Magpie, page 24
Frowning, I asked, ‘But what can you do? I had thought your influence ended at Flete? You have no jurisdiction here in the city. You are as powerless as I.’ I wanted to wound him with my words, hurt him as I had been hurt. Although part of me, I admit, wanted to turn back time and, had he ever offered, accept his hand in marriage. How different my life would have then been.
The corner of his mouth twitched but he did not rise to meet my anger. ‘This is partly true and I had thought I would have no power over the court’s proceedings but a Lacey cousin will sit on the bench. If I am correct in my thinking, you may be able to do something to save yourself.’ He fixed me with his gaze. ‘But what I am about to say will require great courage and daring. Aye, and a gamble too.’ He leaned forward again, almost beseechingly. ‘But it is your only chance, Susanna. If you don’t take it, then you will surely die.’
‘What? But what can I do? Surely there is nothing. I am for the gallows too. In truth, it would be a kind of escape from all of this.’ I shivered and gazed around at the windowless stone walls. Who knew where I was. Somewhere in the cavernous depths of the castle. Matthias Finch demanded his pound of flesh for his fat fee and, having let Prudie slip through his fingers once before, would not let it happen again. What could Robert have that would possibly save me from the ordeal I was about to face?
His answer chilled me to the core. And my agreement to his request would surely send my soul rotting to hell.
CHAPTER 30
JULY 2018
‘So we know her name!’ Beth exclaimed. She and Nathan were back in the dining room, poring over the document. ‘Susanna. Tenpenny, if she’s related to Prudie. Oh my God!’ She stared at Nathan, breathing heavily in her excitement, her words tumbling out any old way. ‘Do you think she’s connected to Tenpenny House? She must be! It’s too much of a coincidence for her not to be. It’s hardly a common surname.’
‘It isn’t. Although we’ve come across a Susanna before.’
‘When?’ Beth demanded, eagerness making her harsh.
‘Wasn’t one of the Bideford Witches called Susanna?’
‘Let’s have another look at the photo of that plaque. The one on the castle wall.’
Nathan scrolled through his phone and passed it over.
‘She was called Susannah,’ Beth said. ‘Susannah Edwards. With an h on the end. And hanged in 1682. Too late for our Susanna? And besides, I’ve read about the Bideford Witches. They were old women. Everything points to our Susanna being young. Funny, isn’t it, you don’t think of Susanna as being a particularly seventeenth-century name. Seems too modern.’
Nathan gave her a fond smile. ‘You’re very invested in our Susanna.’
‘I am. I feel a connection to her. I always did to the book but now I feel it to her too. Don’t ask me why,’ she added impatiently. ‘Maybe it’s the Tenpenny thing.’
‘As far as I know there are no Tenpennys in Flete now, although there is still a Flowers family and a large Thatcher clan. And, of course, there’s the Lacey Manor Nursing Home. I’m assuming that must have been Robert Lacey’s manor.’ He added, with a worried glance, ‘Mum’s maiden name is Lacey.’
‘What?’ Beth sank back against the hard and extremely uncomfortable dining chair. ‘Oh Nathan, this is getting weird. You’re a Lacey?’
‘Descended from, I’m assuming. Mum’s family have always been in Flete.’ He grinned, slightly embarrassed. ‘Nothing exotic or unusual about the name Smith. That side of the family could be from anywhere, although Grandpa Smith’s family hale from Worcester, Massachusetts.’ He shrugged. ‘No idea what happened to the Lacey money though. Think Mum’s from the poorer branch of the family.’
‘When did the manor house change into a nursing home?’
Nathan frowned. ‘Years ago. Way back. Just after the Second World War, I think. Mum never really talks about her Lacey heritage. She’s not big into history, unlike her mother, my grandmother.’
‘Yes, you’ve mentioned her before. Would she know anything more about Lacey Manor?’
He shook his head. ‘We lost her two years ago.’
‘But you could be related to this Robert Lacey? The one who visited our Susanna in gaol.’
‘I could well be.’ Nathan eased a kink out of his shoulders. ‘Bill might know more.’ He shook his head wonderingly. ‘I’ve never questioned my heritage before.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Funny. Never pursued the link between Mum and the manor. It’s just always been there and none of us have ever been bothered about it.’
