The King's Man (41 page)

The youngest girl started to scream again. Lucy stepped forward and stood beside Kit. She looked down into Morton's pain-wracked eyes.

"It's a horrible death,” she said calmly.

Kit stared at the woman with disgust.

"What have you done?"

Lucy smiled. “Monkshood. I keep a small supply with me, just waiting for the right occasion. I simply added it to the soup. I don't advise anyone else to drink it."

Realisation that Lucy had poisoned him flickered across Morton's face.

"Bitch! Why?” He spat saliva and vomit as he spoke

"You don't deserve to live,” Lucy said. “You're a monster.” She laid a hand on her belly and looked down at where Thamsine still knelt with Annie Morton's head in her lap. “This is his child and no child deserves a father like Ambrose Morton.” She laughed when she saw Thamsine's look of incredulity. “Did you really think that Lovell was the father? Kit was long gone before this one was conceived. It was fun watching your face though, when you thought it was his!"

Morton turned desperate eyes to Kit.

"Kill me,” he said. “Better to die at the end of your sword than this...” He doubled up, screaming in agony again.

Lucy placed a hand on Kit's sword hand.

"Don't kill him, Kit. I want to stand here and watch him suffer for every act of depravation, degradation and murder he has committed."

Kit looked from Lucy to Roger.

"Take the children out of here."

Roger nodded. Carrying his youngest daughter, and with an arm around the older girl's shoulders, he left the room. Kit could not yet bring himself to look at Thamsine. He shook off Lucy's hand and stepped forward. He stood for a moment looking down at his adversary.

He had a man's disgust of poison. It gave him no pleasure to watch this man he hated writhing on the floor in his vomit and faeces. He raised his sword and drove it down into Ambrose's throat. The blood spurted high into the air. Ambrose gurgled, then lay still. Overcoming a rising nausea Kit crouched down and closed the desperate, agonised eyes.

He looked up at the sound of boots in the hallway and Jem burst into the room, two pistols brandished in each hand.

"Typical!” Jem said. “I get to clean up the mess without any of the fun."

He looked down at Morton's body and swore. “There'll be none to mourn him, I wager, just that baggage—” He waved a pistol in Lucy's direction.

Kit rose wearily to his feet. “I have a job for you, Jem. Take that baggage to the nearest port and see she boards a boat."

"Now?” Jem asked uncertainly.

"Now! I want her out of this house."

Lucy smiled. She walked over to Kit and laid a hand on his cheek.

"Good bye, Lovell. We had some fun which I will always remember fondly."

"The coin, Lucy,” Kit said.

Her eyes flashed momentarily but she saw no quarter in Kit's face. She turned and dropped the coin bags on the table and swept from the room like a queen.

Then, for the first time, he turned his head to look at Thamsine. Their eyes met and for a moment a hundred silent questions and answers flowed between them. There would be time for that later. He walked over to her and looked down at the girl.

"This is his sister?"

Thamsine nodded. “There's no hope is there?” she asked.

Kit looked at Annie's grey face and blood-flecked lips. He watched the shallow rise and fall of her chest and shook his head.

"It's only a matter of time. All we can do is make her comfortable."

He stooped down and picked Annie up. She moaned slightly. “It's all right, Annie,” he whispered, “there will be no more pain soon."

Thamsine rose stiffly to her feet, wiping her blood-stained hands on the black skirt. “What about Ambrose?"

Kit gave the body a cursory glance. “The living are more important than the dead,” he replied.

Kit laid Annie on the bed with the tenderness of a father for his child. He stroked the dark hair away from the girl's forehead. Annie was unconscious, her face peaceful.

"He loved her, didn't he?” he asked, looking up at Thamsine.

She nodded. “She was the only person who loved him completely and unconditionally. His mother saw him only as a means to her own ends. She was a hateful woman.” Thamsine shuddered at the memory of Isabelle Morton's sharp, dissatisfied face.

"Aunt Thamsine?” Rebecca appeared at the door.

Thamsine turned to look at her niece. “Rebecca, you should be in bed."

"Rachel's asleep but I couldn't...” Rebecca crossed to the bed and picked up Annie's hand. “She's dying isn't she?"

