Morton hauled Kit’s head up by the hair. ‘Now, are you going to tell me where she is?’
Kit spat blood from a cut lip into Morton’s face. ‘Safe from you.’
‘I want my wife.’
‘She’s not your wife! She never will be.’ He jerked his head towards the stairs where Lucy stood watching them. ‘Marry this little bitch. She’ll serve you just as well.’
Another backhander across the face knocked the remaining breath from his body. Morton let him go, and clutching his hand to his chest Kit sank to the floor. Morton pressed the point of his sword to Kit’s throat. Kit felt the prick of the metal and the warmth of blood trickling down his neck.
‘Marry this strumpet?’ Morton said, panting heavily as he looked up at Lucy, ‘Why would I do that? For her money? Well, my dear Lovell, she doesn’t have any. What fortune her husband has left her is quite gone, isn’t it, my dear? An expensive taste in clothes and a gambling habit. A little too fond of backgammon is our Mistress Talbot. Come here, my dear.’
Lucy complied, standing beside Morton as he stroked the fair curls with his good hand.
‘It seems you didn’t know her quite as well as you thought you did,’ he said.
Kit raised his eyes to look Lucy in the face.
‘I didn’t know her at all,’ he hissed and turned back to look up at Morton. ‘So, are you going to kill me?’
‘Eventually, when you’ve told me what I need to know. Where is she?’
‘Go to Hell,’ Kit spat.
Morton sighed heavily. ‘I see I need to cause you more pain before you see sense.’
He lowered the sword and leaned over Kit. Placing one boot on his chest to hold him in place, he wrenched Kit’s injured hand away from his body. With an almost studied care, he bent the broken fingers backward. Kit arched back against the wall in agony, his feet scrabbling for purchase against the dusty floor as a scream tore from his throat.
‘Ambrose, please.’ Lucy’s voice sounded strained.
‘You enjoy this,’ Kit panted.
‘Yes, I do,’ Ambrose snarled. ‘Now, where is she?’
He bent the fingers again, and through the pain Kit prayed for the blessed release of unconsciousness.
‘Go on, kill me!’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘It will serve you nought. Thamsine is free of you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Morton’s boot in his chest pressed harder.
Kit took a breath and forced himself to look up into Morton’s eyes, holding them with his own.
‘She’s my wife, Morton. She married me. Even if I die, you have no hold over her.’
‘You’re lying!’
Morton bent his fingers back with such ferocity that Kit lost consciousness. From somewhere a long way away he heard a bellow of rage and the sound of fist on bone. Released from Morton’s grasp, Kit slumped back against the wall. He fought for some control over the agonising pain in his hand, but it consumed him. Dimly he was aware that the shadows in the room leaped and danced without clear substance. He heard voices and scuffling and grunting and a woman screamed. There was more scuffling, then silence.
A shadow bent over him and he flinched as a hand rested on his shoulder.
‘He’s made a pretty mess of you in a few short minutes, Lovell.’
‘Jem!’ Kit said, aware that he struggled on the edge of consciousness. It would so easy to let himself go, to sink into oblivion.
Jem’s strong arm circled his shoulders, pulling him upright.
‘Come on, let’s get you home,’ Jem said with surprising gentleness.
~ * ~
Thamsine had held May until the crying subsided, then helped Nan to put her to bed aided by the inn’s best brandy. The physical bruises would heal but the memory of the rape would stay with her forever. Thamsine sat by the girl’s bedside and looked down at the tear-stained face, seeing the face of another girl. Who knew how many other women had been victims of Morton’s sport?
She blamed herself. She had brought this man into May’s life, and May had paid the price of Thamsine’s freedom.
Nan appeared at the door, holding a candle.
‘How is she?’ she asked.
Thamsine looked up at her friend. All Nan’s brashness seemed to have leeched from her. She looked tired and spent.
‘Asleep at last,’ Thamsine said.
‘Jem’s downstairs,’ Nan said. ‘He went back for Lovell.’
Thamsine gathered up her skirts and ran down the stairs to the taproom, where Jem stood by the fireplace staring into the dying embers of the day’s fire.
‘Where’s Kit?’ Thamsine asked.
