It was a week later when Daniel, shaking snow off his cloak, entered the house to be met by sounds of a violent altercation coming from the parlor. His wife’s voice, shrill with fury, was ringing to the rafters yet was almost drowned out by a raucous bellowing that he immediately recognized.
“Oh, my heavens, Sir Daniel!” Dorcas, her habitual calm destroyed, scurried from the kitchen. “Thank goodness y’are back. There’ll be murder done in a minute.”
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” he said grimly, placing the shapeless parcel he was carrying carefully against the wall before flinging open the parlor door. The small room seemed full of people, but for the moment the only thing that interested him was the sight of his wife standing upon the oak table in the middle of the chamber, stamping her feet and yelling her head off.
“What the devil do you think you’re doing?” Two long paces brought him to the table. “Get off there this instant!” Seizing her by the waist, he swung her down. “Just what were you doing?” he repeated, still holding her.
“I was trying to make myself heard,” Henrietta said somewhat breathlessly into the sudden silence. The hands at her waist were warm and steadying, imparting reassurance.
“Well, stamping your feet on the table is a novel, not to say thoroughly indecorous, way of achieving such an object,” Daniel declared without heat, critically examining her flushed face and damp forehead. “Y’are thoroughly hot and bothered.” He glanced quickly around the room. “You also seem to have forgotten your duties as hostess, Henrietta. You do not appear to have offered your guests any refreshment.”
Under the circumstances, the reproving reminder, one suited to ordinary social congress, struck Henrietta as quite extraordinary and her jaw dropped. But some of the tension slipped from her body.
“Bravo, Sir Daniel. Will said you were a sensible man, and I can see he was quite right,” a voice said approvingly. The owner of the voice stepped away from the fire and Daniel turned to face a tall lady of ample girth and commanding stature. Green eyes twinkled in a worn countenance that nevertheless carried the marks of its previous beauty.
Daniel smiled, glancing at Will, standing beside his mother. “The resemblance is unmistakable, madam.” He bowed, raising her hand to his lips. “I am delighted to make the acquaintance of Will’s mother.”
“When we heard from Master Filbert that you were in London,” Mistress Osbert said, gesturing toward the lawyer, who looked as if he wished he were anywhere but there, “we determined to pay you both a wedding visit. And I know that my husband wishes to settle certain affairs with you. We cannot thank you enough for your kindness and your care of Will.”
Daniel shook his head, laying an arm across the young man’s shoulders in careless affection. “Will proved an invaluable companion and I can assure you there is nothing to settle.”
“Ah, I beg to differ, sir.” Esquire Osbert hurried forward. “I have heard the whole from Will and—”
“Oh, this is not the point!” Henrietta exclaimed in an agony of frustration. “They came with my father, Daniel, and he—”
“Where are your manners?” Daniel broke in as her voice began to rise alarmingly again. “What can you be thinking of to interrupt in that discourteous fashion?”
The hectic flush died on her cheeks and she took a deep breath, turning toward Will’s father. “I beg your pardon, sir. It was most ill-mannerly. I forgot myself for the moment.”
“That’s better,” Daniel said gently, caressing her cheek with a fingertip. “There is no need to be so agitated. I am here now. Why do you not go abovestairs and tidy yourself while I find some refreshment for our guests?”
Henrietta shook her head. “Nay, I wish to stay. If you had not sent me away the last time you had dealings with my father, we would not be in this tangle now.”
“Why, you…” Sir Gerald sprang forward, and Daniel swiftly interposed himself between the man and his daughter.
“How delightful to see you again, Sir Gerald,” he said with a bland smile.
Sir Gerald came to an abrupt stop, head lowered rather in the manner of a charging bull meeting an immovable object. “’Tis no damn pleasure for me,” he blustered. “This damned lawyer comes to me with some insolent demand—”
“Insolent!” exclaimed Harry. “How can you possibly stand there and—”
“That will do!” Daniel swung around on her, real annoyance now in his face and voice. “If you wish to remain in the room, then be silent. I can make sense of nothing when you constantly interrupt in this intemperate fashion.”
“A very sensible man,” Mistress Osbert reaffirmed with a nod. “Ye need have no fear, Henrietta. We are here to see fair play, and I can assure you it will be done.”
Sir Gerald turned an alarming shade of puce and began struggling for words. Master Filbert coughed. “That’s right, Lady Drummond,” he said. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. This misunderstanding is in a fair way to being settled.”
“Misunderstanding!”
“Henrietta, I said that will do!” thundered Daniel.
“I don’t know what damned business this is of yours, Osbert,” Sir Gerald exploded into the moment of quiet. “Or of some damned whey-faced lawyer.” He glared at Master Filbert. “There’s no documents to be found and I’ll not stand here listening to you tell me otherwise, just because some damned jackanapes has greased your palm!”