Thamsine nodded.

"She saved my life. I want to stay with her."

Thamsine looked at Kit and he shrugged.

"If you wish, dearest,” she said.

Kit straightened. “I think I should find Knott and see to freeing the servants and...” A shadow crossed his face. “...dealing with other matters."

Thamsine nodded. After fetching a cloth and a bowl of water, she sat down beside Annie to watch and wait for death to claim her.

It would not be much longer. The girl's breath rattled in her throat. Thamsine hoped she no longer felt pain. On the other side of the bed, Rebecca sat with her fingers locked around Annie's hand, her face agonised. The two of them sat into the dark, wet night, unspeaking, waiting for death.

At some point a shadow crossed the doorway and Thamsine looked up. Kit leaned against the door watching them. He did not enter the room or speak. In the dark, Thamsine could not see his face but she felt his energy as a palpable force, his love reaching across the dark void.

"Do you want me to stay?” He asked.

She shook her head. “No. You must be exhausted. You will find my bedchamber at the end of this corridor."

She listened to his boots echoing on the floorboards, heard the sound of a door shutting and shivered as the silence descended on the room again.

Annie gurgled and a river of bright blood ran from the corner of her mouth. Rebecca's hand tightened as Annie gave one last gulping breath then lay still. Thamsine wiped the blood away and stood up, closing Annie's eyes. Rebecca lay her head on the bed covers and began to sob. Thamsine walked around the bed and put her arms around the child's shoulders.

"She died loved, Rebecca. Come, dearest, there is nothing more we can do here and I think we both need our beds."

She raised Rebecca to her feet and walked her to the bedchamber she shared with her sister. Rachel was fast asleep, her face still stained with tears but peaceful. Thamsine helped Rebecca undress and tucked her into the bed.

"Aunt Thamsine,” Rebecca said, “please stay. I am scared. Will that woman come back?"

Thamsine's heart cried out to run to Kit but she recognised that this was where she was needed. Kit could wait until morning. She sat down at the foot of the bed as Rebecca curled up next to her sister. She waited until the girl's sniffles had subsided and she slept.

The overwhelming silence of the house sat heavily on her shoulders as Thamsine trudged wearily to her bedchamber. Her door stood ajar, a candle burning low on the table. A trail of clothing, marking Kit's exhausted progress, led from the door to the bed where he lay sprawled across the covers, still half dressed.

Thamsine poured water into the washbowl and scrubbed at the blood and the memory of the night's terror. She stripped to her shift and looked down at the sleeping man.

"Kit?” She shook his shoulder.

He opened a bleary eye and gave a sleepy smile. Despite her exhaustion she felt a warm glow in the pit of her stomach.

"You can sleep in the bed or on the floor,” she said, “but not on top of the bed."

"In the bed sounds good,” he said and pulled himself up.

The rain continued to lash at the windows as Thamsine curled up against the warm, live body of her husband. She ran a hand through the soft hairs on his chest.

"You keep doing that and I'll forget how tired I am,” he murmured sleepily.

"You can't even begin to imagine what I ... How...?"

He laid a finger across her lips. “I can imagine and there will be time enough for that later. Now stop talking and either go to sleep or kiss me."

She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, locking him to her. As their lips touched, the weeks of desperate grief and the loneliness poured out of her. With tears running down her face, they kissed. Fingers meshed hair, tore at clothes until they united in a frantic, almost violent release of passion. Thamsine cried out, not with pain but with yearning as he entered her. Her body moved in unison with his until the passion was spent and he fell away from her, their bodies slicked with sweat, breath coming in short, panting gasps.

He slid an arm around her shoulders drawing her towards him. She fell asleep with her head in the pillow of his shoulder.

Rain still splattered against the windows on a grey, murky dawn. Thamsine woke with a start from a blood-stained nightmare. She lay disoriented, trying to still her racing heart and to remember the identity of the person in the bed beside her.

As memory returned she turned to look down at her sleeping husband. His unshaven face lay turned towards her on the bolsters. Even in the grey, morning light, she could see the faded bruising on his neck. Tentatively she reached out her hand and stroked his cheek. One eye shot open and as recognition dawned, she saw a slow smile twitch the corners of his mouth.

