Page 29 of The King’s Man (Guardians of the Crown #2)

‘Jane!’ She flung herself at her sister, feeling Jane’s arm around her, drawing her close.

‘You found her!’ Jane spoke over her sister’s head, no doubt addressing her husband. ‘Oh, my dear, you’ve no idea how worried I’ve been.’

Thamsine was wrested away from Jane’s reassuring arm by Ambrose. He held her by the shoulder, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh.

Jane looked at her husband. ‘Roger, I don’t understand.’

Roger swallowed. ‘There is nothing to understand. Thamsine is to be confined to the small bedchamber until I am satisfied that she is contrite for her high-handed behaviour towards Colonel Morton.’

‘Thamsine?’ Jane looked at her sister.

‘Jane, I—’

Thamsine opened her mouth to speak, but Ambrose had shifted his grip on her arm. With Roger following, he half-dragged, half-carried her up the stairs and thrust her inside the smallest bedchamber.

Thamsine stumbled against the bed, falling onto it. Ambrose stood over her, his handsome face completely devoid of expression.

‘What are you going to do with me?’ Her voice quavered. She knew only too well what he was capable of doing.

‘Nothing,’ he said, straightening. ‘I intend to do nothing for the moment. Your brother-in-law seems to think he can persuade you to see sense.’

He took a step back, allowing her to sit up.

Roger stood in the doorway. She remembered him as a serious young man with good prospects in the law.

Now in early middle age, his narrow face was lined, and the blue eyes faded and sunken.

His thinning, fair hair hung lankly to his collar and he looked like a man twice his age.

When he stepped into the room and stood beside Morton. He barely reached Morton’s shoulder in height. A little man with big ambitions.

‘What do you have to say for yourself?’ he asked, employing the tone he would use for one of his daughters.

‘Roger,’ Thamsine sat up, straightening her collar. ‘You know this is wrong. My father was coerced into signing that paper. The Mortons want control of the estate.’

‘It’s all quite legal, Thamsine. Your father signed the contract before his death and Morton is entirely in the right.

But I have told him you must go to the altar willingly.

I am hoping that after a day or so you will see sense,’ he said, but his eyes avoided hers, giving her the answer she sought.

She took a step back. ‘What does he have over you, Roger? How can he bend you to his will?’

Ambrose smirked. ‘Your morally upright brother has been a little indiscreet, my dear. There are certain letters in existence which I am sure he would not wish the world to know about, least of all his wife.’

Ambrose cast Roger a sidelong glance that left Thamsine in no doubt as to the nature of the indiscretion.

‘I don’t believe you. Roger loves my sister – he would never…’

Ambrose cocked his head to one side. ‘How little you know of men, my dear. He proved such a comfort to poor Mistress Talbot in her widowhood.’

Thamsine cast her brother-in-law a look of disgust. Bile rose in her throat. This odious man had betrayed her sister with Lucy Talbot.

He looked away, unable to meet her angry gaze.

‘You mealy-mouthed hypocrite,’ Thamsine spat, ‘canting Bible verses while all the time you were swiving that whore!’

‘My, my,’ Ambrose remarked blandly. ‘Six months on the streets of London has taught you some colourful language, my dear Thamsine. That will have to change.’

Roger had gone chalk white, and she closed in on his weakness.

‘What is to stop me telling Jane?’ Thamsine spat.

‘You’ll not tell Jane because you love her too much. She’s not strong, she couldn’t bear it.’ Roger’s voice lacked conviction.

‘You should have thought about that before leaping into bed with Lucy Talbot.’

Roger frowned and she knew she had gone too far. Anger replaced hurt and he crossed to her, striking her across the face. She had not been expecting the blow and the force knocked her back across the bed.

Holding a hand to her face, she sat up, all the fight knocked out of her.

Without looking at Ambrose, Roger said, ‘Leave us, Morton!’

Ambrose did not move. ‘We are agreed, Knott? If you waver on me, I’ll deal with her in my way.’

Roger looked up at the taller man. ‘Leave her to me, Morton. She’ll marry you willingly, I promise. She just needs to be made to see sense.’

‘I’ll return in a week, Knott, and I expect her to be agreeable. If she has gone or if she still refuses me, you know the consequences.’

Thamsine saw her brother-in-law swallow. She wondered what had become of the serious young lawyer who had courted her sister. She did not know this man.

