Page 40 of The King’s Man (Guardians of the Crown #2)

T he stench of death and despair hung over the Bethlem Hospital like a pall. Kit looked up at the grim, grey walls of the building more commonly known as Bedlam and shuddered. Not even the truly mad deserved incarceration in such a place as this.

Ordering the carriage to wait, he thrust Lucy before him and hammered on the heavy oak door.

The porter who answered the door looked at them doubtfully.

‘We’ve come to see one of the inmates,’ Kit said.

‘Well, I don’t know,’ the porter said doubtfully, ‘’tis very late for visitors.’

‘Give him some money,’ Kit hissed in Lucy’s ear. Lucy complied, her fingers shaking. The porter handed Kit a lantern and unlocked the door.

‘In yer go. Good luck.’

Keeping one hand on Lucy’s arm and the other, concealed by the cloak, holding the knife pressed against her back, they entered the dark, noisome place.

The stench caused him to cough and he swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat, pressing his arm to his face.

Lucy recoiled against him, her hand going to her mouth and nose.

The floors were mired with human filth and the inmates lay supine and oblivious on piles of filthy straw or gibbered about, pulling at Kit’s coat and Lucy’s skirts. Lucy squealed as one touched her face.

The women’s ward was if anything could be, worse.

Even as they entered, women sidled up to them, baring their breasts and spreading their legs.

Kit propelled Lucy before him, scattering them in his path.

Keeping his knife in Lucy’s back he took the lantern, swinging it from side to side, trying to make out Thamsine among the shapeless forms on the straw-covered floor.

They were considered no better than animals but even animals had better conditions than these poor souls, he thought.

‘Who are you?’ A slatternly wardress in a soiled gown and cap appeared out of the gloom. ‘How dare you come in here upsetting the patients?’

‘I am here to retrieve one of your patients,’ Kit spat out the last word with contempt.

‘Think you can find her here, do you?’ the wardress sneered.

‘I’ll find her. In the meantime, do you have an empty room with a key to the door? Lucy, your purse.’

Lucy opened her mouth and closed it again as the knife pricked her flesh. She thrust the purse into his outstretched hand. Kit held up a gold coin. He saw the wardress’ eyes open wide for a moment.

‘Through here, sir,’ she said, her manner now obliging.

She opened a heavy oak door on a room only a little bigger than a cupboard, with barely enough room to lie down in the same filthy, mouldy straw as the main room.

‘We uses it for those patients who get a little upset,’ the wardress said.

‘Good. My friend here is somewhat overwrought and could do with a peaceful night,’ Kit said.

‘You’re not going to leave me here,’ Lucy wailed.

‘That is exactly what I am going to do. It may teach you a little humility.’

Kit closed the door on her, pocketing the key. She threw herself against the solid door, shrieking curses that would have made the most hardened inmate of Bedlam blush.

‘Oi, how d’yer think we’re going to get her out?’ the wardress protested.

Kit shrugged. ‘Break the door down I expect, but it can wait till morning.’ He tossed her a couple more coins. ‘Now, I’m looking for a young woman brought in within the last couple of days. Chestnut hair, name is Thamsine Granville.’

‘No one by that name here.’ The woman frowned. ‘Only one come in the last few days was a woman by the name of Morton, Annie Morton.’

The name of Ambrose Morton’s sister. Kit closed his eyes in disgust.

‘Take me to her,’ he said in a low, uneven voice.

The wardress indicated a dark, dank corner. Hardly daring to hope, Kit touched the shoulder of the huddled woman who lay manacled to the wall. She recoiled beneath his touch, hunching herself smaller.

‘Thamsine,’ he said. ‘It’s me.’

At the sound of her name she uncoiled and turned towards him.

The few days in Bedlam had wrought a frightening change.

The Thamsine he knew had vanished within herself.

Even in the faltering light of the lantern, he could see that beneath her filthy, matted hair, her face was pallid, her lips grey and her eyes sunken in great, dark holes.

