Exile's Return

by Alison Stuart

  He removed his hat and gloves and set them on the table, and was in the act of untying the strings of his cloak when the door opened. The two men stood staring at each other for a long, long moment.

  ‘Christ!’ Sir Jonathan Thornton blasphemed.

  ‘I have been called many things but never, ever compared to the Good Lord,’ Kit Lovell replied.

  Jonathan closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment.

  ‘Like our Good Lord, it appears you have the ability to rise from the dead,’ he observed.

  Kit held up his hand to stay the inevitable questions. ‘A long … very long story, Thornton.’

  Thornton continued to stare at him as if he were indeed a ghost. ‘What brings you here? … Of course, your brother … But how?’

  Kit’s heart skipped a beat. ‘So it’s true? He’s here?’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘Been here just over a week. He’s recovering from a bout of marsh fever. How the hell did you know?’

  Kit afforded himself the luxury of a small smile. ‘I have friends in London who sent me a message.’

  It had been a cursory note, written in Jem’s poor hand. “Daniel. Seven Ways.”

  Just three words, but it had been enough. No one ever forgot a name like Seven Ways.

  ‘He’s in the library,’ Jonathan said at last. ‘He … thinks … knows … you are dead. Do you want me to speak to him?’

  Kit shook his head. ‘No. This is between the two of us.’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘This way, then.’

  Picking up his hat, gloves and cloak, Kit followed his old friend through the winding maze of corridors of the old house. Jonathan stopped outside a carved oak door and looked across at Kit with a question in his eyes. Kit shook his head. He would face this meeting alone.

  He opened the door, revealing a long, low, pleasant room overlooking the front entrance to Seven Ways and the ancient moat that surrounded the manor house.

  In the scene he had rehearsed a hundred times on the long ride from Hampshire, Kit had seen Daniel as a nineteen-year-old … still, to his way of thinking, a boy. But the man by the fire, who looked up with enquiry in his eyes, was not a boy but a man, lean and hard, with lines around his eyes and mouth that spoke of hardship and suffering.

  Daniel let the book he held slide unregarded to the floor as he rose to his feet.

  ‘You …’ The word came out as a hoarse whisper.

  ‘Good morning,’ Kit said, affecting a bravado he did not feel. ‘I believe you have been looking for me?’

  ‘Daniel, I found that … ’ A woman’s voice jolted him and he turned to see a young woman standing by a bookshelf, a slim volume in her hand.

  She looked from one man to the other, her brow creasing in puzzlement.

  ‘Daniel, are you all right?’ she enquired.

  When Daniel didn’t move or speak, Kit recovered himself sufficiently to sweep her a courtly bow.

  ‘Please excuse my brother,’ he said. ‘He seems to have lost his tongue and his manners. Christopher Lovell, sometimes known as the Comte D’Anvers, but to my family just Kit.’ He forced himself to smile. ‘You, mademoiselle?’

  ‘Kit?’ She swung her gaze to Daniel. ‘But you’re … ’

  ‘Dead?’ Kit suggested. ‘One evening, when we are better acquainted, I shall tell you a most interesting story, Mistress …?’

  The girl coloured and sank into a curtsey. ‘Agnes Fletcher, sir.’

  Kit turned his attention back to Daniel, seeing now the pallor of recent illness beneath the tan and the dark smudges that shadowed his brother’s eyes.

  ‘You’ve been ill. Are you recovered?’ he enquired.

  Daniel found his voice. ‘A bout of marsh fever.’ He glanced at the woman. ‘Agnes, can you leave us?’

  She set the book down and hurried toward the door. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Can I fetch refreshments … ?’ When neither man answered she ducked her head and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving the two men alone.

  ‘How did you find me?’ Daniel asked with a noticeable crack in his voice.

  Kit shrugged. ‘I received word that you were in England.’

  Daniel narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘It could only be from the Ship Inn.’

  No point in lying. ‘Jem and Nan Marsh have been loyal friends. They know the whole sordid story. Of course they told me of your unexpected reappearance in civilization.’ Kit searched his brother’s face, at once so familiar and yet the face of a complete stranger. So many questions to ask, so much to say, but all he could manage was a strangled, ‘When I received Jem’s message, I thought it best to see for myself before I break the happy news to the rest of the family. We’ve been … disappointed before.’

  ‘The family?’ Daniel asked in a tight voice.

  ‘Your mother, your sister, my wife, our children … our adopted children,’ Kit said, realizing as he said it how much had happened in the intervening years. He didn’t even know where to start. He took a deep, steadying breath, struggling to keep his emotions under control.

  Daniel turned away and paced the room for a long moment. He stopped in front of Kit and cleared his throat.

  ‘Everyone told me that you died … executed for your part in a plot. How … ’

  ‘When it comes to Lazarene resurrections, Daniel,’ Kit interrupted, ‘I could ask you the same question. We went to Barbados to bring you home, Thamsine and I.’

  Daniel frowned. ‘Who’s Thamsine?’

