Page 73 of The King’s Man (Guardians of the Crown #2)

R ain still splattered against the windows in the light of a grey dawn. Thamsine woke with a start from a blood-stained nightmare and lay disoriented, trying to still her racing heart and remember the identity of the person in the bed beside her.

As memory returned she turned to look down at her sleeping husband.

His unshaven face lay turned towards her on the bolsters.

Even in the murky light, she could make out every feature.

He seemed thinner, his eyes sunken. And if she had any doubts about what he had endured, the dark stain that still marred his neck told its own story.

It had been true. They had hanged him. For a moment she thought she would be sick at the thought of the terror he must have faced.

With shaking fingers she touched the marks, letting her fingers brush the curve of his jaw. One eye opened and a slow smile twitched the corners of his mouth.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

‘Just seeing that you were real and not some avenging spirit … ’ she said.

For a moment he didn’t move, just looked at her as she stroked his cheek and traced the curve of his mouth and the length of his nose.

‘I assure you I am quite real,’ he said, clasping her wrist and rolling himself onto his back, pulling her with him.

She kissed his nose, her lips travelling down his unshaven face, the bruised neck, down his hard, lean body.

‘Tham … ’ he murmured, but she silenced him with a kiss.

There was no urgency in the passion of the morning. No grief, regrets or pain to expunge. Just a love rediscovered and renewed.

As the house began to stir behind the closed door, Thamsine lay curled in his arms.

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.

‘I was thinking that it was probably time we got up. Some matters need urgent attention this morning.’

Such as two corpses to give proper burials, Thamsine thought. She raised her eyes and touched the bruising on his neck.

‘Are you going to tell me what happened?’

He swallowed.

‘Thurloe kept his word but not until he had me on the gallows,’ he said.

‘They tell me if he had left it another minute I would have been dead.’ He took a shuddering breath and she held him closer.

‘It’s over now, Tham. As far as the Commonwealth of England is concerned, Christopher Lovell is dead. ’

She looked away, fighting back the tears. ‘Too cruel,’ she said. ‘It’s been four weeks. Why didn’t you send me word?’

He stroked her hair. ‘You don’t die at the end of a noose and then expect everything to be as it was. I needed time to recover, and by the time I could function again, I had convinced myself that you were better off without me.’

She pushed him away and sat bolt upright, her eyes blazing.

‘How could you think that? If you knew for a moment what I have endured these last weeks, thinking you were dead!’

‘I’m sorry, Thamsine.’

‘Sorry?’ Her voice cracked. ‘Sorry?’

Anger and grief spilled out of her. She beat her fists against his chest, the tears spilling down her cheeks.

He grasped her forearms, stilling her and bringing her down to rest on his chest with his arms around her.

All the sorrow she had borne over his death and her sister’s death poured out of her as he let her weep.

Spent by emotion, she drifted into an exhausted sleep.

When she awoke, she was by herself in the bed. Kit stood half-dressed beside the window, looking out over the garden.

‘Kit?’

He sat down on the side of the bed and touched her face with the crooked fingers of his right hand.

‘That day, that last day … ’ he began, ‘ … I watched you walking away, knowing I would never see you again.’ He pulled her towards him, folding her tightly in his arms. ‘Thamsine, I’m never going to let you walk away again.’

She lightly kissed the broken fingers, studying his face, noting the grey shadows under his eyes, the lines of strain at the corner of his mouth, and the red flecks that stained the whites of his eyes.

‘Oh, Kit. What did they do to you? Your eyes!’

He pulled a face. ‘I’m sorry. I know I’m not a pretty sight.’

She put her hands on either side of his face, drinking in the love in his eyes like a shipwrecked sailor who has found land.

‘The last six months have been hard. But you’re alive. That is all that matters.’ She let her hands drop. ‘What do we do now? If Kit Lovell is dead, who are you?’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I suppose I need to find a new name and try to untangle this knot that is my life.’ Kit sighed and drew her towards him. ‘When I was in the Tower, I dreamed of a peaceful life together, Thamsine.’

‘There is plenty of time for a peaceful life,’’ Thamsine said. ‘I don’t think you and I would settle well to such a life. Not yet awhile.’

He tilted her face upwards and smiled at her.

‘Ah, Mistress Granville. There’s a spirit in you that I loved from the first moment I saw you. You will have my undivided attention soon, I promise.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Kit Lovell.’