NINETEEN

THE NEWS THAT LORD GORING had been given command of the King’s Western Army spread through Dorset and Somerset in early May. It was greeted with alarm by Clubmen because it confirmed their belief that the King was deaf to their pleas for peace. There would be nothing left to the south-west if Taunton fell and his most ruthless leader gained control of the region.

Certain that Parliament would attempt to relieve the garrison at Taunton, Goring ordered General Berkeley and General Hopton to subject the town and its people to constant bombardment while he and his army continued to blockade the border between Dorset and Somerset. By 10 May, a third of Taunton’s houses had been reduced to rubble, and the garrison retained hold only of the castle, the church, a blockhouse called Maiden’s Fort and a deep entrenchment across the marketplace. Without food and low on ammunition, any other commander would have surrendered, but Robert Blake’s refusal to lay down arms acted as a clarion call of defiance to his troops. All vowed to fight and die rather than gift hated Goring an easy victory.

Nevertheless, since there was no escape for the Parliamentarians, Goring showed no inclination to press an attack, preferring continued bombardment to assault. Known for his laziness as much as his prodigious appetites, he claimed it was only a matter of time before a mediocre upstart like Blake conceded defeat.

During the night of 11 May, Goring’s most trusted informant, a man who had succeeded in infiltrating Parliament’s armies, made his way to the general’s headquarters—a house on the border between Dorset and Somerset. Dressed in black, and with a scarf masking his face, he went unnoticed by the guards at the front and slipped quietly down the side of the building to let himself in through the door to the kitchen quarters. More accustomed than most to moving in darkness, he trod softly around the soldiers asleep on the floor and followed the noise of drunken laughter.

Goring shook his head in disbelief at the sight of William Harrier in the doorway. They had fought together in Europe and their friendship was of long duration. ‘I swear to God I’ll never understand how you make your way past my guards,’ he muttered, his words slurred by cognac. ‘Do you come to congratulate me on my new command or chastise me for not pressing the assault?’

William removed his scarf with a grin, acknowledging the salutes of the aides who lounged along the table at Goring’s side, all of whom knew him well. ‘Both, but allow me to congratulate you first. Even Robert Blake is saying the war is all but over with you in control of the south-west.’ He walked forward to grasp Goring’s hand warmly across the tumbled bottles that littered the oak surface. ‘It’s good to see you, George. Have you drunk the cellar dry or is there some brandy left for me?’

Goring nudged a half-filled bottle towards him. ‘How fares my dwarfish enemy?’

William raised the bottle to his lips. ‘Reduced to skin and bone and filled with melancholy since I told him Fairfax is still five days away.’

Goring laughed. ‘Rather longer if he’s forced to confront me first. There are no easy ways around my blockade.’

‘Indeed,’ said William, replacing the bottle on the table and reaching inside his coat for a letter. ‘But Berkeley and Hopton would rather not rely on that. I spoke with them both and they’re keen to press the attack at noon tomorrow or the day after.’ He handed the letter to Goring. ‘Berkeley’s put the request in writing, and I said I’d ride back with your answer.’

Goring dropped the letter to the table. ‘What would you advise?’

William shrugged. ‘It depends how eager you are to meet Fairfax. He’ll keep advancing as long as there’s a chance of retaining Taunton but will likely retreat if Berkeley and Hopton succeed in taking it first. His New Model Army is very green and I can’t see him testing it against yours without good cause.’

‘All the more reason to confront him, then. If we put the New Model Army to flight, the war is won.’

Word of Parliament’s triumph at Taunton spread through Dorchester on the morning of 15 May as Jayne made her way past boisterous crowds to Lady Alice’s house. She was reminded of the first time she and the matriarch had met. The crowds thronging the streets on that occasion had come to see the executions of priests, but today they were celebrating Robert Blake’s victory.

Jayne had learnt the details from Timothy Ellis at the King’s Head, who in turn had received them from a messenger the previous evening. The rider had paused at the tavern for a pint of ale, and his dramatic account of how the New Model Army had come to Blake’s rescue gladdened the hearts of all who heard it. Yet it seemed the victory owed more to trickery than conflict. Despite Sir Thomas Fairfax marching his men seventy-eight miles in nine days in order to relieve the beleaguered town, they were still some fifty miles distant when they heard it was close to falling. Gambling that Goring would choose to track him and his army, Fairfax dispatched two thousand mounted dragoons to cover the remaining miles to Taunton at a gallop while he feinted north-west to entice Goring into pursuit.

