Page 71 of Exile's Return

Agnes narrowed her eyes and allowed a thin, humourless smile to play on her lips. ‘Oh, but there is, Captain Turner. When I spoke with the Colonel in London I was in shock, but since I have had time to reflect, I find my memory about certain events of the last year has become a little clearer.’

Turner’s face betrayed nothing, but his body stiffened and she knew she had hit the mark. Turner knew about the gold.

‘What do you want?’ he enquired.

‘Of you, nothing. I will return with you to the castle and await the Colonel,’ she said.

‘But…’ Turner began, but she raised a hand.

‘I will see the children,’ she said. ‘If you deny me that, I leave Preston today and that will be an end of it. Ashby will never know what it was I came to tell him.’

Turner’s jaw worked. She could almost hear his brain churning through the conflicting orders. He was a man who only responded to orders and his were plain. Agnes Fletcher was not to be admitted at Charvaley.

He looked down at the hat in his hand and cleared his throat. ‘Very well. Do you have a horse? I brought no coach.’

She nodded and he gave a curt inclination of his head. ‘I will be waiting downstairs.’

She heard Turner’s boots on the stairs and let out a heartfelt sigh as Daniel closed the door.

‘You did well,’ he said, turning to her.

Agnes shivered. ‘He scares me more than Ashby.’

He crossed the floor to her and for a long moment, they stood facing each other. The weeks in an autumnal England, and his illness, had faded his tan, but the dark stubble on his chin and the scar on his cheek only served to make him look more exotic, more piratical, as Henry would have said.

She longed for him to touch her, to fold her in his arms and tell her all would be well, but she had set the barriers between them and there they would remain.

‘I’m not a conspirator,’ she said. ‘I just want my children and my home. Should we leave a message for Jonathan and Kit?’

Daniel shook his head. ‘They know where to go. I think we can trust them to find their way. Now, I’d better be a good manservant and go and organise the horses. I shall see you downstairs…madam.’ He gave her a low bow, and picking up Agnes’s travelling satchel, Daniel left the room.

Gathering up her cloak and hat, Agnes took a deep breath and stepped into the unknown.

Chapter 31

Was it possible for Charvaley to remain so completely unchanged?

It had only been three months since she had left, hurrying to reach London, as James had sent news that his captors had indicated that he would die. She remembered every moment of that hellish journey with two miserable, fretful children. She had left with no thought except for James and no expectation that she would not be returning.

Then it had been late summer; now the chill winds of autumn lifted the edges of her cloak as they rode under the gatehouse into the well-maintained courtyard, surrounded on three sides by the residence and on the fourth by a high wall that led out into the gardens that had been James’s pride and joy.

Agnes did not recognise the servant who helped her dismount from the black gelding and she looked at him curiously. The Charvaley steward had been a cheerful, round-faced man, not this dour, unsmiling minion.

‘Where’s Gibbs?’ she asked Turner.

Turner shrugged. ‘The Colonel preferred to have people he knew around him and brought his own people from Broughton.’

Agnes stared at him, thinking of the elderly but loyal Charvaley staff who had served the family. A small, nagging doubt insinuated itself into her mind. She had imagined returning to joyful acclaim from the staff and servants. Not this cold reception from people she did not know.

What had become of them? Had Tobias cast them out to make their own way in advance of winter?

‘He has replaced them all?’ she asked.

‘Not all,’ Turner replied.

Leah Turner waited at the massive oak door, dressed in a gown of a sombre russet colour with plain collar and cuffs unrelieved by lace or embroidery, her hands clasped in front of her, the keys of the house hanging from a heavy ring at her waist. At the sight of Agnes, the woman’s lips compressed with disapproval to be nothing more than a slit in her face.

‘What is she doing here?’ she demanded of her brother. ‘The Colonel gave orders…’