‘He’s an odd character, this Robert Lacey. Obviously an influential man in Flete at the time.’
‘And a royalist. That’ll please Mum, she’s mad on anything to do with the royal family. Huge Prince Charles fan.’
Beth’s brow furrowed. ‘But it sounds as if Susanna and Prudie were on the other side. So, why is Robert trying to help her?’
‘I don’t know, Beth.’ Nathan scrubbed a frustrated hand over his hair. ‘Susanna mentioned something about them once being friends. Maybe that’s it? And it sounds as if he’s in a difficult position. His wife has accused Prudie and Susanna of witchcraft, this has stirred up some old allegiances, which are using the women as an excuse to cause trouble in the town. He has to be seen to get justice done and quell any parliamentary rebellion, but the woman he loves is accused and facing the gallows. Yes, a strange man but complex and compassionate too.’
‘So you think he loved Susanna?’
‘Maybe. In some way. Or it was lust, or he was on a power trip? But if that was the case, he could have raped her. He’s powerful, she’s a prisoner and extremely vulnerable.’
Beth shivered, glad she only had twenty-first century problems to deal with. ‘Jeez. It’s bad enough being a woman now, but back then you were nothing in society if you were poor or unmarried. Worthless.’
‘And I’m guessing our Susanna was both. Plus she was in gaol, there was a clear power imbalance and he still respected her. Sort of.’
‘Even though she was on the losing side.’ Beth snorted. ‘And if he loved her, why didn’t he stop her going to gaol in the first place?’
‘I don’t think he could,’ Nathan said thoughtfully. ‘If he’s lord of the manor he’s in a position of power in Flete, and as I said, he has to make sure justice is seen to be done. He said to her he can’t allow parliamentary forces to rise again. He was in an impossible position.’
‘Not as impossible as poor Susanna and Prudie, chained up and thrown into a dungeon,’ Beth replied hotly.
‘True.’ Screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head, he said, ‘There’s something about all of this I’m not liking.’
‘Just the one thing,’ she began to joke, then saw his face. ‘What?’
‘The Tenpenny connection, me possibly being a descendent of Robert Lacey. The way the book has returned to its home.’
‘What are you saying, Nathan?’
He didn’t answer but rose abruptly and went outside. Beth joined him at the little garden table. He looked white and pinched and poured himself a glass of wine, which he drank down in one.
‘It all feels as if it was meant to happen,’ he began slowly. He laughed shortly and bit his lip. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but think back to when we met.’ He gazed at her, his eyes burning into hers. ‘You felt that instant attraction, didn’t you?’
‘Love at first sight?’ Beth scoffed. His decision to leave for the States still rankled.
He smiled. ‘Maybe. But I was thinking it was more that we’d met before.’
‘But we haven’t. Trust me, I’d remember.’
‘Beth, I don’t mean in this life.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘Are you really saying what I think you are? Are you talking about reincarnation? Come off it, Nathan, you’re a scientist.’
‘Then how would you explain everything that’s happened? The book returning to where it was written, me being a Lacey, you owning Tenpenny House.’ He spread his hands. ‘This connection we have, this feeling we have between us that began as soon, no before I got to know you.’
‘You’re scaring me.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. It’s just I’m floundering for another explanation. There are too many parallels. Prudie being a healer, me being a doctor, you making your lotions and potions.’
‘Oh come on, I’m hardly in the same league as a cunning woman.’ Her neck felt stiff and tense. Maybe she was coming down with a headache.
‘No, but you sort of inhabit the same world.’
Beth fell silent. She was thinking. ‘It is weird,’ she began slowly. ‘I have been reading up on courses in herbal medicine.’ As the words left her mouth, Beth realised how much sense training to be a medical herbalist made. The last few weeks had crystallised something in her. She loved making her soaps and body lotions but inspired by the book, she wanted to ramp up her knowledge, her skills, to another level.
