Exile's Return (34 page)

‘But –' Daniel's protest was cut short by Jonathan.

‘Alone and on foot I should be able to reach Preston, and I will raise help from the local authorities. They won't countenance Ashby's high-handed behaviour, not at this point in time.'

Daniel nodded. ‘You just have to make sure you get that help before Ashby hangs them out of hand.'

A humourless smile twitched the corners of Jonathan's mouth. ‘That's all we have to do.' He clapped Daniel on the shoulder. ‘Let us just hope you can get them out first.'

Agnes shivered, wrapping her arms around herself in a vain attempt to keep warm as she paced the floor. The room into which they had been thrown must have been a buttery or something similar in a past life. A long, low, heavy stone bench ran along one wall, below two small windows so grimed with dirt and cobwebs as to admit only the faintest light.

Kit sat on the cold, filthy, flag tiled floor, with his back to the wall and his eyes closed. Peg huddled in a corner, drawn in on herself. The shock of her capture and the brutal means that had been used to drag her to the castle had broken the old woman.

‘Sit down,' Kit grumbled. ‘You're making me tired.'

Agnes turned to face him. ‘How can you be so calm?'

‘I have already been hanged once in my life,' Kit said, all humour gone from his voice. ‘Death holds no fears for me anymore.'

Agnes turned away so he could not see her face. ‘I don't want to die, Kit.' She choked back the sob that rose unbidden and turned back to face him. ‘Why can't we just let him have the gold?'

Kit blew out his breath, making a cloud in the cold air. ‘I don't know where it is. Thornton's hidden it somewhere. Anyway, lass, we're not going to die. Ashby's all bluster and Dan and Thornton will find a way to get us out.'

Agnes, who had already envisaged Jonathan and Daniel halfway to Seven Ways, narrowed her eyes. ‘You believe that?'

‘I know,' Kit said and smiled without humour. ‘They don't have a horse between them and they will hardly be setting off on foot with Ashby's men on the rampage.'

In her corner, Peg cried out, and Agnes hunched down beside the old woman, wrapping her arms around her, trying to instil some warmth into the frail old body, but she got no response. Peg threw off her arms and looked at her with unseeing eyes.

The hours passed and the light faded from the window, plunging the room into darkness. Agnes drew the woman tighter into her arms.

The click of the key in the lock made her start to her feet and she braced, every muscle tensed, as the door opened to admit Leah Turner, carrying a basket and a lantern. Agnes rose to her feet, standing like a lioness over her two charges. The two women faced each other across the length of the room.

Leah met Agnes's fierce gaze and gestured at Kit. ‘I've brought bandages for him,' she said, ‘and some food and drink.'

‘Really?' The magnanimity of the gesture caused Agnes's anger with the woman to falter. ‘Thank you.'

Leah sniffed. ‘I only do what my Christian duty commands.'

‘Did you come alone?' Agnes enquired.

Leah set the basket down on the floor beside Kit and held the lantern up to scan his face.

‘What's your name?' she asked.

‘Kit Lovell, and you, Madame?'

‘Leah Turner. How badly are you hurt?'

‘It wasn't too bad, until your friend upstairs decided to drag me through the slush by my wrists,' Kit grumbled.

Leah's thin lips tightened. ‘The Colonel is enraged,' she said. ‘I have never seen him like this.'

‘I have,' Kit said, holding her gaze with his own.

Leah sighed. ‘I try to be a good Christian and not think ill of people.' Her gaze flicked to Agnes. ‘Despite what you might think.'

Kit studied her face. ‘We can't always help our hearts, can we?' he said softly.

Leah started as if he had pricked her with a knife.

Kit looked up at Agnes. ‘Mistress Turner is, I suspect, more than a little in love with the good Colonel,' he said.

‘You are talking nonsense,' Leah replied, her acerbic tone restored. ‘I need your help here, Mistress Fletcher. There is water in that flask and clean cloths.'

Agnes wiped most of the mud from Kit's haggard, unshaven face and turned her attention to his arm. ‘Nasty,' Agnes remarked, looking at the angry, seeping gash that Leah was attempting to clean with another cloth.

