Reckless Angel

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Reckless Angel Page 19

by Jane Feather


  Henrietta concentrated on keeping her footing. Nothing else seemed important. She had no control over where she went, but she knew that if once she slipped and went down beneath the stampeding feet, she would never get up again. Her small stature was a grave disadvantage, and she lamented bitterly at having lost Joe’s bulky support. He could have held her up as she was tossed forward, backward, sideways, according to the ebb and flow of the tide.

  Salvation came in the dark, narrow opening of a doorway. Just before she was carried past, she managed to duck beneath the arm of a burly individual brandishing a heavy stave and gain the safety of the doorway. Gasping for breath, she huddled against the door frame as the tide swept past her. She had no idea where she was, but at least she could stand upright and still, and at some point this great, milling mass of bodies would have gone.

  Daniel was on horseback. Anticipating the possibility of mayhem, he had stationed himself well away from the press, and had left before the troops began their maneuvers. Thus, he reached Paternoster Row with little difficulty, hearing the swelling murmur of the crowd behind him. He felt cold, drained, empty of all feeling. It was over. That was all he could think of. He was too numbed to feel outrage anymore. In fact, he had done his grieving in advance and now lapsed into torpor…until Dorcas informed him that Henrietta had gone to Whitehall with Joe.

  He snapped back to his senses as if his head had been held under a pump. “But I forbade her to leave the house!” He stared at Dorcas as images of the rioting crowd filled his vision. “Sweet Jesus!” He turned and ran back into the street, gazing wildly around, wondering which way to go. It was madness to go toward the crowd, but he could not just stand there like a paralyzed dolt. Then he saw Joe running toward him. Joe, but no Henrietta.

  “Where the hell is she?” he demanded, grabbing the youth’s coat front with a violent jerk.

  “I lost her, Sir Daniel,” Joe blurted. “I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t ’elp it. One minute she was there, close to the scaffold, then she wasn’t. I looked everywhere, but there’s so many, ’tis impossible.” His breath was coming in sobs, not helped by the continued jerking as Daniel without conscious thought shook him. “I came back as fast as I could, sir. I did, really.”

  The words finally penetrated. Daniel released him abruptly. “I beg your pardon, Joe. I did not mean to handle you roughly,” he said, trying to clear his head, to focus on what really mattered. “You lost her at Whitehall?”

  “Aye, sir.” Joe nodded vigorously.

  “Before the…before they killed the king?”

  “Aye, sir.” Joe’s face darkened. “’Twas a dreadful sight.”

  “Fetch my horse. I have just taken him back to the stable.” It was probably futile, but he could not keep an anguished vigil, praying for her reappearance. He mounted and set off to retrace his steps.

  Henrietta stayed in her doorway until the tide became a trickle. It was a long wait, but nothing would prevail upon her to leave her haven until the mêlée had dissipated. There were still soldiers, but they took no notice of her as she slipped out of concealment and stood, bewildered, wondering where she was and in what direction lay St. Paul’s. Plucking up courage, she approached one of the troopers, who gestured with his pike. “That-a-way, mistress.”

  She thanked him and wearily trudged off. It seemed a much greater distance returning than coming, but earlier she had not yet seen what she had seen, endured what she had just endured. Every bone in her body felt bruised, her muscles ached, her skin was sore, and the dreadful memories would not leave her, sapping her of all remaining energy.

  Daniel saw her just as he was beginning to think he could not control his panic any longer. He had kept down all thought of what might have happened to her as he combed the streets, the main thoroughfares, and the alleys, seeing only the shocked faces of strangers stumbling in their bewilderment. Then, as he came down Ludgate Hill from St. Paul’s for the second time, he saw the small figure dragging herself up the hill, eyes on the ground as she put one foot in front of the other with conscious deliberation. She had lost her hat and the neck ruffle of her shirt was torn.

  He descended on her in a squall of pounding hooves. She looked up, shocked and fearful, at the imperative menace of the sound. Then the horse came to a heaving halt and Daniel twisted sideways in the saddle, catching her under the arms and hauling her up. For one horrified moment, she thought he was going to fling her facedown across the saddle in front of him, such wild fury she had seen on his face in the bare second before he seized her. But she landed with a thump on the saddle before him, dazed and bruised but upright. He said not a word, simply turned his horse and rode back to the house.

