Page 83 of Exile's Return
Lizzie shook her head. ‘No. He looked a bit like Father.’
Probably because he was the child’s father, Agnes thought.
She gathered the child into her arms. Henry, feeling left out, jumped at them, knocking them to the ground. They subsided into a giggling, happy pile on the floor.
‘What is this?’ The outraged voice from the doorway froze them.
Lizzie and Henry found their feet and cowered behind her skirts as Agnes rose to face Leah Turner. The maid, Hannah, lurked behind her mistress, a tight-lipped smile on her face. Leah’s already pale face seemed drained of all colour, her lips an invisible line of outrage.
She pointed a finger at the children. ‘You…and you…there will be no supper for either of you.’
‘Mistress Turner. The children are not to blame. We were playing…’ Agnes protested.
It seemed impossible that Leah’s eyebrows could rise any higher. ‘Playing?’
‘Hide and go seek,’ Agnes said.
The colour rose in Leah’s face. ‘We do not play games in this house. As I feared, you are a vile influence, Mistress Fletcher. Leave this room at once.’
Two pairs of small hands clutched Agnes’s skirts.
‘Don’t leave us,’ Lizzie sobbed, terror rising in her voice. ‘She’ll beat us. I know she will. She beats us all the time. She has a birch stick —’
Agnes straightened. ‘I will not be dismissed like a common servant. I am aunt by blood to these children and I am here with the consent of their guardian. I am not leaving them until I am ready to do so and if I choose to lighten their lives by playing games, I will.’
Leah turned to Hannah. ‘Fetch Brown and Simpson.’
Hannah turned and scurried away and Leah took a step into the room.
‘You have cosseted these children to the point where they are ungovernable. They need discipline. They need to have the word of the Lord beaten into their spoiled little minds.’
‘Beat them? I will not permit you to touch them. I was mistress here before ever you were and their father entrusted these children to me before his death.’
Leah’s lip curled. ‘But he failed to confirm his instructions in a will, or so I am told. Tobias…Colonel Ashby is their legal guardian. We will see how much influence you hold in this house.’
Two burly soldiers appeared at the door, one of them Trooper Brown. Leah turned to face them. ‘Take her,’ she pointed at Agnes. ‘And secure her in her chamber.’
As the men entered the room, Agnes backed away with her arms around the two children. ‘How dare you,’ she said. ‘I am not to be treated this way.’
‘Don’t make trouble.’ The soldier who must be Simpson reached out to grab her arm.
Agnes batted his hand away. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘You,’ Leah indicated Brown. ‘Take the children.’
Brown lunged at Henry, who screamed, trying to get further behind Agnes’s skirts, but the man got a purchase on him, lifting him away from her and holding him at arm’s length to protect himself from Henry’s kicking feet. Agnes swung around to defend the child and in that instant Simpson grabbed her around the waist, knocking her feet from underneath her and pulling her away from the two children.
With the hysterical cries of the children resounding in her ears, Agnes was borne away in the iron grip of the soldier. Kicking and struggling availed her nothing and as they reached the top of the stairs she stopped resisting.
‘Put me down,’ she said, employing her most glacial tone. ‘I demand to be taken to Colonel Ashby on my own two feet, not carried like a sack of potatoes.’
The man glanced at Leah who nodded. He set her down but kept a tight grip on her arm as they descended the stairs.
Not since she was nine years old and had been caught stealing apples from the orchard had Agnes felt so humiliated. She stood before Tobias, her hands clasped penitentially before her and her gaze lowered as Leah recited her crimes.
‘Tobias … ’ Agnes began.
‘Address the Colonel properly,’ Leah cut in. Standing beside Tobias, Leah bristled with self-righteous indignation.
