‘You’re not going, Frances,’ her mother said. ‘We’re not going to live on this woman’s charity.’
Kit drew a breath and laid a hand on the table with deliberate care, though he would have dearly loved to smash his hand onto the table in frustration.
‘Margaret,’ he said slowly. ‘God knows, I want to call a truce, but you are making it very difficult. I am now the head of this family and I am not offering you charity. You are my responsibility and I am offering you a home, nothing more. If Frances wishes to come to Hartley, she may. In fact, I insist she does. You, however, are quite free to stay here. I will make suitable arrangements to ensure you live in a modicum of comfort. Will that suit you?’
Margaret looked from one to the other and her shoulders slumped. ‘I can’t stay here alone,’ she said, in a voice that lost its defiance.
‘That is your choice,’ Kit said. ‘Think on it. Now, there is a third reason I have come. I have news of Daniel.’
Margaret stiffened. ‘Daniel?’
Kit took two crumpled and stained letters from his jacket.
‘This letter,’ he said, holding up the first sheet, ‘is an order for Daniel’s release and a pardon.’
Margaret sank into a chair and looked up at him. ‘How … ?’ she began, but Kit raised his finger to silence her.
‘It doesn’t matter how,’ he said. ‘I had secured this paper, and we were about to take ship for Barbados to bring him home, when circumstances intervened.’
He glanced at Thamsine, reliving, as he still did in his nightmares, those black days. She nodded encouragingly and he took a breath and continued.
‘You said you’d seen reports of my death. Well, they’re true. To England, Kit Lovell is dead. Thamsine and I would have left months ago, but … ’ He paused. ‘My health meant a delay to our voyage.’
‘What has your health to do with Daniel?’ Margaret demanded.
Thamsine glared at the woman. ‘You have no idea, do you?’ she said. ‘Kit bought Daniel’s freedom with his life. Show them, Kit.’
Frances and Margaret watched as Kit unwound the carelessly, and, he had hoped, fashionably knotted neck cloth, revealing the faint but still visible marks of the rope.
Frances put her hands to her mouth.
‘They really hanged you?’ she said in a small, tight voice.
‘Yes,’ Kit answered, retying the cloth around his neck.
Margaret frowned. ‘Why?’
Thamsine answered. ‘Kit had an agreement with the government that if he did certain work for them, Daniel would be freed. He met his side of the bargain, which is how he secured the pardon.’
‘But why did they want to hang you?’ Frances had paled.
‘That’s a long story,’ Kit said. ‘We can save it for another time. I had an assurance Daniel would be placed on the first ship back to England. ‘
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Margaret demanded.
‘I wanted to be sure he was safe.’
Margaret‘s gaze flicked from Kit to Thamsine. Kit took a deep breath and handed his stepmother the letter from Governor Willoughby.
Margaret held it at arm’s length as if it would burn her. ‘Who is Thurloe?’ she asked.
‘The Secretary of State. The letter is from the Governor of Barbados.’
Margaret read the missive aloud. Frances gave a strangled cry and sank into the nearest chair, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders wracked with sobs.
Margaret let the letter drop to the floor and looked at Kit, her mouth working. Kit lowered his head, unable to meet her accusing eyes. He had given her hope only to snatch it away. Daniel would never be coming home.
Kit shook his head and turned away. ‘Everything I did… was for nothing.’
Thamsine put her arm around him and drew him into her embrace. There had been some dark days after the letter had arrived from Thurloe. Days when he had considered finished the job the hangman had begun. Only Thamsine’s unwavering devotion and patience had brought him back from that brink.
He took a deep breath, regaining his composure, and turned to face his stepmother.
She slumped in the chair, all her defiance leeched from her, and she looked old and frail. Her son had died not once but twice, and he could not even begin to imagine what that meant.
‘I have thought hard on this, Margaret,’ he continued. ‘I’ve been through too much to believe it was all for nought. I refuse to accept he is dead until I hold some evidence in my hand or stand beside his grave.’
Margaret looked up and Kit took her hand, meeting no resistance.
‘Margaret, I couldn’t have stopped Daniel coming with me that day. If I had locked him in his room he would have found some way to follow. If I’d not been wounded … ’ He trailed off and went down on one knee before her. ‘Please believe me when I say not a day goes by when I don’t think of him. I will make you this promise here and now. I am going to Barbados and I will find out what happened to him.’
