apprehended.'
Lovell was infuriated by the man's calmness. 'I have come for my wife.'
'Then you will go empty-handed.'
'We shall see.'
'You are a dead man to her.' Gideon Jukes pretended to explain: 'She thought you were drowned. You left her to think it, abandoned and destitute. The time allowed by law expired. She married me — she'll have none of you now.'
'You have made my wife a rebel!'
'Made her? Oh no.' Gideon rebuked him gently. 'Not Juliana! I liked her just as she came to me. I never sought to change her.'
Lovell's chin came up. He could hardly believe this outrage, yet controlled himself enough to say with mock politeness, 'Well, sir. I thank you for the care you have taken of my family. Your task is done. I retrieve them from you. I will have what is mine — '
'No, sir!' snapped Gideon crushingly. 'They are mine now!'
He surprised himself. He surprised Lovell too.
Orlando Lovell gripped his sword, though the room was too narrow to employ the weapon. Gideon saw his thought. He bent swiftly, opening a low drawer where Juliana stored an expensive braid. The wound cards were bulky; a man's wedding suit could take a hundred yards of ornamental ribboning. But this was hideous, spangled purple stuff. Gideon had been confident Juliana would not look here. He was right and he found what he had hidden, preparing for this moment. Nestled among the cards of decorative braid, a weapon lay. When Gideon stood up, kicking the drawer shut, he held a carbine. Lovell had no way of knowing whether it was pre-loaded, but he saw it was set at half-cock. It was a good gun. It was new, bright, well cared for, not some rusted antique hidden under a bed for a decade. The tall, fair Roundhead handled it with confidence. He put the carbine at full cock with a smooth and confident movement, keeping his eyes fixed on Lovell. He knew guns.
'You were expecting me!' jeered the cavalier, still struggling to get the measure of the situation. 'But you will not fire.'
'Try me.'
Gideon released a safety catch. His calmness was close to contempt, his steadiness said everything. He was not some half-witted, rabbit-scared shopkeeper. Lovell saw that this man had indeed been a soldier, the kind who would never forget his training or his service mentality, a man who could kill without bothering to work up hatred, then justify it coldly.
Lovell took no risks. He had been a soldier too, a good one; he had outlived many desperate circumstances. He always used his head.
'Go now,' ordered the Roundhead. 'Take yourself off, do not come here again. Leave us in peace, Colonel Lovell.'
Lovell made one last try: 'I have come to visit my wife, to see my boys — '
Gideon knew this was a distraction. He raised the carbine from covering Lovell's heart to aiming steadily between his eyes. The weapon was heavy, but Lovell would not know how this strained his shoulder. They were ten feet apart; less than that, allowing for the length of his arm and the two-foot gun barrel. Gideon could not miss.
Orlando Lovell never lacked courage. He took a pace forwards. 'You cannot kill an unarmed man, Captain — '
Gideon pulled the trigger.
The carbine failed to go off.
Gideon hurriedly dragged open another drawer.
'Damme!' Lovell had gone pale; Gideon was too fair-skinned for any pallor to show. For an instant, despite themselves, they shared the fleeting grins of soldiers who had had a narrow escape. 'You have the pair?'
'Of course!' boasted Gideon. Carbines and pistols came boxed in twos. They were cavalry weapons, one for each saddle bow, one for each hand. Two shots. A man who loaded one would load them both. Any ex-soldier who fired one, would be prepared to fire two. The next shot could be good.
Lovell let out a 'tsk!' of annoyance, shrugged, and while Gideon rummaged in the drawer noisily, the cavalier gave up. Turning on his boot-heel, Lovell flung open the door and, as the bell jangled, walked out of the shop. He made no threats; he knew absence of comment would feel more sinister. The bell stilled, the door closed. Gideon slowly pushed in a drawer of ruffle lace. He was sweating more than he liked; this had been a bluff; his second carbine was upstairs.
As soon as he recovered composure, he went to the door and looked out. There was no sign of Orlando Lovell in the alley. Gideon came in and locked the door. He unloaded the carbine for safety, cursing this new, useless gun. Rather than investigate immediately what had gone wrong, he hid it again, then ran quickly upstairs.
In their bedchamber, Juliana was asleep; so too was their tiny daughter, newborn only the evening before. Juliana looked peaceful, but was still exhausted. The baby was too small for her lace cap and gown, as yet insignificant in her deep cradle. Gideon checked them — even touched a knuckle gently to the babe's cheek — but woke neither. Unless he had to, he would not tell Juliana of today's encounter.
Colonel Orlando Lovell was no longer a shadowy figure who could be ignored. He was here. He was in London for a reason. It might not be primarily to find his deserted family, but he had said that he came for them.
The man had intelligence and courage; he exuded menace. He was also better-looking than Gideon had imagined. The haughty expression and rakish tilt of his hat would haunt Gideon annoyingly.
His decision to keep quiet was overturned. Gideon had to confess everything that very night. A disaster occurred. When Catherine Keevil went out to fetch Tom from his music lesson, she was followed. On Fleet Street, as they were passing Sergeants' Inn, a man approached them.
'Thomas Lovell! Well, my boy — do you remember me, I wonder?'
Tom stopped dead. Catherine saw the boy's young face light up. She tried to drag him on their way but he shook her off, crying with joy, 'It is my father, come home!'
The man embraced him, seeming to wipe away a tear of emotion. 'Why Tom! My dearest son, this is a lucky accident — now I have found you, come with me and I will tell you of adventures we can share — ' He then turned to Catherine and, changing his manner, muttered with deadly earnest, 'Scamper off home, wench. Tell Mistress Juliana Lovell not to feel anxiety. Her son has come to his father, who will take the most loving care of him — ' Then, as he caught Catherine by the arm with a grip that bruised her under his fingers, Lovell dropped his voice further so the boy could not hear. 'And tell that meddler Captain Jukes, not to do anything! He will understand.'
The last Catherine saw was the pair of them walking away towards Temple Bar. Tom was still bowed under the weight of his cased viol, which he wore slung on straps on his back. The man had his arm around Tom's shoulders and was carrying his music bag. To Catherine, the boy looked like a prisoner. To anyone else who noticed them, they were the picture of a happy father and his son.
Chapter Seventy-Nine — The Westminster Plot, 1656
At first, this was the most exciting thing that ever happened to Tom Lovell. He had achieved his troubled adolescent dream and run away from home.
He no longer had to go to school. He had dumped his tiresome younger brother and could avoid having to decide how he felt about his new baby sister.
He missed Hero, his dog. His father promised him another, though had not produced one.
Thomas now lived among men, who congregated in smoky taverns. They gave him beer, not troubling to water it, or ale, which was stronger, and sometimes even sack. They never went to church. Nobody said grace when they ate. They rarely sat down all together in any case, just took food individually when they felt like it. No one told him to change his shirt. If he needed a privy, they gestured where to find it and left him to go on his own.
He lived with his father in a rented room in an inn. His father was just as he remembered, careless and
