Page 160 of The King's Man
‘How could you think that? If you knew for a moment what I have endured these last weeks, thinking you were dead!’
‘I’m sorry, Thamsine.’
‘Sorry?’ Her voice cracked. ‘Sorry?’
Anger and grief spilled out of her. She beat her fists against his chest, the tears spilling down her cheeks. He grasped her forearms, stilling her and bringing her down to rest on his chest with his arms around her. All the sorrow she had borne over his death and her sister’s death poured out of her as he let her weep. Spent by emotion, she drifted into an exhausted sleep.
When she awoke, she was by herself in the bed. Kit stood half-dressed beside the window, looking out over the garden.
‘Kit?’
He sat down on the side of the bed and touched her face with the crooked fingers of his right hand.
‘That day, that last day … ’ he began, ‘ … I watched you walking away, knowing I would never see you again.’ He pulled her towards him, folding her tightly in his arms. ‘Thamsine, I’m never going to let you walk away again.’
She lightly kissed the broken fingers, studying his face, noting the grey shadows under his eyes, the lines of strain at the corner of his mouth, and the red flecks that stained the whites of his eyes.
‘Oh, Kit. What did they do to you? Your eyes!’
He pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’m not a pretty sight.’
She put her hands on either side of his face, drinking in the love in his eyes like a shipwrecked sailor who has found land.
‘The last six months have been hard. But you’re alive. That is all that matters.’ She let her hands drop. ‘What do we do now? If Kit Lovell is dead, who are you?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I need to find a new name and try to untangle this knot that is my life.’ Kit sighedand drew her towards him. ‘When I was in the Tower, I dreamed of a peaceful life together, Thamsine.’
‘There is plenty of time for a peaceful life,’’ Thamsine said. ‘I don’t think you and I would settle well to such a life. Not yet awhile.’
He tilted her face upwards and smiled at her.
‘Ah, Mistress Granville. There’s a spirit in you that I loved from the first moment I saw you. You will have my undivided attention soon, I promise.’
She smiled. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Kit Lovell.’
Chapter 59
In the warmth of an autumn sun, Kit lay with his head in Thamsine’s lap in the shade of one of the oaks in the park. She ran her fingers through the thick dark hair, now liberally peppered with grey that had not been there three months previously.
It had taken time for the physical evidence of Kit’s brush with death to fade, but the dreadful invalid’s pallor had gone, his eyes had returned to their normal colour, and only the faintest shadow of bruising still circled his neck. This he hid beneath a high neckcloth. The only physical legacy of the gallows seemed to be a change to the timbre in his voice. It now held a slight crackling edge to it. While the physical wounds had healed, she doubted anything could heal the terrible nightmares that caused him to wake in the night.
In the days following the final encounter with Ambrose Morton, they had seen that Morton and his sister laid to rest with their mother in the graveyard at Beverstock. Roger Knotthad returned to London, leaving his daughters at Hartley, and something approaching a semblance of family life had settled over the house. In moments like this, it seemed almost possible to forget the dark days of their previous existence.
They had talked about what they should do, how they could exist in an England that no longer wanted them. The decision, when it came to be made, had seemed so simple. After a lifetime of adventuring, Kit no longer felt the lure of France or the Colonies. The lovely Elizabethan house, tucked away in the peaceful Hampshire countryside, offered them both the solace and healing they needed, so they had decided they would stay where they were, sufficiently distant from London to cause Thurloe no heartache.
Thamsine’s nieces had settled into life with their unusual aunt and uncle, and Thamsine had engaged a proper tutor for them. When he thought she wasn’t watching, Kit delighted in teaching them card games and tricks. Thamsine had asked Kit about his family in Cheshire but he refused to discuss them, saying he was not ready to face his stepmother, not yet, not until he had news of Daniel.
Thamsine bent over and kissed Kit’s forehead. His eyes flickered open.
‘What are you thinking?’ he murmured.
‘I was thinking that this is how it should always be,’ she said, and straightened at the sound of raised voices coming from the direction of the house. ‘Although I suspect we are about to be disturbed.’
‘Come back, sir!’
At the sound of Stebbings’ voice, Kit stretched and sat up.
Stebbings, who never hurried about anything, hastened across the lawn towards him in pursuit of a large, burly figure; a familiar figure with a badly tied scarf over his right eye.