The stratagem had worked. For reasons unknown, the besieging Royalists at Taunton had assumed the two thousand dragoons had been sent by Lord Goring to reinforce them in their attempt to storm the castle, and had then fled the field in panic when they realised their mistake. The following day, Goring, said to be ablaze with anger at Berkeley’s and Hopton’s incompetence, had abandoned his pursuit of Fairfax and joined his army with theirs in the hope of reinstating the cordon. But he was too late. With the garrison strengthened and Fairfax moving up on his rear, he chose sense over valour and abandoned the siege on 14 May.

Timothy had allowed Jayne the use of a chamber so that she might change from her countrywoman’s garb into the same attire she’d worn on the day of Hugh Green’s execution. Dorchester’s Puritan leanings had returned in strength since Parliament had regained control of the town, and dark-coloured gowns with white aprons and bonnets were again the garments of choice for women. It was truly said that nothing changes, Jayne thought, as she stepped from the crowd into Lady Alice’s doorway, though the only real difference between now and that morning three years ago was that today she was here by request.

Molly answered her knock and smiled to see her look warily about the hall. ‘You’re safe to enter, Mistress Swift. There are no soldiers this time.’

Jayne moved inside. ‘You disappoint me, Molly,’ she teased. ‘I’ve yet to experience an uneventful visit to Lady Alice’s house.’ She allowed the maid to remove her cloak. ‘Does she know you wrote to me?’

Molly shook her head. ‘And I beg you to keep it a secret between us, ma’am, or she’ll never trust me again. Had she allowed it, I would have summoned you sooner, but she refuses to acknowledge there’s anything wrong with her.’

‘She may guess why I’m here,’ Jayne warned. ‘It’s not as if I make a habit of calling upon her without invitation.’

‘I hoped my letter would prompt you to think of a reason why you might, ma’am. Another patient in Dorchester, perhaps? Milady will accept that someone called upon your services and you chose to drop in because you were passing.’

‘You know full well that won’t satisfy her unless I give her a name, a diagnosis and a treatment,’ said Jayne, lowering her satchel to the floor. ‘Bring this when I call for it,’ she instructed, ‘and, meanwhile, I shall attempt to convince her that I’m not a meddling physician.’

Jayne didn’t need Molly’s written description of ‘tremors in the hand’ and ‘rigidity of face’ to recognise that Lady Alice had shaking palsy. It was an incurable disease, more often found in men than women, and usually associated with advancing years. Alice did her best to hide the symptoms by clasping her hands in her lap and using her voice and eyes to express emotion, but Jayne didn’t doubt she knew what ailed her and had chosen denial over fluster and pother from well-meaning friends and servants.

She was seated near the window of her front parlour, watching the crowds outside, but though she must have seen Jayne’s approach, she made no mention of it. Instead, she invited Jayne to draw up a chair beside her and asked her to relate everything she knew about the battle for Taunton. Jayne repeated what Timothy had told her, adding her own description of Robert Blake from her time in Lyme.

‘I never doubted he’d hold out until a relief force came,’ she finished. ‘The word “surrender” doesn’t seem to feature in his vocabulary. Papa heard from a Royalist friend who resides near Taunton that Blake’s response to a demand during the earlier siege that he and his men lay down their arms was’—she deepened her voice—‘“I have four pairs of boots and will eat three of them before we yield.”’

Lady Alice’s ability to laugh was not diminished and nor was her competence with speech, although the stiffness around her mouth meant her delivery wasn’t as crisp as previously. ‘William considers him as fine a commander as Fairfax and Cromwell,’ she said, ‘and that’s praise indeed. He spoke unstintingly in support of both Blake and you after Lyme, Jayne. I understand you took on the management of the hospital after becoming trapped inside the town.’

‘With the help of a surgeon and some fine nurses, milady. I couldn’t have done it on my own.’

‘I’d rather you called me Alice, my dear. Deference doesn’t suit you any more than it suited William when he posed as my footman. Poor Molly had the Devil’s own job teaching him to play the role of a servant.’

Jayne had had every intention of raising the subject of William herself, since curiosity about him was the only plausible excuse she could think of for her visit, and she was amused that Lady Alice had pre-empted her, if only to deflect attention from her palsy symptoms.