Daniel rightly assumed he was the “damned jackanapes” in question but decided to ignore the insult. His father-in-law seemed to suffer from a paucity of adjectives, he reflected. “May I offer you wine, gentlemen? Since Henrietta has omitted to do so.”
“Thank’ee,” Esquire Osbert said with heartfelt relief. “But ye shouldn’t blame Henrietta. ’Twas a shock for her when we all turned up. But as Amelia says, we’ll not stand by and see her done out of her due. As soon as we heard what was in the wind, Amelia said we must do our bit this time; we’ve turned a blind eye too often in the past.” He scratched his nose, as freckled as Will’s. “It’s hard to know what to do, though, Sir Daniel. Can’t interfere between a man and his child even if you don’t hold with what’s going on, and I don’t say Henrietta was an easy child…never biddable. But this is different, as Amelia says…a matter of right and wrong and what I know. I saw those papers myself when there was talk of a match between Henrietta and Will, and I’ll stand up in a court of law and say so. As will Master Filbert.” He drank deeply of the goblet handed him and sat down at the table with the air of a man who has said his say, shooting a glance of ineffable distaste at Sir Gerald, who was becoming more apoplectic by the minute.
“I cannot believe that will be necessary,” Daniel said, thanking his stars for Amelia Osbert, who clearly saw where her duty lay and had no hesitation in taking the path and marching others along with her. He raised an eyebrow at the fulminating Ashby. “Come, Sir Gerald, let us discuss this in a reasonable fashion.”
“Reasonable?” A sly look appeared in Ashby’s bloodshot eyes. “Reasonable, ye say? Where are these documents, then? The ones everyone says they’ve seen? You show ’em to me, then mayhap we’ll have a ‘reasonable’ discussion.” He drained his goblet and slammed it down on the table with unsuppressed violence.
“Oh, I’ll show them to you.” Henrietta spoke quietly. She was very pale but seemed perfectly in control of herself as she stepped forward. “I know exactly where they are.” She offered her father a glinting, mocking smile. “Shall I tell you? Or should we all journey into Oxfordshire and I will lay hands upon them myself? Which would you prefer…Father?”
The last word was invested with a wealth of bitter irony that chilled Daniel to the marrow. He stared at her in the stunned silence that wrapped them all. She was holding herself rigidly straight and still, and seemed to be concentrating every ounce of energy, every fiber of strength, every strand of willpower, upon the volcanic bulk of the man she called Father. It was as if she would defeat him with the power of herself, as if she believed he would crumble into inoffensive, harmless dust before the force of her will.
What Daniel did not know, what no one in that room except Henrietta herself knew, was that she was playing a hunch. Her father was an obsessive magpie. He kept everything, whether it had any apparent use or not, on the grounds that one never knew what the future would hold. If he had not destroyed the documents, she knew where they were. And as she impaled her father with the probe of the knowledge she thought she had, she saw that she had been right. The lines of his face seemed to blur, uncertainty to swim in his eyes.
“They are to be found beneath the false bottom of Lady Mary’s jewel casket behind the panel beside the fireplace in your bedchamber,” she pronounced with a thrill of triumph that she could not disguise. It was a triumph that led her to recklessness and her voice took on a taunting ring. “And with them will be found the deed of covenant for the tenants in the Longshire cottages. The deed giving to the families the cottages in perpetuity for a peppercorn rent in recognition of their services to your grandfather. The deed you denied ever existed when you evicted those families and sold the cottages to pay your gambling debt to Charles Parker.”
So heady was the sensation of victory as she read the truth and incredulity in Sir Gerald’s face that her habitual instincts of caution went by the board. She had come very close to him as she made her statements, and when his hand flashed, powered by the full force of his arm, she ducked an instant too late. The next second a chair crashed to the floor under the dead weight of Ashby’s bulk staggering beneath the impact of Daniel’s fist.
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Master Filbert whimpered, wringing his hands as he looked at the devastation around him. “This is most unseemly.”
Daniel ignored him. He bent to scoop up Henrietta, who was on her knees against the wall. “That was foolish,” he said almost roughly. “You had already made your point without talking of cottages.”
“Maybe so, but it served to prove the point,” she managed to retort, triumph still in her voice.
Catching her chin, he turned her face sideways. “Y’are going to have a very black eye.”
“Not for the first time. Anyway, it was worth it.” She glanced at her father, who was struggling to his feet, shaking his head like a bewildered bull, and said rather wistfully, “I wish you’d knock him down again.”
“Bloodthirsty little wretch!” Daniel exclaimed. Will snorted with laughter, then coughed, reddening under a hard glare from his mother, who marched across the room to Henrietta.
“This has become disgracefully out of hand. Come with me, Henrietta. We will see if the goodwife has some red meat to put upon your eye. It will draw out the swelling.”
“Oh, please, no.” Harry made a face. “I do hate it, all bloody and wet and cold. ’Twill be all right if we leave it be.” She shot a pleading glance at Daniel with the eye that was open. “Will it not, Daniel?”
