Exile's Return (20 page)

‘Oh, I'm sure you will find a way to make yourself useful, Agnes. You are a resourceful young woman and there is always Daniel Lovell … ' Kate trailed off with a knowing smile.

‘No.' Agnes shook her head. ‘Daniel is on his own journey.'

Kate's calm, grey eyes studied Agnes for a long moment. ‘I saw the way he looked at you just now, and you at him. Whatever drove you both together has now become a partnership. But you are right, you and he need to decide whether you continue on your current path together or take different paths and wait to see what transpires in the next few months.' She rose to her feet, once more the brisk, efficient mistress of the house. ‘Doors will open for you, my dear. You just have to be ready to walk through them.'

***

The landlady of the Black Cross hailed Daniel like an old friend and directed him to the same private chamber he had occupied on his recent stay. Daniel stood looking at the door for a long moment before rapping firmly on the dark oak.

‘Enter.'

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and stepped inside. Kit had been sitting at the table, a half-eaten meal set before him. Seeing Daniel, he rose slowly to his feet, apprehension momentarily clouding his face. His eyebrow quirked in a manner so familiar that Daniel felt himself transported back to his childhood. This really was his brother, the idolised Kit. All the anger and resentment that had suffused him on the previous day began to slough away.

‘You came,' Kit said.

‘There seems to be a general consensus at Seven Ways that I should hear your side of the story, before I pass judgment on your actions. I want to know why you turned coat.'

Kit nodded. He walked over to a table and poured two cups of wine from a jug. Although Kit tried to disguise a shaking hand, the wine slopped in the cup as he handed it to his brother. Daniel took the cup but didn't drink.

‘It is probably a little early for wine,' Kit said, taking a draught and setting the cup down on the table.

He turned and paced the floor to the window and stood looking down into the street below. His shoulders rose and fell in a silent sigh before he turned to face his brother, casting his face into shadow.

‘The answer is simple. I was offered a choice,' he said. ‘My life for yours.'

“My life for yours?”
Daniel sank down onto nearest chair.

‘On condition I became an agent of the Commonwealth, I would win your freedom. I had been very badly wounded and maybe was not thinking as clearly as I should have done but it seemed quite a simple decision at the time. It was no choice … not for me. Passing on scraps and snippets of gossip seemed harmless enough, but as time went on they – should I say John Thurloe – wanted more and more and I got drawn further and further into the plots, but still I justified it. What were the lives of a few old comrades for that of my brother?'

‘Jonathan Thornton was offered the same choice,' Daniel said.

‘No, he wasn't. Thurloe was not holding his brother hostage,' Kit replied.

‘But he would have died rather than turn coat … ' Daniel persisted.

‘No!' Kit's voice cracked. ‘You're not listening to me. This is not about Jonathan Thornton. This is about you and I, Daniel. You were a boy who had followed me to war on my foolish tales. You should never have been at Worcester, but the blame that you were there rests entirely on me. Thurloe offered me a chance to make it right. I took it.'

Daniel stared at this man he hardly knew. Had Kit really been prepared to sacrifice other lives for his, or had there been a baser motive?

‘But men died because of you,' he said, between tight lips.

Kit turned back to the window. ‘Yes … good men who didn't deserve to die. Don't think for a moment that I don't live with their ghosts on my conscience. I would have saved them if I could but I … ' He broke off. Daniel saw his brother's reflection in the mottled glass, his face contorted with pain. ‘I was too late.' Kit concluded.

‘And you? Is it true that you were tried and what of the stories you were hanged?'

Kit took a shuddering breath. ‘I found myself caught on my own petard, which suited the authorities. My death was staged to convince the world that I was not the turncoat. But make no mistake, they hanged me, Dan.'

‘That was the story I hear. But did they actually hang you?'

‘They were very convincing. I went to the scaffold, truly believing I was going to my death.'

He turned back to face Daniel and undid his carefully tied neckcloth to reveal a faint white mark circling his neck. Daniel stared at the scar the rope had left. When Outhwaite had tortured him there had been a time when he had prayed for death, but he could not imagine going to the gibbet, feeling the rope around his neck tighten.