  ‘My wife.’

  Daniel let out a long breath. ‘You went all the way to Barbados? Why? Did you think you could spirit me away?’

  Kit flinched at the bitterness in Daniel’s tone.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, reaching into his jacket, and tossing a paper down on the table between them. Daniel picked it up. Yellowed and brittle with age, it crinkled as he unfolded it. He scanned the contents and let it fall back.

  ‘It’s a Pardon … my Pardon.’ He ran his hands down his face and stared down at the seemingly innocuous paper. ‘All the time I was a free man and I never knew?’

  ‘They told us you were dead,’ Kit said. ‘Dead of a fever.’

  Daniel looked up. ‘Outhwaite,’ he said, and this time Kit heard the hatred in his brother’s voice.

  He laid a hand on Daniel’s shoulder.

  ‘I know the truth, Dan. I know what that man, Outhwaite, did to you. I made sure he went to the gallows.’

  His brother’s throat worked, his lips compressed so tightly they looked bloodless. He shook off Kit’s hand, turned away and walked over to the window where he leaned on the windowsill, taking deep breaths before he turned back to face Kit.

  ‘And what of you? They told me you died on a hangman’s gibbet.’

  All humour went from Kit’s face. ‘I did.’

  ‘Then how are you standing there?’

  Kit subsided into a chair and ran the fingers of his crooked hand through his hair. ‘It is such a long story … ’

  A spark of anger flared in Daniel’s face. ‘Is it true? Are you a turncoat?’

  Kit felt the breath leave his body as surely as if Daniel had hit him. ‘Who … where did you hear?’ His bluster died away. He wanted to deny the truth but he knew from the look of growing revulsion on Daniel’s face that his own face betrayed him.

  Daniel took a step back. ‘It’s true? You betrayed your friends, everything you believed in?’

  Kit rose to his feet. ‘You don’t understand. I have to explain … ’

  ‘No, you don’t!’ The spark flashed into a blaze of anger. ‘While I suffered in Barbados, you were betraying the cause we believed in. Damn it, Kit. Good men died because of you.’

  Kit closed his eyes. It was easier to allow Daniel to rage and rail at him than deal with the unspoken lies between them.

  Daniel continued, his voice tight with rage. ‘So you live in obscurity, under an assumed name … Do you jump at shadows, Kit Lovell? Because the King will return an
d what will be your reckoning then?’

  Kit held up a placatory hand. ‘Daniel, please let me explain … ’

  Daniel stood aside and opened the door. ‘I don’t want to hear excuses. You’re a filthy turncoat. It would have been better for both of us if I had never set foot in the Ship Inn. Go back to whatever hole the Comte D’Anvers occupies. I never want to see you again.’

  For a long, long moment Kit couldn’t move. He understood Daniel’s anger, probably better than Daniel himself. Perhaps in time they could meet again and he could tell his brother that everything he had done was for his sake, but not now … not here.

  With deliberate care, he turned and collected his belongings.

  ‘I will, of course, tell your mother and Frances of your happy resurrection from the grave,’ he said. ‘If you wish to visit, you are always welcome at our home – Hartley Court in Hampshire.’

  Daniel glared at him. ‘I will never set foot in any place where I will find you,’ he said.

  ‘Then other arrangements will need to be made,’ Kit replied. ‘I have no doubt they will be anxious to be reunited with you.’

  He swept past Daniel, nearly colliding with the woman … Agnes? Was that her name?

  She set down the tray she carried. ‘I was just bringing you some refreshment,’ she said. ‘Are you leaving so soon?’

  Kit glanced back seeing Daniel standing by the window, looking out at the grey, autumnal day.

  ‘Please present my apologies to Sir Jonathan, ma’m’selle, but I cannot stay. I have done what I came to do.’

  He inclined his head and walked out of the house. Gathering up the reins of his horse from the waiting groom, he swung into the saddle.

  ‘Wait.’

  He turned to see Agnes running from the house, her skirts caught up in her hand. She laid a hand on the horse’s bridle.

  ‘Please don’t give up on him,’ she said.

  He looked down into her face, rather a pretty face, he thought, with her upturned nose and smattering of freckles, but there were lines of anxiety creasing her brow and he wondered for a moment what part this woman played in his brother’s life.

  ‘Mistress Fletcher, whatever he might think, I have never given up on my brother,’ Kit replied stiffly, ‘but he needs time, maybe we both need time.’ Kit managed a smile. ‘Daniel is fortunate to have a friend in you, Mistress Fletcher.’

  A sprinkle of colour stained her cheekbones. ‘Just an acquaintance, Master Lovell. Nothing more.’

  She turned and walked back into the house, passing Jonathan Thornton at the doorway.

  Kit watched her go. ‘Just an acquaintance?’ he mused aloud.

  Jonathan laid a hand on the bridle. ‘You’re right. You both need time. Christ, Lovell, you have to expect your arrival to have come as a shock. I advise you to go to Bromsgrove and take a room at the Black Cross.’