“Go with Mistress Osbert,” he said, impervious to the plea. “Your part is well played and I would play mine now without hindrance.”
“I would not hinder you,” she said softly. “I wish to hear what is decided. Am I not entitled?”
“I can see that marriage has not made you any the more biddable, Henrietta,” declared Mistress Osbert. “’Tis not a woman’s place to take part in these discussions.”
Henrietta squinted fiercely. “I do not think you believe that, madam. And if ’tis not true where you are concerned, why should it hold for me?”
Will gave vent to another ill-concealed chortle and Esquire Osbert regarded his wife with some interest, waiting for her response. “Y’are impertinent, Henrietta,” she said at last, but there was a twinkle in the green eyes.
“I know, madam,” Harry agreed cheerfully.
“Well, I cannot help but feel compassion for your husband.” Mistress Osbert glided to the door. “You had best sit quietly and I will fetch something for that eye.”
Victory achieved, Harry sat on the settle beside the fire without demur. Although she would cut her tongue out rather than admit it, she was feeling distinctly quivery all of a sudden and her eye was beginning to throb painfully. She rested her head against the tall wooden back of the settle, content to let the voices swell around her, knowing she had nothing further to contribute but still fiercely clinging to her right to be there.
Daniel looked at her for a minute, a deep frown in his eyes as he wrestled with the urge to carry her off to bed willy-nilly. She looked so fragile with that great purple swelling marring the small, heart-shaped face. But she was entitled to remain if she wished, old enough to make her own choices and decide for herself if she felt well enough to implement those choices. He turned to his father-in-law, who had managed to drag himself into a chair, where he sat in the stunned and sullen silence of a bully who has met his match.
“Now perhaps we may have that reasonable discussion, Sir Gerald,” Daniel said pleasantly. “Pray take a seat, Master Filbert. There will be some papers to draw up and we might as well waste no further time. I am sure Esquire Osbert will lend his services as witness.”
Sir Gerald put up no further resistance and Harry offered only token protest to the large slab of raw flesh firmly placed on her eye by a resolute Mistress Osbert, who then sat down at the table with the air of an adjudicator.
“How did you know, Harry?” Will whispered, sitting beside her on the settle. “Not that anything you could do would ever surprise me anymore, but how could you be so sure where the papers were?”
“I wasn’t,” she confided with an attempted smile. “But it seemed worth trying. I know that’s where he hides precious things because I found the hiding place one day when I was poking around their bedchamber. No one knew I had discovered it.”
Will looked a mixture of shock and admiration. “What were ye doing poking around your parents’ bedchamber?”
She shrugged. “Just looking for things. I often used to do it. That and listen at doors and windows. That’s how I heard about my mother’s jointure in the first place.”
“’Tis dreadful behavior, Harry,” Will said.
“I am aware,” she replied, quite unrepentant, “but think how useful it has turned out to be. Besides, I had to look out for myself. There was no one else to do it.”
Will nodded, silenced by the truth of this. “You do look sick, you know,” he said after a minute. “D’ye not think you should lie down?”
“Aye, perhaps I will.” She took the slab of meat off her eye and put it on the platter with a grimace of distaste. Then, despite the weakness still affecting her knees, chuckled wickedly. “D’ye think I should offer it to my father, Will? ’Tis a powerful bruise he has on his chin.”
Will choked with laughter as he helped her to her feet, maintaining his hold on her elbow as she swayed slightly. “I’m going to help Harry to her chamber,” he said to the room at large.
“Aye, I think I’ll rest for a little while,” Henrietta said with careful dignity.
Daniel glanced quickly in their direction, then nodded calmly. “’Tis wise of you, I think. You’ll feel more like your dinner after a rest.”
“A most sensible man,” murmured Mistress Osbert, fully appreciating the effort it was costing him to keep his seat and leave his wife with the conviction that she was making her own decisions. A spark of humor glowed responsively in the black eyes as he met her smiling gaze.
“I am learning, madam.”
Much later that afternoon, Henrietta awoke in the darkened bedchamber, aware first that she was starving and then that one side of her face was twice its usual size. Memory rushed back and she forgot her ills immediately. They had won, and without a lengthy and expensive legal battle. She was free, once and for all, from her father’s long-armed malevolence. But where was everyone? Had they forgotten all about her? Such neglect seemed unjust after the part she had played in the morning’s drama. She sat up gingerly. Her face throbbed, but she felt perfectly strong.
The sound of voices reached Henrietta from the parlor—cheerful voices and the clink of knife on pewter. As she came down the stairs, the rich aromas of Dorcas’s cooking filled the narrow hall, wafting from both kitchen and parlor, and her mouth watered. She pushed open the parlor door and stood in her nightgown in the doorway, taking in the scene around the table where sat Daniel, all three Osberts, and Master Filbert. They were all flushed with good food, wine, fire-warmth, and good company.
