The King's Man

by Alison Stuart

  Kit deposited May on the stool beside him and stood up, gesturing for the two men to join him in a quiet corner.

  ‘Did you have a good crossing?’ Kit asked Lord Gerard.

  ‘Damned rough crossing,’ Gerard replied. ‘I heard about Fitzjames.’ He poured a glass of wine from the jug as Kit dealt a round of cards.

  ‘Did you know they found his body washed up on the shore? You were with him. What happened, Lovell?’ Willys asked.

  Kit’s fingers tightened on the stem of his wineglass.

  ‘You know what I’m like at sea, Willys. It was a damnably rough crossing. I stayed below. I can only assume he went up for air and fell overboard. I didn’t even realise he was gone until we docked.’

  Willys sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Lovell. I know he was a friend of yours.’

  Kit took a large draught of wine and hoped his shaking hand did not betray his emotions.

  ‘I know he was your friend, so what I have to say may come as a shock.’ Willys’ voice held a conspiratorial air as he carefully rearranged his cards. ‘I have heard that Fitzjames was carrying letters to Thurloe.’

  ‘What?’ Gerard looked up at Willys.

  ‘That’s right. Found in his pocket. Fitzjames was one of Thurloe’s agents.’

  Kit stared at him. ‘Fitzjames? I don’t believe it.’ He could feel the bile rising in his throat even as he spoke.

  Willys shook his head. ‘I know, I didn’t believe it either, but my source was quite sure. You just can’t tell who to trust, can you?’

  ‘That explains Dutton’s plot,’ said Kit, hating himself.

  ‘And other matters,’ Gerard agreed. He threw down his cards in disgust. ‘Lovell, you have the luck of the Devil.’

  ‘Ah, Messieurs, I am too late to join you for cards, perhaps?’

  They all looked up at the incongruous figure of the Baron de Baas. Unbidden, Baas sat down at the table, carefully removing his purple gloves.

  ‘’Fraid so,’ Willys said. ‘Lovell here has just cleaned our purses.’

  De Baas’ gaze flicked to Kit. ‘I don’t believe I ’ave ’ad the pleasure of Monsieur Lovell’s acquaintance.’

  Kit inclined his head. He knew De Baas by sight of course, but close-up he presented an even more ridiculous picture. He dressed in what Kit knew to be the latest French fashion, lace and bows and a casually knotted cravat rather than falling bands, a costume made all the more incongruous by the shabby setting. ‘You seem particularly adept at cards,’ De Baas remarked.

  ‘Years of practice, my dear Baron.’ Kit shuffled the deck in his hands. ‘Will you play me?’

  ‘But of course.’ De Baas picked up the cards in his gloved hand.

  They played in silence for a few minutes. To Kit’s surprise De Baas won. ‘I think I have met my match,’ he said, ruefully pushing the coins across the table.

  ‘Another hand? Perhaps your luck will change.’

  ‘Thank you, but no. I don’t feel luck is on my side at present, so I will keep my small purse intact.’

  ‘I hear our friend Fitzjames is dead,’ De Baas said.

  ‘Drowned at sea,’ Willys said shortly, ‘but we have another to take his place.’

  ‘And who may that be?’ De Baas enquired.

  ‘Peter Vowells. He’s a schoolmaster from Islington.’

  ‘A schoolmaster?’ De Baas’ lip curled in distaste. ‘What can a schoolmaster do?’

  ‘He has good contacts and can raise the London apprentices,’ Willys said, his tone even.

  De Baas raised an eyebrow. ‘The London apprentices? That is a considerable talent.’

  Gerard leaned forward. ‘It is generally agreed that the plan will go forward. Baron, is your promise of a … friend still certain?’

  De Baas nodded. ‘I am returning to Paris in a couple of days, and I shall make the necessary arrangements. Only the very best, I assure you.’

  Willys flinched. ‘Baron, I’m not sure we can afford the very best.’

  De Baas smiled, showing a row of even, white teeth. ‘You may repay us when the deed is done.’

  Gerard nodded. ‘Well, gentlemen, we are agreed.’

  ‘When do we plan to accomplish the task in hand?’ Kit asked.

  ‘I think we should aim for early in May. That gives us a month to finalise matters,’ Gerard replied.