Her manacled wrists came up in a defensive gesture. ‘Don’t hurt me,’ she pleaded, looking into his face and not seeing him.

He knelt beside her and stroked her hair. ‘Thamsine? It’s Lovell.’ He raised the lantern to his face.

She stared at him for a moment or two, her brow furrowed. Her breath came in short flurries. ‘Lovell? It can’t be. He’s in Norfolk … or France … or … ’

She began to shake and he laid his hands on her shoulders to still her. She wore only her shift and the material beneath his hands was wet and cold to the touch.

Kit stood up and looked at the wardress. ‘Why has she been treated this way?’

The wardress put her hands on her hips. ‘Man what brought her in said she had a nasty, violent nature and suggested she be kept manacled.’ She looked down at Thamsine. ‘We find cold water normally quiets ’em down.’

Kit spared her a withering glance. ‘I dare say it does! Undo those manacles.’

Taking her time, the wardress knelt and turned the key in the rusty locks. Kit took Thamsine in his arms. She clung to him, shivering and icy to the touch.

‘Where are her clothes?’ he demanded.

‘Oh, they’re long gone, ducky.’

‘Well, fetch a dry blanket. She’ll catch lung fever left like this.’

‘Most of ’em do,’ the wardress muttered as she ambled off.

Kit took off his cloak and wrapped it around Thamsine’s slight figure. He held her to him, rocking her like a child. Another few days of this and she would have agreed to marry the Devil himself. Morton had a refined method of torture.

‘It really is you, Lovell?’ she whispered

‘Yes.’

She screwed her eyes shut. ‘No, it’s a dream. I’m going to wake up and you will be gone.’

‘I’m real enough.’

He stroked her face, fighting back the rage. When he next met Ambrose Morton he would kill the man.

The wardress threw down a ragged blanket. Kit looked up at her. ‘Are you going to help me?’ he asked with icy politeness.

Grumbling, the woman helped Kit wrap Thamsine in the blanket’s grimy folds. Rising to his feet, Kit walked over to the cell where he had locked Lucy. Through the grate in the door, he could make her out huddled in a corner, her arms wrapped around herself.

‘Are you comfortable, Mouse?’ he said.

He jumped at the shriek of rage as she lunged for the door.

‘Now, now, Mouse. If you behave like that they will throw cold water on you.’

‘Let me out, Kit!’ Her voice changed to a pathetic wheedling.

‘I don’t think so. By the time you’ve found a way out of there, Lucy dearest, I shall be gone from your life.’

‘We’ll find you, Lovell.’

‘Not in London, you won’t,’ he lied.

He hoped Lucy would be fool enough to believe him. Dearly as he would like to take Thamsine and flee with her to France, he couldn’t. Circumstances tied him to London. The little matter of Thurloe’s business had to be completed first.

‘Enjoy your stay, Lucy.’

In reply, she spat at the door as he turned away.

‘Come, Thamsine,’ he said, bending down and lifting her into his arms. She buried her face in his shoulder.

‘Watcha doing? You can’t just take her. What am I going to tell me superiors?’ The wardress sounded agitated.

Kit looked around the grim chamber. ‘Next woman that dies, tell them her name was Annie Morton. Perhaps this will help smooth the way.’ He tossed the wardress the remains of Lucy’s purse. ‘Now see us out,’ he ordered.

The other inmates howled and clawed at his legs as he marched through.

‘You know, for a thin woman with no meat on your bones, Thamsine Granville, you certainly weigh enough,’ he whispered.

He settled her in the corner of the hackney coach and gave the driver the order to take them to The Ship Inn. Morton probably knew that Thamsine lodged there, but for the time being there was nowhere else.

In the dark of the coach’s interior, he took Thamsine in his arms again, holding her close.

‘You don’t smell very good,’ he whispered in her ear.

A small vibration of laughter rewarded him. ‘Neither do you. You smell of sweat and horses.’

‘It’s been a busy day.’

‘How did you find me?’

‘It wasn’t easy. It would have helped if you had told me the whole story on the day we met. Then I would have known who Ambrose Morton was and what a threat he was to you.’