“I see my father did not join you for dinner,” she said. “And I take it mighty ill in you, Daniel, that ye’d not wake me.”
Daniel pushed back his chair and came toward her. “Now, do not be vexed, Harry,” he said, laughing at her cross expression. “We have saved your dinner, but thought you’d enjoy it more when you’d had your sleep.” He caught her chin, holding it as he studied her blackening eye. “Does it pain you?”
She shrugged. “Some, but not as much as my belly, which is cleaving to my backbone.”
“Come and sit down. There are grilled pigeons and a hash of rabbit and lamb. Which d’ye care for first?” He drew her to the table, and she found it impossible to maintain her aggrieved pout under this determined refusal to acknowledge either the pout or the reasons for it. The Osberts were all smiling solicitously, and Master Filbert bowed most punctiliously, as if she were not in her nightgown with a swollen face and her hair in a pigtail.
“The hash, if you please.”
There was a holiday atmosphere around the table, as if an enormous weight had been lifted. Henrietta for once said little, but she found herself taking an inordinate pleasure in Daniel’s relaxation. She knew what this injection of capital meant to him, and the fact that she had been instrumental in acquiring it made her feel warm and glowing inside, as if she need no longer see herself as the impoverished suppliant rescued on a whim, as if she now had a place of her own in Daniel’s life, one that she was in a fair way to earning.
“I bought you a present this morning,” Daniel said suddenly, his eyes soft on her face. “I left it in the hall when I found you dancing a hornpipe on the table.”
“A present!” Harry choked on her wine in surprise. “Why would you buy me a present?”
“Some mad and foolish whim,” he said with a teasing grin, wiping wine from her chin with his handkerchief. “’Twas a risky purchase, too. Such things are not looked upon kindly by those in authority these days.”
“Whatever could it be?” Her one open eye widened, giving her such a lopsided look that he burst into laughter.
“It’s in the hall,” he told her. “By the door.”
Harry leaped to her feet, running into the hall to retrieve the shapeless parcel Daniel had come in with that morning. “I know what it is,” she cried excitedly. “I can feel the shape of it under all this wrapping.”
“Well, what is it?” demanded Will impatiently.
“’Tis a guitar,” she said in wonder.
“I trust y’are as accomplished a player as you said you were.” Daniel smiled delightedly at her pleasure as she pulled aside the wrapping and held up the instrument.
“Oh, indeed she is,” Mistress Osbert said. “And a most pretty voice.”
Henrietta flushed at the compliment, stroking the smooth curved wood with a delicate hand before plucking a string, tilting her head to listen to the note. “’Tis a true note,” she said, plucking another string. “Why, ’tis a fine guitar, Daniel. I will teach Lizzie and Nan to play.”
He nodded, still smiling. “But now will you play for us?”
“If you wish it.” She brushed a stray lock of hair off her forehead and gave him her own smile, a little shy, as if she would say more but could not for the moment. With a tiny frown of concentration, she plucked the strings almost at random. Then she began to sing, her voice rising sweetly in the quiet room as she sang a haunting ballad of love and loss to the gentle resonance of the guitar. When it was finished, without pause, she launched into a lusty folk song dealing with country matters, her voice mischievously inviting, the strings dancing beneath her busy fingers.
“Don’t introduce that song to Lizzie for a year or two, if you please,” Daniel said, laughing with the others as she ended on a singing chord.
“’Tis time we made our farewells.” Amelia Osbert stood up reluctantly. “There’ll always be a welcome for ye both at Osbert Court…and your family,” she added. “Don’t you let Henrietta go running around, Sir Daniel, until the swelling’s gone down. It’ll only make it worse.”
“I won’t,” he said solemnly. “And I do not know how to thank you enough.”
“Nonsense!” Amelia declared in dismissal. “If there’s to be any thanking, it’ll be on our part.” And with thanks and protestations on both sides, the Osberts and Master Filbert went out into the cold January night to make their way to their respective lodgings.
“Will we go home now?” Harry hugged her breasts convulsively in the shaft of freezing air lingering in the hall as the front door closed.
“Not immediately.” Daniel hustled her back into the parlor. “I have still to see the commissioners at Haberdasher’s Hall, and…” A shadow crossed his face, wiping away the previous warmth and elation. He bent to poke the fire.
“And…” Harry prompted.
“And I would wait for the outcome of the king’s trial,” he said, straightening. “I saw him this morning as they were taking him again to Westminster. He was on foot, going to take the barge at Gardenstairs, surrounded by those treasonous louts with their pikes.” His mouth twisted in contempt. “Such a sweet smile he had and a greeting for all his people lining the streets to watch him pass.”
Harry drew closer to the fire. “What was the mood of the people?”
Daniel shook his head. “Angry, confused. They were mostly silent. A few muttered ‘God save the King,’ but they were quickly hushed by those around them. Such prayers are considered treason, after all, under Parliament’s tyranny.” He almost spat the words. “God help me, Henrietta, but if they murder His Majesty, then I’ll not stand by.”
