London falling at this man’s feet. The dark hair and the unusual green eyes were an irresistible combination.

  Even in London, in February, his skin held a tanned glow, but the lines of a hard soldier’s life were etched around his nose and in the shadows of his eyes. She felt a prickle at the back of her neck. She had no doubt that the echoes of laughter in the corners of his mouth could disappear in an instant should he be crossed.

  A lock of dark brown hair fell into his eyes and he flicked it back, drawing attention to the thin, pale line of a scar that ran from above his right eye to his temple, transecting his eyebrow.

  ‘You were lucky not to lose your eye. Did you get that scar at Worcester?’ she said aloud.

  Kit looked up at her and frowned, puzzled by her question. ‘Oh, this,’ he said, his fingers going to the scar. ‘No. It was a running skirmish in ’43. Looks worse than it was.’

  ‘You were there from the beginning?’

  ‘Stormed down a hill at Edgehill and just kept going until the bitter end in ’46. I returned in ’48 and ’51 but I don’t need to tell you what disastrous campaigns those were,’ Kit said. ‘I joined the court in exile, fought a few foreign wars I cared nothing for. Saw things no man s
hould ever see … ’ He lapsed into a silence that spoke more eloquently than words.

  For a long moment the only sound in the kitchen was the soft rasp of knife on carrot.

  ‘And then?’ Thamsine prompted.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I abhorred exile so I swallowed my pride, apologised for my past misdeeds and came back to England.’ He looked up at her and smiled. ‘That, Mistress Granville, is my life.’

  ‘And do you truly earn a living playing cards?’

  ‘And dice and whatever else I can find.’ He smiled. ‘I’m very good at what I do.’

  Thamsine gave a sniff of laughter. ‘I have no doubt that you are.’

  His clothes were not ostentatious, but now she looked at them she could see that they were well cut and made from good fabric. Instead of the old-fashioned collar favoured by her father, he wore the more fashionable falling bands. If she passed Kit Lovell in the street, she would probably think him a conservative man of business.

  ‘Is this how you plan to spend the rest of your life?’ she asked.

  ‘No,’ he snapped, with a hard edge to the single word. The easy camaraderie on his face had been replaced by a sharp, appraising look. She shrank back on her stool, conscious she had overstepped the unseen line in their relationship.

  ‘What of you, Thamsine Granville? I still hold your mark. When are you going to tell me what has brought you to the kitchen of the Ship Inn?’

  When she didn’t answer he smiled and shrugged. ‘I see. If that is how it is to be, Thamsine, let us agree that I will ask you no more questions about your past if you ask none of mine.’

  May poked her head around the door. ‘There you are, Cap’n Lovell!’ she said. ‘Your friends have been waiting on you this half hour since.’

  She walked over and picked up one of Thamsine’s efforts. ‘’Ere, what did this carrot ever do to you?’ she asked.

  Kit stood up. ‘A little patience, May, she’s never done this before.’

  ‘Aye well, I need them carrots, so you take your hide out of here where you don’t belong, Cap’n. I’ll bring some rabbit pie in for you.’

  ‘God bless you, May.’ Kit put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and kissed her forehead.

  She coloured and pushed him away. ‘Get away before I start remembering as how you never come visiting no more.’

  May watched as the kitchen door closed behind him and sighed with a shake of her head. ‘He’s a one.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Thamsine looked up from murdering another vegetable.

  May sat down on the stool vacated by Kit and picked up the knife he had been using. ‘Charm the birds out of the trees, he can, but cross him and he’ll show no quarter.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Jem told me. Jem was his sergeant in the war. Said the men would have followed him into the depths of Hell if he’d just say the word.’

  Thamsine glanced at the door through which Kit had left. She could well imagine he would have been an inspiring leader.

  ~ * ~

  As Kit opened the door to the private parlour, the thick fug of tobacco mingled with smoke from the fire made his eyes begin to water and he coughed. The half-dozen men taking their ease around the table looked up.

  ‘Lovell! As I live and breathe!’ Dutton jumped to his feet, slapping Kit on the shoulder with such force that Kit had to take a step to steady himself. ‘I’d not expected to see you again so soon!’

  ‘Thank you for your warm welcome.’ Kit bowed to the assembly. ‘You would think I had been gone years instead of a mere two months.’

  ‘More to the point, how in God’s name did you get out this time? The amount you owed, I thought you would never see the light of day! I told you that horse was a bad buy,’ Colonel Whitely, a hard-bitten veteran with a cynical sense of humour, remarked, tapping out his pipe on his boot heel.

  ‘Lovell has acquired a most valuable asset.’ Fitzjames moved into the circle. ‘A wealthy mistress.’

  ‘Lucky dog!’ Dutton said.

  Kit smiled. ‘Indeed, my dearest Lucy could not bear to be without me. Her bed grew uncommon cold in the winter air.’

  As the paths of Lucy and these men were never likely to cross, the lie came easily.

  Dutton scoffed. ‘God rot you, Lovell. Why can’t I find some pretty little widow to keep me?’

  ‘One look at your face in the mirror should give you the answer to that question,’ Kit rejoined.

  ‘You know everyone here?’ Dutton ran an expansive hand around the circle.