There was another long pause, a silence, only punctuated by sparrows cheeping in the trees. ‘But until you just pointed that out, I would have said I hadn’t any idea to study anything of the sort.’ She could feel her heart pounding. This felt very important somehow. ‘I’m not sure I buy your reincarnation theory, but I’ll agree the past and the present are colliding in a very peculiar way. I mean, you may have made the book and Tenpenny connection yourself–’
‘It took you to discover Susanna’s hidden document and you were the one to research witchcraft,’ he interrupted.
‘But I’m a Loveday not a Tenpenny. Like you I’ve never researched my family tree so I suppose there could be a Tenpenny in my heritage somewhere, but I’m pretty sure if there was it would be the talk of the family. My gran, like yours, is really into all that. If she thought there was a witch in the family, trust me we’d know about it. All she ever mentioned was Flete being the Loveday family hub and that there has always been Lovedays here until the last one died childless. She was Betty Loveday, a distant, very distant, cousin of my grandfather’s.’ She stopped, her mouth hanging open. ‘Unless–’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t Susanna say the Tenpennys took her in? So she may have been adopted. Maybe she’s not a Tenpenny at all but a Loveday! It’s all supposition and guess work though.’
‘It adds flame to my reincarnation theory.’
Beth’s shoulders slumped; she was finding it hard to concentrate. ‘It’s all too fantastical to be true. I mean, things like this just don’t happen, do they?’ A huge bee droned past, low and sluggish and she gently batted it away.
Nathan watched as it flew up into the afternoon sky. He shrugged. ‘Basic tenet of some major religions. Buddhists and Hindus believe the essence of a living being transmigrates into another after death. I find it quite comforting.’
‘Reincarnation – but the soul doesn’t have a choice, does it? You can’t decide, oh I’m dying, I know I’ll come back in the body of Nathan Smith Devon GP four hundred years after I die.’
He smiled slightly. ‘No, that’s true.’ He blew out a breath. ‘Maybe, then, Robert Lacey and Susanna Tenpenny had unfinished business that they wanted us to finish?’
‘But what?’
‘I don’t know, Beth. It’s just a theory.’
‘It’s a bonkers theory.’
‘I agree. And this all makes about as much sense to me as it does to you.’
Beth surged to her feet so violently her chair toppled over and crashed onto the patio slabs. ‘Sorry.’ She turned around to pick it up, flustered. ‘This is all too much. I need to go.’ But she sat back down, legs weak, too confused to move.
‘Don’t go, not just yet. I’ll order pizza, we can finish the wine and read the last bits of the document. I’m even getting quite used to the s being written as f now. I promise there’ll be no more talk of reincarnation.’
‘I mean, things like this just don’t happen, do they?’ She rubbed her temple. She had a humdinger of a headache. The air felt heavy and languorous. Maybe they were in for a storm.
‘Not to me.’ He took her hands. Gazing earnestly into her eyes, he added, ‘Look, Beth, I can’t claim to know what’s going on here. For all I know, it could simply be a load of coincidences, but it doesn’t feel like that, does it? It feels important. Very important. And you feel important. To me.’
Beth’s breath hitched. She stared back. She could love this man. His obvious physical attributes aside, she could really love the man that lay below all the running-honed muscles. But he was going away. She slid her hands out of his hold. ‘Do you think you’re Robert Lacey then?’ she asked pettishly. ‘Unlike you, I’m not sure I like the sound of him and I don’t think Susanna was all that keen either. I think he sounds distinctly dodgy. Evil even.’ Her head began to swim. Too much wine on a hot day. Words were streaming from her mouth that weren’t totally her own. She needed to fight this attraction to Nathan. There was no future there. ‘Are you evil, Nathan?’
His lips compressed at her icy tone. He gave a short laugh. ‘I’m not evil. I’m not one hundred per cent good either. I’m just a man, Beth. Trying to do his best with what the world has given him. Do you think you’re Susanna? About to be hanged for witchcraft?’
Beth’s throat closed, the familiar and threatening scratchy rope tightening around it. She tried to swallow and couldn’t. Shaking her head, she whispered, ‘No, of course I don’t.’ Tugging again at the neck of her sweatshirt, she added, ‘It’s just too much to take in. It’s mad, Nathan. It’s–’
He picked up on her hesitation. ‘But you agree it feels important.’