Such deadly purpose infused the quiet statement that she shivered involuntarily. What choice would he have? He had compounded, pledged allegiance to Parliament, in order to protect his family and his lands. Would he renege on that pledge? And if he did, what would happen to them all? Somehow, she could not bring herself to speak the questions, but the day’s satisfactions seemed to have lost their gilt. She picked up the guitar again. “Shall I play some more for you?”
“If you’ve a mind to,” he responded, but the music did not seem to soothe him, or banish the dark thoughts, and after a while he stood up restlessly. “I think I’ll take the air for a while, Henrietta.”
“I will accompany you.” She laid aside the guitar and stood up. “’Twill take me but a minute to dress.”
He shook his head. “’Tis too cold, Harry. Your face will hurt most dreadfully in that wind. Ye’ll be better in bed with a sack posset.”
The latter prospect was definitely more appealing than venturing forth in her present state, she had to agree, but she could not shake off the conviction that concern for her health was but excuse for his refusal of her company on this occasion. It seemed he felt he could not share the devils plaguing him with one whose political understanding was ill-formed by virtue of her age and sex. She would ask him to instruct her, except that she did not think the request would find favor in his present frame of mind.
The tension increased throughout the next week until the day came when Charles Stuart was sentenced to death by beheading, “as a tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public enemy of the good people of this land.” He was led out of the court at Westminster with the cries of “Justice! Execution!” ringing to the skies as the soldiery bellowed their demand for the blood of the man they believed was responsible for the blood of all those slain during the years of civil war.
Henrietta was there with Daniel, who stood stark and still as the previously unthinkable became a certainty. All around them rose a hum of voices, some in angry dissent, some in confused dissent, others loud in their support of the court’s sentence. “’Tis God’s law,” an ascetic-looking man beside Henrietta stated with cold precision. “’Tis God’s express words: ‘that blood defileth the land, and the land cannot be cleansed of the blood thus shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.’”
Henrietta felt the current of anger strike through Daniel as a bolt of lightning will cleave a tree and she was suddenly afraid of what would happen if he loosed that anger here, in this throng. She tugged desperately on his hand. “Let us go back.”
As if in a daze, he looked down at her face, upturned, anxiety swimming in the big eyes, her temple and cheekbone faintly shadowed with the residue of Sir Gerald’s bruising hand.
“Please,” she said insistently, tugging his hand again. “Let us go back now. My head aches most dreadfully.”
Concern sparked in his eyes, banishing the unfocused glare of anguished fury. “What ails you, elf? ’Tis not like you to be sickly.”
“Oh, I’m sure ’tis nothing,” she said hastily. “Just the wind. But I would go back to the house. If Dorcas will prepare some physick for my head, it will be better directly.”
“Very well. There is nothing to keep us here anyway.” Acid edged his voice, but he turned toward a side alley, holding Henrietta’s hand firmly. The crowd was breaking up around them, but the mood was somber and scuffles erupted here and there. A stone flew through the air, cracking against the cobbles at Henrietta’s feet so that she jumped back in alarm. Daniel’s grip tightened on her hand. “This place has an unhealthy air,” he muttered. “’Tis no time for a woman to be abroad.”
“But I am not the only one,” she protested, gesturing to the eddying throng.
“Most of the others look well able to have a care for themselves,” he said shortly, lengthening his stride so she was obliged to skip to keep up with him. His free hand rested on the hilt of his sword and his gaze was everywhere.
It was certainly an accurate observation, Harry reflected, looking around her. The women were hard-eyed and grim-faced, their wooden pattens clacking on the cobbles, their frieze cloaks showing signs of much wear. Many of them held small children by the hand or in their arms, and the men who walked with them were marked with toil and poverty, their expressions devoid of expectation. Was this the face of a nation that would applaud the murder of its king? Or would they simply let it happen as an act that had nothing to do with them, an act decided upon by the wisdom of those in power, who must, by definition, know what they were about?
She would have liked to discuss the question with Daniel but hesitated, afraid to scrape on open sores; and when they reached their lodgings, she was given no opportunity for conversation, serious or otherwise. An attempt to maintain that her headache had somehow miraculously disappeared during the walk home met with an incredulous raised eyebrow, and she was obliged to submit to being put to bed and fed a loathsome draught of Dorcas’s concoction. It must have had poppy juice in it, because she fell heavily asleep long before supper and was dead to the world when Daniel finally came to bed, to lie wakeful, his heart leaden, staring into the blackness as he struggled to come to terms with his own needs and convictions, to weigh practicality with violated belief and loyalty.