  The conspirators stood, briefly clasped hands and dispersed. Kit remained at his table, his hand curled around the stem of his wineglass, considering what more he needed to do.

  With a rustle of skirts the two girls sat down opposite him. He looked at them questioningly. Nan punched May on the arm.

  ‘Go on,’ Nan said. ‘You tell him what she told us.’

  ‘Ow!’ May gave her sister a rueful look. ‘It’s about Thamsine,’ she said. ‘She made me promise not to tell and I’m a girl of me word.’

  Nan gave a snort of disgust. ‘Gawd, May, she could be lying dead in some ditch. You tell him.’

  ‘She told us that she was running away from a man what wanted to marry her for her money,’ May said in a rush.

  Kit nodded. ‘I know that much,’ he said. ‘Did she mention the man’s name?’

  May shook her head. ‘No, but she said he were mean and vicious.’ Her eyes widened. ‘You don’t suppose … ?’

  ‘I don’t suppose anything, May,’ Kit said quickly, the same thought crossing his mind. He rose to his feet and took May’s face in his hands, kissing her forehead. ‘You did right to tell me.’

  May looked relieved. ‘So you’ll find her?’

  He smiled. ‘Of course I will, and I’m sure she will be just fine.’

  ~ * ~

  Kit stumped up to the parlour of Lucy’s house, tossed his hat in a corner, and sat down beside the parlour fire, toying with his pipe, which lacked the tobacco to smoke. Lucy was not at home and he felt an odd sense of relief. Since his return from Paris, he had found Lucy’s company cloying and a little too demanding.

  A timid knock on the door jolted him from his reverie. The kitchen scullion stood in the doorway, twisting her hands in her apron. He didn’t even know her name. Something plain – Mary or Jane?

  ‘Beg pardon, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’ he snapped.

  She flinched, her eyes darting to the door. ‘It’s not my place,’ she began. ‘But I didn’t think it were right.’

  Kit looked at her in irritation. He didn’t need some petty domestic matter to solve. ‘What’s not right … um … Mary?’

  ‘Bess, sir.’

  ‘Bess. What’s not right?’

  ‘I’m a good girl, sir. Bought up a proper God-fearing Christian, I am,’ the girl gabbled.

  ‘Bess … ’ Kit fought his impatience. If the girl was going to tell him something, he didn’t want to scare her.

  ‘There are things that happen in this house, sir. Men who come to call. When you’re not here, of course,’ she added.

  ‘Bess, that is none of your concern,’ he said sternly. He didn’t need to be reminded by a kitchen scullion that his mistress was free with her favours.

  ‘I don’t mean you, sir. You’re different. You’re a gentleman. Always nice to me. But there are some … ’ She tailed off. ‘That’s why I thought you should know, seeing as how she’s a friend of yours.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The music teacher.’

  Kit’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Go on, Bess.’

  ‘Well, there’s been this man what’s been calling while you’ve been away.’

  That hardly surprised Kit. Lucy had the morals of an alley cat.

  ‘Do you know his name?’

  Bess shook her head. ‘Really handsome. Taller than you, darker too. Wears his hair longer.’

  Ambrose Morton. Kit felt a surge of annoyance with Lucy. While he accepted the fact that other men kept her bed warm in his absence, it irked him that she had chosen Ambrose Morton.

  ‘I don’t like him,’ Bess continued. ‘There’s a way he looks at a person. Gives me the
shivers.’

  Kit wasn’t a woman but he had to agree. There was something in those cold, grey eyes that made his flesh crawl, too.

  ‘A couple of weeks ago, while you was away, the music teacher came to give Mistress Talbot her lesson. Halfway through the lesson he turns up. I were in the kitchen but I could hear them from down there. Terrible fight there was, furniture banging, and I heard her scream.’

  ‘Mistress Talbot?’

  ‘No, not her, the music teacher! I sneaked out of the kitchen and I saw him carrying her down the stairs. She’s kicking and scratching but he’s got his hand over her mouth.’

  ‘What happened to her, Bess?’ Kit felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise.

  ‘He shoves her into a carriage and they takes off. I had to get back to the kitchen afore Mistress Mag saw I was gone.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about the carriage? Did you see a coat of arms, anything to distinguish it?’

  Bess shook her head. ‘It were just a plain carriage. Nothing special.’ The girl looked at him anxiously. ‘Did I do right to tell you, sir?’

