A Night of Angels

by Andersen, Maggi

  Olivia accepted his arm and Kit braced himself with the cane to reduce the weight on his right leg. Another ten minutes brought them to the White Hart Inn. Adam already waited, along with Sophia.

  “Where are the girls?” he asked.

  “They’re not here?” Olivia brought a hand to her mouth.

  Daniel looked about the dining room. “Where’s Musgrave? Where the hell is that maid who’s supposed to be looking after them?”

  Kit’s heart sank – missing children. Sophia glanced his way and offered a small smile of comfort. She knew as well as anyone what that meant to him.

  The streets grew darker as if it were dusk instead of mid-afternoon. Windows rattled in the wind.

  Olivia gasped and everyone started as the door burst open. Musgrave, normally immaculately put together, was wind ravaged, and the maid behind him sobbed hysterically.

  “Sir,” said Musgrave, but it wasn’t certain who he addressed. “The Hardacre misses are stuck on the scaffolding around the clock tower with some other children.”

  The tavern fell to silence.

  “Go!” Daniel ordered them. “I’ll gather some men and meet you there.”

  Adam didn’t hesitate. He sprinted out the door.

  Kit watched his father disappear into the gloom and squeezed the silver pommel of his cane as he addressed Sophia. “Tell Daniel to get the men to bring some sail cloth and extra ropes.”

  He took off after Adam as fast as he could on his bad leg.

  Adam looked up at the rope-lashed timber scaffolding. It was worse than he feared. The base had shifted and one of the cross braces had become detached, swinging in the wind. Thirty feet up, two boys huddled together on a platform at the top of the scaffolding. On the platform below that, there were a boy and two girls – his daughters.

  The children had clambered up the sloping gangway planks that gave passage between the levels through gaps that acted as open hatches. But all the gangways had fallen when the structure moved, leaving no way to descend.

  “Papa!” cried Julia.

  Before she cried out again, Adam had hauled himself up the outside of the scaffolding to the first deck of planking and was making the climb up to the second before he realized he had no real plan to get the children down.

  “Stay there!” he yelled. “Don’t move.”

  All he knew was his daughters were up there, his precious children who he loved more than his own life. He thought he heard his name called from below, but didn’t pause until he’d reached the second platform. The wind was worse up here, and he could feel the structure shudder and creak under him.

  He reached up for the third level when he heard his name once more.

  “Adam! For God’s sake, have a care!”

  He turned to find Kit hauling himself up to the second deck.

  “What the hell? Your leg—”

  “I am not a bloody cripple!” Kit scowled, scrambling onto the platform looking more like the deadly pirate of his reputation than anything Adam had seen before.

  “The scaffolding has shifted on the sills,” he said. “Ridgeway is organizing men to tie the legs together to stop them splaying any further. Some of the transom bearers have fallen away and we don’t know what ledgers have pulled away from the cross-bracing.” He handed Adam a bunch of looped ropes. “You’ll need these – it’s three lengths of harness rope in case you need to tie some of the bracing together.”

  Adam tamped down his fear for his children to listen. He saw where Kit was going with this and agreed.

  “I’ll get as close as I can,” Adam said. “We might have to lower them down one by one.”

  “It’s only twelve feet to the ground from this second level. We can drop them onto outstretched sail cloth if need be.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

  Kit flashed him a grin, then slapped him on the shoulder. “Go get ’em, old man. I’ll check the reinforcing on this deck then work my way up.”

  “Thanks.”

  One word conveyed much. Whatever they needed to work through in their relationship, Adam was grateful to have his son by his side right now.

  He climbed to the third level, just one below his daughters and the boy. The gangway plank was nowhere to be seen, it had obviously fallen to the ground.

  There was a flash a lightning nearby; a moment later, a massive clap of thunder. Squeals and screams above were followed by crying. Adam gritted his teeth and did his best to ignore the sound.

  At the same time, the scaffolding rocked and jostled as men below tried to reinforce the uprights and Kit worked on securing the cross-bracing.