During the next few days, he seemed to retreat into himself. Henrietta tried to pierce his absorption with music and talk, with the softness of her hands and body in the big bed, and when all else failed she tried to persuade him to return to Kent. The commissioners at Haberdasher’s Hall had agreed to a reduction of a thousand pounds in his indemnity, and there was now no business to keep them in the city, but he would not leave London. It was as if he had to wait with his king, for whom he had fought most of his adult life, until the ax finally brought the enterprise to an end.
Dawn broke on Tuesday, January 30. Daniel rose in silence, dressed in silence, and strode in the same silence down the stairs to the front door. Henrietta ran after him, struggling with the hooks and buttons of her riding habit.
“I am coming with you.”
“No, you are not!” he pronounced with ferocious vehemence, more shocking coming as it did after the prolonged silence. “You will stay here within doors until I return.” The door opened, a lance of freezing air thrust through the damp chill of the hall, then the door slammed.
She stood for a minute, huddling into her still-unfastened jacket, numbed fingers fumbling with the hooks.
“Come you into the kitchen and feel the fire, m’dear.” Dorcas spoke at her back, one hand rubbing her arm in gentle comfort. “’Tis best to leave him with his devils; and this day is one when evil runs rampant.”
“Aye.” Henrietta turned and followed Dorcas into the kitchen, where the fire blazed in the range, the lamps burned, defying the lowering gloom of a January dawn, and Joe and the goodman sat stolidly breaking their fast, as if the king was not to die this day at the hands of his people.
Dorcas set a bowl of curds and white bread before Henrietta, and a redcurrant cordial that instantly brought warmth to the cold, empty pit of her stomach. It was soothing nourishment, which strengthened as it soothed, and Henrietta finally rose from the table with quiet determination.
“My thanks, Dorcas. ’Twas much needed. I go to Whitehall, now.”
“Sir Daniel will not be pleased.” Dorcas made the statement neutrally, almost as if she felt it her duty to do so, but her duty extended no further.
“I will not be excluded from this that touches him so nearly,” Henrietta said quietly. “If my husband is to stand in suffering, a helpless observer, then I too will suffer that. I cannot share it else.”
“You must do what you must.” Dorcas cleared platters from the table. “But have a care. The streets will be uneasy.”
“They have been so these past weeks.”
Dorcas simply nodded. It was for each wife to decide where wifely duty lay. If this one saw it thus, then she would not argue with her. “Joe will go with you.”
The youth did not look overjoyed at the prospect of the excursion, but his mother slapped his shoulder. “Great lump!” she said. “Get along with you and make sure Lady Drummond meets with no offense.”
Although she would not have asked for it, Henrietta accepted the escort with relief, and once they were out in the city, her relief became heartfelt. The streets were filled with a tide of people, moving inexorably in the same direction, slow yet purposeful, like some behemoth closing in on its prey. Once they had joined the tide, turning aside was an impossibility. One became a part of the beast.
Thin, wintery sunshine broke through the clouds as they neared Whitehall, illuminating the scaffold set up outside the Banqueting House. The crowd surged forward, and Henrietta found herself part of a group flowing ahead of the rest. Without intending it she was in the front lines of the spectators, who fell dreadfully silent as they looked upon the scaffold with its grooved wooden block. The executioner stood there already, his long-handled instrument of justice in his hand. The sun caught the wicked curve of the silver blade. What did it feel like to know that your arm would strike off the head of the King of England?
Henrietta stared at the man as if she could read his thoughts, but the mask lent him an unreal air, separated him from the hard shapes and contours of the real world. She looked around her for the large, bumbling familiarity of Joe and could not see him. There were just strangers’ faces, registering every emotion from lust to horror as they waited. Panic quivered in her belly. She tried to inch backward, away from her proximity to the scaffold, but the human wall at her back was impermeable. Desperately, she scanned the crowd, praying for a glimpse of Joe, or maybe Daniel. He was here, she knew. But where?
Then a low murmur grew in the throng, swelling to a sound part anticipatory, part horror-struck as a troop of soldiers emerged from Whitehall gate. Charles Stuart walked in their midst. His head was bare. To see the king bareheaded amongst his covered subjects struck Henrietta as the most dreadful aspect of this dread affair. It was absurd, she knew, to fix upon such a thing, but it seemed to symbolize the almost hallucinatory quality of the morning.
Now, she could do nothing but gaze as the scene played out before her. The king mounted the scaffold, which was immediately surrounded by ranks of soldiers so deep that when His Majesty turned to address the crowd his voice could not carry far enough. He gave his coat to an attendant, scorned the blindfold, spoke words of forgiveness to his executioner, and knelt. Now there was a silence so immense it seemed impossible it could ever be broken. Sun sparked off silver as the blade rose and fell in one clean, sweeping movement. A mighty groan broke from the crowd; a groan of despair and disbelief; a sound to wrench the vitals, rising, swelling in the air. Tears poured unheeded down her cheeks as Henrietta heard her own keening, mixing with the sound all around her.
