Page 28 of The King’s Man (Guardians of the Crown #2)

L ucy stood by the window, glancing up and down the street.

‘Are you waiting for someone?’ Thamsine enquired, her patience wearing thin. Lucy had been up and down all through the lesson.

‘Just a friend. He said he would call this morning to hear me play.’

A male friend , Thamsine thought. She didn’t think Lucy had made quite such good progress as to warrant public performance.

‘Is there a particular piece you would like to play for him?’ she asked.

Lucy sat down again and made a pretence of studying the music. ‘This one, I think.’ She picked up the sheet of paper and handed it to Thamsine. ‘I told him I had been having lessons and he said he was most anxious to hear me.’

‘A good friend?’ Thamsine said.

‘I’m keen to impress him.’ Lucy looked up with a small, smug smile on her lips.

‘What about Lovell?’

Lucy gave a careless shrug, dismissing her lover.

‘He’s been away for two weeks without a word. A woman can get lonely in that time.’ She looked at Thamsine through narrowed eyes. ‘Why? Do you miss him?’

‘Why would I miss him?’ Thamsine replied with studied carelessness.

Every Friday she dispatched a note, dutifully signed “John Grey”, and waited for Kit Lovell to walk through the door of The Ship Inn. Without him, she felt adrift. His absence from London and from her life left a void that the cheerful company at The Ship Inn failed to fill.

The music lessons at the French Ambassador’s continued in Kit’s absence. Mary Skippon’s little talent had improved, to the evident delight of her lover. Thamsine had not seen De Baas since the night of his planned seduction, and she had little to report to John Thurloe.

She sighed and forced her attention back to her present pupil. Unlike poor Mary Skippon, Lucy Talbot had some natural talent and was a fast learner. However, she was easily distracted and this afternoon seemed worse than usual.

Lucy returned to her seat and picked up the lute. She bent her head to the task, awkwardly feeling for the notes of the simple melody Thamsine had found for her.

A firm knock at the front door made them both start. Lucy jumped to her feet, the neck of the lute clasped firmly in her hands. Thamsine had never seen her so on edge.

She heard footsteps on the stairs and the ill-tempered maid, Mag, flung the door open to admit Lucy’s visitor. The blood in Thamsine’s veins froze as a tall, dark-haired man stepped into the room.

Ambrose Morton stood framed by the door, savouring the silence.

‘Thamsine,’ he said, a slow smile spreading across his face. ‘You have led me a pretty dance.’

‘Ambrose,’ she breathed his name in one long aspiration.

‘Is this the girl?’ Lucy said. ‘Was I right?’

Ambrose crossed the floor to where Thamsine stood rooted to the spot. He put a finger under her chin and lifted her face to look up into his eyes.

‘Oh yes, Lucy my dear, this is the girl. My betrothed. Do you know she tried to kill me?’ Ambrose curled a lock of her hair around his finger.

As he did so he touched his head, just above the right ear.

‘You did no more than knock me out. Unfortunately, by the time I had regained my senses you were long gone.’

Thamsine struck his hand away and backed away, her eyes searching for a way out, but Ambrose stood between her and the door. The windows were at least twelve feet from the ground and firmly fastened against the cold, damp spring day.

Ambrose smiled. ‘It’s pointless looking for an escape, Thamsine.

You don’t think for a moment I’m letting you go after I have spent months combing the streets of London for you.

You’ve been most elusive, my dear. I thought I had you cornered that day at the Lord Protector’s parade.

I really must commend you on your ability to disappear. ’

‘Lucy!’ Thamsine turned in appeal to the woman who had betrayed her. ‘How do you know this man?’

Lucy smiled a cold, hard smile and moved beside Ambrose, tucking her arm into his.

‘Kit Lovell introduced us.’ She looked up at Ambrose Morton’s handsome face. ‘How could I resist? Ambrose had told me all about you, long before I met you. Of course, as soon as I saw you, I knew who you were. Ambrose was so pleased when I told him that you were Kit’s little pet.’

Ambrose Morton patted Lucy’s dainty little hand.

‘Your friend, Lovell, seems curiously protective of you, so we have bided our time until he was out of the way, in Norfolk or wherever he is in reality. Does he know the truth about you, Thamsine?’

Thamsine said nothing.

‘He doesn’t! You haven’t told him,’ Lucy declared.

Thamsine turned to Lucy. ‘Lucy! You have no idea what this man has done. What he is capable of!’

Lucy shook her head. ‘You are legally betrothed to him—’

‘A betrothal I broke off ten years ago.’