  Adam decided against climbing any further outside the scaffolding. He got to his feet and tried to stand astride the gap where the gangway from below had emerged, but the platform wobbled violently. He stepped back and crouched down for stability.

  Up here, exposed to worsening weather, the wind was now a constant howling gale. “Papa, I want to go home!” Charlotte wept and the boy’s face appeared at the gangway hatch above. It was the Ridgeway’s stable boy.

  “Ross!”

  “I’m sorry, Captain Hardacre. It’s all my fault!” The lad’s voice squeaked with terror. And well it should, but there would be time enough when they were all safe to determine the fool’s punishment.

  “It’s time to be a man, Ross. Help me get the girls down.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  “Start with Charlotte. You will have to lower her down to me. Hold her by the wrists. Charlotte! Do as Ross tells you.”

  Adam braced himself against the wind and the unstable platform. He found his sea legs, straddled the gangway gap, and reached upwards. He gripped Charlotte by the hips and lowered her to the platform. His youngest daughter turned in his arms and clung to his neck, sobbing.

  “It’s all right sweetheart,” he breathed. Thunder cracked overhead. Charlotte screamed. Adam shook his head, deafened in his left ear and nearly strangled by his daughter.

  “Don’t let me go, Papa!”

  “Shhh, I’ll get you down but you have to do as I say.”

  “Hey, Hardacre!” yelled Kit, his voice barely audible over a new roll of thunder. “Get them moving. The storm is getting closer. Ridgeway says the supports won’t hold if the ground gets soggy.”

  The first drops of rain fell, cold and wet, and soaked through Adam’s shirt.

  Adam shook Charlotte gently by the shoulders but spoke to her firmly.

  “Sweetheart, listen to me. I need you to be a brave girl. I want you to go to your Uncle Kit and do exactly as he says.”

  Kit peered up at them through the open hatch below and held up his arms.

  “Come to me, gattina,” he said. “The sooner we get down, the sooner we can all have cocoa together.”

  Adam offered a look of gratitude as Charlotte left his arms for those of his adult son. Kit’s look of confident determination in return gave him encouragement.

  Adam didn’t bother looking to see what Kit did next. Whatever it was, it would be the right decision. He looked up and called for Ross to send down Julia.

  She was big enough to lower herself somewhat with help from the stable boy. Adam eased her into his arms. She whispered her apologies.

  “Getting you home safely is the only thing that matters, pumpkin.” Adam kissed her on the forehead. Julia returned a tremulous smile before Adam passed her on in turn to Kit.

  He immediately turned back to Ross and found the boy had persuaded the two above to clamber down to him as Julia had dropped down to Adam. The trio peered at him from above.

  Rain sheeted across, making the already unsteady platform slick as Adam reached up and called for one of the boys to come to him.

  Cr-ack!

  The scaffolding shuddered violently. Adam lost his footing. He toppled backwards, striking his head.

  Everything went black.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kit was fluent in three languages and could blaspheme in another fo
ur. A dozen profanities in a mix of tongues banked up behind his teeth, demanding utterance.

  If it was just him alone, he’d unleash them, but there was a scared girl held tight in his arms, a half-sister; the family he never dreamed existed.

  Most of the planks had shifted on the platforms below him shortly after he came up and were too unstable to risk standing on, so he’d lowered Charlotte to the arms of men waiting below using a rope looped under her arms.

  “Hang on, passarotta,” he whispered to Julia as he looped the rope around her. “I’m going to lower you down. See those people down there? They’re going to help you. You be brave for your sister and mother now.”

  “I love you, Uncle Kit. Thank you for rescuing me.”

  Kit had no words for that. He hugged her, then braced himself between two uprights to start lowering the child down to the waiting rescuers. His right leg ached bitterly. Kit swore blind he could still feel the exact places where his leg was shattered four years earlier.

  The scaffolding juddered.