  In the absence of invitation to speak, Henrietta also kept mute, but her insides were churning with alarm. This was not the Daniel she knew. His face was a mask of anger, the black eyes saber tips of fury, and the body at her back was rigid with the effort at restraint.

  Outside the house, he flung himself from the horse, pulled Henrietta down, and stalked into the hall, bellowing for Joe to see to his mount. Joe and Dorcas both appeared in the kitchen doorway. Dorcas’s hand flew to her mouth as she saw Daniel’s expression and Henrietta’s white-faced alarm. She started to say something, but Daniel marched to the stairs, half dragging, half carrying Henrietta with him.

  “You dare to disobey me, on this day of all days!” He spoke at last, kicking the bedchamber door shut behind them.

  “I did not go alone,” she stammered. “Joe was with me. Only we became separated—”

  “I did not give you permission to leave this house with Joe or with anyone,” he bit out, still gripping her arms. “Do you think I did not know what was going to happen in the streets?”

  Henrietta swallowed, trying not to flinch from him as he held her. “I had to go,” she said. “I knew you would be suffering, and I had to be a part of it so I could understand how you felt.” She shivered suddenly, and tears filled her eyes. “I saw it! I saw the ax fall…I saw him, bareheaded, with the soldiers who kept their heads covered…” Tears clogged her throat and she put a hand up to massage it as if the external pressure would ease the internal.

  Daniel released her suddenly. “Go and stand by the window. I am so angry I cannot trust myself near you.” He swung away from her toward the fire, and she scuttled across the room to stand on the far side of the bed.

  “I would not be excluded from your pain,” she said with difficulty, clasping her hands tightly in front of her. “You would not take me, so I had to go alone.”

  Daniel rested his arms on the mantel shelf, letting his head drop onto his hands. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied. “I managed to find safety in a doorway until the crowd had passed, but I saw what happened to some. I knew that I must not lose my footing or—” Her teeth began to chatter as a shock wave of cold and nausea washed across her.

  Daniel turned from the fire, running his fingertips across his lips as he looked at her and allowed the meaning of her words to penetrate his fear-fueled anger. She had gone to Whitehall in order to experience his suffering, so that she could understand it and share it. It was an extraordinary thing to do, yet, if he really thought about it in the light of Henrietta herself, it was entirely reasonable. It bore all the marks of the determined courage she exhibited in the cause of others. He had thought her too young, too naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world, to be involved in his agony. He had refused to confide in her, so she had taken matters into her own hands in a predictably simple and direct fashion. And she had suffered for it. He looked at her as she stood, shivering, gray-faced, the big eyes haunted by what they had seen.

  Without saying anything, he left the room and went down to the kitchen. When he returned ten minutes later with a tray on which stood two steaming tankards and a plate of gingerbread, she was still standing as he had left her, except that she was looking out of the window onto the street below.


  “Come to the fire,” he said quietly, setting the tray on the side table. “Y’are in need of warmth. There’s mulled wine and some of Dorcas’s gingerbread straight from the oven.”

  It would seem the tempest had passed. Hesitantly, she came toward him, rubbing her crossed upper arms with her hands. “’Tis not cold in here.”

  “Nay, the cold is within yourself,” he replied, taking her hands and chafing them vigorously. “We will never forget what we have seen today. No one who saw it will ever forget it. But we must go on, nevertheless. The fight must be continued because no honest man can live under the rule of regicides.”

  She swallowed. “What mean you, Daniel? You have compounded, taken the Covenant.”

  He shook his head. “I did not swear allegiance to regicides. Charles the First is dead. Charles the Second lives, and to him I owe my fealty.”

  “What will you do?” The question was barely a whisper.

  “I go to The Hague,” he said simply. “To the king in exile, and pledge myself to his cause.”

  Henrietta nodded slowly. “There are many families in exile. We will not feel strange amongst their number, and the children will learn much from such travels.”

