Page 90 of Exile's Return

Kit handed the two satchels he carried to Jonathan. ‘You take them.’

‘Why? Wouldn’t it be better … ’

Kit shook his head. ‘If we encounter trouble I can divert them — you keep going.’

Jonathan hesitated before he gave a curt nod. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Daniel, are you coming with us?’

Daniel shook his head. ‘I’ll go back before I am missed. I have to be certain that Agnes is safe. If I’m missing, suspicion will fall on her immediately. God speed, gentlemen.’

Kit turned to him and gathered him in a brotherly embrace, clapping him on the back. ‘Keep safe, Dan, and the girl too.’

‘We’ll be with you at Seven Ways in a few days,’ Daniel said.God willing.

‘Lovell!’ Thornton sounded exasperated. ‘We’ve got to get going.’

Daniel waited long enough to see the two horses spurred into a canter heading toward the track, described by Agnes, which skirted the village.

As he turned and hurried back, lights appeared all over the house and he could see through the window of the kitchen that the servants had gathered in various stages of night attire. Cursing, he found another entry unlocked and slipped into the darkened buttery. He paused to divest himself of his boots and the cloth he had wound around his face, stowing them with his jacket in a dark corner. He pulled his shirt from his breeches and padded in stockinged feet into the kitchen, running his hand through his hair as if he had just been awoken.

‘What’s the commotion?’ he asked the steward.

‘Intruders,’ the man replied. ‘One of the Colonel’s men has been badly wounded.’

‘Did they get away?’

The man shrugged. ‘Turner’s sent all his men out into the night. They’ll hunt ‘em down soon enough.’

‘What did they want?’ one of the maids asked in a tremulous voice.

‘Who knows? They were in the nursery wing when Simpson came across ‘em,’ another replied.

One woman subsided onto a chair, her hand on her chest. ‘Evil men, come to take the children. Are they safe?’

Another woman placed a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘Sleepin’ peacefully,’ she said. ‘Never even stirred.’

‘What was this Simpson doing in the nursery wing?’ Daniel asked.

They all turned to look at him.

‘Well may you ask,’ one of the women said. ‘After that little tramp Hannah Bell, I’d wager.’

‘Where were you?’ The steward narrowed his eyes suspiciously at Daniel.

‘Me?’

‘Aye — your bed is there.’ The steward pointed to the bedroll in the corner of the kitchen that had been allocated to Daniel. ‘That’s not been slept in.’

Daniel looked down at his stockinged toes. His feet felt like two blocks of ice. ‘I was with a girl.’ He jerked his head at the bedroll. ‘Not much privacy there.’

‘A girl?’ The man bristled. ‘I’ll not have that sort of behaviour in this house. Who was she?’

‘It’d not be seemly if I told you that,’ Daniel replied.

‘It was me.’

Daniel caught his breath as Sarah Truscott stepped up beside him, slipping her hand around his arm in a proprietary fashion.

‘We weren’t doing nothin’ except a little cuddling and sweet talk. He’s got a fine tongue, this one.’ She gave him the benefit of a coquettish smile.