Jem jerked his head at the large oak settle beside the fireplace, where Kit sprawled like a broken puppet. Her heart in her mouth, Thamsine knelt down beside her husband and held the candle up. Even in the dim light of the fire, she could see blood on his face, one eye already closing and swollen, and a cut and bruised lip.
For a moment she thought he was unconscious, but his un-blackened eye opened and he managed a crooked smile.
‘Your face, Tham! Do I look that bad?’
‘What did he do to you?’ Thamsine asked, her breath tight in her throat.
Kit’s left hand moved to his face. ‘This … this is just bruises. It’s my hand,’ he muttered faintly. ‘My sword hand.’
For the first time, Thamsine noticed that his right hand was tucked inside the front of his jacket. With shaking fingers she undid the jacket and, holding his forearm, lifted out his hand. Kit gave a strangled groan and tensed back against the settle.
Thamsine’s stomach churned when she saw the damage. Nan let a low whistle. ‘Looks like it’s been through a meat grinder,’ she said. ‘What’d he do?’
‘He trod on my fingers,’ Kit muttered between gritted teeth.
‘Trod on them? Looks like he took a hammer to them,’ Nan said.
Thamsine stood up. ‘He needs a chirrurgeon.’
Jem looked at Nan and nodded.
‘Rouse that lazy stable lad and send him for the chirrurgeon on the Strand.’
Nan nodded and kilting up her skirts ran from the room.
‘What did you do to Morton and that bitch?’ Kit looked up at Jem.
‘Not as much as I would have liked to,’ Jem said, grimly. ‘I got halfway down High Holborn afore I realised you wasn’t behind us, so May told me to go back to fetch you. Luckily for both of us, it looks like you’d put a pistol ball through Morton’s left arm. He was bleeding like a stuck pig. Didn’t put up much of a fight … one blow and he went over like a rotten tree in a high wind. I flung him down the cellar stairs and sent the Talbot woman and that ugly maid of hers after him. I just hope he broke his neck.’
Kit’s face creased in pain. ‘You should’ve killed him.’
‘After what he did to May, it was all I could do not to,’ Jem agreed. ‘But I didn’t want to end up at the end of a rope for murder. You’re all done in, Lovell.’ He looked at Thamsine. ‘Come on, lass. Let’s get him upstairs to a bed.’
With difficulty, Thamsine and Jem manoeuvred the Kit up the narrow stairs to the large, airy bedchamber that Kit and Thamsine now occupied. He hung between them, barely conscious and a dead weight. As they laid him on the bed, Nan brought a bowl of water and a cloth and began to wash the blood from his face.
Jem rested Kit’s damaged hand down across his chest and shook his head.
‘That looks bad, Lovell.’
Thamsine forced herself to look down at her husband’s battered face and then moved her eyes to his hand. His fingers, those wonderful, magical fingers, were bloodied and broken like splintered wood. Thamsine backed away. She felt the bile rising in her throat.
‘I … I think I’m going to faint.’
Jem put a hand on her arm and guided her to a stool. He forced her head down between her knees.
‘Just what we need,’ he muttered, ‘a fainting female.’
~ * ~
As the grey dawn light began to creep in
through the grimy windows, Thamsine raised her head. She had fallen asleep in the chair beside the bed, her head resting on the covers. She stood up and stretched her cold, stiff limbs and looked down at Kit.
He had been unconscious or asleep for hours following a torrid session with the chirrurgeon and the bonesetter, both of whom seemed to think the only solution for Kit’s broken finger was to amputate his hand, a proposal Kit, with the last vestige of consciousness, had resisted vigorously. As a result his hand, splinted awkwardly and heavily bandaged, lay intact on the bed covers.
She touched his face, her fingers rasping against the rough stubble of his unshaven chin. She picked up his good hand and pressed the fingers to her lips. Kit groaned and moved and his face contorted with pain. His eyes opened and a string of voluble French curses accompanied his return to consciousness.
‘Kit?’
He turned his head slightly to look at her. He opened his eye and looked up at her.
‘Is the pain bad?’ She gently stroked his forehead.
‘Stop beating me on the head, it hurts. Everything hurts,’ Kit mumbled, shutting his eyes again.
