by Lily Reynard
"Now, then. You wished a favor of me, Kit?"
"Ah, well," Kit began, turning his hat round and round between his fingers. His flush deepened. "I—I've come to ask charity on behalf of my daughter. We'll not impose on you long, only until I can find work in London, and get some decent lodgings," he said in a rush. "My soldiering days are over, Jul—I mean, my lord. I do well enough with a sword, but only for short periods, and I'll never use a pike again." He hitched his right shoulder uncomfortably. "If we could but stay here for a short while, to give Margaret a chance to recover from the rigors of our journey, I would be grateful."
Julian let Kit finish speaking, relishing the sight of his half-brother as a humble supplicant. Kit's face was scarlet with humiliation by the end.
"Now Kit," Julian chided, lacing his fingers over his flat stomach. "As if I could refuse your request! You insult me by asking for charity from your own family. Rest assured that I will do all in my power to aid you."
Kit gave him a stiff smile. "You are very gracious, my lord."
Julian briefly considered giving Kit permission to use his Christian name, then decided against it.
"And I am grateful," Kit continued, staring fixedly at the floor. "My shoulder is nearly healed, and I have heard that the Duke of Selborough seeks guards. If I could ask one further favor, and request a reference—"
"Now, Kit," Julian interrupted, sudden inspiration dawning. "If you are seeking work, then perhaps we could help each other. I need assistance with a most important and er, delicate errand. Before you arrived, there was no one I could entrust with it."
"I'd welcome the opportunity to be of service." Kit relaxed his tense posture by a small degree, and looked up. "What sort of help do you require, my lord?"
Julian let himself sigh. "I need a wife, and a wealthy one. I have just the woman in mind—a widow—but the matter will take a special sort of persuasion."
As Kit gave a puzzled frown, Julian said, impatiently, "I want you to abduct her and bring her here."
"You must be jesting!" Kit recoiled slightly.
"I am utterly sincere," Julian said, flatly. "And your skills are precisely what I need."
"So that the king's men can throw you in the Tower, and hang me?" Kit retorted. "Your plan is both dishonorable and foolish."
"Honor is the luxury of the rich," Julian sneered. "A luxury that you cannot afford, brother Kit."
"I can find other employment. Honorable employment," Kit said, but his tone was uncertain.
Julian sensed victory. "With His Majesty waging war against the Dutch, crippled veterans swarm to London like lice on a beggarwoman," he told Kit truthfully. "You'll receive no charity there, and Margaret will end up in the hands of a brothel-keeper if she doesn't starve first." He paused, then added cruelly: "I hear that the bawds of Nightingale Lane pay top price for young virgins."
For a moment, Julian thought he had gone too far. Kit's eyes went cold, and he looked capable of murder.
Julian took a deep breath, and deliberately gentled his tone. "Kit, I am offering you the chance to ensure your daughter a dowry and respectable prospects. If you refuse me, she will perhaps not end up a whore, but certainly a maidservant, the plaything of her employer. As your mother was," Julian added, seeing Kit waver. "The choice is yours."
There was a long, uncomfortable silence. As Kit glowered, obviously trying to find a way to refute Julian's arguments, Julian forced himself to sit back in his chair. He did his best to look confident and relaxed.
"You swear that you will pay Margaret's dowry if I help you?" Kit said at last, hitching his shoulder. He sounded weary.
"And I will give you new clothing and a letter of reference as well," Julian agreed. "The clothing and a sum for expenses now, and the dowry when Antonia, the Dowager Duchess of Cranbourne, is delivered to me."
"How large a dowry?" Kit asked, relaxing into the comfortable stance of a man used to bargaining.
"Two hundred pounds."
"Four hundred, and if aught happens to me while I'm abducting your bride, you'll promise to care for Margaret and settle a portion of at least a hundred pounds upon her when she comes of age." Kit smiled grimly. "In return, I shall keep silent about your part in this scheme, should I be arrested."
