Page 10 of The King's Man
Thamsine gave the carrot in her hands a couple of vicious swipes.
‘The idea is to remove the skin, not the entire carrot,’ Kit remarked. ‘And I apologise. I didn’t mean to remind you of events you’d rather forget.’
Thamsine sighed and looked up at Kit Lovell. She could see the attraction that seemed to set half the women in London falling at this man’s feet. The dark hair and the grey-green eyes were an irresistible combination.
Even in London, in February, his skin held a tanned glow, but the lines of a hard soldier’s life were etched around his nose and in the shadows of his eyes. She felt a prickle at the back of her neck. She did not doubt that the echoes of laughter in the corners of his mouth could disappear in an instant should he be crossed.
A lock of dark brown hair fell into his eyes and he flicked it back, drawing attention to a thin, pale line of a scar that ran from above his right eye to his temple, transecting his eyebrow.
Thamsine reached out a finger, stopping just short of tracing the line of the scar.
‘You were lucky not to lose your eye. Did you get that scar at Worcester?’ she said aloud.
Kit looked up at her and frowned, puzzled by her question. ‘Oh, this,’ he said, his fingers going to the scar. ‘No. It was a running skirmish in ’43. Looks worse than it was.’
‘You were there from the beginning?’
‘Stormed down a hill at Edgehill and just kept going until the bitter end in ’46. I returned in ’48 and ’51 but I don’t need to tell you what disastrous campaigns those were,’ Kit said. ‘I joined the court in exile, fought a few foreign wars I cared nothing for. Saw things no man should ever see … ’
He lapsed into a silence that spoke more eloquently than words and for a long moment, the only sound in the kitchen was the soft rasp of the knife on a carrot.
‘And then?’ Thamsine prompted.
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘I abhorred exile so I swallowed my pride, apologised for my past misdeeds and came backto England.’ He looked up at her and smiled. ‘That, Mistress Granville, is my life.’
‘And do you truly earn a living playing cards?’
‘And dice and whatever else I can find.’ He smiled. ‘I’m very good at what I do.’
Thamsine sniffed. ‘I do not doubt that you are.’
His clothes were not ostentatious, but they were well cut and made from good fabric. Instead of the old-fashioned collar favoured by her father, he wore the more fashionable falling bands. If she passed Kit Lovell in the street, she would probably think him a conservative man of business.
‘Is this how you plan to spend the rest of your life?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he snapped, with a hard edge to the single word.
The easy camaraderie on his face had been replaced by a sharp, appraising look. She shrank back on her stool, conscious she had overstepped the unseen line in their relationship.
‘What of you, Thamsine Granville? I still hold your mark. When are you going to tell me what has brought you to the kitchen of the Ship Inn?’
When she didn’t answer he smiled and shrugged. ‘I see. If that is how it is to be, Thamsine, let us agree that I will ask you no more questions about your past if you ask none of mine.’
May poked her head around the door. ‘There you are, Cap’n Lovell!’ she said. ‘Your friends have been waiting on you this half-hour since.’
She walked over and picked up one of Thamsine’s efforts. ‘’Ere, what did this carrot ever do to you?’ she asked.
Kit stood up. ‘A little patience, May, she’s never done this before.’
‘Aye well, I need them carrots, so you take your hide out of here where you don’t belong, Cap’n. I’ll bring some rabbit pie in for you.’
‘God bless you, May.’ Kit put an arm around the girl’s shoulders and kissed her forehead.
She coloured and pushed him away. ‘Get away before I start remembering as how you never come visiting no more.’
May watched as the kitchen door closed behind him and sighed with a shake of her head. ‘He’s a one.’
‘What do you mean?’ Thamsine looked up from murdering another vegetable.