Thamsine withdrew her hand.
Kit lifted his good hand to his face, probing the bruises. ‘Am I going to live?’
‘We think so. You have several cracked ribs, a black eye, your right knee is badly bruised and swollen and your hand…’ Thamsine trailed off on the inventory of Kit’s injuries. ‘I just hope that Ambrose is in a similar sorry state.’
Remembrance flooded back into his face and she had a fleeting glimpse of the terror of the previous night.
‘I thought he would kill me,’ he said. ‘Very slowly and very painfully. Thank God Jem came back for me.’
He turned his head to look down at his heavily bandaged right hand. Thamsine saw the muscles of his right arm flex experimentally as he tried to raise his hand. The effort produced another string of blasphemous oaths and he turned back to look at her, his face sheened with sweat. She answered the question in his eyes.
‘The bonesetter has splinted it as well as he can. You have three broken fingers and broken bones in your hand. It will take months to heal and even then he is doubtful you will have the full use of it again. He wanted to amputate it.’ She smiled. ‘But you were adamant that you wouldn’t let him.’
Kit’s eyes widened. ‘They wanted to take my leg after Worcester, but I survived quite well with it intact. I can do so again.’
‘But your hand … ’ Thamsine demurred.
‘I am better with a crippled hand than no hand at all,’ Kit said. He closed his eyes and grimaced. ‘As for Morton, it was his mistake not to kill me when he had a chance.’
Thamsine looked away. ‘Oh Kit, I’m so sorry. It is all my fault that you and May were hurt.’
His left hand sought hers and he gave it a reassuring squeeze. ‘Thamsine, don’t blame yourself. Morton is a vicious swine. We couldn’t leave you to his tender mercies.’ He closed his eyes and took a breath. ‘Oh God, that hurts!’ After a moment he opened his eyes again. ‘May? Is she all right?’
‘As well as can be expected.’
‘I know what he did to her,’ Kit said. ‘I’m sorry, Tham.’
‘What have you to be sorry for? This is my doing!’ Thamsine’s voice choked as the tears she had been fighting back threatened to overwhelm her. ‘Kit, both May and I owe you our lives.’
He flinched again as he tried to shift his weight and Thamsine bit her lip at her own helplessness. He glanced at the window where a fitful early morning light filtered through the grimy glass.
‘What time is it, Tham?’
She looked at the window. ‘About eight in the morning.’
‘Eight? Oh, dear God. Where are my clothes?’ With difficulty he propped himself up on his left elbow.
‘Downstairs, being cleaned. They were covered in blood. What are you doing? You’re not going anywhere, Kit!’
He looked at her with desperation written on his face.
‘I have to. Help me sit up.’
Thamsine rose to her feet. ‘No! Kit, you’re half dead. You’ve been unconscious for hours.’
He glared at her.
She crossed her arms and tightened her lips. ‘All right then, go ahead. You try and get up and if you can take two steps without falling down then I will find some clothes for you to wear.’
He scowled at her and she watched on as he tried to raise himself into a sitting position using his good arm. The effort had him gasping for breath with the pain, and as soon as he tried to move his right hand, she knew he was defeated. He fell back and laid his left arm across his eyes.
‘This couldn’t have happened at a worse time.’
‘If you insist on trying to fight it, you will be dead before week’s end,’ Thamsine said grimly. ‘You’ve been hurt before, Kit, you know it’s going to take time and rest.’
He grimaced. ‘I know, Thamsine. You don’t have to tell me.’ He looked at her. ‘You’re going to have to do it for me.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Do what?’
‘You know the business I am involved in. God willing it will come to conclusion in the next day or so, but I need you to deliver a message to Thurloe.’
She paled. ‘No, Kit. Not John Thurloe. I can’t face that man again, particularly as I failed him so dismally.’
‘You didn’t fail him, Thamsine. You were forcibly removed. Thurloe knows that. I’ve told him everything. I even asked him to investigate Morton’s treatment of you. He should know about May, too. God knows, I would like to see Morton hang.’ He lifted his arm and his eyes were steely. ‘You’re still in Thurloe’s debt. Help me now and he will clear your name. I promise.’