"Just seeing that you were real and not some avenging spirit...” she said.

For a moment he didn't move, just looked at her. Then he reached up and took her wrist, rolling himself on to his back, pulling her with him.

"Quite real,” he said.

She kissed his nose, her lips travelling down his unshaven face, the bruised neck, down his hard, lean body.

"Tham...” he murmured but she silenced him with a kiss as she slid down onto him.

There was no urgency in the passion of the morning. No grief, regrets or pain to expunge. Just a love rediscovered and renewed. They lay entwined together in the full enjoyment of each other's bodies. They slept for a little but the house began to stir around them.

Kit stared up at the bed hangings, Thamsine's head on his shoulders.

"What are you thinking?” she asked sleepily.

"I was thinking that it was probably time we got up. There are some things that need urgent attention this morning."

Things such as two corpses to give proper burial
, Thamsine thought gloomily. She raised her eyes and with a finger touched the bruising on his neck.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?"

Kit swallowed. How did he explain the terror of standing on a gibbet knowing he was going to die?

"Thurloe kept his word but not until he had me on the gibbet,” he said. “As far as the Commonwealth of England is concerned Christopher Lovell is dead."

She frowned. “So who are you?"

He shook his head. “I don't know, Thamsine. That is something for you and me to decide."

"It's been four weeks. Why didn't you tell me?"

He grimaced. “You don't die on the gibbet and then expect everything to be as it was. I needed time.” He gave her a rueful smile. “I had convinced myself that you might be better off without me."

Her eyes widened and she sat bolt upright, her eyes blazing.

"How could you think that? If you knew for a moment what I have endured these last weeks, thinking you were dead!"

"I'm sorry, Thamsine."

"Sorry?” Her voice cracked. “Sorry?"

Anger and grief spilled out of her. She beat her fists into his chest, the tears spilling down her cheeks. All the sorrow she had borne, over his death and her sister's death, poured out of her.

She felt his hands on her shoulders, bringing her down to rest on his chest. He let her weep as he stroked her hair. Spent by emotion, she drifted into an exhausted sleep. When she awoke, she was by herself in the bed. Kit stood, half dressed, beside the window, looking out over the garden.

"Kit?"

He turned to look at her. “Did you tell Suzanne?"

She nodded. “I planned to go to France and bring Eloise to live with me."

"Why?"

"She was a part of you. The only part I had. Kit, when I thought Lucy Talbot carried your child, you died again for me."

He sat down on the side of the bed and touched her face with his right hand.

"That day, that last day...” he began, “...I watched you walking away and thought I would never see you again.” Impulsively he pulled her towards him, folding her tightly in his arms. “Thamsine, I'm never going to let you walk away again."

She lightly kissed the broken fingers, studying his face, noting the grey shadows under his eyes, the lines of strain at the corner of his mouth, the red flecks that stained the whites of his eyes.

"Oh, Kit. What did they do to you? Your eyes!"

He pulled a face. “I'm sorry. I know I'm not a pretty sight."

She put her hands on either side of his face, drinking in the love in his eyes like a shipwrecked sailor who has found land.

"The last six months have been hard,” she said. “But you're alive. That is all that matters."

She let her hands drop.

"So, Kit. What do we do now?” she asked.

"I have to untangle this knot that is my life.” Kit sighed and drew her towards him. “When I was in the Tower, I dreamed of a peaceful life together, Thamsine."

"There is plenty of time for a peaceful life, Kit,” Thamsine said quietly. “I don't think you and I would settle well to such a life. Not yet a while."

He tilted her face upwards and smiled at her.

"Ah, Mistress Granville. There's a spirit in you that I loved from the first moment I saw you. You will have my undivided attention soon, I promise."

She smiled at him and laid her hands on either side of his face. “Don't make promises you can't keep, Kit Lovell."

Nothing remained of Eveleigh Priory but the east wing. Nature had reclaimed the blackened ruins of the once great house. Ivy trailed through the empty window recesses like worms through the eyes of a skull. The dried early autumnal leaves rustled together in eddies and gathered at his horse's hooves.