Father's Day (The King's Rogues Book 2)

by Elizabeth Ellen Carter

  Kit found himself prompted by his father’s question.

  “Do you miss England?” he asked Sophia. “Do you ever wish to return here permanently?”

  Sophia shifted in her seat and looked at him. He could guess what she was thinking. He hated England – but that wasn’t true. He didn’t hate the country, he just felt like a stranger in it. It was the land of his birth, but he’d never felt any connection with it.

  Until now.

  “Do you?” she asked.

  Kit only shrugged his shoulders.

  “I think it is wonderful that you have reconciled your past,” said Sophia. “To find your father alive and someone who can bring back the missing pieces of your life is a beautiful gift. Olivia is lovely woman and I’ve come to love their daughters, too. But imagine what you’d be giving up if we stayed.”

  He did imagine. His island of Catallus for a start. And what of Elias and Laura, Jonathan and Morwena? Kit loved them as more than friends. They were his brothers and sisters, and their children were his children, too.

  “Don’t rush into anything,” Sophia continued. “After another two weeks here, you might find you’ve run out of things to talk about with your father. If so, you can part on good terms. Laura tried going back, remember? Just look at where we’re at with her brother and my cousin, Samuel. Blood isn’t always thicker than water you know.”

  “Yes, but what if…”

  Kit never finished his thought as a surge of people approached like the incoming tide, following the band down the street, leading an array of tumblers and jugglers in bright and colorful costumes. It flowed past before his eyes, yet he saw none of it, lost in thought.

  Soon, the crowd dispersed, drawn by the start of the Christmas play to be performed in the square.

  Sophia kissed him on the cheek and squeezed his hand.

  “Escort me back to the White Hart Inn, and I’ll wait for you there. I’m feeling a little tired after all.”

  Kit examined Sophia’s face and hesitated. “Does that mean you’re certain?”

  She smiled as serenely as the Virgin Mary figure he saw in that woodworker’s stall. “No, not yet. Tomorrow, I will know for sure. And Kit, never think you cannot have both – your family in Sicily and your family here. If you and your father really want to make it happen, you will.”

  And that was the question they both needed to answer. He’d spent a few scant days with a man whose existence he hadn’t known about until recently. Was it fair to him to press a family connection when he was so content in his life? Did Adam Hardacre even want it and the baggage that having a son like him entailed? Would it be better to guard his feelings and put miles and miles of sea between him and his past?

  He knew what would be easiest.

  “You rest,” he told Sophia when they reached the inn. “I’m going to go back to the markets and buy something I saw earlier.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “I don’t like the look of those clouds,” Adam muttered. “Is your ship going to be all right at anchor?”

  Another gust of wind howled up the street as the performers gamely continued their play. Kit looked skywards. Adam was right. Those lowering black clouds only brought bad news.

  “Stefano is a good sailor. He’s got enough men to take the Calliope out to sea if need be.”

  “Good. The storm surges from the Atlantic can whip up waves higher than twenty feet. I’ve seen a man-o-war dashed on rocks in a storm like this.”

  If nothing else, Kit thought, they had this in common, a love of the sea and a more than healthy respect for her.

  “How long do these things last?” he asked.

  Adam looked grim. “Sometimes as long as three days.”

  Kit winced and his father shared the expression. Another thing they had in common – small mannerisms, independently derived that indelibly marked them as kin as sure as the color of their eyes and the shape of their noses.

  “The rain will be here soon. It’s best if we’re not caught out in it,” said Adam. Kit did not disagree.

  With a gust of wind, a flimsy stage prop fell with a bang on the cobbled square, missing the prone Turkish knight by less than twelve inches. The man broke character and raised his head to look for himself. The “king” hung on to his fake beard and satin turban while St. George stayed in character, ginning up the crowd. They stamped their feet and cheered encouragement as much to keep themselves warm as well as to hasten the end of the production.

  The doctor raised his voice to speak his next lines.

  “I carry a little bottle by my side, that I call Golden Foster Drops.

  One drop on the root of the man’s tongue, and another on his crown,

  and it will strike the heat throughout the body and raise him off the ground.”

  Around the market square, merchants were securing their stock and tightening the guy ropes that kept their stalls upright. In the distance, thunder rumbled.

  “Where has everyone wandered off to?” Kit looked up and down the street and saw no one familiar. “We should split up and find the rest of our party. Where do you want to meet?”

  “Back at the White Hart Inn,” said Adam. “We’ll get the carriages prepared immediately and, if we can be away in the next hour, we should be back at Bishop’s Wood before the storm breaks.”

  He offered his father a look of encouragement and each went off in opposite directions. After ten minutes, Kit found Olivia, along with Abigail and Daniel, waiting with a number of others under a shop awning looking at the lowering sky.

  “Julia and Charlotte weren’t with you and Adam?” Olivia asked.

  Kit shook his head. “But he’ll have found them and the maid by now. We’re to all meet at the White Hart Inn.”

  Daniel led the way to the inn, taking them down unfamiliar alleys and side streets. Between two buildings, Kit caught a glimpse of a flash of lightning. He counted to six before a faint grumble of thunder followed through.

  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 four. 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.