By the Sword (13 page)

Jonathan opened his eyes and sighed, “Kate, have some pity!"

Kate snorted and held out her hand. “Come on, Sir Jonathan Thornton. It is a beautiful day and the Barton garden is a particularly fine one."

"I think your sister disapproves of me,” Jonathan said once they were clear of the house.

Kate smiled. “Small wonder! You and William drank yourself into quite a state last night. But don't take it to heart. She only teases. William has a very comfortable approach to religion which does not always accord with the Puritan streak in poor Suzanne."

"And how is your Puritan streak? Mortally offended by my improper behaviour last night?” he asked with a grimace of remembrance.

She smiled. “Mortally offended! Indeed I'm actually surprised you can remember last night!” She gave him an impish look. “How is your shoulder this morning?"

Jonathan shrugged his good shoulder. “Tolerable. William says he has Amber in his stables. Can we walk around to check on her?"

Kate gave a shrug of acquiescence and tucked her hand into his elbow as they strolled across an elegant expanse of lawn towards a high, stone wall.

"It's a lovely view,” Jonathan observed, pausing to look down the slope of the garden to the rolling lands beyond the wall. “You must have known a very happy childhood here, Kate."

"My mother died when I was seven and my father when I was nine, Jonathan. Suzanne was just eighteen and a new bride when I came to live here. William is a dear man, and he was as good as a father to me, but I don't think one ever really recovers from early death of parents. What about you? You never talk about your parents or your brother,” she observed.

Jonathan stopped to pick up a stick. He flicked at the bracken with it as he said, “What is there to say? My parents were blessed with the perfect son in Ned. He was charming, intelligent, handsome, loyal and courteous. They adored him."

"And you?"

"I tried hard but I was everything Ned was not. I seemed to be continually in trouble and I was well beaten for it.” He paused, adding with a trace of bitterness in his voice, “until I got taller than Father, then we just used to quarrel."

"Your grandfather did not seem to think so badly of you,” Kate observed.

He smiled. “No, I suspect Grandfather saw himself in me and, as he was not my father, he could afford to be indulgent. Indeed if it had not been for my grandparents I think my childhood would have been considerably more miserable."

"It is never easy being a parent,” Kate commented.

Jonathan smiled bitterly. “I know I was not an easy son. My parents thought I should go into the church of all things.” He laughed and stopped in the path, holding out his good arm as if inviting Kate to look at him. “Can you seriously see me as a bishop?"

Kate smiled and shook her head, and Jonathan continued. “After they had abandoned their notions about the church as an appropriate calling for their second son, they sent me off to my mother's brother, Nathaniel, in London, to learn to be a lawyer."

"I can no more see you as a lawyer,” Kate put in.

"Well, in truth, I did not learn much law.” Jonathan laughed. “I spent all my spare time with training the London militia. It is the ultimate irony that they should so skilfully defend London in the name of Parliament. I must have done a good job! Anyway the war, when it came, was heaven-sent. Father raised his own regiment and assumed command of it with good old Ned as his second-in-command. I pointed out, with a lamentable lack of tact, that I was the only one in the family who actually knew anything about the military. I had a terrible quarrel with my father and in the end I refused to have anything to do with him and went off to join Prince Rupert and the cavalry."

"And Ned died at Edgehill?"

"A musket ball straight between the eyes.” Jonathan flinched at the memory. “He would never have known what hit him. Father was devastated, of course, and I don't think my mother ever really recovered."

He frowned and leant against a tree, looking beyond Kate to the unhappy past.

"I somehow think if it had been me, their grief would not have been quite so overwhelming."

Kate saw the old hurt in the set line of his jaw.

"Jon, how can you say that?” she asked

"It's the truth,” he replied pragmatically. “The family would have seen it as my well-earned fate. Anyway, after Ned's death Father did try to make peace with me but it was too late. The last time I saw him was just before Naseby, and as usual we quarrelled. He wanted me to ride by his side under the Thornton colours, and I refused...” He paused, squinting into the distance. “I often think that if I had gone with him, maybe I could have saved him."