"Two hundred and fifty pounds, a hundred pounds as her portion, and I'll acknowledge her publicly as my niece," Julian countered. "Even if you are taken and hanged."
I am being mighty generous, he thought. I'm promising him a dowry equivalent to a year's income for a gentleman, and a connection to the nobility. More than enough for the little wench to make a respectable match when she comes of age.
Sensing victory, Julian rapidly reviewed his assets, and decided to sell some of his mother's jewelry and assorted items from his father's collections, including those hideous vases. It was an investment in his future.
"Very well," said Kit, looking resigned. "I will do it in return for Margaret's dowry of three hundred pounds and your acknowledgment of her as your niece."
"Agreed," Julian said without hesitating.
Giddy with victory, he snatched up the handbell. "Be seated, good Kit! Let us drink upon it!"
* * *
Kit sank into the proffered chair, glad to take his weight off his aching feet, while his brother rang for a bottle.
He felt a small ember of hope kindle to a steady flame as he realized that this bargain, distasteful as it was, ensured that Margaret would never have to live—or die—in a soldier's humble lodgings like her mother.
His brave Anna, who had accompanied him uncomplainingly through the travails of a mercenary soldier's life on the Continent, had not lived to see the rose garden or the cottage he had promised her. She had died in a hovel—a rented hovel, all the saints be damned! And his mother had died alone.... Kit scrubbed the back of his hand angrily against his eyes.
So many losses...but I will do better for Margaret. I must!
"How do you propose I should go about fetching your widow?" Kit asked.
He lifted the engraved glass goblet, took a mouthful of good Burgundy, and felt warmth expand in his stomach.
Julian shrugged carelessly. "By any means, fair or foul, I care not, so long as Lady Cranbourne comes to no harm. We can discuss our strategy over supper. But first—" He surveyed Kit and wrinkled his nose. "You shall make use of my bathing-closet. That blue suit of George's should fit you—he had it made just before the drink took him, and it was never worn."
Kit took another sip of the wine, and tried to convince himself that he had done the right thing—made the only reasonable choice—by agreeing to Julian’s scheme.
Chapter Four
"Albeit Weapons as well offensive as defensive be infinite, because all that whatsoever a man may handle to offend another or defend himself, either by flinging or keeping fast in his hand may in my opinion be termed Weapon."
—Giacomo DiGrassi, The True Art of Defense, 1594 trans.
One week later
Dressed in a gentleman's finery, his purse heavy with coin advanced to him by Julian, and a fine horse beneath him, Kit spent two days riding through the lush, rolling Kentish countryside.
Margaret had remained at the manor house, in the capable hands of Mrs. Jones and her staff. Thankfully, her fever broke after a day, and she began to bloom again.
Assured that she would be well cared-for in his absence, Kit had kissed her good-bye with a pang, promising that he would return as soon as he had completed an important mission for her Uncle Julian.
Kit followed the course of the River Stowre west from Thornsby Hall. He whistled a tune as he rode, and mused strategy.
The actual abduction probably wouldn't be difficult. According to Julian, Lady Cranbourne lived in seclusion at her country estate. But how to transport his captive back to Thornsby Hall without attracting notice?
Dare he involve another person, and hire or steal a wagon? Could his horse carry two all the way back home?
Kit frowned, and let
the tune die on his lips. Oho, here's a real problem in logistics!
And if he had learned one thing in his years as a soldier of fortune, it was that logistics won more battles than courage.
He glanced at the sparkling ribbon of water, and thought about stealing a boat and riding the current down the river. That had its risks as well, especially if someone saw them, and he would have to abandon the valuable horse...
But traveling by water would allow him to make the thirty-mile journey from Long Cranbourne to Thornsby-on-Stowre overnight.
The Stowre is a narrow, swift-running river, he thought. It might be possible.
Thus occupied, the miles and hours passed swiftly, even with the breaks to rest his horse.
At twilight, having passed Mystole, Kit found a camping-place behind a hedgerow not far from the road. There, out of sight of passers-by, he hobbled his horse and turned it out to graze, and ate a cold supper of beef-and-ale pie from his saddlebags. Then he rolled himself up in his woolen cloak and went to sleep on a soft bed of new grass.