Kit glanced at his arm and flinched. ‘At least you don't faint at the sight of blood,' he said.

‘No. Why? Who does?' Agnes asked.

‘My wife. She's utterly useless when it comes to tending to my hurts.'

Kit closed his eyes and endured Leah's efficient ministrations in silence, his lips compressed into a tight line.

‘You've done that before,' Agnes said.

Leah looked up. ‘In the last years of the war,' she said, ‘the King's men took refuge in our town. The fighting was fierce and many were wounded. I was only a girl but we all had to lend what aid we could. I saw things no girl of my age should see.'

Kit's eyes flickered open and he laid his right hand on Leah's arm. ‘Thank you, Mistress Turner.'

The woman glanced down, her eyes widening at the sight of his crooked fingers, but she said nothing.

‘As I said, I only do what I consider my Christian duty.'

‘Perhaps you may find it in your Christian duty to provide us with some blankets. This woman,' Agnes rose and crossed to Peg, ‘is blameless and yet she is treated like a common criminal.'

Leah turned her attention to Peg, crouching down beside her. ‘Mistress Truscott, can you hear me?'

When Peg didn't respond, Leah looked up at Agnes. ‘Her senses are addled?'

‘As yours would be, had you been treated as she has.'

Leah sighed. ‘I thought I knew Tobias … ' she began, but broke off.

She rose to her feet and turned to face Agnes, once again the Leah Turner Agnes knew, stiff and unbending and convinced of the rightness of her cause.

‘I will find some blankets,' she said. ‘But I would entreat you to spend your time in prayer and contemplation, Mistress Fletcher. You do not wish to face your God without repentance in your heart.'

‘Repentance for what?' Agnes's voice rose. ‘I have nothing in this life I repent or regret.'

Leah's brows drew together. ‘You are a whore, Mistress Fletcher. You shared your bed and your body with a man not your husband.'

Two
men not my husband
.

Agnes thought of Daniel and a physical ache clutched at her heart. God, keep him safe, she prayed as Leah bent over Peg, trying to wash the worst of the mud from the woman's face and hands.

***

Daniel, Jonathan, and Sarah waited until dark before leaving the relative safety of the cottage. As they skirted through fields and coppices, Daniel wrestled with the nagging fear that Sarah may have been leading him into a trap. Instinctively, his hand tightened on the hilt of Kit's sword, the reassuring weight of a loaded pistol tucked into his belt and the press of his knife secreted in his boot.

The security the weapons gave him was illusory. The fact remained he would still be only one man against a troop of soldiers.

Sarah led them around the rear of the castle, where the last of the old castle walls met the ground. They had left Jonathan in a ruined building about 500 yards from the castle, with the agreement they would rendezvous there after Daniel had freed Kit and Agnes.

Daniel needed his knife to cut through the tangled brambles that grew in what would have once been the moat. Sarah chafed in impatience behind him. The rasping of the knife sounded like a saw through wood in the silent night, but no movement came from the walls above. Pushing the sharp, straggling fronds aside, they reached the wall.

Even in the gloom, Sarah led him straight to a small wooden door set low in the wall. It gave with only the slightest push from Daniel's shoulder, the rotten wood making barely a noise. Daniel had to almost bend double to duck under the door and into a low-ceilinged passage.

The dark of the old, noisome space closed in on him and he had to stop for a moment, fighting the constricting band that closed around his chest.

‘Are you all right?' Sarah whispered in the dark.

She had collected candles and a tinderbox from the cottage before she had left, and he heard the soft scrape of a tinder being struck. Focusing on the tiny light of the candle, the band slowly released its grip and he could breathe again.

Sarah glanced at him and pointed into the velvet darkness beyond.

‘This way,' she said.

He grunted an assent, and feeling their way along the slimy walls with their fingers, they edged upwards into the bowels of the old castle.

The corridor brought them out into a large space, crowded with broken furniture and old boxes.

‘The cellars,' Sarah whispered. ‘My brothers and I used to play down here as children – that's how I know about the old entrance. I'm going to have to snuff the light or they'll see it. Give me your hand.'

Daniel had no choice but to do as she said, and her work-hardened fingers closed around his, leading him on through the maze.

