Julia clung to him, feeling her happy interlude coming to a close, her hopes for the future crumbling.
“I will have to leave. I shudder to think what he will do.”
Charles was not about to pass on the threat Winterton had made; he saw no point to scaring her further.
“We will leave,” he said. “Together.”
“Where? Where will we go? This is your home, your property. I cannot ask you to give it all up for me.”
He pulled her close to him, kissed her longingly, ran his hand gently through her thick, blonde hair and sighed softly.
“I would give up anything for you,” he said. “I have waited my whole life for you to come along and teach me about love; I am not about to give you up to that monstrosity of a man who has the barefaced gall to call you his wife.”
They packed as many of their belongings as they could into a wooden cart with an open bed, hitched up to one of the workhorses. Guinevere was tied to the side so they could keep an eye on her, Julia held the baby in her lap, and they said goodbye to all the people she had come to call ‘friends’.
“You can have the place,” Charles told them. “Do what you can with it. It is yours, but we cannot stay. It is too dangerous.”
Nobody asked any questions; they all trusted Charles to know what was best and now they would have to fend for themselves.
“Where are we going?” Julia asked as they rode away.
Charles shrugged.
“Who knows? Anywhere is safer than here, even if we have to camp out in the forest like Robin Hood.”
She snuggled against him. She would never have believed the prospect of driving into the unknown would not scare her half to death, especially with a small baby to care for. She felt safe with Charles, no matter what.
They drove for about three hours, stopping in a forest clearing to feed the infant and getting closer to the coast. Eventually they came to a manor house, a large, brick built building with smaller cottages around it. It was the sort of place an important man might own, but the whole place seemed deserted.
The fields were overgrown, the grass far too long to be of any use as grazing and it seemed obvious no horse or cattle had touched these fields in a very long time. No one had tended either the crops or the buildings themselves, but it was a rich land, a wealthy, if moderate house.
He climbed down from the cart and made his way cautiously toward the house. It was getting late, dusk was drawing in and they had both had a tiring and terrifying day. He desperately hoped this place was as deserted as it seemed, that it would be somewhere they could stay, if only for tonight, for Julia to rest and be safe.
He pushed the front door, expecting it to be locked but it moved inward. Charles turned to see that Julia had put the baby in his crib aboard the cart and climbed down to follow him. He pushed the door further. Everything was silent; even the birds seemed not to want to sing and as he stepped inside he saw this was indeed a wealthy house.
The furnishings were not extravagant, but definitely more than he could afford; there were oak settles and embroidered cushions and a long table of the kind an important man would sit at the head of. Everything was covered in a thick layer of dust, proving this place had not been inhabited in many months.
It was not long before the smell caught up with them, a ghastly stench of rotten meat and Charles tried to take a step back but Julia was behind him now and he collided with her. She held on to his shirt as she followed him inside. Then she screamed. Hanging from a beam beside the staircase was the body of a man, dressed in a black velvet suit and a silk shirt with lace at the cuffs.
Julia held her hand against her mouth to protect it from the stench of putrid flesh emanating from the hanging man. She turned and ran outside to breathe in the fresh air in gulping lungfuls.
Charles followed and gathered her into his arms.
“What do you think happened to him?” Julia asked in a frightened whisper.
“It seems he hanged himself, which is a mortal sin.”
“I wonder why. It seems likely he was all alone here, no servants even. Why else would his body still be hanging, rotting away like that in an abandoned house?”
“The little cottage next to the house is the kitchen, I think. You could see about finding some supper while I cut him down and bury him. Perhaps we can stay in one of those small cottages for tonight and tomorrow we can clean the house. If nobody else wants it, why should it not be ours?”
For the first time that day, hope touched her heart and she smiled.
“It is almost the same as Winterton House, only older.”
Then she remembered the writing carved into the stone archway under which they had passed. She had not noticed before, she was too tired and too concerned about their immediate future, but now she ran back to the gates and stood outside, staring up at the name above them.
“What does it say?” Charles asked, hurrying toward her.
“It is the name of the house,” she replied. “Sinclair Manor.”
***
Geoffrey set out the next day clutching an arrest warrant in his hand and accompanied by soldiers sent by the county mayor to aid in his quest. He was still furiously angry, could not wait to get his adulterous wife in the market square for the whipping she deserved. It was all there on the warrant, signed by the mayor, a public whipping.
He wished he could shave that hair himself; it would give him a great deal of satisfaction to know that her greatest beauty was lying at her feet, that she would be attracting no more lovers with it. It would take years to grow again, years he did not intend to be easy. But it would be more humiliating for the bailiff to do it; that would be better for her.
He hoped the peasant farmer she was whoring with would give her up. He had no qualms about extending the warrant to him, as that was the law, but he would rather the whole county did not find out that his wife had run away with a peasant.
Good thing he had not found her before the brat was born. She would have evaded her proper punishment if she were with child. Memory of the child reminded him of its father and he realised he had forgotten him. He would have to go about this business very stealthily until the actual flogging took place. If Summerville got to hear of it, he would interfere, there was no doubt of that. He would do it for her sister if nothing else.