Kate stood facing him. She took his hand and twisted her fingers around his.

"And maybe,” she said, willing him to look at her, “you would both have died."

"Maybe,” he said and added, “perhaps I should have."

"Why would you think something like that?” Kate asked, horrified by the bitterness in his voice.

"Because of what happened later ... after Naseby,” he said quietly.

Kate hesitated. Instinctively she sensed the key to this man—the woman, Mary, and the enmity with Stephen Prescott—lay in the events that had occurred after Naseby.

"What happened?” she asked softly.

He looked down at her, his eyes returning to the present. “It's all in the past, Kate."

She wanted to push him, to protest that it was not in the past but a very real part of his present, but he had caught her hand up in the crook of his arm again and had begun striding purposefully towards the stables. The moment had passed.

Jonathan, windswept and flushed from riding, leaned against the door to Kate's bedchamber, slowly pulling off his gloves. Kate knelt on the hearth, where she had been drying her hair in front of the fire. Seeing him she stood up and threw back the mane of still damp, ungovernable hair. She looked for all the world like a wild, untamed thing and he thought he had never seen anything so beautiful. With difficulty he fought back the rising desire to take her in his arms and press his lips to hers, run his fingers through that thick, damp hair. He swallowed and straightened.

"Your sister sent you those recipes you wanted.” He held out the papers to her.

She took the papers without looking at them, her eyes fixed on his face. “You're going to tell me you're leaving,” she stated bluntly.

"How did you know?"

"It's in your eyes."

He knew it was written on his face and in the ruthless way he had forced his arm back into use. Over the past weeks, he had pushed himself to the limit of his own endurance but his tenacity had paid off and although it was still not as strong as it could be, he did at least have the use of his arm again. He might never have full movement in the shoulder itself but it was a tribute to the long-suffering Ellen that the damage was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. However, if he was honest with himself, it still needed time; time, was something Jonathan did not have.

"Is there nothing I can say to keep you here?” she asked.

He shook his head. “I must go, Kate. You know that."

"Even though you know it to be a lost cause?"

"My obligation is to the King. That is never a lost cause,” he replied stiffly. “I'll leave in the morning."

She bit her lip, an unconscious gesture he had observed in the past weeks and found particularly endearing.

"Will you tell Tom?” she asked.

He nodded and turned away, closing the door behind him. He could not bear the pain in her eyes but he knew there was nothing he could say to make amends. He dreaded the long, bleak ride to Scotland hampered by a bad shoulder, but whatever his feelings for this woman, he owed a duty to the young King biding his time in Scotland and he was too long overdue.

He found Tom in the parlour wrestling with Latin conjugations set by his tutor.

"I don't see why I have to learn Latin. No one ever speaks it anymore,” Tom grumbled.

Jonathan pulled up a chair and sat down opposite him. “But you will be able to read all the great classics,” he pointed out.

"I suppose so,” conceded Thomas dubiously, “but I want to travel when I'm grown up and Latin won't be much good then.” He cocked his head. “What languages do you speak, Jonathan?"

Jonathan considered for a moment. “By necessity I speak French, Dutch, a little Spanish and a little German."

Tom looked impressed. “Can you teach me?"

Jonathan looked down at the well-polished table and steeling his resolve he looked up at the boy again. “Perhaps one day, but not now. I'm leaving tomorrow, Tom, if the weather stays fine."

Tom's face fell. “I thought you were going to stay. I thought you were going to marry Mother."

"What made you think that?” Jonathan asked, genuinely surprised.

Tom shrugged. “Amy said that you and Mother were in love..."

"And what does a twelve-year-old girl know about love?"

"She ... said she heard Aunt Suzanne talking to Uncle William...” Tom sighed and looked down at his work. He had not been watching his pen and it had left a large blot on the page.

Jonathan tapped the table thoughtfully. “Tom,” he said quietly, “there is nothing I would like more in this world than to stay, but I am soldier. I have a loyalty to my King. I have to go."

A curtain of hair obscured the boy's face and to Jonathan's distress a large tear dissipated the blot of ink.