  The cross-brace he put his weight against pulled away, and a long nail ripped a gash in his calf. The rope in his rain-slicked gloves slipped. Julia screamed. Kit scrambled for purchase but Julia’s weight pulled him closer to the edge. Any moment, he, too, would tumble over the edge to the ground.

  “Release the rope! Release the rope!”

  Blood filled Kit’s mouth as he bit his lip. He could hold on no longer. The rope burned through the leather of his gloves and the cashmere lining beneath and then vanished from his hands.

  Oh God, let Julia be safe.

  A cheer rose up and that was good enough. Kit shucked off the ruined gloves, ripped the sleeve from his shirt and bound his calf with it.

  “Hey, Hardacre, hand the boys down,” he called.

  There was no response.

  “Adam!”

  Kit scrambled to his feet and paused to find his balance. A short piece of timber dropped past his head before the entire timber structure tilted, the wooden supports groaning. He reached up to the next platform and pulled himself far enough to see. Adam was staggering to his feet.

  Kit gritted his teeth and struggled up to the next platform, the exertion making him sweat despite the cold and rain.

  His father looked dazed. Adam touched the back of his head. There was blood on his hand as he pulled it away. The platform wobbled again. Kit’s stomach churned.

  “I’ll be right,” Adam growled. “Get the boys down!”

  Kit called up to the three lads.

  “Quick! Get down here one at a time.”

  The boys dropped down though the hatch into his arms.

  With the agility honed from climbing ship rigging, Kit dropped down a level and aided the boys down to that one with a new urgency. Here, they were about twelve feet above the ground.

  A dozen men below them, standing shoulder-to-shoulder gripped the sail cloth now darkened by the teeming rain.

  “Send the boys down quickly, Kit,” Daniel yelled. “The left strut is damaged. It’s not going to hold.”

  Kit nodded his understanding and spoke to the three boys. “One at time,” he said, shaking hair heavy with rain out of his eyes. “I’m going to lower you as far as I can, then I’m going to let go. Those men will catch you as they did Julia and Charlotte. Understand?”

  Three heads nodded in unison.

  Despite his confident words to Kit, Adam did not feel at all well. His head hurt like blazes and there was ringing in his ears. His stomach roiled. Concussion – or as near as, damn it. He’d seen enough of it and experienced enough of it to know.

  The weather had turned as bad he had ever known. The top portion of the scaffolding was beginning to fall away. It was not going to hold. A vertiginous glance down told him Kit had lowered Ross by hand, not rope, and dropped him into the sail cloth below. The scaffolding swayed ever more wildly as Adam climbed down to join him, working his way across until he reached Kit and the remaining two boys. Kit grasped the wrists of one and swung him out. The frame rocked back and forth. If Kit chose the wrong moment to let go, the boy would miss the outstretched canvas and fall onto the rubble of timber and masonry below.

  Adam got close and hoisted himself up between a section of cross struts. He raised his legs, bracing his feet against the brick of the clock tower.

  “What the hell are you doing?” yelled Kit.

  “What the hell does it look like?” Adam yelled back. “Stop arguing and just drop the bloody boys down!”

  He felt the strain on his shoulders as he fought the sway. Every ounce of concentration and strength went into keeping the crumbling structure steady.

  Adam heard Kit reassure the last boy. He squeezed his eyes tight and recalled what his son had told him of the corsairs, of the women and children he and his men rescued. He imagined that Kit would use the same reassuring tone of voice, one that conveyed empathy and compassion as well as trust.

  He fought undeserved paternal pride. He had done nothing to shape the man Kit Hardacre had become, but he couldn’t wish for a better one to call his son.

  “Watch out!” yelled someone from below.

  Adam opened his eyes in time to see a length of planking falling toward him. A second later he felt the impact. His feet slipped off the stone wall and he managed to fall onto what was left of the platform with Kit.

  “Get yourselves down here now!” shouted Ridgeway. “She’s falling apart!”

  Adam struggled for purchase. He could no longer feel his hands, numbed by the freezing, driving rain.