  Kit recognised the faces of his old companions in arms: his friend Fitzjames, Colonel Whitely, Roger Cotes, Richard Willys and a couple of other familiar faces. The last man was a stranger.

  Whitely pulled the young man forward. ‘Jack Gerard, meet our friend and fellow sufferer, Captain Christopher Lovell. Jack is the nephew of Lord Gerard, who is with the King in Paris,’ Whitely said.

  ‘Welcome to this den of lost causes, Master Gerard,’ Kit said.

  Gerard smiled. ‘No cause is a lost cause, Captain Lovell. Not while we still have breath in our bodies and a King denied his rightful throne.’

  Kit regarded the youngster. Jack Gerard was younger than the others, too young to have fought in the wars, Kit observed cynically. That made him a young, dangerous idealist.

  ‘Those indeed are sentiments we all hold dear to our hearts,’ Kit said before his hesitation could be mistaken for something else. ‘Come, gentlemen, a toast to our King.’

  Wine sloshed into the glasses and the brimming cups were held aloft.

  ‘To the King.’

  But the words were said in an undertone so as not to carry to the taproom beyond.

  Kit set his glass down and settled himself in a chair beside the fire. ‘So, what is the news about London? One hears nothing behind the solid walls of the Clink except what your purse can tell you, and mine was sadly empty.’

  ‘I heard that some woman took a pot-shot at the Lord Protector the other day,’ Fitzjames said.

  ‘Quite true,’ Dutton said. ‘I was there. Saw it myself. Hurled a brickbat at him during the parade. Only missed him by a few inches.’

  ‘Women never could throw,’ Cotes put in with a snort. ‘Did they catch her?’

  ‘Vanished,’ Dutton said. ‘Disappeared like smoke. Some say it was witchcraft.’

  ‘They’d say that about anybody. Fact is they were too incompetent to catch her,’ Whitely said. ‘Well good luck to her, wherever she is. Pity is, she missed.’

  ‘Cromwell conducts himself more and more as if he were King, not the usurping yeoman that he is,’ Gerard spat.

  Kit laughed. ‘My young friend, like it or not, he is our head of state. I for one would not have the task!’

  ‘Pssh!’ Whitely snorted. ‘Gone soft in gaol, Lovell.’

  Kit sighed. ‘Getting old, Whitely. So what brings you sorry band together?’

  The men looked at each other.

  Gerard leaned across the table to address Whitely. ‘Is he to be trusted?’

  Whitely gave the young man a hard look. ‘Of course he’s to be trusted. Lovell’s a King’s man to the bone. He stood behind the King’s colours at Edgehill and at Worcester.’

  Fitzjames placed a hand on Kit’s shoulder. ‘He’s one of us, Gerard.’

  The others nodded agreement.

  ‘So, Dutton,’ Fitz said. ‘What’s the news?’

  The gaze of every man in the room turned to Richard Dutton. The man raised his wineglass, took a sip and set it down with a dramatic flourish.

  ‘There is a plan,’ he announced.

  Kit’s heart sank. There was always a plan, and if Dutton had anything to do with it, it was unlikely to be a very good plan.

  Dutton leaned forward, his voice lowered. ‘As we discussed in Lovell’s absence, it’s early days yet but steps have advanced.’

  ‘And?’ Whitely tapped his foot with obvious impatience.

  Dutton shook his head. ‘I am loath to
say much more for the present. However, if we meet back here in a week, I will then have something to report.’

  Hiding his frustration with a shrug, Kit produced a battered pack of cards. ‘Well, until next week, then. In the meantime I for one would welcome a diversion, not to mention a small boost to the purse. Anyone willing to take me on?’

  At the end of the evening, Dutton rose unsteadily to his feet.

  ‘Go to go,’ he slurred. ‘Busy day tomorrow.’

  Kit shot to his feet. ‘I’ll see you to your lodgings,’ he said.

  The two men lurched into the cold street. Snowflakes fell on their hats and shoulders but melted before reaching the slushy filth of the ground.

  ‘Well your damned luck hasn’t changed,’ Dutton remarked, swaying to one side of the road. Kit took his arm and propelled him back in a straight line. Dutton was a heavyset man some years older than he was. As with the rest of the company at The Ship Inn, the recent conflicts had dealt ill with him. He had lost his home and family, and the war had left him embittered and penniless, with a fondness for wine that loosened his tongue and made him dangerous.

  ‘Plenty of time in the Clink to hone my skills. You should try it some time,’ Kit said.

  ‘I did.’ Dutton spat into the gutter. ‘Remember those stinking cells after Worcester?’

  Kit suppressed a shudder. There were some memories he preferred not to recall. ‘Tomorrow night, Dutton? You and me, a couple of comely wenches … ?’

  Dutton stopped in the middle of the street, swaying slightly. ‘Tomorrow … No, tomorrow I must go away.’

  Kit caught the man as he staggered forward. ‘So where are you off to then, Dutton?’

  Dutton tapped the side of his nose and gave Kit a heavy, conspiratorial wink. ‘Secret.’

  ‘Good God man, we don’t have secrets from each other. Look at all we’ve been through. Remember Naseby? You saved my life that day.’

  This was so far from the truth as to be almost the opposite, but Dutton’s wine-soaked mind would remember what he wanted.

  ‘Oh yes, my friend, I remember Naseby and Worcester. Can’t forget Worcester.’