Absolute Honour (28 page)

He found his voice again. ‘You must come with me,’ he said.

‘What?’ she replied, though he did not know whether she heard or she doubted. Perhaps both.

‘Come with me,’ he said, just as the hymn suddenly ceased. His words, spoken loudly, carried into the near silence.

The woman next to him was emboldened, since she was
not the only one now disturbed. ‘This is the house of God, young man, not some drawing room! Worship ye and flirt ye no more.’

‘I assure ye … you, madam, I—’

‘Silence there! Silence.’ The voice came from the vicar, peering down over his pince-nez. Others joined in a general mumble
of condemnation.

‘You must go.’ Letty’s voice was a gentle contrast. ‘Please, Jack.’

He stepped from the pew, his back to the crowd, quickly taking her hymnal from her as he did so. The transfer of the paper
he’d scribbled at his lodgings into it took just a moment and he laid the book on the shelf before her. ‘Sing well,’ he said
and then he was moving, accompanied by a general clucking of disapproval, to the door.

As he found his way to the lower floor and the front door, he realized he would never be admitted back into the select congregation
who attended the Chapel in the Palazzo Muti. He did not care. For if she sang lustily, read swiftly, came to their rendezvous
promptly, the only church he ever wished to see after that would be the one in which he married her. Then, hang him if he
was ever caught worshipping anything else again! Aside from her, of course.

He approached the gardens on the Monte Pinchio by his usual route, via the Piazza Barberini. No fat Jacobite with laden horses
awaited him there, and he cursed the necessity of trusting a drunkard, until he remembered that he was early and that Watkin
Pounce, even now, should be swaying to the rendezvous. And if he was not? Well, there were other stables nearby, and he had
some
scudi
sewn into bits of apparel and fifty more in a purse in his satchel. The only matter of importance lay ahead of him, up the
slope of Monte Pinchio, under the pine trees. Now he was there he
was aware of the stupidity of arranging this meeting just where he collected his orders from his scoutmaster, but he had been
in a hurry and it was, after all, one of the few places he knew well in Rome. There was a young cypress tree growing next
to the fence. Kneeling, he wedged the satchel into a crook of branches. It could not be seen from the path. Buckling on his
swordbelt, Jack strode up the hill.

Although he knew he was early it did not lessen the anxiety that grew as his pocket watch’s hands crawled up the face to four.
Had he been clear enough in the note? What if her guardian had detained her? What if Red Hugh had forsaken the night and swept
them both out of Rome, the English trap betrayed by one of the myriad double agents who lurked in the city?

The appointed hour came, confirmed by a bell ringing in the villa that surmounted the hill, hidden from his view by the stand
of pines. He stood square in the middle of the main avenue, just by the statue of the dryad who, if she had possessed arms,
might have pointed the way to the oft-visited tree. The heat was near overpowering but at least it kept most Romans indoors,
behind their shutters. No one disturbed the walk.

Where was she? Four o’clock he’d scrawled and it was now a quarter past. Suddenly, he was convinced that she could not come;
or that she would not, her courage failing her; or, worse – far worse – that she had chosen not to because she did not love
him enough. The thought made his gaze fall to the ground, to the prints made by his shuffling boots in the dust and sand.

And then she was there. He did not hear her for the dust swallowed the sound of her running feet and she was yet far enough
off for her harsh breaths not to carry. But he looked along the avenue and there she was indeed, moving fast towards him.
He closed the gap at an equal pace.

He couldn’t believe she was in his arms again; the kiss
reassured him, so long was its duration. He had to break it. ‘Come,’ he said, making to drag her down the hill.

‘No, Jack.’ She was breathing heavily, from her running, from their reunion. A bench was close and she sank upon it.

‘A friend has horses nearby,’ he noticed her dress as he spoke, the beauty of the taffeta, the voluminous folds, ‘and we will
exchange them for a carriage. But we must go now, if we are to leave Rome before the gates are locked tonight.’

Still she did not move. ‘Sit, please, but for a moment. There are things we must discuss.’

Discuss? A strange word, he thought, full of warnings. ‘This is dangerous,’ he said, taking her outstretched hand, ‘I remember
the last time you pulled me onto a bench.’

‘
I
pulled you?’ She struck his hand as he sat. ‘A gentleman would remember it differently.’

‘Perhaps I am none such.’ A thought creased his brow. ‘For I also remember that you pulled me down to distract me.’