"Don't get killed,” Tom said softly, his voice choked. “Mother thinks I'm too young to remember but I do. I saw him, all covered with blood, and Mother was crying and crying."

"Your father?” Jonathan asked quietly.

The boy nodded. “I thought you were going to die too but you didn't and I thought that meant you would stay."

The agony in the boy's voice pierced Jonathan's heart. He had never felt so hopeless. A man of less honour would stay here in this pretty house with the woman whom he had come to love and this boy he cared for as deeply as he would his own son. The decision to go was made harder by the knowledge that the King's cause was doomed even before it began. But, as he had told Kate, it was not the King's cause that held his loyalty but the King himself, and Jonathan had given him his word.

The only light in the room came from a single flickering candle and the dying fire. Next to a half-empty bottle of wine, Jonathan's sword lay on the table, polished and sharpened and ready to do battle. The man leaned against the chimney mantel, his coat unbuttoned. The glow from the fire leant his face deep shadows.

Kate closed the door and stood with her back to it, trembling partly from cold and partly from nerves. “Jonathan?"

He looked around at her, momentarily startled but not surprised. For a long moment he said nothing, just looked at her as if seeing her for the first time.

"Kate,” he said at last, “you're shivering. Come by the fire."

Frightened by her own audacity and unsure of what she should do or say, she moved towards the fire. “I came to see if you had all you need for the journey,” she said, conscious that her voice sounded tight and strained, the words unnecessarily bright.

He smiled and placed his hands on her shoulders, turning her to face him. She saw the hunger in his eyes, knowing it reflected the yearning in her own. He knew why she had come.

His long, strong fingers ran across her shoulders and lingered at the soft skin of her throat. Involuntarily she quivered as sensations, long forgotten, pulsed through her body.

"I hoped you would come,” he said softly. “I've been waiting for you."

"I don't know if I am ready,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “I've been a faithful wife and a virtuous widow for a long time, Jon,” she added with considerably more confidence than she felt. She looked up at him, her eyes holding his. “But you will be gone tomorrow. I know I may never see you again and I do not want to spend the rest of my life wondering what might have been ... whatever the consequences."

He bent his lips to her forehead. “Kate,” he whispered, “I want you to be sure of one thing and that is my feelings for you.” He paused and frowned as if the words that followed were the hardest words he had ever had to say. “I love you, and were our lives any different—” He left the rest unspoken as he ran his hands along her shoulders and up her neck, twisting his fingers in the soft hair, pulling at the pins that held it in place. It tumbled down about her shoulders and she heard the sound of the pins hitting the hearth.

"Thou art my life, my love, my heart,

The very eyes of me:

And hast command of every part

To live and die for thee."

"Donne?” she whispered.

"Herrick."

He tilted her face up towards him, his eyes steady and expectant. She closed her eyes and parted her lips and they kissed hungrily and passionately. She felt his fingers trace the line of her throat, the tilt of her nose, as if he were in some way imprinting the memory of her.

He kissed her hair. “Rosemary,” he whispered, “whenever I smell rosemary I shall always think of you."

Kate felt herself relax, melting against him, willing her body to become one with his. She hardly noticed as his hand slid down her shoulder again, searching unsuccessfully for the lacings of her bodice.

"Damn,” he muttered, letting go of her. “I'm out of practice."

Kate laughed and obliged him by unlacing the bodice of her gown. He drew her towards him, and kissed her again. She felt his hand on her breast and a moment of panic caused her to stiffen and draw back. He only drew her closer towards him, kissing away her fears. Entwined, they stumbled over towards the bed, leaving a trail of clothing in their wake.

Kate lay back on the bed, and he leaned over her, gently stroking her face.

He smiled. “Relax,” he whispered, “you look like a virgin on her wedding night, not a widow with a nine-year-old son."

Kate felt the colour rise to her cheeks.

"I ... I'm not that experienced,” she said, hearing panic in her voice. “Richard and I were both so young and...” She took a shaky breath. “...we were only married months before the war came. Then I was pregnant."