She couldn’t deny it. There was something going on and it did feel significant but whether or not it was reincarnation, even the word made her giggle in a panicked way, was yet to be proved. ‘I’ll admit it all feels meaningful and I’ll admit to a series of startling coincidences, but reincarnation? That’s a leap too far for me. Maybe we’d better read the rest of Susanna’s stuff. Maybe that will give me more of an idea of what’s going on.’
Nathan gave her a keen look. ‘You okay? You’ve gone very pale.’
‘I’ve got a headache. Sitting in the sun drinking wine will do that.’
He rose, disappeared into the kitchen then brought out a glass of cold water and some paracetamol. ‘Take these. It’s hot out here, you’re probably dehydrated. We need to get some proper food. I’ll ring for a takeaway.’
Swallowing the tablets with difficulty down a raw throat, Beth wondered if she was sickening with something. The water was nectar and soothed and cooled. ‘Thank you. I’ll be fine. I’d rather finish reading the document and save eating for afterwards.’
‘Then, if you’re sure, we’ll read first.’
Beth nodded, eased the kinks out of her neck and accepted his suggestion. ‘I’m sure.’
CHAPTER 31
1660
For my sins and to my eternal shame, I took Robert Lacey’s advice. I agreed to what he suggested, may God forgive me.
I could not fathom why he should be doing such things as feeding me and bribing the justices to take my evidence. Robert was a hard man to puzzle. A once proud father, a devout Christian and loyal to his merry monarch. Weak in power and a whorer. From what little I had heard of our sovereign ruler, he had this in common with the new king.
From our meeting I smuggled a hunk of venison pie and some bread, and fed Prudie. Sitting with my back to the other poor souls to hide my bounty, I broke it into tiny fragments and tried to tempt her to eat. It was like feeding a babe but once Prudie had tasted the first mouthful, she was eager for more. I’d stolen an apple too, and bit into it with a moan of ecstasy. The fresh juice ran down my chin, freshened my mouth, the texture of the crisp flesh reminding me so much of our old apple tree at the cottage, with poor Star buried beneath, that I almost sobbed. But I had not the time for sobbing and wailing. I had to talk to Prudie about what Robert had suggested. It was an idea so horrific the apple stuck in my throat. I bit off a sliver and pressed it upon Prudie. It seemed to revive her a little and once my eyes adjusted to the gloom again, I could discern a gleam of understanding in hers. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Prudie having her senses whole again and understanding the terrible truth of what I had to tell her, but then going to her trial and death sensible of what she faced, or suffering stultified wits. There was comfort of a sorts in oblivion. While she chewed and sucked the pieces of apple I gave her, I ate the rest. Aye, core and pips too.
When we’d finished the sorry meal and sucked our fingers free of any stickiness and crumbs, I held her face in my hands, forcing her attention on me. ‘I need to speak with you, Prudie,’ I hissed. My voice quavered. ‘I need to tell you something.’
Her understanding quickened. I could see some of the old Prudie returning. I released her but she grabbed hold of my arm, her fingers gnarled and bony, biting into my flesh. ‘Who called you?’ she demanded. ‘You were gone. You had gone when I woke.’
‘Twas Robert Lacey.’
‘That name got through.’ Her eyes widened in shock. ‘And what has he to do with us? Come to tighten the noose?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think any of this is his doing.’
‘Tis his wife’s doing. He should have better control over her mouth.’
‘Like John did with yours? You were always your own woman, Prudie. And you taught me to be the same.’ I spread my hands. ‘And look at the trouble it has brought us to.’ She flinched and as soon as the words were free of my mouth I regretted them. ‘I’m sorry, I did not mean to be so cruel.’
Her lips twisted, creating grooves in her age-thinned begrimed skin. Drawing in a deep breath, she muttered, ‘Nay, child. Had my dear John lived he would not have seen us here.’ With a gleam of the old Prudie, she added, ‘That’s if he hadn’t shot his mouth off in The Cock after too much ale.’
I bent nearer. ‘It was his old soldiers who came to our rescue,’ I whispered urgently. ‘Not that it did us much good. We still ended up in here. I never caught the name of the good colonel who helped us and saved us from the mob.’ I shivered, remembering my lucky escape from the hands of Samuel Thatcher.