  Kit looked down at his old friend. ‘Thornton, it is not my appearance that is the shock, it is the realization that his brother has feet of clay.’

  Jonathan Thornton looked up at him, holding his gaze. ‘I think you owe me at least the courtesy of the whole story, Lovell. Dismount and walk with me to the gate. Dead men should not be appearing at my front door unless there is a very good reason, and apparently you are the second one this month.’

  Chapter 9

  The rage had begun to die even as Daniel crossed to the window in time to see his brother, leading his horse, walking away from the house with Jonathan Thornton beside him. They walked in step with an easy camaraderie that spoke of their shared past.

  Kit moved with a noticeable limp and Daniel lowered his head, remembering Worcester and, in the confusion of the battle, hearing his brother call his name. As Daniel had turned to respond, he had seen Kit fall, but he’d been unable to reach him before he too had been felled and his world changed forever. In some ways, he realized, it had been easier to think of Kit as dead on that battlefield. The truth was too hard.

  A pain, every bit as physical as a blow to his stomach, doubled him over.

  It couldn’t be true. Everything he had ever believed about his brother had evaporated. Kit, the hero of his childhood, had betrayed him as surely as the men he sent to their deaths. Why? What possible reason could Kit have given for his change of allegiance? Did he really want to know?

  Taking a deep breath he straightened. He had to get out of the house. He did not want company or sympathy – he wanted alcohol and oblivion.

  He turned for the door as Agnes opened it. She stood framed in the doorway, her hand on the catch.

  ‘What do you want?’ he snapped.

  ‘I came to see … if there is anything … ’ she faltered and he could see the hurt in her eyes.

  ‘I need nothing, particularly not a woman’s sympathy,’ he said.

  ‘Daniel, as your friend … ’

  ‘Friend? I don’t have friends, Agnes. I have known you for what … ? A month? Friendship takes time and we don’t have that time. Now leave me. I’m going to find an inn and have a quiet drink – by myself.’

  She stood aside to let him pass without a word.

  Daniel retrieved his cloak and hat from his room, before plunging out into the cold, grey afternoon. Heavy rain clouds rolled in over the trees but he didn’t care. There would be an inn close by and he set out with a firm stride, turning his face gratefully to the cold rain.

  He returned to Seven Ways in the small hours of the morning after a long evening tucked into the corner of the parlour of the village inn. His plans for oblivion had been thwarted by his recent illness. It only took one small jar of wine before the overwhelming urge to sleep overcame him and the landlord had to wake him and throw him out into the cold, damp night.

  The old house slumbered in darkness, except for a tiny flickering light high up in the guest bedchamber– his chamber. He took the stairs two at time, conscious of every creak and groan from the ancient risers. The door to his chamber stood slightly ajar and he took the precaution of inching it open.

  Agnes sat beside the dying embers of the fire, curled up in the chair, wrapped in a blanket. Conflicting emotions churned through him. His anger at Kit still simmered below the surface, mingled with guilt at his harsh words to Agnes.

  She hadn’t deserved his wrath or hard, hurtful words. In truth she had been a good friend to him, and he wondered where an arrangement of mutual convenience had turned to friendship. He huffed out a breath – an inconvenient bout of marsh fever had changed the nature of their relationship forever.

  She looked so innocent and peaceful, lit only by the light of the fire, and another emotion altogether stirred and tightened in the pit of his stomach. How easy it would be to take her in his arms and take the solace he needed. He yearned to bury his face in her soft hair, drink in the scent of her, but like a half-healed scratch he also needed to pick at the scab of hurt and betrayal, cause the blood to flow, feel the pain … feel something … anything.

  He threw the door open loudly enough to wake her with a start.

  A smile lit her face. ‘Daniel. Thank heavens. I was worried.’

  ‘Why? I’m not one of your children,’ he snarled.

  The smile died on Agnes’s lips.

  He took a few steps into the room, throwing his hat onto the chest and fumbling with the strings of his cloak.

  ‘Concerned that poor, ailing Daniel may take cold in the horrible rain?’ The heavy sarcasm in his tone should have been enough to warn her.

  ‘Concerned for you, yes,’ she said, a slight tremor creeping into her voice.

  ‘Well I’m fine, Agnes. Nothing a copious quantity of appalling wine at the nearest hostelry couldn’t cure,’ he lied.

  His sodden cloak joined the hat and they stood staring at each other.

  ‘There is some supper on the tray,’ she said, waving her hand at the table, where a jug and covered tray had been placed.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You should eat —’

  He
rounded on her, all his anger for Kit directed at this one person. ‘I do not need you to mother me, Agnes. If you want to help me then lie down on the bed and spread your legs, just like you did for Elmhurst … God knows you owe me for your board and lodging.’

  All the colour leeched from her face and he immediately regretted his words.

  ‘Agnes … ’ He put out his hand but she hit it away and ran from the room.

  He heard the door to her room open and close and sank down on the edge of the bed, burying his head in his hands.

  ***

  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. A 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.