Page 88 of Exile's Return
‘Please, be quiet,’ she whispered to the little boy.
‘Agnes!’ Although Henry was still half asleep, her name seemed to echo around the quiet room. Every nerve in Agnes’s body jangled.
‘Don’t go away again,’ the boy murmured, sleep beginning to claim him once more.
She held him closer, her heart breaking as he stilled, and once more he slept. Just a few more minutes, she told herself, before she needed to return to her room. Just a few more minutes to hold her son. She closed her eyes and laid her cheek against his soft curls.
Chapter 36
In the corridor outside the nursery, the moonlight streamed in through the windows casting fractured lights across the bare boards, which creaked ominously as the men hurried across them. They had almost reached the turn that led into the main gallery when they heard the unmistakable sound of heavy feet coming toward them.
Beside Daniel, Kit swore under his breath. ‘Merde.’
With a sharp gesture of his hand, Jonathan indicated for them to scatter and melt as much as possible into the shadowed recesses of doorways and corners.
As the interloper rounded the corridor his footsteps became stealthier, the floorboards protesting as if someone were trying unsuccessfully to tiptoe along the corridor.
Daniel tried the handle of the nearest door but found it locked. Squeezed into the shadowed doorway, Daniel held his breath as he recognised the man as one of Turner’s men — Simpson. Whatwould Simpson be doing here at this hour, and acting in such a furtive manner?
The answer came when the man rapped softly, his ear to the nursery door. ‘Hannah? Remember your promise…’
When no one within the room stirred, Simpson knocked again. Daniel thought about Agnes, trapped in that room, and bit back a groan.
He carried no weapon except his knife and he cast about the gloomy gallery for something — anything — he could use to incapacitate the man.
‘Hannah! I’m coming in…’ Simpson said in a syrupy tone.
To Daniel’s dismay the door opened and the nursery maid, barefoot in her chemise, her hair sticking out wildly, lurched into view.
‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded, her voice slurred with sleep and the drug.
The man chucked her under her chin. ‘We had an arrangement, remember?’
The girl softened, her arms circling the man’s neck. ‘Oh yes…the brats are asleep, come inside.’
Concealed behind a tapestry, Kit must have shifted his weight. A floorboard creaked, sounding like a musket shot in the silent corridor.
‘Wha’s that?’ Hannah said, removing her arms from around her paramour’s neck.
Simpson whirled around. ‘Who’s there?’ he demanded in a voice that would have woken the dead. ‘Someone’s there — come out and face me.’
Daniel’s mind whirled. How could something so simple go so wrong? Now was not the time for sentiment. The priority was getting the gold away. His life, and Agnes’s, had to be something he worried about later.
Daniel broke cover, his knife concealed in the palm of his hand, and stood between Simpson and the others. Behind him, he heard Kit and Jonathan’s footsteps breaking into a run as they disappeared into the gloom of the gallery.
‘Help here!’ Simpson yelled. ‘Intruders!’
Daniel held his ground and Simpson lunged toward him, taking him to be unarmed. Like Trooper Brown, Simpson seemed to have been recruited for his size. Daniel could never hope to best him in any form of unarmed combat — all he could do was hope to slow the man down.
Simpson uttered a bellow and rushed at him. Daniel neatly sidestepped, plunging the knife low into the man’s leg. Simpson stopped in his tracks, looked down at the hilt of the knife as Daniel wrested it free, and dropped to his knees with a gurgle.
Daniel hesitated, torn between getting past the screaming maid and extricating Agnes and making good his own escape. If he stopped to rescue Agnes, they would both be taken. He would be more useful to her as a free man.
‘Sorry, Agnes,’ he said in his thoughts and pausing only to collect the satchels he had set down, he turned and ran.
Chapter 37
At the first knock on the door, Agnes froze. She laid Henry back in his place and peered through the curtains at the end of the bed where she could see the maid.