  Daniel stared at her for a minute. Not thinking further than his own imperative, he had intended leaving Henrietta and his daughters safe in their Kentish backwater. But his wife had already once today demonstrated her views on the way in which a marriage partnership should be conducted.

  He smiled and cupped her face, running his knuckles against the high cheekbones. “Think you Mistress Kierston will take to life in exile?”

  Light and life returned to the previously solemn brown eyes. “Must we take her?”

  He nodded. “I am afraid so, elf. You will have enough to do as my wife at court without caring single-handed for Lizzie and Nan.”

  “At least there’ll be no butter to churn,” she said with a roguish glint in her eyes.

  “And no trees to climb,” he replied solemnly. “You must learn to be a courtier.”

  Henrietta contemplated that prospect. “I do not suppose it can be any harder than anything else I’ve learned to do.” She grinned suddenly, reaching up to put her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. “But I do not suppose it will be as pleasurable as some other things.”

  “Probably not,” he agreed, holding her lithe body against his length, feeling her warmth and eagerness, feeling his own stirring in response. Abruptly, he was engulfed by an urgent desire, a need for the body he held, as if in passion’s union would be found a healing of the day’s unhappiness.

  Henrietta felt the change in his hold, saw passion chase all else from the black-eyed gaze bent upon her. And with her own wanting came a curious sense of triumph as she drew him to the bed.

  Chapter 11

  “Nan, do stop dawdling.” Henrietta reached for the child’s hand, her voice impatient. “We have tarried overlong as ’tis.”

  “I expect we shall be late for dinner again,” said Lizzie cheerfully from behind an armful of fresh-cut lavender.

  “And Daddy will prob’ly have invited guests,” Nan chimed in with what Henrietta considered uncalled-for insouciance.

  “Highly likely,” she muttered, increasing her speed along one of the narrow cobbled streets that meandered through the busy city of The Hague. Cries of street vendors enticed the children, unaccustomed to city living, and she had constantly to tug one or the other of them away from the seduction of a smelly fish stall or the nimble fingers of a basket maker or the succulent aromas of a pastry cook’s. It was not that she did not understand their perpetual fascination; indeed she shared it. But they had spent too long picking lavender in a field just outside the city and the household would be waiting dinner for them.

  Daniel would, as usual, have spent the morning at court, where fevered plans were being concocted to raise another army against Parliament with the support of the still-loyal Scots. He had not said he would be bringing guests home, but it was a not-infrequent occurrence since they kept open house for the many impoverished exiles in the city. An absentee hostess and delayed dinner did not reflect well upon the quality of the hospitality.

  Finally they reached the stone house with its steep gabled roof that was the Drummonds’ home in The Hague. It was not an insubstantial house: by the standards of the majority of this court-in-exile, whose estates had been sequestered, Daniel was moderately affluent. They had managed to leave England unnoticed by the authorities and had brought with them a considerable sum. It required careful husbanding, however, since he could not risk returning to England to raise more funds from the estate. Parliament’s agents were now watching the ports, on the lookout for those active in the exiled king’s cause, and he had no desire to be identified as such and thus jeopardize his property.

  The house stood in a quiet square of similar houses and boasted a pretty walled garden at the rear. The April wind carried the smell of the sea and the scent of wallflowers, and it was with some reluctance that Henrietta closed the front door on the spring day. Voices rose in soft cadences from the parlor to the left of the hall.

  “I wonder who ’tis?” Lizzie, inveterately curious, ran to the door, putting her eye to the keyhole, straining to hear through the heavy oak.

  “Lizzie!” Henrietta protested, half laughing, when the door swung open.

  Lizzie tumbled off balance into the doorway at her father’s feet. Daniel looked down at her with a raised eyebrow. “Have you dropped something, Elizabeth?”

  “Nay…nay, sir. I t-tripped,” the child stammered, scarlet with embarrassment as she scrambled to her feet and bobbed a hasty curtsy.

  “How unfortunate,” Daniel murmured solicitously. “I trust ye did not hurt yourself.”

  “No, sir.” Lizzie curtsied again, shooting her stepmother an anguished look of appeal.