His stepmother nodded. ‘I need to know, Kit,’ she said.
‘So do I,’ he replied.
Chapter 27
Holetown, Barbados
January 1655
The Governor of Barbados, Lord Willoughby, mopped his face with a large kerchief as he rose to his feet to meet his visitor. Kit Lovell, who had been announced as the Comte d’Anvers, paused in the doorway looking, he hoped, like all aristocratic Frenchman when faced with an Englishman; slightly contemptuous and vaguely disapproving.
He executed a florid bow and took the proffered seat as Willoughby seated himself behind his large table and considered his visitor from over his steepled fingers.
‘And what is it that I can do for you, Monsieur?’ he enquired.
Kit settled the ruffles of his shirt sleeves and began, ‘I come on behalf of friends in England who seek news of a member of their family.’ He spoke with an exaggerated French accent. ‘The boy was taken prisoner after that foolishness some years ago at … ,’ Kit paused. ‘… Worcester, was it not?’
‘Ah, yes!’ Willoughby agreed. ‘Most unfortunate. We had a great many prisoners sent here at that time.’
Kit produced the letter from Thurloe with the order for Daniel’s release. ‘I have here with me an order for the boy’s release, but word has reached the family that the boy is now dead. I have been sent to verify the truth of this claim.’
The Governor picked up the papers that Kit pushed across the table at him. The man’s gaze lingered momentarily on the twisted fingers of his right hand. Politeness forbad comment and Willoughby sat back to read the letter. ‘Lovell? Oh, yes. Daniel Lovell. I remember.’ He pushed the papers back again. ‘Well, my dear sir, I can add nothing to what is written here. As I wrote to my Lord Thurloe after I received a missive from him directly, the man died of fever at the Pritchard Plantation last year. You have had a wasted trip. My condolences to the family.’
Kit struggled to control the veneer of the Comte D’Anvers’ poise as he collected the papers and carefully refolded them.
‘I see,’ he said. ‘I … they … the family hoped that there had been some error, but before I report back to my friends, I shall satisfy myself by paying a visit to this … Pritchard Plantation.’
Willoughby spread his hands. ‘Of course. It’s a good day’s ride to the south, but I must warn you that you will find little to shed any light on the boy’s death. John Pritchard was smitten by a palsy and the estate has gone to wrack and ruin. Pity,’ the Governor added, ‘he was a good man and, if it is of any assurance to your friends, I can say with certainty that he looked after the boy well. In fact, I remember young Daniel. He could read and write, so Pritchard used him as the plantation clerk. We often saw him here in Holetown.’
Kit rose to his feet. ‘Thank you, monsieur,’ he said. ‘You have been most helpful.’
The Governor rose. ‘Is there anything else I can assist you with? Are you staying in Barbados for long? Perhaps you and the, errr, Comtesse may like
to dine one night.’
‘Thank you, but I am anxious to resolve this business with the Pritchard Plantation. Perhaps when we have returned. Good day to you, Lord Willoughby.’
With one last florid bow, Kit left the room. He returned to the comparative cool of the finest hostelry in Holetown. Taking the stairs two at a time he threw open the door to his bedchamber.
Thamsine, reclining on the bed, dressed in nothing but her shift and fanning herself with a copy of the town broadsheet, sat up.
‘Well?’
‘Much as I expected,’ he said. ‘He confirmed what he wrote.’
He divested himself of his coat and flung it over the back of a chair, pulled at the suffocating folds of the linen kerchief he wore around his neck, and with a sigh of exasperation, sank down onto the bed next to his wife. He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head.
Thamsine slid an arm around his shoulders and laid her head against his arm. ‘I’m sorry, Kit,’ she said.
‘My dear Monsieur le Comte,’ Thamsine now spoke in French, ‘you have done all you can. We have satisfied ourselves that Daniel is dead. Let’s go home.’
Kit shook his head. ‘I am going out to the plantation.’
‘Hmm,’ Thamsine closed her eyes, and the head against his arm became heavy. ‘The plantation?’ she added drowsily.