The corner of his mouth twitched but he did not rise to meet my anger. ‘This is partly true and I had thought I would have no power over the court’s proceedings but a Lacey cousin will sit on the bench. If I am correct in my thinking, you may be able to do something to save yourself.’ He fixed me with his gaze. ‘But what I am about to say will require great courage and daring. Aye, and a gamble too.’ He leaned forward again, almost beseechingly. ‘But it is your only chance, Susanna. If you don’t take it, then you will surely die.’
‘What? But what can I do? Surely there is nothing. I am for the gallows too. In truth, it would be a kind of escape from all of this.’ I shivered and gazed around at the windowless stone walls. Who knew where I was. Somewhere in the cavernous depths of the castle. Matthias Finch demanded his pound of flesh for his fat fee and, having let Prudie slip through his fingers once before, would not let it happen again. What could Robert have that would possibly save me from the ordeal I was about to face?
His answer chilled me to the core. And my agreement to his request would surely send my soul rotting to hell.
CHAPTER 30
JULY 2018
‘So we know her name!’ Beth exclaimed. She and Nathan were back in the dining room, poring over the document. ‘Susanna. Tenpenny, if she’s related to Prudie. Oh my God!’ She stared at Nathan, breathing heavily in her excitement, her words tumbling out any old way. ‘Do you think she’s connected to Tenpenny House? She must be! It’s too much of a coincidence for her not to be. It’s hardly a common surname.’
‘It isn’t. Although we’ve come across a Susanna before.’
‘When?’ Beth demanded, eagerness making her harsh.
‘Wasn’t one of the Bideford Witches called Susanna?’
‘Let’s have another look at the photo of that plaque. The one on the castle wall.’
Nathan scrolled through his phone and passed it over.
‘She was called Susannah,’ Beth said. ‘Susannah Edwards. With an h on the end. And hanged in 1682. Too late for our Susanna? And besides, I’ve read about the Bideford Witches. They were old women. Everything points to our Susanna being young. Funny, isn’t it, you don’t think of Susanna as being a particularly seventeenth-century name. Seems too modern.’
Nathan gave her a fond smile. ‘You’re very invested in our Susanna.’
‘I am. I feel a connection to her. I always did to the book but now I feel it to her too. Don’t ask me why,’ she added impatiently. ‘Maybe it’s the Tenpenny thing.’
‘As far as I know there are no Tenpennys in Flete now, although there is still a Flowers family and a large Thatcher clan. And, of course, there’s the Lacey Manor Nursing Home. I’m assuming that must have been Robert Lacey’s manor.’ He added, with a worried glance, ‘Mum’s maiden name is Lacey.’
‘What?’ Beth sank back against the hard and extremely uncomfortable dining chair. ‘Oh Nathan, this is getting weird. You’re a Lacey?’
‘Descended from, I’m assuming. Mum’s family have always been in Flete.’ He grinned, slightly embarrassed. ‘Nothing exotic or unusual about the name Smith. That side of the family could be from anywhere, although Grandpa Smith’s family hale from Worcester, Massachusetts.’ He shrugged. ‘No idea what happened to the Lacey money though. Think Mum’s from the poorer branch of the family.’
‘When did the manor house change into a nursing home?’
Nathan frowned. ‘Years ago. Way back. Just after the Second World War, I think. Mum never really talks about her Lacey heritage. She’s not big into history, unlike her mother, my grandmother.’
‘Yes, you’ve mentioned her before. Would she know anything more about Lacey Manor?’
He shook his head. ‘We lost her two years ago.’
‘But you could be related to this Robert Lacey? The one who visited our Susanna in gaol.’
‘I could well be.’ Nathan eased a kink out of his shoulders. ‘Bill might know more.’ He shook his head wonderingly. ‘I’ve never questioned my heritage before.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Funny. Never pursued the link between Mum and the manor. It’s just always been there and none of us have ever been bothered about it.’
‘He’s an odd character, this Robert Lacey. Obviously an influential man in Flete at the time.’
