Exile's Return

by Alison Stuart

  He swept her a lowly bow and turned away. At the door he glanced back to look at her. ‘You are wrong about one thing, Agnes. This is no longer about the gold or Tobias Ashby Whatever your feelings for me, you have my word that I will do whatever is within my power to give you back your son,’ he said. ‘Whatever it takes.’

  Chapter 11

  Eveleigh Priory, Cheshire

  25 November 1659

  ‘This is it?’ Agnes spoke first, breaking the heavy silence.

  The four of them stood on a weed-infested forecourt, looking up at the ruined façade of a once-grand house. Scorch marks still blackened the walls and ivy, dead leaves clinging to the stems, curled through and around the empty windows like worms through a skeleton.

  Daniel’s breath clouded in the cold air. ‘I don’t remember it being this bad,’ he said, his voice taut with emotion.

  The decision to take a detour to Eveleigh had been Jonathan’s. Although they might have thought it, neither Lovell brother had raised the subject. Surprisingly, although it meant a delay of several days before reaching Preston, Agnes had agreed.

  Kit cleared his throat. ‘It has deteriorated badly since I last saw it,’ he said. ‘The east wing was, as you know, still habitable.’ He indicated a wing of the house that still retained its roof, although it sagged in places and several windows had been boarded up. Others still retained glass.

  ‘I had a difficult time persuading your mother to leave,’ Kit continued. ‘It was only much later that she admitted that she had not wanted to go because of the hope you may one day knock on the door. She feared you would find no one here.’

  Daniel swallowed. ‘And yet here I am.’

  Something brushed his hand, and instinctively his fingers curled around Agnes’s gloved hand. He returned the slight, reassuring pressure before she slipped her hand away.

  With heavy steps, he walked across to the front of the house, where a fine set of stairs still rose to the portico and the gaping hole that had once been the front door. He sat down on the top step, his elbows on his knees.

  ‘Ashby shot him here,’ he said. ‘On these steps. He died in Kit’s arms.’

  He looked down as if he still expected to see his father’s blood running down toward the gravel of the forecourt. A wave of emotion swept through him and he covered his face with his hand. Not since that first night after the battle, with his aching head pressed to King John’s tomb, had he felt such helplessness.

  A hand rested on his shoulder and he looked up to see Kit, offering what he could in wordless comfort and understanding. He took Kit’s proffered hand and rose to his feet.

  ‘Where is he buried?’ Agnes asked.

  Daniel pointed through the now-leafless trees to the little chapel that had served the Midhurst family for the centuries that they had owned Eveleigh. Kit flung his arm across Daniel’s shoulders and they tramped through the woods followed by Jonathan and Agnes, their footsteps silenced by the heavy fall of leaves.

  Like the house, the chapel lay in a ruinous state, its roof mostly gone and only the splintered remains of the once-beautiful old stained glass still adhering to the window frames. Ashby’s soldiers had delighted in destroying the idolatrous images.

  The ancient oak door still hung drunkenly on its hinges, and despite its parlous state it groaned as Kit pushed it open. Birds and animals had made their homes in the corners and among the rafters and the flagged floor lay thick with dust and leaves. The monumental tombs of Midhurst ancestors had felt the full fury of the Parliament soldiers, the faces destroyed beyond recognition.

  Daniel crossed the floor to the stone altar that still stood in its place. Hunkering down, he swept the dried leaves from the flags.

  ‘He’s here,’ he said. ‘There is no memorial stone, but if there was it would read “Here lies Thomas Lovell, foully murdered on the steps of his home by one Tobias Ashby, of the Army of Parliament”.’

  ‘We will ensure his place is marked, Dan,’ Kit said.

  Her too-long skirt brushing the dried leaves away in a soft sigh, Agnes knelt down beside him, laying a bunch of yarrow flowers on the unmarked grave. Her gloved hand rested for a moment on the cold stone and she closed her eyes, her lips moving in silent prayer.

  When she was done she looked up at him, laying her hand on his sleeve. Daniel laid his own hand over hers for a fleeting moment. Their gaze met in a moment of quiet understanding.