For a long moment the two brothers stood staring at each other.

‘And this bought my pardon?' Daniel said at last, hardly able to voice the words.

Kit nodded. ‘Only to be given the news that you were dead.'

Daniel looked down at the cup of wine in his hand and drained it in one swallow, setting the empty cup down on the table.

He crossed the floor to face his brother, surprised that he now looked Kit in the eye. The Kit of his memory had always been taller … and stronger. But the Kit of his memory had died on the battlefield of Worcester, just as the boy who had been Daniel had perished. Now he faced his brother as a man, an equal.

‘They know,' Daniel said, ‘or at least they suspect that you may have been the traitor.'

‘They?'

‘The Court.'

A muscle at the corner of Kit's lip twitched. ‘Ah. Hardly surprising. I was not the only agent among the King's men. Some were double agents who knew I was in the pay of the Commonwealth.'

‘The King will return,' Daniel said.

‘It seems so,' Kit gave a careless shrug, as if the return of men who knew his sordid past was of no concern to him.

‘What will you do?'

Kit heaved a sigh and looked away. ‘Kit Lovell died at the end of a hangman's noose. To the world I am the Comte D'Anvers, who lives a quiet domestic existence in the Hampshire countryside in a house of women.'

Daniel smiled. ‘A house of women?'

‘Thamsine … did I tell you I am married? My wife tells me that it is a kind of poetic justice. I'm not sure I quite understand what she means. But between my wife, my sister, my stepmother, Thamsine's two nieces, and my own daughters, I am completely outnumbered and defeated.'

Daniel caught his breath. ‘Mother and Frances are with you?'

He nodded. ‘Your mother took some persuasion, but Eveleigh is completely uninhabitable. They are both well.'

Daniel tried to order his thoughts. He put the questions about his mother and sister to one side.

‘And Grandfather?'

‘Dead these six years.'

Daniel reached for the jug of wine and poured them both another cup. ‘If the King returns will you go on being the Comte D'Anvers?' he asked as he handed the cup to Kit.

Kit shrugged. ‘I have no choice. Kit Lovell is dead.'

‘Where does that leave me?'

‘You, brother, are the rightful heir to the title and the estates. You are now Lord Midhurst. I have a clever lawyer in London who can sort through the mess.'

Kit gestured for Daniel to sit and resumed his own chair, taking a draught of the wine.

Daniel swirled the wine in his own cup, watching the blood-red eddy he created. ‘One thing I don't understand. If I was being used as a hostage for your loyalty, why did they send me all the way to Barbados?'

He looked up to see a smile lighten his brother's face. ‘Because if they'd left you in England, Thurloe knew damn well I would have moved Heaven and Earth to help you to escape, and we'd have both been safely on the Continent before he had time to react. I was too valuable to Thurloe to let that happen.'

‘That explains my relatively civilised treatment,' Daniel said. ‘That is until … '

‘Until Pritchard's health failed?' Kit leaned forward. ‘I told you yesterday. I know the story, Dan. I know what Outhwaite did.'

Daniel sighed, flexing the muscles in his back and feeling the scars contract.

The gesture did not escape Kit. All humour drained from his brother's face. ‘Show me.'

Slowly Daniel rose to his feet, removed his jacket and lifted his shirt, revealing his back to his brother. He heard Kit's sharp, indrawn breath and hastily restored his clothing.

‘It was all I could do not to kill the charmer there and then,' Kit said.

‘You met him?' Daniel resumed his seat and reached for the wine, his hand shaking.

Kit nodded. ‘I told you Thamsine and I went to Barbados. We had to see for ourselves that you were truly dead. We saw to it that Outhwaite met his just end but we left with more questions that no one could answer.' He narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you ready to tell me how you got away from Outhwaite?'

Daniel sucked in his breath. He had never once spoken in detail of those dark months between Jennet's death and Outhwaite's attempt to kill him. Not even to the man who had rescued him. He refilled his cup and took another deep draught of the wine. At this rate he would be soused before lunch.