‘And a royalist. That’ll please Mum, she’s mad on anything to do with the royal family. Huge Prince Charles fan.’
Beth’s brow furrowed. ‘But it sounds as if Susanna and Prudie were on the other side. So, why is Robert trying to help her?’
‘I don’t know, Beth.’ Nathan scrubbed a frustrated hand over his hair. ‘Susanna mentioned something about them once being friends. Maybe that’s it? And it sounds as if he’s in a difficult position. His wife has accused Prudie and Susanna of witchcraft, this has stirred up some old allegiances, which are using the women as an excuse to cause trouble in the town. He has to be seen to get justice done and quell any parliamentary rebellion, but the woman he loves is accused and facing the gallows. Yes, a strange man but complex and compassionate too.’
‘So you think he loved Susanna?’
‘Maybe. In some way. Or it was lust, or he was on a power trip? But if that was the case, he could have raped her. He’s powerful, she’s a prisoner and extremely vulnerable.’
Beth shivered, glad she only had twenty-first century problems to deal with. ‘Jeez. It’s bad enough being a woman now, but back then you were nothing in society if you were poor or unmarried. Worthless.’
‘And I’m guessing our Susanna was both. Plus she was in gaol, there was a clear power imbalance and he still respected her. Sort of.’
‘Even though she was on the losing side.’ Beth snorted. ‘And if he loved her, why didn’t he stop her going to gaol in the first place?’
‘I don’t think he could,’ Nathan said thoughtfully. ‘If he’s lord of the manor he’s in a position of power in Flete, and as I said, he has to make sure justice is seen to be done. He said to her he can’t allow parliamentary forces to rise again. He was in an impossible position.’
‘Not as impossible as poor Susanna and Prudie, chained up and thrown into a dungeon,’ Beth replied hotly.
‘True.’ Screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head, he said, ‘There’s something about all of this I’m not liking.’
‘Just the one thing,’ she began to joke, then saw his face. ‘What?’
‘The Tenpenny connection, me possibly being a descendent of Robert Lacey. The way the book has returned to its home.’
‘What are you saying, Nathan?’
He didn’t answer but rose abruptly and went outside. Beth joined him at the little garden table. He looked white and pinched and poured himself a glass of wine, which he drank down in one.
‘It all feels as if it was meant to happen,’ he began slowly. He laughed shortly and bit his lip. ‘I can’t believe I’m saying this, but think back to when we met.’ He gazed at her, his eyes burning into hers. ‘You felt that instant attraction, didn’t you?’
‘Love at first sight?’ Beth scoffed. His decision to leave for the States still rankled.
He smiled. ‘Maybe. But I was thinking it was more that we’d met before.’
‘But we haven’t. Trust me, I’d remember.’
‘Beth, I don’t mean in this life.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘Are you really saying what I think you are? Are you talking about reincarnation? Come off it, Nathan, you’re a scientist.’
‘Then how would you explain everything that’s happened? The book returning to where it was written, me being a Lacey, you owning Tenpenny House.’ He spread his hands. ‘This connection we have, this feeling we have between us that began as soon, no before I got to know you.’
‘You’re scaring me.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t mean to. It’s just I’m floundering for another explanation. There are too many parallels. Prudie being a healer, me being a doctor, you making your lotions and potions.’
‘Oh come on, I’m hardly in the same league as a cunning woman.’ Her neck felt stiff and tense. Maybe she was coming down with a headache.
‘No, but you sort of inhabit the same world.’
Beth fell silent. She was thinking. ‘It is weird,’ she began slowly. ‘I have been reading up on courses in herbal medicine.’ As the words left her mouth, Beth realised how much sense training to be a medical herbalist made. The last few weeks had crystallised something in her. She loved making her soaps and body lotions but inspired by the book, she wanted to ramp up her knowledge, her skills, to another level.
There was another long pause, a silence, only punctuated by sparrows cheeping in the trees. ‘But until you just pointed that out, I would have said I hadn’t any idea to study anything of the sort.’ She could feel her heart pounding. This felt very important somehow. ‘I’m not sure I buy your reincarnation theory, but I’ll agree the past and the present are colliding in a very peculiar way. I mean, you may have made the book and Tenpenny connection yourself–’
‘It took you to discover Susanna’s hidden document and you were the one to research witchcraft,’ he interrupted.