‘He’s a most mysterious person,’ she said. ‘One minute he’s a footman, the next my brother, then a Royalist, then an aide to the Earl of Warwick and now a captain in the New Model Army. Or, at least, that was his guise three weeks ago when he accompanied my brother and his cavalry troop to my father’s house.’

‘He bears a rather higher rank than that, my dear, but I’m sure he had good reason to demote himself. He feared he caused problems for you during that visit. Was he right?’

In the circumstances, Jayne decided lies were justified. ‘I’m afraid so, and it’s why I’ve come to see you, Alice. Mama believes I know more about William than I do, and my inability to answer questions about him makes her suspicious. When he presented himself as a captain in the Corfe Castle garrison, she thought him a person of consequence, but since Ruth told her he was your footman, she fears he’s a Puritan fortune-hunter in the same mould as Samuel Morecott.’ She pulled a rueful smile. ‘She takes pride in her judgement of people, and it annoys her to be wrong.’

Alice laughed again. ‘Well, you can certainly quell her fears about his being a Puritan. William lost his faith in God a long time ago and regards all religion as chicanery. As to being a fortune-hunter, he’ll not marry at all unless he can pay off his father’s debts through his own efforts.’ She studied Jayne curiously. ‘Are you truly ignorant of his history?’

Jayne nodded and gave the most honest answer she could. ‘All he’s ever told me is that he comes from a long line of Harriers.’

Alice considered for a moment. ‘The name’s notorious in certain parts of Dorset, but I can’t see that I’ll be betraying William’s trust by explaining why. He never hides who his father was.’

She went on to relate a tale similar to the one John Metcalfe had recounted to Jayne, though rather more detailed. William’s father, Sir Ralph Harrier, was the only son of the Duke of Granville, but Ralph’s dissolute ways had led to an estrangement between them. Alice described Ralph as both the most charming and the most disagreeable man she had ever met. It was hard to believe that two such opposite characters could exist in a single person, but she had witnessed both sides of Ralph at close quarters. He was consumed by an addiction to gambling and had sacrificed every relationship in pursuit of winning at dice and cards.

‘His wife adored him, but even she couldn’t persuade him to stop. It was very sad. The need to gamble was a recurring hunger that kept drawing him deeper and deeper into debt. I hoped he might try to repair his life after Estelle died and left him with William, but he didn’t.’

‘What caused her death?’

‘The midwife cited childbed fever, but I think melancholy the more likely reason. Estelle couldn’t see a future for herself or the baby after Ralph absented himself towards the end of the pregnancy. He left without explanation or farewell, and she had no confidence he would return or feel affection for the baby if he did.’

Lady Alice had begged Estelle several times to stay at Winterborne Stickland, but every invitation was met with refusal. The fragile young woman preferred to remain where her husband could find her than chance his coming and going again without her knowledge.

‘I wanted to shake some sense into her,’ Alice finished. ‘It was a mystery to me that any woman could love a man who behaved as badly as Ralph did, but she was barely twenty years old and her tears were so heartfelt I couldn’t bring myself to do it.’

Jayne watched a man turn cartwheels on the cobbles outside. ‘Ruth was the same with Samuel,’ she murmured. ‘She would have taken him back in the blink of an eye if he’d ridden to Weymouth to apologise … still might, if she ever sees him again. He was more handsome than ever when he came to Lyme. Was that where Ralph’s charm lay? In his looks?’

Alice nodded to a bureau in the corner. ‘See for yourself. There are some charcoal sketches of him in the bottom drawer which I made the summer before William was born. I intended to turn them into a portrait for Estelle, but there seemed little point after she died.’

Jayne left her chair to kneel beside the bureau. In the bottom drawer was a single scroll which, unfurled, stretched to two feet in length and showed the same face from different angles. The likeness to William was clear, though Ralph was considerably prettier than his son. ‘What became of him?’

Lady Alice clutched her hands more firmly together, as if memories induced stronger tremors. ‘Nothing good. When he learnt he was about to be imprisoned for insolvency, he hanged himself from a beam in his hall. He was alone in the house by then and wasn’t found until a bailiff came a week later to arrest him. His estate, Winterborne Houghton, was confiscated by the court as punishment for murdering himself, and his body was buried face down in an unmarked grave somewhere along the Blandford highway.’

Jayne rerolled the page and placed it back in the drawer. ‘Where was William?’

‘In Oxford. I had part-guardianship of him and paid for his education away from his father. Had I not, he would have been shockingly neglected.’

‘Who lives in Ralph’s house now?’

