Page 61 of Exile's Return
Kit sucked in a shuddering breath and laid his hands on his brother’s shoulders. No more words were needed.
‘It’s almost over,’ Kit said at last, breaking the moment and turning away. ‘Do you suppose we can start again in a peaceful world?’
Daniel forced a smile. ‘It is something of a shock to find myself a free man and, apparently, Lord Midhurst. But you…?’
Kit shook his head and turned back, spreading his hands in a gesture of defeat. ‘My life has always been a tangle. To the world I am a dead man, but I married a wealthy woman and we live a comfortable life, so I have little to complain about, alive or dead.’ He smiled. ‘I look forward to you meeting Thamsine. You’ll like her. She has had her share of trouble in the past, but we are content now.’
‘You mentioned daughters?’
A fond parent’s smile softened his brother’s sharp features. ‘Two. The youngest, Maria, is but a baby and then there is Jane, named for Tham’s sister. She is my heart’s delight, but unlike her namesake, I fear she takes after me. I worry for any man who would take her on.’ Kit stretched his arms and folded himself into the nearest chair as if finally allowing himself to relax in his brother’s presence. ‘We also have two wards—Tham’s nieces—as well your mother and Frances…’
The breath tightened in Daniel’s throat. ‘Did you tell Mother that I have returned in one piece?’
Kit shook his head. ‘She didn’t take the news of your death well the second time. I dared not risk a third resurrection unless I was certain.’
There were hundreds of questions battling in Daniel’s mind, but there would be time enough to fill in those missing years. He studied his brother for a long moment, his gaze moving from the crooked fingers of his right hand — another gap in the story that needed to be told — to the deep lines etched on Kit’s face.
Daniel considered that the decisions he had made in his life had never simple choices between life and death. Yet Kit had thrown away everything he believed in, and his actions had led directly to the judicial deaths of three innocent men. Small wonder he lived with their ghosts.
‘Come back to Seven Ways with me,’ Daniel said, adding. ‘Lady Thornton insists the beds here are lumpy.’
A slow smile lit his brother’s lean face. ‘They are indeed, but there’s no hurry. Pass that wine jug.’.
Chapter 26
Essie had lit a fire and Agnes hunkered down beside it, poking it into life. She could hear the distant sound of laughter drifting through the house. Daniel had returned with Kit, late in the afternoon. Both were in high spirits. Their return had been greeted with warmth by the Thorntons and dinner in the Great Hall had been ordered.
Agnes had sent Essie with her regrets and the message that she was indisposed, and she didn’t think she would be missed. Kit Lovell’s arrival, his reconciliation with Daniel, and the reunion with his old comrade in arms belonged to the Lovells and the Thorntons, not to her.
She rose to her feet and paced the room, her arms wrapped around her body to still the tears of self-pity that rolled down her face. She knew she should be pleased that the lonely, anguished man she had taken to bed only the previous night had been reunited with his brother but his happiness only served to drive home her own loneliness. Kit had given Daniel back somethingshe could never match — his family—and that left a hollow emptiness in her heart.
She had convinced herself that Daniel was no different from James Ashby. He had taken what she had offered, wrapped up in soft words and a consideration that James had never demonstrated, but as she had with James, she had been in danger of mistaking lust for love.
Agnes sank onto the edge of the bed and lowered her head, twisting the chain around her neck. Her fingers closed around the worn, familiar shape with the lock of Henry’s baby hair, unable to explain the feeling of dread that circled her chest like a band as she thought of the child. She seemed to hear him calling for her. She clenched the locket tighter. She had a son who needed her, and she couldn’t tarry any longer.
She didn’t need Daniel. Back in London, she had been grateful to find a man, any man, willing to help her, but as the days had gone by she had gained confidence. She could, she would go on without him.
The small matter of money could be overcome, somehow. Perhaps she could prevail on Daniel to lend her some coins, and if she got desperate, sell the locket. After all, it was only a thing, a means to an end.
Filled with this new resolve, she rose to her feet and began to pack her few belongings into the worn leather satchel. She hesitated over the delicate square of cambric Daniel had given her when they were attacked by footpads. By rights, she should have returned it, but in a gloomy inn room, she had washed it clean and folded it carefully, stowing it away with her few precious belongings. She pressed it to her lips. He wouldn’t miss it, and she wanted some small thing to remember him by.
At the bottom of the satchel, she found James’s book of poetry, forgotten and unread. Pulling it out she pressed it to herface, breathing in the scent of leather and glue, but all trace of James himself had long since evaporated.
Idly, she riffled through the pages ofThe Faerie Queen, nearly dropping the book as a piece of paper worked itself loose from where it had been concealed and fluttered to the floor. She set the book down and picked up the paper, her eye drawn to her name scrawled across the top of the page. Holding it close to the candle, she read:
To my darling Agnes.
James had never called herhisordarlingin all the years of their acquaintanceship.
I have not been the best a man can be to a woman who has loved him as you most assuredly have done but know this, I have, in my own rough fashion loved you and regret that I must now leave you mourning once again. I have charged you with the care of my children and I fear for them should they be taken from your charge. Agnes as I once shewed you one of my schoolroom pranks, look again at this work of Spenser and remember me, Your James.’
Agnes dashed the fresh tears from her eyes and looked at the paper in her hand.As I once shewed you…? She frowned as a small fragment of memory came back to her.
It had been one of their rare moments of intimacy, a sharing of childhood stories. He had told her of a secret code he and a friend had devised in the schoolroom. Her hand shook as she raised the paper to the wavering candlelight, and her heart skipped a beat as tiny motes of light trickled through holes in the paper.
‘No.’ She breathed the word aloud, recognising the holes for what they were — evidence of the code James had told her about.
Setting the paper down on the table, she took a deep breath. The answer was in the pages ofThe Faerie Queen. If she could match the holes to a page of verse, the hidden message would be revealed.