‘But I’m a Loveday not a Tenpenny. Like you I’ve never researched my family tree so I suppose there could be a Tenpenny in my heritage somewhere, but I’m pretty sure if there was it would be the talk of the family. My gran, like yours, is really into all that. If she thought there was a witch in the family, trust me we’d know about it. All she ever mentioned was Flete being the Loveday family hub and that there has always been Lovedays here until the last one died childless. She was Betty Loveday, a distant, very distant, cousin of my grandfather’s.’ She stopped, her mouth hanging open. ‘Unless–’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t Susanna say the Tenpennys took her in? So she may have been adopted. Maybe she’s not a Tenpenny at all but a Loveday! It’s all supposition and guess work though.’
‘It adds flame to my reincarnation theory.’
Beth’s shoulders slumped; she was finding it hard to concentrate. ‘It’s all too fantastical to be true. I mean, things like this just don’t happen, do they?’ A huge bee droned past, low and sluggish and she gently batted it away.
Nathan watched as it flew up into the afternoon sky. He shrugged. ‘Basic tenet of some major religions. Buddhists and Hindus believe the essence of a living being transmigrates into another after death. I find it quite comforting.’
‘Reincarnation – but the soul doesn’t have a choice, does it? You can’t decide, oh I’m dying, I know I’ll come back in the body of Nathan Smith Devon GP four hundred years after I die.’
He smiled slightly. ‘No, that’s true.’ He blew out a breath. ‘Maybe, then, Robert Lacey and Susanna Tenpenny had unfinished business that they wanted us to finish?’
‘But what?’
‘I don’t know, Beth. It’s just a theory.’
‘It’s a bonkers theory.’
‘I agree. And this all makes about as much sense to me as it does to you.’
Beth surged to her feet so violently her chair toppled over and crashed onto the patio slabs. ‘Sorry.’ She turned around to pick it up, flustered. ‘This is all too much. I need to go.’ But she sat back down, legs weak, too confused to move.
‘Don’t go, not just yet. I’ll order pizza, we can finish the wine and read the last bits of the document. I’m even getting quite used to the s being written as f now. I promise there’ll be no more talk of reincarnation.’
‘I mean, things like this just don’t happen, do they?’ She rubbed her temple. She had a humdinger of a headache. The air felt heavy and languorous. Maybe they were in for a storm.
‘Not to me.’ He took her hands. Gazing earnestly into her eyes, he added, ‘Look, Beth, I can’t claim to know what’s going on here. For all I know, it could simply be a load of coincidences, but it doesn’t feel like that, does it? It feels important. Very important. And you feel important. To me.’
Beth’s breath hitched. She stared back. She could love this man. His obvious physical attributes aside, she could really love the man that lay below all the running-honed muscles. But he was going away. She slid her hands out of his hold. ‘Do you think you’re Robert Lacey then?’ she asked pettishly. ‘Unlike you, I’m not sure I like the sound of him and I don’t think Susanna was all that keen either. I think he sounds distinctly dodgy. Evil even.’ Her head began to swim. Too much wine on a hot day. Words were streaming from her mouth that weren’t totally her own. She needed to fight this attraction to Nathan. There was no future there. ‘Are you evil, Nathan?’
His lips compressed at her icy tone. He gave a short laugh. ‘I’m not evil. I’m not one hundred per cent good either. I’m just a man, Beth. Trying to do his best with what the world has given him. Do you think you’re Susanna? About to be hanged for witchcraft?’
Beth’s throat closed, the familiar and threatening scratchy rope tightening around it. She tried to swallow and couldn’t. Shaking her head, she whispered, ‘No, of course I don’t.’ Tugging again at the neck of her sweatshirt, she added, ‘It’s just too much to take in. It’s mad, Nathan. It’s–’
He picked up on her hesitation. ‘But you agree it feels important.’