Ambrose smiled and waved a hand. ‘Idle promises made in our youth. What matters is that your father formally contracted our betrothal before his death, Thamsine.’

‘My father was not in his right mind. He was ailing … your mother forced him into it … ’ Thamsine broke off and looked away, the memory of that betrayal still raw.

Lucy studied Thamsine with a humourless smile on her lips. ‘I can’t think what he saw in you. You’re hardly his type.’

‘Why are you doing this, Lucy? What do you get from this alliance with the Devil?’

Lucy’s lips tightened. ‘I am rather possessive about my men, Mistress Granville, and I don’t need you to distract my dear Kit any longer. I have my own plans for him.’

Thamsine searched the woman’s hard face, looking for a shred of human decency that would respond to an appeal.

All she saw was a spoiled woman who let nothing stand in the way of what she wanted – and what she wanted was Kit Lovell.

She wondered why. Was it possible, for all her protestations, that Lucy had been betrayed by her own emotions? Had she fallen in love with Kit Lovell?

‘If you think Kit Lovell will come to your rescue, forget it,’ Morton said. ‘By the time he returns from wherever he is, you will be married and beyond his reach.’

Lucy turned to Ambrose. ‘Well, are you taking her? This interview is getting a little tiresome.’

Thamsine made a dive for the windows. Far better to break a leg, or her neck, in a bid for freedom than submit to this man.

Ambrose caught her by the waist, lifting her from the ground as if she were a doll.

He clapped his hand over her mouth, and numbed shock gave way to desperation.

Thamsine kicked and clawed and struggled but Ambrose was a powerful man, and apart from a satisfying scratch on his cheek, her efforts were in vain.

He held her firm as they heard footsteps on the stairs. Mag threw open the door to admit a man of middle age, thin and slightly stooped with lank hair and a long, sad face. Ambrose dropped his hand, and Thamsine felt the breath catch in her throat as she recognised the visitor.

Her sister’s husband, the lawyer Roger Knott.

‘Roger. Help me, please.’

But her vain hope that Roger had come to rescue her faded as Roger Knott bowed to Lucy, and then turned to where Thamsine stood immobile in Ambrose’s grip.

‘Thamsine. I am pleased to see you are well,’ he said. ‘We have been most concerned for your welfare. It pleases me to see you reunited with your betrothed.’

‘How nice,’ Lucy said. ‘A family reunion. You would not know, I suppose, that dear Roger has been a loyal friend of my family for, oh, more years than I can remember!’

Thamsine glared at her brother-in-law. War had torn her family apart, with Roger taking up a sword for Parliament, while her father espoused the King’s cause.

She had not seen her sister, Jane, or her husband until she had fled to their quiet house in Turnham Green six months previously.

He had betrayed her then, and now it seemed he would betray her again.

‘The coach is by the door, Morton,’ Roger said, standing aside as Ambrose lifted Thamsine from her feet and carried her down the stairs.

He thrust her into a coach, one hand holding her firmly, the other dabbing at his cheek where she had scratched him.

Roger Knott climbed into the carriage after them, shrinking into the seat, his pale face shining in the gloom of the carriage.

As the carriage lurched forward she found her voice.

‘Where are you taking me?’

‘I’m taking you to your sister in Turnham Green,’ Ambrose said.

‘You can’t force me to marry you, Ambrose,’ she said with more bravado than she felt.

‘Be assured, Thamsine, our marriage will be contracted legally and with your consent. I have no wish for anyone to question its validity at a later date.’

‘I will burn in Hell first.’

‘You may well do that, Thamsine, but not until I’m ready to let you,’ Ambrose replied.

Thamsine spat at him.

‘Tut, Mistress Granville. You have been too much in rough company and forgotten your manners,’ Ambrose said as he wiped his face.

‘You will be pleased to know that your brother-in-law has some scruples and is most insistent that you shall stay at Turnham Green until you are of a more amenable state of mind. Of course, it is not my preferred course, but I am prepared to defer to him in this matter. I want a willing wife to come to my bed.’

Not while I have breath in my body , Thamsine thought as she subsided against the cracked leather of the seat, beyond misery.

She had been delivered up to the enemy, sold on the marriage market by an old, sick man who could not resist his wife’s harassment any longer, and then betrayed by her sister’s husband, the only other person who had been trusted to see to her welfare.

The house in Turnham Green stood set back from the London road, a pretty red brick building surrounded by a rambling garden that was the delight of her sister, Jane.

Thamsine’s heart sank as the coach stopped in the courtyard. Ambrose dragged her from the coach, nearly knocking over the maid who opened the front door to them. As Thamsine stumbled across the doorstep she collided with her sister.