  He forced a smile. ‘You did quite right, Bess. Here … ’ He tossed her a coin that she caught before smiling, curtseying, and turning back for the kitchen.

  Kit stood and crossed to the window, looking out at the bleak, cold evening. What was Lucy’s involvement? And what in God’s name was Thamsine’s relationship with Ambrose Morton?

  Then it all fell into place. Morton himself had as good as told him. He had the stories from both sides, but he had never thought to connect them. Thamsine was Morton’s runaway bride, the girl who had fled to London, supposedly with another man. Morton was the mean and vicious man who had wanted to marry Thamsine for her money. Now he had found her and the consequences for Thamsine could only be dire.

  He slammed his fist on the windowsill in frustration. He didn’t even know where to find Ambrose Morton, let alone Thamsine. He trawled his memory for every conversation he had ever had with Morton. Turnham Green. Morton said he had lodged with a friend at Turnham Green. A lawyer at Turnham Green. For the life of him he could not remember the name, but it would not be too hard to find a lawyer living in Turnham Green.

  Kit snatched up his hat and gloves and strode out of the house.

  Chapter 14

  Kit’s hired horse had a mouth as hard as rock and seemed in no hurry to reach the pretty village of Turnham Green, about an hour’s ride on a good horse from London. However, the steady pace allowed Kit time to think and by the time he reached the village, he had remembered the name of the lawyer that Lucy said she had known. Knott. An appropriate name, he thought, for the tangle he found himself in.

  The name of the village rang in his memory as the site of the first confrontation of the war, when the King marching on London had been turned back at Turnham Green. Such a monumental day had left no echoes in the quiet streets, and after some judicious enquiry he found the Knotts’ neat house a little way out of the village, set well back from the London road.

  A timid maid answered his knock on the door. She asked his name and showed him into a tidy parlour. The plain, unadorned furniture glowed with many polishings, and a bowl of early spring flowers sat squarely in the centre of the table. Kit touched the fragile blooms.

  A man entered the room, shutting the door behind him. Kit’s eyes flicked over his unprepossessing appearance. He stood barely middle height, his thin body concealed behind dark clothes. His straight, greying hair had been brushed over the top of his pate to conceal the balding hairline. His pale face bore a downcast expression, which to judge from the lines was habitual.

  ‘Captain Lovell?’ he enquired.

  Kit bowed. ‘Master Knott.’

  ‘What business brings you to my house?’

  ‘I am looking for a friend, a Mistress Thamsine Granville.’

  The man’s thin lips trembled slightly. ‘I cannot help you, Captain Lovell.’

  The door opened and a slight woman entered the room. Like her husband she wore plain clothes, her greying hair covered by a neat, white cap.

  ‘Captain Lovell,’ she said, ‘my name is Jane Knott, I am Thamsine Granville’s sister.’

  ‘Thamsine’s sister? I had no idea … Your servant, ma’am.’ Kit bowed.

  He scanned Jane Knott’s face for some resemblance to her sister and found none. A purple bruise marred the right side of her face and he cast the husband a quick glance, wondering if such a man was capable of violence against a woman.

  Jane’s fingers touched the mark and she turned to her husband.

  ‘Roger, Captain Lovell is a friend. He is the only one who can help her.’

  Her husband opened her mouth, but Jane put a hand on his arm.

  ‘Please, Roger. Thamsine needs our help.’ She turned to Kit. ‘Please sit, Captain Lovell.’

  Kit removed his gloves and took the proffered chair at the table. The Knotts sat straight-backed on the hard chairs across from him, as if he were interviewing them.

  Kit held up a hand. ‘Mistress Knott, you must understand I know little of Thamsine’s history. I am trying to piece it together.’

  Jane’s eyes widened. ‘But I thought you were friends?’

  Thamsine had her reasons not to trust me, Kit thought bitterly.

  ‘We have an unusual relationship,’ he said. ‘More of a working relationship that I care not to go into here.’ Then, realising by the shocked looks on both the Knotts’ faces, he hastily added; ‘I assure you it was quite respectable.’ Whatever “respectable” meant. Do you know where she is now?’

  Jane’s lip trembled. ‘No.’ Her hand closed over her husband’s. ‘He took her away. Even Roger doesn’t know.’