  ‘I’m sorry about the yarrow, it was all I could find, apart from gorse,’ she said, rising to her feet.

  At the far end of the chapel Kit shivered and rubbed his hands together. ‘We have tarried long enough in this mournful place,’ he said.

  They walked back to the horses, and as he swung into the saddle, Daniel gave the ruins of his home one last look. ‘I will rebuild it,’ he said.

  Kit cast him a sideways glance. ‘It will take a fortune.’

  Daniel smiled. ‘I have, if not quite a fortune, enough.’

  Kit nodded. ‘I would like to see it a home once more.’

  Jonathan’s nondescript mare capered with impatience. ‘Time we were gone. We are clear on the plan? Daniel, you and Agnes go ahead to Preston and send Ashby a note to say you have recalled something of interest and you would meet with him.’

  ‘Make them come to you,’ Kit had suggested. ‘They need to dance to your tune.’

  Agnes nodded and glanced at Daniel. ‘Well, Lucas, are you ready?’

  Daniel touched his fingers to the battered brown felt hat he had purchased off one of the Thornton grooms. They had taken care to ensure that their roles were convincing. Agnes, wearing a once-elegant but outmoded riding habit borrowed from Nell Longley, rode the black gelding.

  He had to admit that she managed the animal with considerable skill. He had the bay mare. He carried no sword, only two pistols, necessary for the defence of his mistress from the predations of the road.

  ‘We will see you at Charvaley,’ Jonathan said.

  ‘You know where to go?’ Agnes enquired of Jonathan.

  ‘Your directions should be adequate. Just make sure the good lady is expecting us. I do not like surprising old ladies unnecessarily,’ Jonathan remarked.

  According to Agnes, Margaret Truscott, or Old Peg, as the family called her, had been nursemaid to James and then to Henry and Lizzie. Agnes had told them that when Old Peg had broken an ankle falling downstairs, James had judged her too old to continue actively in his service and had settled a grace and favour cottage on her, a little way out of the village.

  ‘Can this woman be trusted?’ Kit enquired.

  Agnes nodded. ‘With my life. As soon as we reach the castle, I will send a note to Peg with Daniel to tell her to expect you.’

  Jonathan nodded. ‘Until we meet again, Mistress Fletcher. ‘He doffed his hat in farewell as Daniel and Agnes put their heels to the skittish horses. Agnes glanced at Daniel, her eyes bright. ‘I’ll race you to the crossroads,’ she said.

  ‘That’s hardly fair –’ Daniel began but she was gone, crouched low over the horse’s neck, her wide brimmed hat, secured only by a string, flying out behind her.

  ‘Damn you,’ Daniel muttered, startling the placid bay into action with a hefty kick. She sprang forward but stood no chance of catching her stablemate.

  ***

  They stopped for lunch, turning aside from the road to find a quiet dell where boulders covered with a patchwork of bright green moss and orange lichen tumbled down to a stream, swollen now with the autumn rains. In summer it would be a pretty place, with old, gnarled trees for shelter and soft grass.

  Daniel spread his cloak on a large, flat boulder and Agnes set out the simple repast of bread, cheese and ale she had purchased in the last village they had passed through. She perched on the boulder, swinging her feet like a small girl.

  ‘Tell me about Henry,’ Daniel said.

  She jerked, looking around at him in surprise. He did not seem like the sort of man with the remotest interest in small chil
dren.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  His gaze met hers, his eyes the colour of the cold stream. ‘I am guessing that you have never spoken of Henry as you should … as his mother, not his guardian. So, tell me about him.’

  She blinked. She had never allowed herself to think of the child in that way. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘All those little things mothers talk about,’ he said.

  She smiled. ‘He cut his first tooth at four months, and started walking before he was one.’

  He laughed. ‘And who does he look like?’

  ‘You’ve seen him. He has James’s fair colouring but he has my eyes, I think.’ She smiled fondly, remembering the soft downy hair and the baby smell of her son. ‘He is a typical boy who loves his wooden sword and his toy soldiers. I hope he grows up in a peaceful world where he never has to take up real arms.’

