Lover's Knot

by Louise Clark

  The corner of Philip’s mouth curled in a wry smile. “When he wishes, the king can enchant even the most hardened of those against him. But only for a time.” He paused, looking inward. “I fear that not even Charles’s ability to haunt the minds of men is enough to create a successful rebellion.”

  Alysa scanned his face. “Does that mean you would not participate in a rising?”

  Philip looked down into her questioning eyes. His own were sad. “Before I inherited Ainslie I took an oath. In good conscience, I could not.”

  He stood before her, tall and strong. Alysa sensed that he was troubled by the promise he had made, but saw no way out of obeying it. She hated to see his inner turmoil and sought to lighten it by changing the subject. “Would you return to court, sir, if the king were to be restored to his throne?”

  At that Philip smiled and answered freely. “No, indeed not! The court is a tricky maze that is almost impossible to negotiate successfully. My father was considered to be one of the late king’s most trusted friends, but it was only his death that saved him from disgrace in the years before the war. He had the temerity, you see, to give His Majesty advice that the king didn’t want to hear.”

  “You sound bitter.”

  “Do I?” Philip smiled down at her. The warmth of his gaze brought an answering smile to Alysa’s features. “I should not. I too might have wasted my life at court if the king had seen fit to accept my father’s sage counsel. Instead he listened to those who repeated his own sentiments back to him and became more and more set on provoking the Commons against him. War became inevitable.”

  Alysa shivered. Her memories of the war were of fear and insecurity. News had traveled slowly, more slowly than roving armies. The residents of Strathern had not known from one day to the next if a skirmish might happen on their own lands or in West Easton. And there had been the loss of the men of the area, both loved ones and neighbors, as they went off to join the king’s array. No one had known if those men would ever come back or if the war would take them forever.

  As she listened to Philip, she began to realize that for him the war had come as a blessing. It gave him a cause to believe in and a focus for his life that had been missing before. Moreover, in the beginning, when he joined, as a young lieutenant, army life had lacked the tricky byways that were so evident at court. In the army there was only obedience, coping with the small realities of day-to-day living and the sharp thrust of kill or be killed. The life had suited Philip to a tee.

  At first.

  He hadn’t reckoned on how deeply a civil war could rend a country. Or how angry each side would become. Or the lengths to which men would go to ensure that their cause was the winning cause. Atrocities had occurred on both sides during the war years and Philip had participated in his own share of events he would like to forget, but couldn’t.

  Alysa listened to him intently, suffering his disillusionment with him and aching for his loss of innocence. “And so, when the king was captured you fled to France,” she said eventually.

  Philip smiled at her and said lightly, “And was forced to learn to speak French, for they did not seem at all inclined to learn English to please me!” Alysa laughed and he added gently, “Now, my lady, I am afraid that I must beg your indulgence and retreat to the chair that was brought out for me.”

  At once Alysa was all solace. “Oh! Is your leg paining you? Sir Philip, you should have spoken sooner. Come, let me help you over to the chair. Lean on me, if you wish. I’m sure that cane is useful at times, but on this uneven stone it is not what you need.”

  The gleam in Philip’s eyes told Alysa that he was seriously considering doing as she suggested, but after a moment he shook his head and said softly, “Mistress Alysa, I will curb my natural desires and refuse your thoughtful suggestion. You look very enticing in that fetching straw hat and the deep blue of your gown enhances the color of your beautiful eyes. I should be delighted to hold you close against my body, but I fear that your good mother would not be so pleased.”

  The mischievous dimple appeared in Alysa’s cheek again, but there was a telltale warmth in her eyes. “Mama could protest, of course, but not until the act was begun.” She cocked her head, peaking out from under the wide brim of her hat. Her eyes gleamed bright blue. “I must confess that I did not make the offer simply from a sense of altruism.”

  Her words hung heavily between them, charging the air with currents of meaning. At last Philip sighed and said with a rueful smile, “I think it best if I decline your kind offer and use my cane. I would like to be allowed to see you again and I fear that I would be banished from your company if I followed my instincts.”