  She shot her husband a quick sideways glance and he nodded unhappily.

  ‘He?’ Kit prompted.

  ‘Ambrose Morton.’

  Kit said nothing. The couple shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny. He decided that what he saw were two people overwhelmed by events and beset with conscience.

  Kit looked at Jane Knott. ‘Your face, Mistress Knott? Is that Morton’s handiwork?’

  Jane’s fingers shook as they rose again to her bruised face and she nodded.

  ‘My wife showed more courage than I did, Captain Lovell,’ Knott said unhappily. ‘I have been a fool in so many ways.’

  He clasped his wife’s hand and lifted it to his lips.

  ‘It would help,’ Kit said, ‘if I were to know the full story.’

  ‘I only know what Thamsine has told me,’ Jane said. ‘You must understand, the war separated us for too long.’

  ‘Tell me what you know, then,’ Kit said, with enormous patience.

  Jane swallowed. ‘I am somewhat older than Thamsine and her brother. My mother died when I was eight and my father remarried. Thamsine was born when I was eleven and Edward two years later,’ Jane began. ‘Shortly before the war I married Roger.’ Jane looked at her husband and smiled. ‘At much the same time, Thamsine became enamoured of our neighbour, Ambrose Morton. He was twenty, she was but fourteen. He wooed her with considerable charm and ardour and she begged my father for a betrothal, which he granted.’

  ‘What did Ambrose Morton want with Thamsine?’

  ‘Her dowry was generous enough, but what she stood to inherit from her mother’s estate was considerable,’ Knott said. ‘Her mother was the daughter of one of Elizabeth’s merchant venturers. He amassed a fortune in his lifetime and, under the terms of his will, it passed to his daughter Elizabeth, Thamsine’s mother, and then directly to her children. Edward and Thamsine were to share it. After Edward’s death, of course, it all passed to Thamsine.’

  ‘The Morton family has been less fortunate,’ Jane continued. ‘They are a Catholic family. Ambrose’s mother, Isabelle, was a spendthrift, and what little was left of their fortunes she squandered.’

  Kit sighed as it all became clear. ‘So, Thamsine’s fortune, enhanced by her brother’s death at Worcester, was very attractive. But Mi
stress Knott, you said they were betrothed before the war? That is twelve years ago.’

  ‘You must understand,’ Jane said hurriedly, ‘that the war divided us. Roger sided with Parliament … ’ She cast her husband a quick, sideways glance, ‘… my father for the King. I did not see Thamsine from early 1642 until late last year, when she came to us seeking help, which … ’ She paused, her eyes unhappy, ‘ … we were not able to give.’

  Kit narrowed his eyes but let the comment pass.

  ‘So, what had happened between Thamsine and Morton?’ he said.

  ‘She told me she broke the betrothal in 1646 after coming across Morton in the act of … ’ Jane swallowed, ‘ … raping a maid.’

  Kit stared at her. He felt neither shock nor surprise. Morton enjoyed taking women by force. He had intimated as much in one of their conversations.

  ‘And after that?’ Kit moved on.

  Jane shrugged. ‘Morton went to the Continent. My father, stupid besotted fool, married Isabelle Morton, and Ambrose came home. After Edward’s death, Ambrose and his mother persuaded my father that Thamsine was not capable of inheriting such a vast estate in her own right. My father changed his will, making Ambrose her guardian and at the same time executed a deed of betrothal between Thamsine and Morton. He bound her to that monster for life. After our father died early last year, Thamsine did what she could to delay the wedding but Morton grew impatient. One night he tried to force her … ’ Jane took a deep breath. ‘She was only saved by Annie.’

  ‘Annie?’

  ‘Ambrose has an imbecile sister, of whom he is very fond.’

  That surprised Kit. He could not imagine Morton being fond of anything or anyone.

  ‘Annie gave Thamsine Ambrose’s pistol and she shot him. She thought she had killed him so she ran for her life, to us here in London. Only, we failed her.’

  Jane looked at her husband, who looked away. She continued, ‘Morton had only been grazed by the pistol ball. He came here looking for her but Thamsine saw him and managed to escape.’

  ‘We … he spent the last four months scouring the streets of London, looking for her,’ Roger Knott concluded.

  Kit looked from one to another. Knott looked away. There was more to this story. He addressed the man directly.