‘No one. It’s been empty for twenty years.’

‘Why?’

‘Ralph’s father begged the King to let it go to rack and ruin so that no memorial to his son remained. Some of the pastures have been designated common land for the local farmers but the rest is wilderness.’ Alice forestalled Jayne’s next question with a shake of her head. ‘I’ve never been privy to the Duke of Granville’s thoughts, but I can offer guesses. Ralph was his only son and he was greatly disappointed in him. He gave Winterborne Houghton to Ralph as a marriage gift in the hope he would mend his ways, then cut all ties with him when he learnt Ralph had raised mortgages against it within a month of receiving the deeds. I have some sympathy with the duke’s disappointment, because I felt it myself, but I can’t condone his bitter destruction of a fine house or the cruel rejection of a grandson he’s never met.’

‘Is he still alive?’

‘He is.’

Jayne did some addition in her head. John Metcalfe had said William was twelve when his father died, and Alice said the house had been empty for twenty years. ‘The duke must be as old as Methuselah to have a grandson past thirty.’

Alice gave a snort of amusement. ‘He’s two decades older than I am, which would put him in his early eighties, and I’m told he’s determined to live out the war. He’s a committed Royalist and expects to be rewarded when the King triumphs.’

‘How?’

‘With his daughter’s son being granted the right to inherit his title. He’s been petitioning the King since Ralph’s death to allow the dukedom to pass through the good seed rather than the bad.’

Jayne eyed her curiously. ‘That must upset William.’

Alice shook her head. ‘Quite the opposite. He’s always said he hopes the petition succeeds. He has no ambition to be saddled with a title he doesn’t want.’

‘Is that why he sided with Parliament—to separate himself from his family?’

‘I doubt he ever thinks about them, Jayne. He has more knowledge of yours and mine than he has of his own.’ Alice paused to order her thoughts. ‘His views were formed by his education at Oxford and his time fighting as a mercenary in Europe. You were right about that. His fluency in French, German and Spanish comes from eight years of brutal soldiering, and the lesson he took from the experience was that a commoner’s life is worth nothing to men who have power. Hence his decision to support Parliament.’

Jayne leant forward to watch a young lad swing a maid in his arms. ‘He uses his father’s title when it suits him. Everyone in Lyme called him Sir William.’

‘Only because Warwick’s fleet is full of men who fought with him in Europe. He served the Protestant Union as Sir William Harrier in order to make his fortune, and the heir to a dukedom can earn considerably more than a humble farmhand. Has he ever introduced himself to you as Sir William Harrier?’

Jayne smiled. ‘Never, but it might have helped me with my mother if he had. Sir William Harrier has a better ring to it than footman to Lady Stickland, particularly as I’m still quite ignorant as to why that impersonation was necessary.’

A twitch lifted the edge of Alice’s mouth. ‘In William’s life, every impersonation is necessary, Jayne. He said you guessed he was a spy the first time you met him. Was he wrong?’

‘I certainly guessed he wasn’t what he said he was, but as to being a spy’—she shrugged—‘I only came to that conclusion when he played the role of my brother for Sir Walter Hoare.’ She paused for a moment. ‘To be a spy is an unusual position for a man to hold. How did he come by it?’

‘The Comte de Guiche recognised his skill for crossing lines in Europe and recommended him to Lord Warwick. In advance of the war, he was tasked with estimating Royalist strength across the south-west; now he works to assist towns under siege through the passing of information.’

‘Both ways?’ Jayne asked, recalling Timothy Ellis’s account of how the Royalists at Taunton had mistaken the garrison’s reinforcements for their own.

Alice nodded. ‘There were as many Royalists fighting for the Protestant Union as there were Parliamentarians, and most regard William as a friend. The life of a spy isn’t easy, Jayne. They know more of betrayal than loyalty.’

Jayne was tempted to repeat John Metcalfe’s phrase that the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree, since betrayal seemed to have been Ralph’s weakness also. ‘That still doesn’t explain why he posed as your footman, Alice.’

‘I’m the only family he has, my dear. When he’s not on his travels, he prefers my company to being alone. As a footman, he’s of no interest to anyone, but we’d have drawn unwelcome attention to ourselves if he’d tried to pass himself off as an intermittent guest. Good Puritan widows don’t entertain young male strangers who prefer to arrive in darkness.’

Jayne gave an involuntary laugh. ‘Do you even have Puritan views, Alice?’