Morton left the room, closing the door behind him. Thamsine rose to her feet. Without Ambrose present, Roger did not scare her.

‘Roger, how have you let this happen? How could you be such a fool?’

His shoulders hunched. ‘Martin Talbot was a friend as well as a client. After he died, his widow looked to me for assistance. I never intended anything to happen.’ There were tears in his eyes.

‘Jane was at my mother’s house. You’ve met Lucy Talbot.

You know what she’s like. She flattered me.

She captivated me. I was beset by the Devil.

The Devil made me write letters I shouldn’t have, and neglect my responsibilities.

I was led into temptation by a witch and now I must pay the price. ’

‘You’re a fool!’ Thamsine looked at him with contempt. ‘Now you have fallen into Ambrose Morton’s hands. I came to you because I trusted you. What tale did Ambrose spin for you to so turn against me?’

Roger passed his tongue over his dry lips and did not reply.

‘You sent for him. It was you who told him I had come to you and Jane for refuge,’ she said. ‘If I hadn’t seen him arrive, you would have handed me over to him, like a prize.’

‘Thamsine, I’m a lawyer. All I knew then was that you had a legal arrangement with Colonel Morton.

I did what I thought was right. I didn’t know him,’ he added with bitterness in his voice.

‘I thought you were being obdurate. Are you going to tell me now why you won’t marry him? Why you tried to kill him?’

‘I shot him in self-defence, Roger. He tried to …

‘ She struggled with the ugly word that rose to her lips. ‘…take me without my consent.’ She tried to read Roger’s face, but it was a mask of lawyerly inscrutability.

‘Did you hear what I said, Roger? He tried to rape me and you want me to marry him.’

Roger’s pale face remained still. ‘Legally, you are contracted to marry him. Your father … ’

Thamsine looked up at the ceiling in despair.

‘My father? Oh, Roger, if you could have seen him in those last few months. Isabelle Morton was at him night and day. He needed a male heir. Edward was dead. He couldn’t leave the estate in the hands of a mere woman.

Who better than her son? Every moment until he could bear it no longer and he signed my life away and even then Ambrose couldn’t wait – he is a rapist and probably worse! Roger, I cannot marry him.’

Knott shifted uneasily. His tongue ran around his dry lips. ‘Be thankful, Thamsine, that I persuaded him to let you stay here with me.’

‘Why? Why not just let him have me?’

‘Because none of us wants a scandal, Thamsine. Far better you go to the altar willingly than suffer a repeat of what occurred before.’

‘I wish to God I had killed him!’ Thamsine sank onto the bed.

She looked up at Roger, her mouth twisted in anguish.

‘I came here to you for help and you betrayed me. With Ambrose in London, I have had no choice but to hide and while he controls the estate, I have no access to money. I’ve been living …

surviving these past months on nothing.’

Roger looked away, his face unhappy. ‘Thamsine, I know you must think I have failed you, but you must see that my future and that of my family are my priority. I suggest you pray for guidance from God. I find him great comfort in such times of adversity. I have left a Bible for you to contemplate.’

He turned on his heel and left the room, locking the door behind him.

A long time later, she lay curled up on the bed, looking at a cold, clear moon rising over the trees through the square of the window.

She had no more tears to cry. The nightmare had begun again.

Nothing she had endured in London before her path had crossed that of Kit Lovell compared with the horror of finding herself back in the power of Ambrose Morton.

She put her hand on the cold leather of the binding of the Bible Roger had left for her. She had prayed before, prayed many times, but God never listened to her prayers. Was she so insignificant in the great scheme of things? Had she asked too much? She picked up the book and hurled it at the wall.

Hot tears welled again in her eyes and she gave a wail of despair.

It seemed everyone she had ever trusted had betrayed her.

Even Kit Lovell had betrayed her, but his motives were different and, it was possible, she thought, that he might care for her a little.

Lucy had thought that. Lucy had removed her so she could have Kit to herself.

Kit, she thought, screwing her eyes tight shut , please, if you can hear me, come back. I need you.

She shook her head. She could not expect Kit to come to her rescue again. She turned her face to the bolster, her tears soaking the pillow.

When Kit returned from Paris and found her gone, he would make a number of assumptions and they’d all be wrong.

His life would continue without her. She had nothing but her own resources, and as parlous as her situation seemed to be, at least she was alive, and while she lived there remained the faintest hope for her to cling to.