Page 1 of Exile's Return

Chapter 1

London, 27 October, 1659

Agnes Fletcher gripped the windowsill as a distant clock struck twelve, marking the fall of the executioner’s axe.

James Ashby, the third earl of Elmhurst, was dead.

She closed her eyes and prayed that death had been swift.

Taking a deep breath, Agnes turned to face the room. The cold draught that rose between the ill-fitting floorboards of the inn lifted her skirts as she walked across to where the two children were playing a noisy game of knucklebones.

‘You cheated!’ seven-year-old Elizabeth, the eldest of the two, exclaimed.

Four-year-old Henry hurled himself at his sister, issuing a loud and high-pitched disclaimer that rang in Agnes’s ears, jarring her nerves.

‘Stop it!’

Something in her tone made the two children fall silent.

They looked up at her, their eyes wide and mouths open in surprise. Agnes rarely raised her voice.

‘Why are you crying?’ Henry asked.

Agnes dashed at her cheek, where the betraying tears streamed from her eyes. She dropped to her knees and gathered the two now-silent children into her arms.

Dear God, what is to become of us?

‘Your father…’ A sob caught in her throat.

Lizzie stood rigid in the circle of her arms.

‘He’s dead?’ Lizzie’s voice cracked.

All Agnes could do was nod in reply as the tears coursed unchecked down her cheeks. Henry began to wail and burrowed his golden head into Agnes’s shoulder.

They had gone to visit James yesterday, the last visit permitted by the authorities. Perhaps, she had thought, as James went down on his knees to hold his children for the last time, it would have been easier on them all if they had stayed away. The memory of James’s fair head bent over his children filled her eyes again.

He had risen to his feet and taken her hands in his. ‘Agnes, dear Agnes,’ he had said. ‘Tomorrow I die, and you are all the children have left. You must fight for them. There is no one else.’

No one else except James’s cousin, Tobias Ashby, but for once Tobias’s malevolent shadow stayed away. Even he had the decency to allow father and children this last farewell.

There had been so much she wanted to say to James, but the words stuck in her throat. He smiled, a soft sad smile, and picked up a book from the table.

‘Take this,’ he said, pressing it into her hands. ‘A memento of me, and our affection for each other.’

Our affection for each other.

He had kissed her, a soft kiss on her forehead, and she had gathered up the children and walked away from him. He would never know how she had longed for him to take her in his arms, and for the kiss to be that of the lover she had known, not a dear friend.

The tread of heavy boots on the gallery outside the room brought her back to the present. Agnes jumped to her feet, wiping the last of the tears from her face and straightening the children’s collars as she waited for the knock on the door.

Three burly soldiers entered, followed by someone she had come to know well in the past few years; Captain Septimus Turner, Tobias Ashby’s ever-present second in command. Turner scanned the room before bringing his gaze to rest on the woman and the two children who cowered behind her skirts.

‘Madam, it is my unhappy duty to inform you that the traitor James Ashby is dead,’ Turner said, without a flicker of emotion on his face.

Agnes tightened her grip on the children’s hands. Henry shrank back and Lizzie buried her face in the bunched skirts of Agnes’s gown, muffling her sobs.

Taking a deep breath, Agnes gathered her courage to ask the question that had kept her wakeful for too many nights.