‘When it suits me. I’m not so principled that I can’t pretend to share the belief of others if the cause merits it.’

‘The cause being William?’

Alice nodded. ‘He’s my son in all but name, and he’s very necessary to Parliament’s cause. Without his work, the likes of Warwick, Blake, Fairfax and Cromwell wouldn’t be so well informed about their enemies’ movements.’ She paused. ‘William senses you’re moving towards support for Parliament. Is he right?’

‘Not at all, since that would suggest I had Royalist leanings previously. I am where I was three years ago, wishing a plague on all warmongers and longing for the war to end.’

‘I shall be sure to tell him that the next time I see him.’

Jayne reached out to place her palm on Alice’s trembling hands. ‘Will you also tell him that I’m upset he didn’t ask me to offer you my services? He could have whispered concern for you three weeks ago in my father’s house, but said nothing. Must I find out by accident that you have shaking palsy?’

Alice sighed. ‘I can’t abide fuss and swore him to secrecy on the matter. My father suffered the same, and the disease is as incurable now as it was then.’

‘Indeed,’ Jayne agreed, ‘but there are ways to mitigate the effects and slow its progression. Will you allow me to try at least?’

She remained three days with Alice, administering infusions of henbane and St John’s wort, and teaching Molly to knead and smooth an ointment of lavender oil into the muscles of her mistress’s face, neck, shoulders and limbs. These were methods that Richard had used successfully to relieve the sudden strange tension that came upon a patient, causing both tremors and rigidity, and she saw the beginnings of the same benefit in Alice by the end of the second day. The matriarch had yet to reach the stage where walking became a slow shuffle, but Jayne hoped the early and continued application of remedies would delay its onset.

By the third afternoon, Alice was delighted to find that the tremors in her hands had reduced enough for her to hold a piece of charcoal, and she begged Jayne to sit for her. ‘It’s three months since I drew or painted anyone and it would please me to capture your likeness,’ she said.

She asked Molly to fetch her easel and paper and then positioned Jayne in such a way that the light from the window fell across her face. Once started, she spoke hardly at all, and Jayne was given a sense of how such sittings must have worked when Gilbert Jackson was alive. It was easy to imagine how a handsome, garrulous actor might hold a subject’s attention while Alice worked unnoticed behind him, for it was intolerably tedious to remain immobile without even the distraction of conversation.

Her position, facing the window, allowed her to watch the comings and goings in the street outside. The revelry over Blake’s victory had passed, but there were enough people going about their daily business to keep her reasonably entertained. At one point, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure walking along the pavement on the other side, and she gave a start of surprise when she recognised Samuel Morecott. Ignoring Alice’s sharp reprimand, she surged to her feet to watch his tall figure disappear down a side street.

‘You’re a shocking fidget,’ said Alice crossly. ‘Do you ever sit still?’

‘Not often,’ said Jayne, returning to her seat. ‘Why is Samuel in Dorchester? This time last year, he was Parliamentary surveyor for the south-west. Has he a different appointment now?’

‘I prefer not to speak when I’m sketching.’

‘I’ll fidget less if you do.’

‘Tiresome girl! Your mother should have taught you patience.’

‘She did try.’ Jayne smoothed her skirt. ‘Now tell me about Samuel.’ ‘Only if you promise not to ask questions until I’ve finished. There’s no capturing a mouth if it’s in constant motion.’

‘I promise.’

The story took time to tell because Alice kept breaking off to stare at Jayne before leaning forward to make strokes on the paper. Samuel had returned a month previously, having forfeited Denzil Holles’s patronage, and was now trying to restore himself in the eyes of his former friends—without success. News of his indiscretions had reached Dorchester long before he arrived, and he found himself turned away from every door.

‘Our Member of Parliament is a prolific letter writer,’ Alice murmured, using the point of her finger to smudge a soft shadow. ‘I doubt there’s a leading Puritan who hasn’t been informed of Samuel’s wrongdoing. I’m told his first approach was to the commander of the Dorchester garrison in the hope of enlisting in the New Model Army, but he was summarily refused because of his bad character.’

She went on to express some sympathy for the foolish creature. London was a dangerous place for inexperienced young men from the country who thought they knew a card sharp from a gentleman and a woman of easy virtue from a lady. For all the surface prudery in the city, the corrupt underbelly was as vibrant as ever. Ralph had been similarly seduced by it the first time he ventured up to the capital, preferring the taverns and bawdy houses of the back alleyways to the straitlaced salons of the worthy.