‘Yes. I want to speak to Pritchard, although Willoughby says he was struck by the palsy, but there may be someone there who can tell us more.’ Kit nuzzled her hair. ‘You smell nice,’ he whispered.
She pushed him away. ‘It’s too hot!’ she said but even as she said it, the nuzzling became a gentle nibbling and they collapsed backward onto the bed.
~ * ~
‘Barbados really is a beautiful place,’ Thamsine remarked as they rounded a bend in the road to find the thick jungle opened out onto a vista of azure seas dotted with round, green islands.
Her husband responded with a grunt. On the long horse ride from Holetown he had been absorbed in his own thoughts, and she knew Kit well enough to know that they weren’t happy thoughts. He blamed himself for Daniel’s fate, and although she hoped he took some comfort in the knowledge that Daniel’s lot had not been as dire as he had imagined, she doubted that it did.
It seemed incontrovertible that Daniel Lovell had died here on Barbados and, unless some new facts could be discovered at the Pritchard Plantation, that would be the news Kit had to carry back to his stepmother. Little wonder he stared morosely at the dusty, rutted road ahead of him.
The jungle gave way to fields of sugarcane, the wild, undisciplined rows rising to a height well above their heads, indicating that they were ready for harvest. A raised voice issuing orders accompanied the thud and thump and rustle of the cane being harvested. Among the cane men worked, naked black backs bowed to the hot tropical sun, crisscrossed with evidence of the lash. Black backs mostly but in among them, browned and hardened by years of exposure, were white men. An overseer with a whip in his hand watched as Kit and Thamsine rode past.
Kit glanced at Thamsine as a double-storied wooden house came into view. Perched on rising ground, it probably commanded a panoramic view from the higher floor. Behind it were the stables and a compound of small huts. A few scrawny chickens pecked around the driveway and a tethered goat bleated a plaintive welcome. What had once been a pretty garden had already begun to be reclaimed by the jungle and the whole property had an air of neglect and misery. A small black boy wearing nothing but ragged breeches ran out to take the horses.
The house appeared deserted. No sound came from within it, and it took several sturdy knocks on the door before it opened a crack. A young black woman with large, frightened eyes peered at them.
‘Who is it, girl?’ A man’s voice, heavy with a Yorkshire accent, bellowed from the rear of the house.
The girl opened the door a little wider. ‘Yes?’ she asked.
‘The Comte d’Anvers and his wife,’ Kit announced.
The large eyes widened and a man dressed only in his breeches and shirt came up behind her. He put a large hand on the girl’s shoulder and pushed her to one side. He stood in the doorway, his bulk blocking any entrance to the house.
‘What did you say yer name was?’ he demanded.
Kit met the man’s bloodshot eyes. Even from where he stood, he could smell the stale stench of drink and sweat, and the man’s dishevelled clothes and unshaven chin confirmed the impression of a drunken sot. If this was the overseer in charge of the estate, little wonder it looked neglected. He shuddered to think of the treatment being meted out to the labourers.
‘What did ya say yer name was?’ the man demanded.
‘The Comte d’Anvers.’ Kit drew himself up to his full height, but the other man matched him for height with the added advantage of breadth.
‘The Compte d’what?’ The Yorkshireman leered contemptuously before executing a bow with a sarcastic flourish. ‘Yer grace, what is it we can do for you?’
‘Who are you?’ Kit demanded with an aristocratic curl of his lip, marking his disapproval.
‘Outhwaite’s the name. I run this ‘ere plantation.’
‘I thought to meet with a Monsieur Pritchard?’
The man ran a hand through his tousled hair. ‘Well, Mr. Pritchard ain’t up to visitors. I’m in charge. Compte or no, state your business and be gone.’
‘Is this the best of island ‘ospitality?’ Kit became more French by the minute.
‘Ye’ll get no hospitality here. We don’t like visitors,’ Outhwaite said and leered at the girl, cowering at the foot of the stairs. ‘Do we, Clara? They upsets the old man.’
A prickle of fear ran down Thamsine’s spine and she glanced at Clara. The girl gave a barely perceptible jerk of her head in the direction of the stairs. Thamsine caught the look and understood. She swayed and grasped at her husband.