Then someone shouted, the crowd surged, pressed forward, then ebbed as people struggled to break rank. Troops of horses were bearing down on them, their riders brandishing pike and halberd, intent on the speedy dispersal of the grieving throng. One troop marched on them from the direction of Charing Cross, another herded them toward Charing Cross, so that all was confusion as the crowd scattered hither and thither, desperate to avoid the rearing, plunging horses and the prodding pikes.
Henrietta concentrated on keeping her footing. Nothing else seemed important. She had no control over where she went, but she knew that if once she slipped and went down beneath the stampeding feet, she would never get up again. Her small stature was a grave disadvantage, and she lamented bitterly at having lost Joe’s bulky support. He could have held her up as she was tossed forward, backward, sideways, according to the ebb and flow of the tide.
Salvation came in the dark, narrow opening of a doorway. Just before she was carried past, she managed to duck beneath the arm of a burly individual brandishing a heavy stave and gain the safety of the doorway. Gasping for breath, she huddled against the door frame as the tide swept past her. She had no idea where she was, but at least she could stand upright and still, and at some point this great, milling mass of bodies would have gone.
Daniel was on horseback. Anticipating the possibility of mayhem, he had stationed himself well away from the press, and had left before the troops began their maneuvers. Thus, he reached Paternoster Row with little difficulty, hearing the swelling murmur of the crowd behind him. He felt cold, drained, empty of all feeling. It was over. That was all he could think of. He was too numbed to feel outrage anymore. In fact, he had done his grieving in advance and now lapsed into torpor…until Dorcas informed him that Henrietta had gone to Whitehall with Joe.
He snapped back to his senses as if his head had been held under a pump. “But I forbade her to leave the house!” He stared at Dorcas as images of the rioting crowd filled his vision. “Sweet Jesus!” He turned and ran back into the street, gazing wildly around, wondering which way to go. It was madness to go toward the crowd, but he could not just stand there like a paralyzed dolt. Then he saw Joe running toward him. Joe, but no Henrietta.
“Where the hell is she?” he demanded, grabbing the youth’s coat front with a violent jerk.
“I lost her, Sir Daniel,” Joe blurted. “I’m sorry, sir, but I couldn’t ’elp it. One minute she was there, close to the scaffold, then she wasn’t. I looked everywhere, but there’s so many, ’tis impossible.” His breath was coming in sobs, not helped by the continued jerking as Daniel without conscious thought shook him. “I came back as fast as I could, sir. I did, really.”
The words finally penetrated. Daniel released him abruptly. “I beg your pardon, Joe. I did not mean to handle you roughly,” he said, trying to clear his head, to focus on what really mattered. “You lost her at Whitehall?”
“Aye, sir.” Joe nodded vigorously.
“Before the…before they killed the king?”
“Aye, sir.” Joe’s face darkened. “’Twas a dreadful sight.”
“Fetch my horse. I have just taken him back to the stable.” It was probably futile, but he could not keep an anguished vigil, praying for her reappearance. He mounted and set off to retrace his steps.
Henrietta stayed in her doorway until the tide became a trickle. It was a long wait, but nothing would prevail upon her to leave her haven until the mêlée had dissipated. There were still soldiers, but they took no notice of her as she slipped out of concealment and stood, bewildered, wondering where she was and in what direction lay St. Paul’s. Plucking up courage, she approached one of the troopers, who gestured with his pike. “That-a-way, mistress.”
She thanked him and wearily trudged off. It seemed a much greater distance returning than coming, but earlier she had not yet seen what she had seen, endured what she had just endured. Every bone in her body felt bruised, her muscles ached, her skin was sore, and the dreadful memories would not leave her, sapping her of all remaining energy.
Daniel saw her just as he was beginning to think he could not control his panic any longer. He had kept down all thought of what might have happened to her as he combed the streets, the main thoroughfares, and the alleys, seeing only the shocked faces of strangers stumbling in their bewilderment. Then, as he came down Ludgate Hill from St. Paul’s for the second time, he saw the small figure dragging herself up the hill, eyes on the ground as she put one foot in front of the other with conscious deliberation. She had lost her hat and the neck ruffle of her shirt was torn.
He descended on her in a squall of pounding hooves. She looked up, shocked and fearful, at the imperative menace of the sound. Then the horse came to a heaving halt and Daniel twisted sideways in the saddle, catching her under the arms and hauling her up. For one horrified moment, she thought he was going to fling her facedown across the saddle in front of him, such wild fury she had seen on his face in the bare second before he seized her. But she landed with a thump on the saddle before him, dazed and bruised but upright. He said not a word, simply turned his horse and rode back to the house.
In the absence of invitation to speak, Henrietta also kept mute, but her insides were churning with alarm. This was not the Daniel she knew. His face was a mask of anger, the black eyes saber tips of fury, and the body at her back was rigid with the effort at restraint.