She looked at him for what seemed an eternity. ‘I will do it on one condition.’
‘No conditions, Thamsine.’
‘I am only asking you to tell me what it is that John Thurloe holds over you.’ She bent and kissed his bruised cheek. ‘I am your wife, or had you forgotten? Your concerns are my concerns. You have to tell me everything, Kit. No more secrets.’
He managed a weak smile. ‘I’m a pretty inadequate excuse for a husband right now. Very well, you have my word. I’ll tell you everything, but only when this is over.’
She knelt down beside the bed and lifted his uninjured hand to her lips.
‘I love you, Kit.’
He gave her a crooked smile. ‘We’ll go to France and leave this whole sorry mess behind.’ Kit shifted his weight and groaned. ‘I’m sorry, Thamsine. There will be a more appropriate time for such tender moments. We have to finish this business.’ He ran his left hand over his eyes as if trying to pull together his scattered thoughts. ‘Tell Thurloe that there is to be a meeting tonight to co-ordinate the simultaneous seizing of the Whitehall Guards and the Tower of London by the London apprentices and others. Can you remember that?’
Thamsine repeated it back to him and he nodded. ‘Where is the meeting to be held?’
He frowned. ‘The Swan, at eleven. After you’ve seen Thurloe you must send a message to a man called Peter Vowells. He’s the schoolmaster in Islington. He is to come here.’
Thamsine rose to her feet. ‘Here?’
‘Well, I can hardly go to him, and there are some details we need to discuss that are too complex to send by message alone.’ He gave an unwise snort of laughter, wincing as his broken ribs caught. ‘It won’t do my cause any harm for him to see that I am physically incapable of participating any further. Perhaps that is one thing I should thank Ambrose Morton for.’
‘Thurloe will move on the meeting, won’t he?’
Kit nodded. ‘They’ll all be there.’
‘How do I get in to see Thurloe?’
‘Tell them you have been sent from Mr. Green. Go now, Thamsine. There’s very little time.’
~ * ~
To her surprise, Thamsine encountered little opposition in her request to see Thurloe.
He looked up from the paper he had been writing a
s she entered, and ran the quill through his fingers as he looked her up and down.
‘Well, well, Mistress Granville. What a pleasant surprise. You’re sadly missed by Mistress Skippon.’
Thamsine swallowed. ‘My disappearance was not my choice,’ she said defensively.
‘Lovell has told me. A domestic matter, I believe. All resolved now I trust?’
‘Not entirely.’
Thurloe studied her for a moment before speaking.
‘I was told you had a message for me. Is there some reason why Lovell couldn’t come in person?’
‘He had an encounter with some footpads last night,’ she lied.
‘And he didn’t come off well?’
‘No.’
‘That’s unusually careless of him. He is quite capable of taking much better care of himself.’ Thurloe’s eyes took on the hooded, predatory look she recognised from their previous encounters. ‘Convenient for him though. What is the message?’
‘Before I give it to you, I want your assurance that this work is a discharge of the debt I owe you.’
Thurloe’s face betrayed nothing. ‘Mistress Granville, what gives you the right to start making demands of me?’
‘I know what Lovell has been doing for you. The message I bear is the key to the whole operation. He told me it was of sufficient gravity for you to consider my work in delivering it a discharge of that duty.’
‘Indeed? How presumptuous of him.’ Thurloe raised an eyebrow. ‘Does it concern a meeting?’
‘Yes.’
Thurloe nodded. ‘Very well, consider your debt discharged, Mistress Granville. Now, the message, please.’
She repeated Kit’s message and Thurloe, his fingertips pressed together, nodded approvingly.
‘You’ve done well, Mistress Granville. You may give Captain Lovell a message from me. Firstly, you must tell him that the arrangements must go ahead as described. You may also tell him that if he is right and there is a satisfactory conclusion to this matter, then his debt to me will also be considered discharged.’
‘What is your hold over him?’ Thamsine asked.
‘That is between Captain Lovell and myself, Mistress Granville. Now, good day to you.’
Thamsine hesitated at the door. ‘Lovell,’ she said, turning back to look at him. ‘My name is Lovell. We were married a week ago.’
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