Her shoulders heaved as the sobs came in an unchecked flood.

He let her cry, soothing her in his inept, masculine way. It did not take long for Thamsine’s slight body to become a dead weight, and he knew that shock had claimed her – that she had fallen asleep or slipped into the self-preservation of unconsciousness.

The coach drew up at The Ship Inn. Kit lifted Thamsine out and carried her through the back entrance to the inn.

Roused from their beds, and still in their nightclothes, the girls came clattering down the stairs. May gave a sharp cry. ‘You found her! Oh Cap’n Lovell, what’s happened to her? What’d he do to her?’

Kit marched past her and continued up the stairs to Thamsine’s chamber.

‘She’ll be all right. She just needs cleaning up and rest,’ he said as he laid her on the bed.

May busied herself lighting a fire and he sat down on the bed beside Thamsine, chafing at her icy hand, trying to bring some life back to her.

‘Talk to me, Thamsine,’ he said.

Her eyes flickered open and she smiled.

‘Kit,’ she whispered, ‘I’m so tired.’ Her eyes closed again.

Nan brought a foul-smelling tallow candle closer. She shoved Kit aside with her hip. ‘Get lost. I’ll see to her.’

Kit crossed to the fire and stood staring into it, while behind him Nan and May stripped Thamsine of the damp shift.

‘Where’s she bin, to get into this state? She’s cold as death,’ Nan said.

‘Bedlam.’

Both girls stared at him.

‘Bedlam? Who put her there?’ Nan expostulated.

‘It’s a long story,’ Kit replied wearily.

‘It was him, weren’t it?’ May scowled. ‘The one that wanted to marry her.’

‘Yes.’

‘Who is this cove?’ Nan’s eyes narrowed malevolently.

‘A man called Ambrose Morton. You may have seen him. Tall, dark-haired, handsome … ’

‘Describing yourself, are we?’ May said.

Kit gave an ironic laugh and turned to look at the girls. ‘I’m only quoting someone else. He’s taller than I am and if he does come here, he’s not to find her. Is that understood?’

Nan shrugged. ‘If you say so. There’s plenty of hidey holes in this old place. We’ll keep her safe.’

‘Not much we can do about her hair except cut it!’ May held up the filthy, matted mess. ‘Pity. It’s such lovely hair.’

The girls found a plain nightdress, and when they had cleaned Thamsine up to the best of their ability, they dressed her unresisting body in it and with Kit’s help settled her into the bed.

‘So why’d you bring her here and not to yer fancy mistress?’ Nan asked.

‘My “fancy mistress” is a duplicitous bitch,’ Kit said savagely. ‘She is responsible for handing Thamsine over to Morton.’

Both girls both looked around at him. ‘So you’ve left her, ’ave you? Not before time. I always said she was no good,’ Nan said.

‘You never met her,’ Kit said, bemused.

‘I saw her with you and I formed me own opinions. You should’ve left her long afore this. This one,’ May jerked her head at the bed ’now she’s more than right for you. Well, I’m going back to me own bed. We’ll leave her to you, my lovely.’

‘She could do with a bit of warming up!’ Nan gave him a wink.

Kit sat down beside the bed and picked up Thamsine’s hand, noting for the first time the slender musician’s fingers and the fine bones. Her eyes fluttered open and her fingers tightened on his. She had begun to shiver uncontrollably, her teeth chattering.

Kit pulled the blankets higher, but to no effect. It seemed he had little choice but to follow the twins’ advice. He stripped down to his breeches and shirt and climbed into the bed beside her, folding her in his arms.

As the heat from his body began to permeate hers, the shivering lessened and she slept, curled within the circle of his arms as if she had always belonged there.

He’d never known this thing called “love” could be so painful. His heart ached for her but strangely, despite her proximity, he felt no carnal desire, just the pleasure of holding her, being near her, keeping her safe.

He held her tighter and kissed the top of her head, closed his own eyes, and let sleep wash over him.