She couldn’t deny it. There was something going on and it did feel significant but whether or not it was reincarnation, even the word made her giggle in a panicked way, was yet to be proved. ‘I’ll admit it all feels meaningful and I’ll admit to a series of startling coincidences, but reincarnation? That’s a leap too far for me. Maybe we’d better read the rest of Susanna’s stuff. Maybe that will give me more of an idea of what’s going on.’
Nathan gave her a keen look. ‘You okay? You’ve gone very pale.’
‘I’ve got a headache. Sitting in the sun drinking wine will do that.’
He rose, disappeared into the kitchen then brought out a glass of cold water and some paracetamol. ‘Take these. It’s hot out here, you’re probably dehydrated. We need to get some proper food. I’ll ring for a takeaway.’
Swallowing the tablets with difficulty down a raw throat, Beth wondered if she was sickening with something. The water was nectar and soothed and cooled. ‘Thank you. I’ll be fine. I’d rather finish reading the document and save eating for afterwards.’
‘Then, if you’re sure, we’ll read first.’
Beth nodded, eased the kinks out of her neck and accepted his suggestion. ‘I’m sure.’
CHAPTER 31
1660
For my sins and to my eternal shame, I took Robert Lacey’s advice. I agreed to what he suggested, may God forgive me.
I could not fathom why he should be doing such things as feeding me and bribing the justices to take my evidence. Robert was a hard man to puzzle. A once proud father, a devout Christian and loyal to his merry monarch. Weak in power and a whorer. From what little I had heard of our sovereign ruler, he had this in common with the new king.
From our meeting I smuggled a hunk of venison pie and some bread, and fed Prudie. Sitting with my back to the other poor souls to hide my bounty, I broke it into tiny fragments and tried to tempt her to eat. It was like feeding a babe but once Prudie had tasted the first mouthful, she was eager for more. I’d stolen an apple too, and bit into it with a moan of ecstasy. The fresh juice ran down my chin, freshened my mouth, the texture of the crisp flesh reminding me so much of our old apple tree at the cottage, with poor Star buried beneath, that I almost sobbed. But I had not the time for sobbing and wailing. I had to talk to Prudie about what Robert had suggested. It was an idea so horrific the apple stuck in my throat. I bit off a sliver and pressed it upon Prudie. It seemed to revive her a little and once my eyes adjusted to the gloom again, I could discern a gleam of understanding in hers. I wasn’t sure which was worse. Prudie having her senses whole again and understanding the terrible truth of what I had to tell her, but then going to her trial and death sensible of what she faced, or suffering stultified wits. There was comfort of a sorts in oblivion. While she chewed and sucked the pieces of apple I gave her, I ate the rest. Aye, core and pips too.
When we’d finished the sorry meal and sucked our fingers free of any stickiness and crumbs, I held her face in my hands, forcing her attention on me. ‘I need to speak with you, Prudie,’ I hissed. My voice quavered. ‘I need to tell you something.’
Her understanding quickened. I could see some of the old Prudie returning. I released her but she grabbed hold of my arm, her fingers gnarled and bony, biting into my flesh. ‘Who called you?’ she demanded. ‘You were gone. You had gone when I woke.’
‘Twas Robert Lacey.’
‘That name got through.’ Her eyes widened in shock. ‘And what has he to do with us? Come to tighten the noose?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think any of this is his doing.’
‘Tis his wife’s doing. He should have better control over her mouth.’
‘Like John did with yours? You were always your own woman, Prudie. And you taught me to be the same.’ I spread my hands. ‘And look at the trouble it has brought us to.’ She flinched and as soon as the words were free of my mouth I regretted them. ‘I’m sorry, I did not mean to be so cruel.’
Her lips twisted, creating grooves in her age-thinned begrimed skin. Drawing in a deep breath, she muttered, ‘Nay, child. Had my dear John lived he would not have seen us here.’ With a gleam of the old Prudie, she added, ‘That’s if he hadn’t shot his mouth off in The Cock after too much ale.’
I bent nearer. ‘It was his old soldiers who came to our rescue,’ I whispered urgently. ‘Not that it did us much good. We still ended up in here. I never caught the name of the good colonel who helped us and saved us from the mob.’ I shivered, remembering my lucky escape from the hands of Samuel Thatcher.