‘I didn’t succeed.’

‘Just as well. For if you had …’ Jack shuddered. If he’d arrived a minute later, the King of England would have been dead
and the Absolute name ruined for ever. But he had pondered long on this, recalling every detail; and each had told him that
there had been no artifice in her loving. The fact that she was there now confirmed it.

He spoke on the thought. ‘You love me.’ Her nod was hesitant, but it was there. ‘When did you know?’

‘When?’ A smile came, banishing the sadness in her eyes. ‘I guessed at it when I first saw you, with your stick and your swagger,
rescuing me.’

‘But you knew it …?’

She closed her eyes. ‘In the library. Duelling with titles.’

‘What? When you vanquished me?’

‘Perhaps that’s why. The hurt on your face!’ She laughed.

For a moment, there was nothing else, just that memory and her hand in his, a drowsy afternoon that could have been Bath,
or Rome or anywhere where time did not rule. And then she pulled free, leaned back. ‘Jack, I do love you. But …’

He pressed a finger to her lips. ‘That is not a word for us. “I do” will suffice, and we shall hear it again and soon. Yet
only if we leave now.’

He rose. She did not. ‘No, Jack, you must hear me. I
do
love you—’

‘But?’ He said it, the word he now hated.

‘I cannot go with you. There was a moment when I could have. But that chance passed us by. Because of a torn sleeve.’ The
laugh that came now was mirthless.

‘So you would have come with me, then? Despite all the lies?’

‘Which we both told. Playing roles given to us by another.’

Jack knelt, just as he had in Bath, though there was no falsity now in the kneeling. ‘I promise you, Letty, I was going to
tell you the truth. Then, there, in that garden, I would have given you a choice.’ He regarded her silence. ‘You don’t believe
me?’

She leaned forward. ‘I do. And you have to believe this. Yes, I would have come with you. Yes, I would have married you, lived
with you, loved you.’

It was there, what he most wanted to hear. Except the sentence was in the past tense. To return them to the present, he seized
her hand. ‘Then nothing else matters. Come.’

Still she resisted him. ‘I cannot. For … for, Jack!’ She dragged her hand clear again. ‘I am no longer free. I am betrothed.’

It had to be the heat. This word did not make sense. ‘To whom?’

She sighed. ‘I am betrothed to the Count di Cavalieri.’

In his mind he saw a small man in a black coat, handing her into an opera box, through a door, out of a carriage. ‘He is ancient,’
he said.

‘He is fifty.’

‘And a dwarf.’

‘He is … very kind.’

‘Kind?’ It was another word that did not make sense.

She pressed on. ‘And he is rich. Very rich. This is what poor girls do, Jack, if they have something to offer. They make a
good match.’

He shook his head. It didn’t clear it. ‘Not in your novels.’

‘I never read any novels,’ she said firmly. ‘I always knew what my life would be, where my duty lay.’

‘Is that what you were serving on that other bench?’

She winced at his sudden anger. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘Then I truly believed it was a beginning, not an end. Then I thought
that somehow duty and love had met and it seemed to me a sort of miracle. A story indeed for a novel.’ She laughed again,
a sad laugh, then stretched out a hand to him. ‘But believe this, Jack, and know that I will always bless you for it: at least
I tasted love once, before duty claimed me back.’

He did not take her hand. Instead he wiped his sleeve across his face. Insects hovered, their buzz in his ears. Shapes seemed
to move in the trees off the path, shadows he could not focus on because he was searching for something in the cloudless sky.
He found it, a word, the one she’d just spoken. ‘Betrothed.’

‘Pardon?’

There was her answer. ‘You tasted more than love on that bench. That moment of … of joining, betrothed you – to me.’ He took
her hands now, tried to lift her up again from the bench. ‘Don’t you see? You cannot marry the Count. For
his honour. For mine. Because you are prior contracted. You are
betrothed
to me.’

The drone of insects, the cracking of a stick between the trees, his heartbeat pulsing in his head. He studied her face, the
bunched eyebrows, waited for her to deny the argument. She wouldn’t be able to. She’d have to agree. Have to come away with
him.

Her gaze had gone past him, into the tree-line. When it came back, he saw that her eyes had filled with tears. ‘Oh, Jack,’
she said softly, ‘if that is what is binding you, then …’

‘It is. It must.’