  “Easy, old man,” said Kit. Adam couldn’t see him but heard the younger man panting and out of breath.

  “Less of the old,” Adam snarled.

  Kit’s voice was full of humor as he replied. “Chastise me when we get down from here in one piece, Father. Now let go of the beam and let me take your weight.”

  “Too heavy for you.”

  “Don’t argue, just do it.”

  Adam put his trust in his son and let go of the cross struts. Every joint ached. He heard Kit scramble for purchase, trying to hold him over the edge as he had done with the children, but there was nothing for him to brace against and Adam was a full grown man, not a child.

  “Let me go,” he said.

  “No!” Kit replied.

  “You have to.”

  “It’ll be a bad landing.”

  “It will be worse if I take you down with me.”

  Adam ignored the pain in his head and raised it to look at Kit.

  “There’s no choice… Son.”

  The agony was writ large on Kit’s face. He turned his head away and screamed, “God damn it, Ridgeway! Get some men under here! Break his fall!”

  Then Kit let him go.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Merry yellow and orange flames gave light and warmth to the drawing room. But it couldn’t compare with lively conversation and laughter of loved ones together.

  Adam nursed a glass of rum – a legacy of his days at sea and a familiar way to ease the aches and pains of cuts and bruises.

  He needed nothing more than this – a warm hearth and his family safe and well.

  Julia and Charlotte were not harmed by their ordeal – their few bruises a better reminder of their folly than any chastisement he could dish out. He could hear them in the adjoining music room along with Philippe rehearsing an entertainment they had made up this morning.

  Beside his glass was an invitation in Julia’s perfect handwriting to the premiere performance of a thrilling new play to be performed tomorrow afternoon following their return from the Christmas service.

  Olivia sat with Lady Abigail and Marie playing three-handed whist. Adam kept his eyes closed but listened to them as the cards were played. How was it that Lady Abigail was always so extraordinarily lucky at these things?

  Sir Daniel and his son-in-law, George, were due back soon. They had been out all morning examining what damage had been done during the worst of the storm.


  Kit and Sophia had yet to join them downstairs.

  What a difference a month had made. The son he thought dead was not only alive, but he was larger than life. Too large to be kept here in humble Cornwall, and he loved his son enough to let him go.

  Although they had opened their gifts this morning, there was one more beside him, wrapped in brown paper. It was nothing elaborate or fancy, but Adam hoped Kit would recognize its true worth.

  Adam nodded off, only to be started awake by his son bursting through the drawing room door with Sophia in tow.

  “I want you to be the first to know,” said Kit, excitement shining in his eyes. “I’m going to be a father!”

  Adam struggled to his feet and kissed his daughter-in-law on the cheek. He received a swift embrace before she was drawn away by the rest of the women who offered their congratulations.

  Kit sank into the leather chair beside Adam’s. The young man was still clearly in awe.

  “Those few words change a man, don’t they?”

  “Yes,” Kit breathed. “They do.”

  Adam sat back down and indicated the brown wrapped package on the small table between their chairs. “Here, I have a gift for you.”

  Kit picked it up and untied the string that held the paper. It fell away to reveal a mahogany box.

  Plain though it was on the outside, the lid was inlaid with marquetry in the shape of a star made up of little scraps of wood – pine, poplar, maple, pear wood.

  “It was my carpenter’s apprentice piece,” said Adam. He watched Kit examine the work.

  With the lid raised, the front face folded down to form a small, green leather topped writing surface. A chiseled groove provided a pen rest.

  Inside the box itself, foliage marquetry flourishes in beech decorated a narrow pen drawer at the base.

  Above it were two square drawers with small, hand-turned knobs. Inside were round inserts containing bottles of ink – one blue, the other red.

  The top drawer was decorated by two intertwined roses, the stem and thorns shaped to form a heart beneath the flower heads.

  “Take out the drawers,” said Adam. “There’s something you need to see inside.”