Awakened just after dawn by the springtime chorus of birdsong, Kit ate bread and cheese, washed down with swallows of Mrs. Jones's ale, which was not quite as good as his mother's had been. Then he went to retrieve his horse. He decided that he would settle on his plan once he had had the opportunity to scout Lady Cranbourne's estate.
He had planned many raids during his soldiering days, he reminded himself, trying to suppress his distaste for kidnapping a helpless woman. But Kit had always preferred to meet his enemies on the field of battle rather than skulk in the shadows.
Kit mounted with a stifled groan. He hadn't ridden since his last battle—his horse had been the first of his possessions sold while his shoulder healed—and his thighs and buttocks were evincing their displeasure.
Guiding his mount back to the road, he resumed his journey.
* * *
Long Cranbourne looks like any other village in Kent, thought Kit as he forded the Stowre and entered the town.
He found the main street lined with thatch-roofed cottages, some half-timbered with whitewashed plaster, and others more substantial, their walls made from large flint pebbles embedded in mortar.
He had timed his arrival well—he could hear the bell of the square-towered village church that rose above the rows of thatched roofs. It clanged sonorously, calling the villagers to church on pain of a fine.
With luck, he would be able to catch sight of his prey attending the prayer service. But therein lay another worry: villagers noticing a stranger in their midst, and remembering him once the dowager countess disappeared.
When Kit arrived in the market square that fronted the church, he slid from the saddle in disbelief.
It was crowded, as if there were a fair in progress, but there were no booths or stalls to be seen.
A horde of men—young, old, short, thin, tall, fat—jostled for a good position near the church porch. Gold and silver laces gleamed on jackets and breeches, and the finest Brussels point hung like cobwebs from collars and cuffs. Feathered plumes rose from hats like a field of multicolored plants.
What on earth is happening? Kit strained to overhear snatches of the conversations around him.
"Good sir, you're here to inspect the merchandise, too?" asked someone at Kit's elbow.
"I beg your pardon?" Kit turned to see a short man, dressed in a countryman's smock and breeches, standing at his elbow.
"You come to see the countess?"
"No! Ah—" Kit blinked, appalled. "I'm just…passing through."
"Right you are, sir," said the smocked man, in a skeptical tone.
"These people—" Kit gestured at the crowd. "They're all here to see the countess? The widowed Dowager Countess of Cranbourne?" he asked, hoping against hope that there might be another countess to draw such a crowd.
The man nodded, smugly. "Never seen such a show. Some of 'em even come from Scotland. But she ain't having none of 'em." He cleared his throat and spat. "Now, about you...?"
"Just a traveler," Kit said. He added, "On my way to Ashford, but I thought I would attend Sunday service here."
His companion nodded, approvingly. "Right godly of you, but you'll find only standing room this Sunday. Next Sunday, maybe things will be quiet again."
Kit noticed that in addition to the hopeful suitors, a knot of girls dressed in what looked like their best gowns had appeared at the edge of the square. They were giggling and blushing, clearly hoping to catch the attention of the countess's suitors.
Kit began to ask what the man had meant by the next Sunday being quiet again, but he was distracted when someone shouted, "Here she comes!"
A rustle of excitement ran through the crowd. A moment later, Kit heard the sound of horses' hooves and the rumble of an approaching carriage.
The coach was a grand one, the Cranbourne crest carved and gilded on the doors, and the rest of the body lacquered with red.
From his vantage point atop his mount, Kit could see two women sitting in the coach.
One was a girl with fiery red hair coiled primly under a plain cap—probably the countess's maid.
A Puritan, he guessed, seeing her dark gown with its plain collar and cuffs.
The other woman had chestnut-brown hair fashionably dressed in a topknot and curls, but was soberly dressed in a black gown that was cut from richer cloth yet just as plain as her servant's dress. A black mask concealed her face.