‘… then let me relieve you on that point of honour.’ A tear spilled out, ran down the cheek. ‘For, you see, you were not the
first.’

He almost laughed, such was the nonsense she spoke. The girl was barely seventeen. ‘Then who was?’

Her gaze moved beyond him again. ‘He was.’

Jack turned. Standing five paces away was Red Hugh McClune. Strangely, the first thought that came was not of the terrible
betrayal, by his friend, by his lover. Instead, he remembered what Fanny Harper had said in the theatre that very first time
he’d seen Letty. How she had a dark secret. He’d thought then that he would give anything to know it. He hadn’t realized it
would have to be his heart.

Jack looked up into the sky again, then around into the trees. He’d never have let these men creep up on him in the forests
of Quebec. But he’d been distracted by what he’d thought was love. He’d not let that happen again.

He realized he knew them all. MacBrave from the Angelo. The young Roman lover who’d preceded him down the path the very first
day he’d gone to the hollowed-out tree. Even the landlord of his lodgings, not that ancient or sexless it seemed, and the
swathes of cloth he still wore were now parted to reveal a toothless smile, two pistols and a club.

And then there was the Irishman. He’d only seen him by moonlight, of course, hadn’t realized just how cropped his hair was,
how black he’d dyed it, the fullness of the beard. For just one moment, Jack regretted the passing of that red hair, those
peacock clothes. Only one small moment though, that one before he drew his sword.

‘Now don’t be foolish …’

There were five paces between them. Jack covered them fast, so fast that Red Hugh made his first parry with his sword still
half in its scabbard, twisting as he did, using the force of Jack’s run to guide him past his right side. Halting, Jack slashed
back, spinning around, knowing that the side of the small sword could not kill but could hurt the man badly, catch an eye
perhaps, weaken him anyway, prepare him for Jack’s point. But Red Hugh ducked swiftly, spun away, a gap created between them,
his arms wide in an attitude of supplication. ‘I pray you, Jack. You cannot win here. Put up.’

Jack couldn’t, didn’t. Again he came, flicking off his cloak, the gold coins in its hem bunching it into a length of heavy
cloth that he flung at the Irishman, engulfing him in black. Red Hugh, briefly blinded, must nevertheless have felt the point
driven at his belly; he cut down, deflected Jack’s lunge just enough, though he sacrificed a button of his waistcoat.

‘No!’ the Irishman yelled, but not at Jack; at the men who had circled, whom Jack, with side vision, saw were brandishing
cudgels. He didn’t care, though. For now, the man he hated was still struggling to free himself from heavy black cloth.

‘Yah!’ yelled Jack, lunging again, straight at the exposed belly that was there and then was not because he’d forgotten again
that the Irishman was a left-hander and hardly had to move to flick the blade in an outward circular parry, using Jack’s momentum
to bring him tight, so his right hand could drop and fasten on Jack’s, his forefinger find that point
under the thumb pad. With a yelp, Jack released his grip, his sword plunging to the dusty earth.

For a moment, Red Hugh held him there. Then the Irishman’s eyes went beyond him and Jack waited for the blow that would tumble
him into a familiar darkness, from which, perhaps, he would never emerge. Darkness came but no blow fell. Instead his own
cloak was swirled around his head, pulled tight; men fell on him. His hands were swiftly bound and then he was half pushed,
half dragged in a stumbling run down the hill. Sightless, all he had were the sounds. The worst of them, beyond Italian cursing
and Irish cautions, were those that faded first – a woman’s terrible sobs.

They left him bound and blind for several hours. Only when it was night did they remove the ropes, unwind the cloak, releasing
him from one darkness to another. Light eventually came, showing him a long, high-ceilinged room. A gaol again, despite the
bed, armoire, table and chairs; but in Bath he’d been held in a cellar while here muffled shouting from below indicated he
was being restrained higher up. Bars prevented him reaching the shutters on the outside of the tall, deep-set windows, but
he saw a catch, presumed they opened with the correct pole. The growing light also showed him a lantern, his strike light,
flint and bowl beside it. Once lit, its glow also revealed the rest of his possessions that he’d abandoned in the attic. There
was a basin and jug, both full of water. He drank the one, used the other to wash his face clear of the black dust of the
path. A mirror in a large gilt frame hung on one wall above a fireplace, and Jack went close to behold a sorry version of
himself.