‘You're cold as ice,' she said in the dark.

She couldn't see the sweat that gathered on his brow and ran down his face as once again the vice closed on his chest.

When she stopped he almost ran into her. She placed a finger on his mouth.

‘Shh … they're just beyond there.'

A faint light illuminated a dogleg in the corridor and Daniel inched forward, peering around the corner. He could see a wide corridor lit by a solitary lantern twenty yards or so ahead of him. One of several doors stood ajar, a soldier standing beside it, his back to Daniel.

Daniel pulled back into the shadows and gripped the girl's arm.

‘Wait for me,' he whispered. ‘If this goes wrong, get back to Thornton and tell him.'

Pulling the pistol from his belt, he checked the priming.

The guard would have known nothing. The years on the French privateer had taught Daniel some useful skills, including the ability to immobilise a man quickly and silently with the right pressure on a certain point in the neck.

As he lowered the unconscious man to the floor, the unease that had dogged him since entering the castle doubled.

Ashby may as well have left the front door open.

I am walking into a trap
, he thought.

Trap or not, what choice did he have?

He flattened himself against the wall beside the door, peering through the gap into the room beyond. A lantern on the floor beside Kit did little to dispel the gloom, and it took a moment or two before he could make out the shadowy forms of two women crouched down beside a crumpled form that could only be Peg Truscott.

He swore under his breath as he recognized Leah Turner, but there was nothing for it. He gently pushed the door open wide enough to admit him.

The squeal of unoiled hinges betrayed him and the two women spun around, rising swiftly to their feet.

‘Daniel!'

The light fell on Agnes's face, streaked with dirt and ghostly in the lantern light. He thought he had never wanted to kiss a woman so much as he did at that moment.

‘You!' Leah Turner stepped into the circle of light thrown by the lantern. Daniel gave her a cursory bow.

‘Mistress Turner, how fortunate to find you here. This pistol is primed and I would advise you to keep your peace. Agnes, is there anything in here we can use to keep Mistress Turner quiet?'

Agnes nodded. ‘Some bandages,' she said.

Leah lunged for the door, only to be brought up short by Daniel's arm around her waist.

‘I don't think so,' he whispered in her ear. ‘Agnes, can you deal with this good lady?'

With Daniel's pistol pointed at her head, Leah made no protest as Agnes gagged and bound her. From the woman's grunts, her bindings may have been a little tighter than was needed. Daniel pushed her down to the floor beside Kit and tied her ankles. Behind the gag she mumbled something that did not sound particularly flattering.

He turned to his brother. In the dim light of the lantern, Kit looked terrible, his face drawn and his eyes sunk in dark recesses, but his voice sounded strong enough as he said, ‘No time for pleasantries – I fear they have set a trap for you, little brother.'

Daniel held out his hand. ‘Can you get up?'

Kit's fingers tightened on Daniel's and he hauled himself to his feet. Daniel slid an arm around his brother's waist, securing his good arm across his shoulders. Kit slumped against him. They were not going to get far with him in this condition, Daniel thought grimly.

He turned to Agnes. ‘Hurry, Agnes.'

‘I can't leave Peg,' she said.

Daniel glanced at the old woman, who lay huddled on the floor, curled in a ball, gibbering to herself.

‘We can't take her,' he said.

‘But … ' Agnes protested.

‘No time.'

They turned for the door, only to be brought up short by a large, bulky figure.

‘You see I was right, Turner. They are sentimental fools.'

Tobias Ashby stood aside to admit Septimus Turner and two armed soldiers, both with horse pistols drawn and ready.

‘Only one of you?' Ashby enquired and he scowled. ‘That's annoying.'

Daniel released his grip on Kit, hoping he would keep his feet. He hauled Leah up and pushed her forward, the pistol to her head. She tottered and would have fallen if he had not had a good grip on her arm.

Behind Ashby, Septimus Turner lunged forward, only to be prevented from further movement by his commander's hand.

Ashby let out a deep sigh. ‘What are you doing here, Leah? I gave express instructions … What is your name young man? Not Lucas, I assume.'

‘Lovell,' Daniel said.