The Dowager Countess of Cranbourne, at last! And why didn't Julian mention she was a Puritan?
She also looked much younger than Kit had expected from her title. He would wager that she was no older than twenty-three or twenty-four, though the mask made it difficult to tell for certain.
Kit craned his neck as Lady Cranbourne went into the church, and tried to figure out what to do next.
Nothing came to mind, except that the Dowager Countess was not what he had expected.
Was she a sanctimonious hypocrite like the Puritans of his boyhood?
Fruit of sin, he remembered bitterly.
The man next to him expelled a long breath, and Kit found that he had been holding his, too. "Leaving for London, she is. Won't be a moment too soon, I say, not with this mob infesting our quiet village."
She's leaving? Kit felt a surge of excitement. It might be an opportunity.
"Going to Court? I had heard she lived a retired life," Kit commented, trying to keep his voice light. "In mourning. Secluded."
"Hah!" replied his new acquaintance. "Court's not a fit place for any decent woman."
How could he possibly succeed in spiriting the countess away, when he could scarcely get near enough even to see her from amongst this crowd?
* * *
After church, the rest of Sunday passed in a chaotic rush for the Cranbourne household.
While the maidservants packed Antonia's traveling trunks with her linens and her books, Antonia and Mall sorted through the contents of her clothing presses, debating which gowns could be altered to fit the current fashion when they arrived in London.
Sweetheart was thoroughly out of sorts, mostly because no one was paying him any attention. Although he had been exiled to a tall perch near the windows in the Green Parlor, Antonia could still hear his plaintive "Want to go drive!" repeated with gradually increasing volume as he spied the stable boys strapping trunks to the coach in the main courtyard.
Led by Harry Reeves, the bulk of Antonia's staff had already left for London earlier in the week, to open and prepare her London residence.
They had been accompanied by baggage wagons, armed outriders, and the large iron-bound coffer that contained the estate's income. After Antonia herself departed at first light tomorrow, only a skeleton staff would remain.
The next morning, Antonia, Mall, and Sweetheart all rose well before dawn, and after a hasty breakfast, settled themselves in the coach.
In addition to the coachman, there were armed outriders and a guard to protect them. Antonia had wishe
d for more, but had conceded to Reeve's insistence on protecting the baggage wagons.
Finally, the coach began to roll down the long, tree-lined drive. Antonia settled back against the soft cushions with a sigh and watched the gray stones of Cranbourne House recede.
What fortune, good or ill, will my tenure at Court bring? And will there be others like Sir Nicholas Finch, who will stoop to the lowest sort of ruses to force me into marriage?
* * *
Kit started awake from his doze in the gray light of dawn, roused by the great wrought-iron gates of Cranbourne House swinging open with the shriek of badly oiled hinges.
He had been keeping watch through the night, concealed in a thicket near the high brick wall that surrounded the estate.
Alerted by the sound of the gates opening, he peered through the bushes. In the morning mist, he saw the silhouette of a coach pass by his hiding place with a rumble of wheels, squeak of leather springs, and muffled pounding of hooves.
When they had disappeared from sight, Kit mounted his horse, urging it forward through the woods that surrounded the estate.
By the time he reached the London road, the day had brightened enough for him to see the marks of hooves and coach-wheels cut deeply into the soft dirt.
Kit rode north, tracking his prey while taking care to remain far enough behind to avoid detection.
From his youthful travels, he knew the countryside turned hilly and thickly wooded near Lenham. He would have his opportunity then.
* * *
Inside the coach, Antonia watched as dawn lit the passing fields and hedgerows with golden light that gilded the mist that cloaked the pastures and fields.
Worries previously kept at bay by the rush of departure were now free to plague her.
I've been gone from London a long time. Are the nobles at Court really as cruel and depraved as the Sunday sermons paint them?
And a niggling of vanity: How will my disfigured face compare to the famous beauties like Lady Castlemaine?
She raised a hand to her mask.
Worldly vanity, she reprimanded herself, and there were more worrisome matters to consider. What pressures to remarry will I face?