He put the blue gem back into his cabinet before he left. He had some silver coins with him, which he intended to use to pay off the farmer lover so that he would give her up, which he was sure he would. What else could one expect of a man of his class?
As he rode into the courtyard he looked about at the surrounding land. It was deserted except for a woman who was washing in the stream. He dismounted and went inside the house, knowing at once that it was just as uninhabited.
They had gone, all their belongings had vanished and the place had an eerie feeling of emptiness about it. Outside in the stables he found no sign of any horses; he walked across the yard to where the soldiers stood waiting, furious that they would know he could not keep his own wife from eloping with such a man. Furious, too, that this peasant had the audacity to defy him! He did not expect this; it never once occurred to him that the man would give up everything he had to protect a slut like Julia.
Perhaps he had not given it all up, Geoffrey thought suddenly. Perhaps he was only waiting for them to leave before he returned. He called to one of the soldiers.
“You, stay here. Stay here and wait lest they return. Where else do they have to go? They will be back and when they are you are to arrest Lady Winterton on a charge of adultery and theft. Do you understand?”
***
They buried the corpse in the little cemetery which seemed to be attached to the house. It was full of people named Sinclair according to the many tombstones, so Charles and Julia simply assumed he was one of them. Who else would be in a position to commit suicide in the manor house?
“Do you think it is right?” Julia asked. “To bury him in consecrated
ground like this?”
“Where else?” Charles answered with a shrug. “If we send for the village priest questions will be asked and this poor soul will be buried at a cross roads somewhere. He must have been desperate to take his own life; I’ll not be the one to condemn his soul as well.”
There was quite a bit of land surrounding the manor house and Charles got to work making it arable again, but not for the first few weeks. They could hardly settle, knowing it was not theirs, that they did not belong. Someone could easily come along and claim it.
They would wait and while they waited they explored the house and found in a chest in the attics, books and writings by the great reformers. Martin Luther’s books were all there, as were those of John Calvin.
“So they were Protestants,” Julia remarked, holding on to his arm. “I wonder what happened to them. Do you think they were all arrested?”
“It is likely, being as they all vanished. But what of the body we found? Perhaps he was away somewhere and could not bear the emptiness. We will likely never know.”
But his assumption was wrong. Only the following morning a man appeared in the courtyard, on foot, and was seen from the window.
“It seems we have company,” Charles remarked unnecessarily. “We may have to move on.”
Julia lifted little Simon into her arms to protect him. He was crawling now and did not like his freedom curbed. He squirmed about in her arms, wanting to get down and he was getting too heavy for her.
“Shush now, Simon,” she said softly. “You can get down in a minute, when this gentleman has gone.”
Charles went outside to meet the visitor.
“Ah,” the stranger began. “I thought I saw signs of occupation. I half hoped one of the family had escaped and returned, but it was a forlorn hope.”
“Escaped?”
He made no reply but held out a hand in greeting.
“Jacob Barnes is my name, Sir,” he said. “I live in the smaller manor just over the way.”
He pointed across two fields to another house, this one smaller than Sinclair Manor and with a thatched roof. Charles shook his hand warily.
“Charles Carlisle,” he replied.
“Well, Mr Carlisle, I am very pleased to meet you. This place has been going to ruin since the Sinclairs met their fate. God alone knows what happened to Elliot.”
“Elliot?”
“Their son. He was the only survivor.”
Charles felt sure the man of whom his visitor spoke must be the one he had buried in the Sinclair cemetery, but he said nothing. He was wary of revealing too much to this stranger. He and Julia were criminals in the eyes of the law; she had deserted her marriage and committed adultery, a crime in itself, and she had stolen his jewellery. Charles had sold it. They were both wanted by the authorities and then there were the Protestant writings they had found. How was he to discover where this man’s allegiance lay without giving himself away?
The two men eyed each other suspiciously for a few moments, neither wanting to speak and risk giving themselves away. The awkwardness between them would have lingered much longer had Julia not interrupted them.
She carried her son outside, hoping the child’s presence might give the two men something insignificant to talk about. Charles turned and took the child from her.
“My wife,” he introduced her. “And my son, Simon.”
Julia felt a little thrill as he spoke those words. He had never called her his wife before and now he was claiming Simon as his son. A wave of joy rushed over her; she cared nothing that they were homeless, that they were fugitives, forced to pray in secret, only that the man she loved had accepted her and her child. She was very glad she had never told him who the boy’s father really was.
“Handsome boy,” Jacob remarked.
“Will you not take some refreshment, Sir?” Julia asked.
Jacob was thoughtful for a few moments, then at last he drew a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh.
“I will come to the point, Mr Carlisle,” he said. “I came to see if Elliot had returned or sobered from whatever drunken stupor God had condemned him to. I did not expect to find strangers here, but if Elliot is not here, nobody else has a claim. You can stay; I’ll not be the one to deter you.”
Charles made up his mind at last.
“Please, come inside,” he said and led the way into the house, where he gestured his guest to a seat while Julia poured ale from the cask they had found in the cellar.