Outside the house, he flung himself from the horse, pulled Henrietta down, and stalked into the hall, bellowing for Joe to see to his mount. Joe and Dorcas both appeared in the kitchen doorway. Dorcas’s hand flew to her mouth as she saw Daniel’s expression and Henrietta’s white-faced alarm. She started to say something, but Daniel marched to the stairs, half dragging, half carrying Henrietta with him.
“You dare to disobey me, on this day of all days!” He spoke at last, kicking the bedchamber door shut behind them.
“I did not go alone,” she stammered. “Joe was with me. Only we became separated—”
“I did not give you permission to leave this house with Joe or with anyone,” he bit out, still gripping her arms. “Do you think I did not know what was going to happen in the streets?”
Henrietta swallowed, trying not to flinch from him as he held her. “I had to go,” she said. “I knew you would be suffering, and I had to be a part of it so I could understand how you felt.” She shivered suddenly, and tears filled her eyes. “I saw it! I saw the ax fall…I saw him, bareheaded, with the soldiers who kept their heads covered…” Tears clogged her throat and she put a hand up to massage it as if the external pressure would ease the internal.
Daniel released her suddenly. “Go and stand by the window. I am so angry I cannot trust myself near you.” He swung away from her toward the fire, and she scuttled across the room to stand on the far side of the bed.
“I would not be excluded from your pain,” she said with difficulty, clasping her hands tightly in front of her. “You would not take me, so I had to go alone.”
Daniel rested his arms on the mantel shelf, letting his head drop onto his hands. “Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”
“Yes, of course,” she replied. “I managed to find safety in a doorway until the crowd had passed, but I saw what happened to some. I knew that I must not lose my footing or—” Her teeth began to chatter as a shock wave of cold and nausea washed across her.
Daniel turned from the fire, running his fingertips across his lips as he looked at her and allowed the meaning of her words to penetrate his fear-fueled anger. She had gone to Whitehall in order to experience his suffering, so that she could understand it and share it. It was an extraordinary thing to do, yet, if he really thought about it in the light of Henrietta herself, it was entirely reasonable. It bore all the marks of the determined courage she exhibited in the cause of others. He had thought her too young, too naive and inexperienced in the ways of the world, to be involved in his agony. He had refused to confide in her, so she had taken matters into her own hands in a predictably simple and direct fashion. And she had suffered for it. He looked at her as she stood, shivering, gray-faced, the big eyes haunted by what they had seen.
Without saying anything, he left the room and went down to the kitchen. When he returned ten minutes later with a tray on which stood two steaming tankards and a plate of gingerbread, she was still standing as he had left her, except that she was looking out of the window onto the street below.
“Come to the fire,” he said quietly, setting the tray on the side table. “Y’are in need of warmth. There’s mulled wine and some of Dorcas’s gingerbread straight from the oven.”
It would seem the tempest had passed. Hesitantly, she came toward him, rubbing her crossed upper arms with her hands. “’Tis not cold in here.”
“Nay, the cold is within yourself,” he replied, taking her hands and chafing them vigorously. “We will never forget what we have seen today. No one who saw it will ever forget it. But we must go on, nevertheless. The fight must be continued because no honest man can live under the rule of regicides.”
She swallowed. “What mean you, Daniel? You have compounded, taken the Covenant.”
He shook his head. “I did not swear allegiance to regicides. Charles the First is dead. Charles the Second lives, and to him I owe my fealty.”
“What will you do?” The question was barely a whisper.
“I go to The Hague,” he said simply. “To the king in exile, and pledge myself to his cause.”
Henrietta nodded slowly. “There are many families in exile. We will not feel strange amongst their number, and the children will learn much from such travels.”
Daniel stared at her for a minute. Not thinking further than his own imperative, he had intended leaving Henrietta and his daughters safe in their Kentish backwater. But his wife had already once today demonstrated her views on the way in which a marriage partnership should be conducted.
He smiled and cupped her face, running his knuckles against the high cheekbones. “Think you Mistress Kierston will take to life in exile?”
Light and life returned to the previously solemn brown eyes. “Must we take her?”
He nodded. “I am afraid so, elf. You will have enough to do as my wife at court without caring single-handed for Lizzie and Nan.”
“At least there’ll be no butter to churn,” she said with a roguish glint in her eyes.
“And no trees to climb,” he replied solemnly. “You must learn to be a courtier.”
Henrietta contemplated that prospect. “I do not suppose it can be any harder than anything else I’ve learned to do.” She grinned suddenly, reaching up to put her arms around his neck, standing on tiptoe to kiss him. “But I do not suppose it will be as pleasurable as some other things.”
“Probably not,” he agreed, holding her lithe body against his length, feeling her warmth and eagerness, feeling his own stirring in response. Abruptly, he was engulfed by an urgent desire, a need for the body he held, as if in passion’s union would be found a healing of the day’s unhappiness.
Henrietta felt the change in his hold, saw passion chase all else from the black-eyed gaze bent upon her. And with her own wanting came a curious sense of triumph as she drew him to the bed.