  Henrietta came swiftly to her rescue. A quick glance into the room beyond Daniel told her who his visitors were and she now stepped forward, tossing back the hood of her cloak as she pushed the children in front of her. “My Lord Hendon, Mr. Connaught, I do not think you are acquainted with my stepdaughters…Elizabeth and Ann.”

  “Indeed not.” The Earl of Hendon put up his glass and smiled vaguely at the two little girls. “Delighted, my dears. Charming, Drummond…quite charming.”

  “Thank you,” Daniel said dryly. “However, their governess is waiting for them abovestairs, so I trust you will excuse them.”

  The children curtsied a little too precipitately for true decorum and beat a thankful retreat.

  “It’s to be assumed you had a productive morning,” Daniel observed, regarding Henrietta with a smile in his eyes. She seemed to have brought the spring day in with her, sparkling in her eyes, glowing in her wind-pinkened cheeks, scenting the tumbled corn silk-colored curls and the damask of her skin.

  “We have been picking lavender to dry for potpourri,” she said, giving him that irresistibly coquettish look she habitually produced when she might conceivably be at fault. “I trust I haven’t kept you waiting too long for your dinner, but I am afraid the time ran away with us.”

  “Your hospitality, Lady Drummond, is most generous.” William Connaught spoke up in customary ponderous tones, his air of importance not a whit diminished by his shabby broadcloth doublet and the fake silver buckles on his down-at-heel shoes. “’Twould be the height of gracelessness to find fault.”

  “Nevertheless, we are a trifle sharp-set,” Daniel pointed out. “It being all of three of the clock.”

  “I will take my cloak abovestairs and instruct the cook to serve dinner directly.”

  Henrietta went up to the bedchamber, examining herself critically in the glass. On the whole, she was not displeased with what she saw. She also knew that these days Daniel was actively pleased with what he saw. Her face seemed to have changed in the last months, but it was hard to identify the changes. They were mostly in her eyes, she decided, then blushed slightly. The t
ruth was that her eyes always looked as if she had just been making love…glowing and knowing and utterly satisfied. It was an accurate reflection of the way her body felt most of the time.

  The thought set up a tingling sensation in the pit of her stomach and she hurried downstairs again, trying to think of dinner and the responsibilities of a hostess. The cook, who was broad and Flemish and spoke little English, had early taken charge of the kitchen with sufficient skill to enable Henrietta to take credit for the table without having to do anything significant about it. Now, he nodded in stolid comprehension when she appeared in the kitchen and gestured toward the bubbling pots on the trivet in the hearth. With a sweeping movement, he removed the lids, inviting her inspection and compliments. She peered knowledgeably, smiled and nodded at the rich mutton stew, the potato dumplings, the dish of peas with lardons of bacon. With a mixture of signs and monosyllables, she managed to establish that the children and Mistress Kierston had already been served in the schoolroom abovestairs. The cook invited her to exclaim suitably over the apple tart he had prepared especially for Lizzie, who had not the least difficulty communicating her preferences and was frequently to be found in the kitchen chattering nineteen to the dozen to the silent but attentive cook, the lad who came in daily to do the heavy household work, and the little maid who lived in the attic.

  Dinner was a cheerful meal, but Henrietta immediately detected a suppressed tension in Daniel. It was excitement rather than anxiety, she sensed, and there was a question in his eyes whenever they fell upon her as she served their guests, refilled glasses, chatted pleasantly.

  Somewhat to Daniel’s surprise, she had taken to the role of hostess with much enthusiasm when they had set up house in The Hague last July. Her efforts had been amply rewarded by flattering attentions and plentiful compliments, and she had blossomed quite amazingly. Their present guests were frequently at the Drummonds’ generous and open table. Both Hendon and Connaught had fled England after Preston, leaving sequestered estates and all their worldly goods. They lived, in company with the majority of Englishmen at present at The Hague, from hand to mouth, relying on the generosity of those better placed and whatever they could borrow. In this, they were no different from their king, who, as penniless as they, was obliged to beg and borrow from his fellow monarchs throughout Europe. The universal revulsion felt throughout the Continent over the bloody execution of his father generally ensured an openhanded response.

 

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