  Alysa blushed, but her smile was warm. “I would not like you to be banished either, so I will accept your wise decision, Sir Philip. Now I see that Mama has finished her refreshment and will soon be ready to depart. We should go back and join her for a moment or two. And your poor leg! Come, let us go over to the chairs and sit down.”

  Philip laughed and allowed himself to be shepherded over to a seat. “Why, Mistress Alysa, I had no idea you were such a managing female.”

  “She has a mind of her own,” Abigail said, overhearing. “Beware, Sir Philip, for she is not one to accept the strictures that others bow to.”

  “Mama! What a thing to say!” Alysa fussed about Philip until she was satisfied that he was comfortably bestowed in a chair. Only then did she allow the conversation to flow into a more general topic.

  It was not until later, when she and Abigail had returned to Strathern Hall, that Alysa began to wonder about some of the things Philip has said that afternoon. His feelings about the court were sharp and unhappy, yet he had joined Charles’s courtin-exile and stayed for many years, following the new king from France to the Low Countries. That suggested a deep dedication to the Stuart cause.

  Or that part of Philip’s story was a lie.

  Was it possible that Philip was not the Royalist brother, but the Roundhead one? And if he was, what of her own brother, Thomas? In less than a week Thomas was to come to West Easton to participate in a meeting of the prominent Royalists in the area, a meeting her father had asked Philip to attend. If Philip was the Roundhead brother and thus the spy in their midst, Thomas was in danger. For that matter, so were her father and Cedric Ingram.

  Had Alysa been certain Philip was the Roundhead brother she would have taken her concern to her father and let him deal with it, despite the warm feelings Philip Hampton generated in her, but she had no proof that Philip was not what he claimed. All she had was an insubstantial fear based on a few suppositions and that was not enough to condemn a man.

  No, she would trust her instincts and say nothing. What her instincts told her was that Philip Hampton was not the person who had betrayed Thomas to the authorities. Someone else had done that, because Philip Hampton was too direct and too honorable a man to participate in such an underhanded scheme.

  And she wondered too if the person who had betrayed Thomas had also decided to assassinate Philip. The thought made her shiver. It suggested a far greater plot than her experience of life had prepared her for. Unbidden, one of Philip’s descriptions of court life leapt into her mind.

  A dangerous maze had been erected at West Easton. She only hoped those trapped inside it had the skills to find the key.

  Chapter 9

  The meeting of prominent Royalists took place in an unexpected setting, to ensure that the soldiers combing the area would not accidentally discover its location. Lord Strathern believed that most, if not all, of the great houses were being kept under observation and so he asked his loyal follower, Barnabus Wishingham, the smith, if the meeting could be held at his home.

  Much flattered, Barnabus immediately agreed. When he eventually told his wife, she raised her eyes heavenward, but didn’t protest. Since Thomas had almost been captured she had been much chastened, for Barnabus had not hesitated to attribute the near disaster to her loose tongue.

  Using the smith’s
residence was a stroke of genius on Lord Strathern’s part. Attached to the forge was a large barn, which Barnabus used to store various necessities of his trade, as well as to house horses sent to him for shoeing. The interior of the barn was a roomy open area with rails for tying animals for short periods of time. There was ample space to stable the horses used by the Royalists attending the meeting, so that no Roundhead patrol would chance to see a large collection of horses and wonder what was afoot.

  Some twenty-five men had been invited to the meeting. They represented all levels of local society, from gentlemen like Cedric Ingram, through honest merchants such as John Wilson, the village mercer. All were men who had long professed to support the Stuarts and so had the king’s best interests at heart.

  Just after Philip had been shot, he had been invited to the meeting by Lord Strathern. On that day, with his leg aching and his thoughts surprisingly concerned by the fact that Strathern had not brought his daughter with him when he’d come to visit, Philip had agreed to attend.