Jacob looked around at the cobwebs still hanging from the corners of the room. Julia had dusted the surfaces, but saw no point in doing too much until a decision about their continued residence had been made.
“When we arrived a couple of days ago,” Charles said at last, “we found the corpse of a young man hanging from the rafters. I can only assume that was Elliot Sinclair.”
Jacob’s eyes widened in shock, but Charles noticed he made no move to cross himself. Did that mean he was a Protestant? Did that mean they could speak freely?
“Suicide?” Jacob said.
“It certainly seemed so.”
“The body?”
“We buried him, in the little cemetery. We gave him a service.”
Jacob began to laugh, while Charles and Julia exchanged a glance and a frown.
“That cemetery was consecrated to the Protestant faith,” he said. “I found that ironic.”
“Why?”
“Where do your loyalties lie, Mr Carlisle? Please, be honest with me. We cannot skirt around each other forever.”
Charles once more exchanged a glance with Julia.
“You first,” he said.
“I am Protestant. I shall deny it if you repeat that, say you are lying to get my lands.”
Charles smiled, Julia too.
“That is a relief, Sir. We found some books in the attics which told us the Sinclairs were Protestant and we used Cranmer’s book for the funeral service. We would not have known how to do anything else.”
Jacob shifted in his seat a little.
“Elliott Sinclair betrayed his entire family to the Catholic church. They were all executed, burned at Smithfield. They had no idea their son was a secret Papist. That is why I found it ironic that you should have given him a Protestant burial in a Protestant cemetery.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Charles and Julia learned that Jacob and his family were devout Protestants and were holding services and lessons in their house. They also learned that Sinclair Manor had been a hub for escaping Protestants until they were betrayed.
Some women arrived to help Julia to clean the house and they felt they had been accepted, especially when Jacob told them about the family chapel inside the house where Lord Sinclair had held Protestant services.
They would never have found it on their own. It was hidden behind a bookcase which slid along the wall to reveal a chapel, big enough to hold about twenty or thirty worshippers. The chapel was bare of any statues and idols, the Bible which stood on the stand was in English, one of the copies commissioned by King Henry VIII and now outlawed. Hundreds of these Bibles had been burned already since that King’s daughter took the throne; this one was rare and precious.
“Are you happy with this?”
Charles had just said goodbye to the neighbour and told him they would be willing to allow Protestant services and lessons in the chapel. The books they had found were the ones Lord Sinclair himself had used to teach the neighbouring families.
“It is a little late to ask me now,” she replied.
He pulled her into his arms, kissed her.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I am unaccustomed to pleasing anyone other than myself. I am ashamed to say I forgot that I am now a married man.”
She smiled, her smile lighting up her beautiful face and making his heart skip with joy. She slipped her hand inside his shirt and stroked his nipple.
“After last night?” She said. “You have forgotten you are a married man, after last nigh
t?”
How could he have forgotten last night? They had made love in the huge, feather bed with its carvings and canopies, its bedcurtains to shut out the cold. They had climbed together to heights of ecstasy and did it all again. God how he loved this woman, how fortunate he felt himself that she had chosen his farm to ride into when she needed help.
He laughed then held her tight. Despite the danger, he had never been so happy.
“Well?” He said. “If you feel threatened, if you are not happy about it I will tell Jacob at once that we will have no part in it.”
“No. It is right that we should do our part and we should do our part to help the Protestants escape to France.”
“That is very dangerous.”
“But it has to be done. We have space here; we can hide escaping Protestants, just as Lord Sinclair did. We can pretend they are servants or something, and we can use the cart to get them to the coast as well as the Sinclair carriage if we paint over the crest on the doors. Until we can find some way to get rid of the evil witch who sits on the throne, it is all we can do.”
So Sinclair Manor once again became a sanctuary for loyal Protestants. It seemed Lord Sinclair had spent a lot of money on adapting his house, putting in secret spaces in case of interference from the Queen’s soldiers or the bishops. It seemed a fitting tribute that his work should be revived.
“Elliot will be turning in his grave,” Jacob remarked. “Damn good thing, too.”
***
They heard news from London from time to time, about the latest schemes of the Queen and her advisors to trap loyal Protestants and the more they heard, the more shame Julia felt that the man she had spent one passionate afternoon with, the man who had fathered her son, was the hated overlord of the carnage.
Simon was growing fast, and the faster he grew the more like that overload he looked. Charles had seen Lord Summerville once when they hid from a party of soldiers on their way to the ships, but he had made no mention of the resemblance. Likely it would not occur to him that the Earl could possibly be Simon’s father; likely he only thought he reminded him of someone. At least she hoped so.
But she occasionally thought fondly of that afternoon, of the kindness she had received at Richard’s hands, of the passion she had felt, and she found it very hard to believe the stories about him. And what of Bethany? She had made this bargain, knowing he was Catholic, she had even agreed to follow him, but she had not expected this. She could have had no idea of his importance in court circles, in the Queen’s circles.
HOLY POISON: Boxed Set: The Complete Series 1-6 Page 70