‘Outhwaite – you met him. Black, white, male or female — to him we were no more than chattels to be used and dealt with at his whim. If he had been hanged six times over it would be no compensation for the crimes he committed.' Daniel licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. ‘He fancied himself a suitor to Jennet Pritchard's hand. Neither Jennet nor her father ever countenanced that match. Jennet fancied herself in love with me, and … ' he looked away, ‘I'm not proud of the fact I encouraged her. If I had married Jennet I would have gained my freedom and become heir to Pritchard's estates in Barbados. It didn't seem such a bad lot in life. Unfortunately Outhwaite saw me as the rival to Jennet's hand, and in his cups one night promised, rather melodramatically I thought at the time, vengeance.'

‘Ah, why else do people kill?' Kit said. ‘Love, money … power.'

‘He wanted all three, but most particularly money and power,' Daniel agreed. ‘My pleasant future came to an end when Jennet contracted a fever and died. Pritchard succumbed to the palsy that left him bedridden and I was left alone in a power struggle with Outhwaite. He had the law on his side and I was quickly disabused of any thought I might have had of continuing to run the plantation on behalf of the sick man. After all, what was I? Just another prisoner, who had enjoyed some privileges denied to most.'

Daniel rose to his feet and paced the room, struggling to find the words for the events that had followed. ‘I interrupted him sporting with one of the girls, and while he had his breeches around his feet, gave him a beating. I hardly need add that she was not a willing party to the transaction.'

Kit let out a harsh breath. ‘I had him pegged for a bastard the moment I met him.'

A wry smile twisted Daniel's lips at the memory of Outhwaite rolling on the ground, his eyes bulging in pain as he clutched his privates, into which Daniel had sunk his boot.

‘He made me pay for that moment of triumph. He had me whipped and thrown into the Pit … ' Kit's head jerked up at recognition of the word and Daniel shook his head. ‘You've seen it? A space not large enough to stand in or to lie down – exposed to the elements.' He shuddered at the memory, unable to even begin to describe what it meant to endure the Pit for a day, let alone many days. ‘After a week, he hauled me out and sent me out into the fields with the other slaves.' He looked away. ‘I should have just bided my time, kept my peace, turned a blind eye … '

‘To the murder of an innocent man?' Kit put in.

Daniel shot his brother a sharp glance. ‘You know?'

Kit nodded. ‘You had friends willing to tell the story. According to their account you witnessed Outhwaite beat one of the other prisoners to death.'

‘Outhwaite and two of his overseers killed one of the Scottish prisoners. The man had tried to escape, and it was supposed to be a lesson to us all. Unfortunately not one I took to heart. I made my own attempt to get away, to raise help in Holetown, but Outhwaite set the dogs after me. They hunted me down like an animal.'

Kit rose to his feet and laid his hand on Daniel's shoulder. ‘You don't have to tell me any more.'

But the veil of his silence, kept so closely for all the intervening years, had been breached, and the words tumbled out. Shaking off his brother's hand, Daniel continued. ‘This time he beat me with a scourge, left me in the Pit, and when he thought I was dead, threw me into the jungle like a piece of refuse to rot into oblivion.'

Wine slopped on his hand and he put the cup down, clutching at the table to stop himself shaking. ‘I don't remember much, except that the base instinct to survive must have prevailed. I dragged myself through the jungle to the beach. That's where Broussard and the crew of the
Archangel
found me, barely alive. They took me back to the boat, nursed me back to health … ' He took a deep, shuddering sigh. ‘I owed those Frenchmen my life, and I repaid it as a faithful member of Broussard's crew for the last four years.' He looked up, aware that tears were streaming down his face and he was helpless to stop them. ‘And now I find I have been a free man all that time. I could have returned to England … I could … ' He broke off, unable to continue.

So many could-have-beens.

Kit's voice cut through, harsh with emotion. ‘God knows we tried to find you,' he said. ‘We left Barbados with enough evidence to give us the faintest of hope that you may have survived, but as the years passed and we heard nothing more, that hope died.'

He drew Daniel toward him and into his embrace. Daniel surrendered to the gesture.

‘Forgive me?' Kit's voice cracked.