  He’d been aware of the danger, for it was almost certain that he would meet Thomas Leighton that night, but there was nothing else he could do. To refuse the invitation would have been almost as damning as meeting Thomas Leighton face-to-face.

  As the day of the meeting neared, Philip wondered if he could avoid participating by using the excuse that his leg was bothering him. He considered that for a minute or two before he dismissed the idea. The wound was virtually healed and he now used the cane he carried more as a fashion accessory than a means of support. No one would believe that he had been laid low by a relapse.

  Then too there was the possibility that the meeting would be interrupted by the authorities, despite Strathern’s attempts to find an unobtrusive location for the discussion. Thomas’s return had been betrayed by a spy. The meeting of local Royalists could well be similarly informed on. If this were to happen the whole area would be suspicious of the man who had found a convenient excuse not to attend.

  So, on the night of the meeting Philip clothed himself as a courtier would, in a doublet of blue silk and wide black breeches heavily adorned with ribbon bows and ribbon loops. Then he shrugged a short cloak of black silk over his shoulders and prepared to go boldly into danger.

  The smith’s house was a sizable dwelling for one who practiced such a humble occupation. Constructed of wood, it was an old-fashioned, half-timbered building in the style popular some seventy-five years before, during the reign of good Queen Bess. The parlor where the Royalists assembled took up the length of one side of the house. Though it was a large room, the twenty-five men attending made the space seemed cramped. Philip arrived late and deliberately mingled with the groups of earnestly talking men, staying away from Lord Strathern and the tall young man who stood beside him.

  Philip had never met Thomas Leighton, but he had no doubt that the man with Strathern was his son. Not only were their facial features remarkably similar, but there was a certain aura of pride about Edward that marked him as a loving father.

  While pretending to listen to what an earnest gentleman was saying, Philip studied Thomas Leighton. Surprisingly, it was not Edward, Lord Strathern, that Thomas most resembled, but his sister Alysa. Thomas’s face was a bit rounder in shape, but there was the same firm chin, bowed upper lip and full lower one. Like Alysa’s, his eyes were a vivid blue and heavy lidded, but beneath his left eye his face was marred by a long scar from a saber cut, presumably acquired at the Battle of Worchester.

  There were other differences beneath the similarities. His mouth had a harder set to it, as if experience had forced from him the sensitive vulnerability that characterized Alysa’s fine features, and there was a cynical world-weariness in the blue eyes that Philip hoped he would never see in Alysa’s expression. But there was bright interest in those blue eyes as well. Evidently exile had not killed all of the optimism in Thomas Leighton’s soul.

  Barnabus Wishingham, moderately dressed in black, unlike his gaily-hued guests, was serving ale. Philip helped himself to a tankard as he explained to the smith that although he still carried a cane, he used it infrequently. Wishingham shook his head over the lawlessness in the area, blamed the Roundhead soldiers and moved on to another of his guests.

  Philip sipped his ale while he studied the men about him. Unlike the smith, he did not believe that a soldier was responsible for his wound and he wondered if one of the men in this room was the one who had shot him. Over the past few days he had considered the problem from virtually every angle and he had come to the conclusion that his assailant and the turncoat who was working for Edgar Osborne were one in the same. He hadn’t figured out why the man would use him for target practice yet, but he would.

  His eyes scanned the group over the edge of his pewter tankard. It was an interesting cross section of West Easton society and a man’s position could be identified by the clothes he wore. Prosperous landowners like Lord Strathern and Cedric Ingram predominated. They were dressed in bright-hued doublets made of satin or velvet and their breeches were fashionably wide, with rosettes at the knees and ribbon loops at the hems. Fine linen shirts could be seen through slashes in the balloon sleeves of their doublets and on their heads were hats made of expensive beaver felt. Long feathers, as precious as the beaver felt, curled from the brims of the hats, an elegant echo of their long, gleaming locks.

  There were also prosperous merchants and craftsmen like the smith at the meeting. Their garb was less costly than that of the gentlemen, and the colors were more subdued, but their expressions were as serious. Plotting rebellion was not a matter to take lightly.

