Page 93 of The King's Man
‘It really is you, Lovell?’ she whispered
‘Yes.’
She screwed her eyes shut. ‘No, it’s a dream. I’m going to wake up and you will be gone.’
‘I’m real enough.’
He stroked her face, fighting back the rage. When he next met Ambrose Morton he would kill the man.
The wardress threw down a ragged blanket. Kit looked up at her. ‘Are you going to help me?’ he asked with icy politeness.
Grumbling, the woman helped Kit wrap Thamsine in the blanket’s grimy folds. Rising to his feet, Kit walked over to the cell where he had locked Lucy. Through the grate in the door, he could make her out huddled in a corner, her arms wrapped around herself.
‘Are you comfortable, Mouse?’ he said.
He jumped at the shriek of rage as she lunged for the door.
‘Now, now, Mouse. If you behave like that they will throw cold water on you.’
‘Let me out, Kit!’ Her voice changed to a pathetic wheedling.
‘I don’t think so. By the time you’ve found a way out of there, Lucy dearest, I shall be gone from your life.’
‘We’ll find you, Lovell.’
‘Not in London, you won’t,’ he lied.
He hoped Lucy would be fool enough to believe him. Dearly as he would like to take Thamsine and flee with her to France, he couldn’t. Circumstances tied him to London. The little matter of Thurloe’s business had to be completed first.
‘Enjoy your stay, Lucy.’
In reply, she spat at the door as he turned away.
‘Come, Thamsine,’ he said, bending down and lifting her into his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder.
‘Watcha doing? You can’t just take her. What am I going to tell me superiors?’ The wardress sounded agitated.
Kit looked around the grim chamber. ‘Next woman that dies, tell them her name was Annie Morton. Perhaps this will help smooth the way.’ He tossed the wardress the remains of Lucy’s purse. ‘Now see us out,’ he ordered.
The other inmates howled and clawed at his legs as he marched through.
‘You know, for a thin woman with no meat on your bones, Thamsine Granville, you certainly weigh enough,’ he whispered.
He settled her in the corner of the hackney coach and gave the driver the order to take them to The Ship Inn. Morton probably knew that Thamsine lodged there, but for the time being there was nowhere else.
In the dark of the coach’s interior, he took Thamsine in his arms again, holding her close.
‘You don’t smell very good,’ he whispered in her ear.
A small vibration of laughter rewarded him. ‘Neither do you. You smell of sweat and horses.’
‘It’s been a busy day.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘It wasn’t easy. It would have helped if you had told me the whole story on the day we met. Then I would have known who Ambrose Morton was and what a threat he was to you.’
Her shoulders heaved as the sobs came in an unchecked flood.
