Page 48 of Exile's Return

Kit shook his head. ‘No. This is between the two of us.’

Jonathan nodded. ‘This way, then.’

Picking up his hat, gloves and cloak, Kit followed his old friend through the winding maze of corridors of the old house. Jonathan stopped outside a carved oak door and looked across at Kit with a question in his eyes. Kit shook his head. He would face this meeting alone.

He opened the door, revealing a long, low, pleasant room overlooking the front entrance to Seven Ways and the ancient moat that surrounded the manor house.

In the scene he had rehearsed a hundred times on the long ride from Hampshire, Kit had seen Daniel as a nineteen-year-old…still, to his way of thinking, a boy. But the man by the fire, who looked up with enquiry in his eyes, was not a boy but a man, lean and hard, with lines around his eyes and mouth that spoke of hardship and suffering.

Daniel let the book he held slide unregarded to the floor as he rose to his feet.

‘You…’ The word came out as a hoarse whisper.

‘Good morning,’ Kit said, affecting a bravado he did not feel. ‘I believe you have been looking for me?’

‘Daniel, I found that…’ A woman’s voice jolted him and he turned to see a young woman standing by a bookshelf, a slim volume in her hand.

She looked from one man to the other, her brow creasing in puzzlement.

‘Daniel, are you all right?’ she enquired.

When Daniel didn’t move or speak, Kit recovered himself sufficiently to sweep her a courtly bow.

‘Please excuse my brother,’ he said. ‘He seems to have lost his tongue and his manners. Christopher Lovell, sometimes known as the Comte D’Anvers, but to my family just Kit.’ He forced himself to smile. ‘You,mademoiselle?’

‘Kit?’ She swung her gaze to Daniel. ‘But you’re…’

‘Dead?’ Kit suggested. ‘One evening, when we are better acquainted, I shall tell you a most interesting story, Mistress…?’

The girl coloured and sank into a curtsey. ‘Agnes Fletcher, sir.’

Kit turned his attention back to Daniel, seeing now the pallor of recent illness beneath the tan and the dark smudges that shadowed his brother’s eyes.

‘You’ve been ill. Are you recovered?’ he enquired.

Daniel found his voice. ‘A bout of marsh fever.’ He glanced at the woman. ‘Agnes, can you leave us?’

She set the book down and hurried toward the door. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Can I fetch refreshments…?’ When neither man answered she ducked her head and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving the two men alone.

‘How did you find me?’ Daniel asked with a noticeable crack in his voice.

Kit shrugged. ‘I received word that you were in England.’

Daniel narrowed his eyes in thought. ‘It could only be from the Ship Inn.’

No point in lying. ‘Jem and Nan Marsh have been loyal friends. They know the whole sordid story. Of course, they told me of your unexpected reappearance in civilization.’ Kit searched his brother’s face, at once so familiar and yet the face of a stranger. So many questions to ask, so much to say, but all he could manage was a strangled, ‘When I received Jem’s message, I thought it best to see for myself before I break the happy news to the rest of the family. We’ve been…disappointed before.’

‘The family?’ Daniel asked in a tight voice.

‘Your mother, your sister, my wife, our children…our adopted children,’ Kit said, realizing as he said it how much had happened in the intervening years. He didn’t even know where to start. He took a deep, steadying breath, struggling to keep his emotions under control.

Daniel turned away and paced the room for a long moment. He stopped in front of Kit and cleared his throat.

‘Everyone told me that you died…executed for your part in a plot. How…’

‘When it comes to Lazarene resurrections, Daniel,’ Kit interrupted, ‘I could ask you the same question. We went to Barbados to bring you home, Thamsine and I.’

Daniel frowned. ‘Who’s Thamsine?’