‘If Samuel’s beliefs had been formed through conviction rather than to serve his ambition, he might have shown more strength. As it was, he squandered money on women and gambling and then used his patron’s name to raise more. Holles tells me he’s run up debts of close to a hundred pounds with no expectation of paying them off.’

She went on to say that Samuel would have been wiser to take himself to a town where he wasn’t known. Denzil Holles might spend his time in London, but he was still the Member for Dorchester and knew the value of keeping his electors close. His strongest warning had been against lending money to the now disgraced recipient of his patronage.

She canted her head to one side to stare again at Jayne’s face. ‘Whatever Holles’s other faults, he’s not an adulterer. He married a new wife barely three years ago and took grave exception to hearing that his name was being cited in brothels.’

An involuntary smile played across Jayne’s mouth.

‘No smiling! Think of what your poor cousin must have had to put up with. If Samuel’s appetites are as uncontrollable as they appear, she will have been forced to submit a great deal more often than she would have liked. Puritanism is a perfect excuse for men like Samuel to demand obedience of their wives in matters of the bed.’ She straightened. ‘I believe I’ve finished.’

‘May I see?’

Alice turned the easel to face Jayne. There was only one image, and Jayne was startled by it. She had expected a demure and pretty face to look back at her, as in the portraits that had been painted of her mother, but instead she was gazing at something far less flattering. Indeed, but for the fact that Alice had sketched in the top of her sleeves and bodice, she would have thought the strong jaw and searching eyes were those of a man.

Alice chuckled. ‘You don’t look pleased.’

‘I hoped I’d be prettier than Ralph, at least.’

‘Thankfully not. I despise prettiness. You have strength, character and honesty in your face, my dear, which are far more attractive. When I look at you, I see a person I want to know. When I looked at Ralph, I saw a carefully constructed mask. Had I sketched him truthfully, I would have drawn him with the horns of the Devil, but Estelle wanted only the likeness she saw—a man of beauty. Your cousin Ruth is the same: Samuel’s looks blind her to the reality of his nature.’

Jayne glanced towards the window. ‘She’s not alone in that, Alice. For all the judgements I’ve made of him, I never took him for a libertine. If anything, I would have said the opposite, that the fact he’s sired only one child with Ruth meant he had little interest in lying with his wife. Are you sure the tales about him are true?’

‘Very sure. I wrote to Denzil Holles for verification and the details he supplied conformed with the assessment William made of Samuel at the time of the priest’s execution. Power excites him, particularly over those too weak to offer a challenge. According to Holles, he treated the women he bought in London extremely roughly, and I’ll warrant he was as brutal with your cousin.’

Jayne had little difficulty believing this side of his character. All weak-minded bullies used cruelty to impose their will. ‘Where’s he living?’ she asked.

‘At the same address as before. The house has been vacant since the Royalists left. Your uncle should have found new tenants, Jayne. Samuel has nowhere else to go and will not be removed easily.’

Jayne took leave of Alice the following morning, but rather than return immediately to the King’s Head she made her way to High East Street. She told herself she intended merely to look at the outside of her uncle’s house and assess its condition, but the temptation to knock on the door grew greater the closer she came. Nothing would please her more than to find Samuel living in poverty; his pride could never survive the knowledge that every Swift would learn of his fall.

She came close to feeling some of the sympathy Alice had expressed when he opened the door and she saw hope in his eyes. Visitors must be rare, she thought, if a simple knock allowed him to dream that his fortunes were about to change. His sallow skin and hollow cheeks suggested he hadn’t eaten for several days, and he’d lost all the prettiness he’d had in Lyme, with even his hair beginning to recede.

‘What do you want?’ he demanded.

‘Confirmation that you’re living here, Samuel. I was surprised to hear of it and am certain my uncle will be also.’

‘You’re meddling in matters that don’t concern you,’ he muttered.

‘As you did in Lyme, Samuel. I’ve neither forgotten nor forgiven how you tried to destroy my character with Colonel Blake. Consider my meddling a small return for the spite you showed me.’

He looked up and down the street, as if to reassure himself she was alone, and then, without warning, grasped her wrist and spun her past him into the shadows of the hall. For all his appearance of weakness, he was stronger than she was and had no conscience about slamming her against the wall and pressing his forearm to her throat. And as his hot, vile-smelling breath swamped her nostrils, Jayne thought of Alice’s words. Power excites him.