‘Mon cher,’ she said in French. ‘Je me sens faible. Aide moi.’
‘What did she say?’ Outhwaite said.
She glanced at Outhwaite but he did not seem to have understood what she said. Good. It meant they could converse in French.
‘Cherie?’ Kit caught her as her knees buckled as if she would fall into a dead faint at any moment. ‘My wife is overcome by the heat, monsieur. At least allow us a few minutes respite from the ‘eat.’
‘I’ll be all right, if I can just lie down for a little while,’ Thamsine said in English, adding in French. ‘Quelque chose est très mal ici.’
Kit nodded. ‘It is,’ he agreed in a low voice. ‘She says she needs to lie down,’ Kit interpreted wrongly.
Outhwaite frowned and jerked a head at the maid. ‘Take her upstairs to the spare room.’
The girl came forward and slid her arm around Thamsine’s waist. She barely came to Thamsine’s shoulder.
‘Does the girl speak French?’ Kit enquired of Outhwaite.
‘Barely speaks English!’ Outhwaite scoffed. ‘Jabbers away in that godforsaken tongue of hers.’
‘Dommage,’ Kit said.
The maid left Thamsine in a small bedchamber at the top of the stairs. The bedding on the narrow cot smelled musty and damp and as soon as the maid returned, with water and a cloth, Thamsine sat bolt upright.
The girl’s eyes widened at Thamsine’s instant recovery.
‘You better?’ she asked.
Thamsine put a finger to her lips. ‘My name is Thamsine Lovell.’
The girl gave a cry, clapping her hand over her mouth. ‘Lovell? Daniel?’
Thamsine nodded. ‘My husband is Daniel’s brother, Kit.’
The girl sank onto the bed beside Thamsine and turned tear-filled eyes on her. ‘He was a good man, Massa Daniel.’
‘Is it true he is dead?’
The tears spilled over and she nodded.
Thamsine felt her heart sink.
Clara glanced at the door. ‘Tha’s what Outhwaite told Master.’
Thamsine caught her breath. ‘What do you mean?’
&n
bsp; Clara shook her head. She had begun to shake.
‘He a bad man, that Outhwaite.’
Catching the girl’s hands, Thamsine sought her eyes and said, ‘Is Daniel dead or not?’
As the girl hesitated, Thamsine clasped the little hands tighter. ‘Please, Clara. We don’t have much time. Tell me what happened.’
Clara took a shuddering breath. ‘Outhwaite.’ She screwed her face. ‘He wanted to marry Miss Jane but Miss Jane, she love Dan’l and the Massa, he think Dan’l a good man for Miss Jane.’
A picture began to form in Thamsine’s mind. Daniel, young, educated, intelligent and, if he resembled his brother in any way, handsome and capable of great charm, could quite easily have won the heart of Pritchard’s daughter.
Clara’s lip trembled. ‘Just after Christmas, Miss Jane, she took sick and died. The Massa’s heart break to bury his girl and Massa Dan’l, he loved Miss Jane. Massa took sick and Massa Dan’l tried to run plantation.’ She looked up. ‘He a good man, Missy Lovell, a good man, but Outhwaite hate him, and one day he and Massa Dan’l have a terrible fight. Outhwaite tell him that he is not taking orders from a slave and he was in charge. He had Massa Dan’l flogged and put in the Hole.’
Thamsine bit back the question that sprang to her lips. Whatever the Hole was, it could not be pleasant.
‘He … ’ Clara broke off at the sound of heavy feet on the stairs. She just had time to recline back on the bed Outhwaite flung open the door.
‘How is she?’ He addressed the slave.
Thamsine’s eyes fluttered open. ‘Ou est mon mari?’
‘Ici, cherie,’ Kit pushed past Outhwaite and held out a hand for Thamsine. ‘What did you discover?’ he continued in French.
‘He did not die of fever,’ Thamsine responded. ‘The girl knows more.’
‘Speak English,’ Outhwaite said.
‘My wife is still feeling unwell,’ Kit said. ‘And it is growing late. As a good Christian, please may we beg a bed of you for the night?’
Outhwaite scowled and opened his mouth to speak when someone downstairs bellowed his name. He stomped to the head of the stairs.
‘What is it?’
The King's Man Page 35