Page 26 of Exile's Return

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Daniel returned to the inn to find Agnes Fletcher sitting in the parlour waiting for him. Well wrapped in a thick woollen cloak, she sat on a high-backed chair with a leather satchel on her lap. Her eyes, ringed with dark circles, looked huge in her pinched face, but the smile she gave him was warm and welcoming and more than a little relieved.

She stood up as he approached her, ‘I thought…’

‘You thought I’d left without you?’ he prompted, and a little colour stole into her pale face. ‘I had some business to attend to. The horses are outside. Ready to go?’

She nodded and followed him out to the courtyard where the groom waited, holding the bridles of the two horses.

‘The bay is yours. I’m assured she has a gentle nature,’ Daniel said.

Agnes eyed the mare. ‘I am to ride astride?’

Daniel shrugged. ‘I could not procure a lady’s saddle at such short notice. You did say you can ride?’

The woman bridled. ‘Of course, it’s just that…’

‘…You are too used to a softer life, Agnes. If you are to travel with me you will ride astride.’

Agnes shook her head and smiled. The transformation to her haggard features took Daniel by surprise. Beneath the dowdy exterior of this little woman was a young woman, and a pretty one at that.

‘I used to ride astride when I was a child. My mother called me a hoyden but never tried to stop me.’

Daniel took Agnes’s satchel from her and strapped it to the saddle of her horse. ‘You took me at your word when I said travel light,’ he said.

She shrugged. ‘I have very little of my own here in London,’ she said. ‘Everything else I brought here went with the children or I left with the landlord’s wife to donate to the poor.’

Daniel bent and she placed a neat, booted foot in his cupped hands and lifted herself into the saddle with practiced ease. Quite the hoyden indeed, he thought. The groom adjusted her stirrups while she carefully and decorously arranged her skirts.

Daniel swung himself into the saddle of the gelding and glanced at Agnes. She looked the picture of a respectable sister in her dark cloak, with a high-crowned hat trimmed with a plain buckle atop a neat, matronly cap.

‘I don’t suppose you happen to know the way to Worcestershire?’ he enquired of her.

Agnes’s lips parted and she stared at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve never travelled these roads before,’ he admitted with a rueful smile.

The groom looked up at him. ‘Ye need to take the Uxbridge Road,’ he said. ‘I reckon ye’ll get as far as Uxbridge but watch out for footpads on Ealing Common. There’s desperate men taken to the roads these days.’

Daniel nodded and glanced at Agnes. ‘Thank you for the warning.’

Chapter 11

Agnes’s mood lifted as they left the fetid streets of the city behind, with all its unhappy memories. Agnes straightened her hat and pulled her cloak tighter around her as a brisk autumnal breeze rose to meet them.

The large black horse ambled ahead of her at a gentle pace. Beneath Daniel’s cloak the intricate basket hilt of an elegant sword at his hip, with its jewelled finial caught the light. The fine object seemed at odds with his plain dress and somewhat blunt manner.

‘Where did you get that sword?’ she asked.

He glanced over his shoulder at the sound of her voice. ‘My sword? The generous gift of a Spaniard.’

‘He gave it to you?’

‘Not with any good grace,’ Daniel said returning his gaze to the road ahead.

She kicked her horse forward to come abreast of him.

‘So are you Lucas or Lovell today?’ she enquired.