  ‘Unlike us?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s really all we know, isn’t it Daniel?’

  He sighed. ‘Nearly twenty years of strife, Agnes.’ Daniel bit into the bread and chewed thoughtfully, staring at the water that broke over the boulders.

  ‘How have you stood it all these years?’ he asked at last.

  The old, familiar ache cloyed her heart.

  ‘I loved my sister,’ she said, ‘but in truth I have wanted more than anything to hear him call me Mother.’

  ‘Whose idea was the deception?’

  ‘Ann’s. I wonder now if she knew her days were numbered and wanted to give James the heir he craved. When she put the proposition it all seemed so very sensible.’

  Daniel said nothing, his silence inviting the confidence she had never shared before.

  ‘Elizabeth’s birth nearly killed Ann. The doctors advised against any more children, but James wanted a son – he needed a son. He told me the last thing he wanted was for Tobias to inherit on his death, so the three of us decided that I would carry James’s child and we would pretend it was Ann’s.’

  Daniel cleared his throat. ‘You agreed to this arrangement? Willingly?’

  Agnes lowered her head and nodded.

  ‘I fancied myself in love with James. It was a foolish notion and not … ’ She paused, remembering the awful fumbling and James’s grunts and groans. He had been nothing like Daniel. ‘… Not what I had expected. Henry was conceived quickly enough, and as soon as I was sure, James let it be known that Ann was once more with child but the doctors had advised her to remain confined to her bedchamber until the child’s birth. So Ann and I passed the next few months closeted away, attended only by Peg. When Henry was born … ’ She took a deep, steadying breath. ‘Ann took to her bed, lauded as the mother of James’s son. I … ’

  ‘You?’ Daniel prompted as she hesitated.

  ‘I had to watch my son in my sister’s arms, a wet nurse brought in to suckle him, while … while my breasts were bound.’

  She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. The pain, both physical and emotional still raw even after all the years.

  ‘James bought me presents.’ Her fingers closed on the locket around her neck, James’s gift to her. ‘I told myself that their happiness was reward enough, but we lost Ann within a year to consumption and the children fell to my charge.’ She looked up. ‘I didn’t wish my sister’s death and I mourned her. I still do, but there was a part of me that rejoiced. I had Henry for my own, at last.’

  ‘What if the child had been a girl?’

  It was a question she had asked herself many times during her pregnancy. Agnes shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I assume James and Ann would have acknowledged the child in the same way, but … ’

  ‘What about James?’ Daniel prompted, a harsh edge to his tone. ‘He had his son – was he done with you?’

  She let out a deep sigh. ‘James still came to my bed, when it suited him, but God, in his wisdom, did not curse me with another pregnancy. Every month I gave thanks that I had been spared the shame and humiliation, but … ’ she bit her lip, ‘ … there was a part of me that yearned to hold a child of my own in my arms.’

  Daniel rose to his feet, brushing crumbs from his breeches. He stood in front of her and took her hand in his, curling his fingers around hers.

  ‘You are too hard on yourself, Agnes. What more selfless act could you have performed for your sister, or for your child?’

  Agnes lowered her head. ‘If James hadn’t died—’

  He tightened his grip. ‘But James is dead. He chose his own path. You are now all those children have.’ He raised her hand to his lips and kissed her fingers. ‘I wish I had an ounce of your selfless spirit, Agnes.’

  She laughed and pulled her hand away. ‘Selfless? I think not. The day is wasting, Daniel, and if we want to be at Preston by nightfall, we should be on our way.’

  Chapter 12

  Charvaley Castle, Lancashire

  27 November 1659

  Daniel had not known what to expect from Charvaley Castle. The village of Charvaley lay hard up against the castle walls, where it had nestled for centuries in the protection of the lords of the castle. It boasted a collection of well-kept cottages, a church with a solid square tower, a small inn, and a market square before the old gatehouse of the castle.