  As Philip examined the faces, he decided that overall these men, though somewhat nervous, were firm in their commitment to what they were doing. That in itself was daunting to one who supported the other side. Had the Royalist organization been focused on any one group, such as wealthy landowners or the merchant class, the desire for revolution might be dismissed, but the men at this gathering represented the most influential sections of British life. If they were all allied against the Commonwealth, then Richard Cromwell’s government was doomed.

  There was a movement in the crowd and Philip was momentarily exposed. Lord Strathern caught sight of him, said something to Thomas and began moving toward him. Philip felt his heart begin to pound, as it did before every battle. Those thoughts that didn’t relate to the coming engagement slipped from his mind as he focused on the issue at hand—survival.

  There was a little stir as Cedric Ingram arrived and for a moment Lord Strathern was deflected from his intent as he paused to greet Ingram. Still keyed up, Philip watched assessingly as Thomas bowed coolly to Cedric. Curiosity flared briefly in Philip’s mind, for Thomas’s greeting had been barely civil. Evidently Thomas Leighton did not like Cedric Ingram. Philip wondered why.

  He didn’t bother to ponder this interesting question, though, for moments later Lord Strathern was once again on his way over to him.

  Close up, Thomas Leighton reminded Philip even more forcefully of Alysa. His nose was slightly flared, while hers was straight, but each was short and neatly made. His hair was chestnut and darker than hers, but of the same texture and with the same wayward curl. But most telling was the cool intelligence Philip could see in the vivid blue eyes.

  “Thomas, I want to introduce you to our new neighbor, Sir Philip Hampton.”

  Thomas bowed, the same reserved movement he had used with Ingram.

  Philip responded in kind, his expression mocking and faintly amused. None of the trepidation he felt showed on his composed features, but he knew that his masquerade could be exposed at any moment. Depending on how Lord Strathern worded the rest of the introduction, though, he might be able to avoid the confrontation he expected.

  His hopes were dashed as Strathern continued, “Sir Philip has lately inherited Ainslie Manor from old Richard Hampton. Prior to that he was in exile. Perhaps you know him?”

  There was a quizzical twist to the question, for Strathern was
no less intelligent than his offspring. He was watching the meeting between the two men intently and it was obvious that Thomas had not instantly recognized Philip. Thomas’s blue eyes grew colder, more assessing, and they bored into Philip, who met them bravely, raising his dark brows defiantly. He expected to be unmasked at any time. When Thomas spoke, relief washed over him, but he hid the betraying emotion.

  “I believe we have been introduced, but I am afraid I do not recollect the meeting in any detail. How is it, Sir Philip, that you were able to return home and inherit your father’s property?”

  “My uncle’s,” Philip replied calmly. Thomas inclined his head in acknowledgment. “And I was able to return because my brother has some influence in the Lord Protector’s government. He arranged to have the interdiction against me lifted.”

  “You are indeed fortunate to have such a generous brother,” Thomas said coolly. “Surely with you proscribed, he could have inherited himself had he done nothing.”

  Philip shrugged, his expression carefully blank. This had always been a weakness in Osborne’s plot. He was surprised the question had not come up before this. “The wars have been over for some time now. Family ties are beginning to speak louder than political ones.”

  At this, some of the cool hostility on Thomas’s face eased. He nodded glumly. “England does look very sweet from the vantage point of the Low Countries.”

  “Yes,” Philip said softly. “As we grow older the ties that bound us as children become stronger—to our families, to our land, to our country.”

  Amusement flashed in Thomas’s bright blue eyes. “Are you suggesting that the time is ripe for a return to a monarchy?”

  “Is that not what we are all here to discuss this evening?” Philip parried, not wanting to commit himself to an outright lie.

  “Precisely,” Strathern said. “And it is your objective opinion that I would like to hear tonight, Hampton. Pray do not hesitate to speak up should you wish to contribute.”