  The village lay quiet, blanketed in an autumnal mist through which the bulk of the castle loomed above the little houses. It was one of those castles that had long since ceased to be defensible, its crumbling walls transformed into a fine residence by successive generations of Ashbys. Only the gatehouse and a couple of towers remained of the original castle, the walls no doubt softened by wallflowers and ivy in summer. Now only dried stalks clung to the old stones, giving it a bleak and forbidding aspect.

  The picture of benign innocence ended at the gate, where he was stopped by two red-coated soldiers. Turner’s men, he supposed. He told them his business was with Colonel Ashby and of a personal nature.

  ‘Colonel’s not here,’ one said. ‘Gone to London.’

  Daniel considered this information. It could be a blessing in disguise if Ashby were away from home. ‘Then I will speak with Captain Turner,’ he said.

  One of the guards scratched his ear as he considered. He gave a curt nod and stood aside to let Daniel pass.

  The residence, built, Daniel guessed, in the early years of James’s reign, fronted the courtyard. He was shown through the large, elegant front door into a spacious, tiled entrance hall.

  ‘What is your business with Colonel Ashby?’

  Turner stood at a door with one hand on the handle, as if he meant to deal swiftly with this visitor. For a brief moment Turner frowned, and Daniel wondered if he had been recognized. He had deliberately not shaved since leaving Seven Ways, and hoped the dark stubble concealed his identity from those who remembered a fresh-faced boy.

  Daniel fumbled in his pocket and produced Agnes’s note. ‘I bring a note from my lady,’ he said, affecting the inflections of his native Cheshire.

  ‘And who is your mistress?’ Turner’s lips curved in a sneer.

  ‘Mistress Fletcher.’

  Turner relinquished his hold on the door handle and approached him, snatching the note from him.

  ‘It’s meant for Colonel Ashby,’ Daniel protested. ‘My lady was most insistent.’

  ‘In the Colonel’s absence I have his complete authority,’ Turner said, breaking the seal.

  He read the contents and looked up. ‘Where is your mistress now?’

  ‘Waiting in Preston, sir. She said to say how she knows she’s not welcome here but would speak with the Colonel.’

  Turner compressed his lips and glanced at the note again. ‘Very well, I will return to Preston with you.’

  ***

  Agnes had been watching for Daniel’s return from the window of her chamber, the most expensive the inn could supply. Seeing Septimus Turner riding beside him, she took a step back, her stomach churning. She had been prepared to face Ashby, had all her arguments in place, but Turner was an unknown qua
ntity. How much did he know of his master’s business?

  At the peremptory knock on the door she turned to greet her visitor.

  Turner swept his hat from his head and gave her a cursory bow. She returned his half-hearted gesture with a mere inclination of her head. His gaze flicked to Daniel, who had opened the door to admit Turner and now stood deferentially to one side as if awaiting further orders.

  ‘I was expecting Colonel Ashby,’ she said, ignoring the implication in Turner’s gesture. Daniel would not be leaving the room.

  Turner’s lips compressed. ‘The Colonel has been in London, although we expect his return in a day or so. There is nothing you need to say to the Colonel that cannot be said to me.’

  Agnes narrowed her eyes and allowed a thin, humourless smile to play on her lips. ‘Oh, but there is, Captain Turner. When I spoke with the Colonel in London I was in shock, but since I have had time to reflect, I find my memory about certain events of the last year have become a little clearer.’

  Turner’s face betrayed nothing, but his body stiffened and she knew she had hit the mark. Turner knew about the gold.

  ‘What do you want?’ he enquired.

  ‘Of you, nothing. I will return with you to the castle and await the Colonel,’ she said.

  ‘But … ’ Turner began, but she raised a hand.

  ‘I will see the children,’ she said. ‘If you deny me that, I leave Preston today and that will be an end of it. Ashby will never know what it was I came to tell him.’

  Turner’s jaw worked. She could almost hear his brain churning through the conflicting orders. He was a man who only responded to orders and his were plain. Agnes Fletcher was not to be admitted at Charvaley.

  He looked down at the hat in his hand and cleared his throat. ‘Very well. Do you have a horse? I brought no coach.’

  She nodded and he gave a curt inclination of his head. ‘I will be waiting downstairs.’