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Ellen felt an exhilaration that fuelled her daring.

‘You were majestic this afternoon,’ she complimented.

‘I dedicated my performance to you.’

‘It earned my deepest appreciation.’

‘My sole aim was to please such a beautiful woman.’ He beamed at her. ‘Lawrence Firethorn is at your service. May I know the name of the angel who has deigned to visit me?’

‘Penelope, sir.’

‘Penelope,’ he said, caressing the name with his voice. ‘Penelope, Penelope, Penelope! It is engraved on my heart hereafter. Sweet Penelope of the Jolly Sailor.’

‘This is no fit place for me, sir,’ she said with crisp disapproval. ‘I agreed to meet but not to sup with you. Westfield’s Men are below in the taproom. I would not stay alone with you up here while they joke and snigger. I demand privacy, Master Firethorn. I require discretion.’ She gave him a slow smile. ‘I am married.’

‘Put your trust in me.’

‘Consider my reputation, sir.’

‘I will.’

She crossed to him and issued her orders in a whisper that stroked his ear with such delicacy that it brought a beatific smile to his face. Ellen savoured each moment.

‘Come to the Black Swan in Wine Street an hour from now,’ she instructed. ‘My husband will not return until late. Use the rear entrance of the inn so that you will not be seen. Wait for my coachman. He will bring you to me.’

‘Life can afford no higher state of joy.’

‘An hour, Master Firethorn.’

‘Lawrence,’ he corrected.

‘Lawrence,’ she repeated dreamily. Then she permitted a light kiss on the cheek and withdrew. ‘Farewell, kind sir.’

‘The Black Swan.’

‘I will be there.’

She opened the door and flitted away like a ghost.

Nicholas Bracewell was shattered by her rejection of him and he could find no explanation of this behaviour that would soothe his hurt feelings. Mary Whetcombe was in serious trouble of some kind and she had sent a message to Nicholas as a last resort. He had responded. Throughout a long and hazardous journey, he was sustained by the idea that she desperately needed him and he put his life at risk to get to Barnstaple. He had assumed from the start that Susan Deakin, as he now knew her to be, was a servant in Mary’s household, and the short voyage from Bristol had both reinforced this assumption and given him a valuable insight into her domestic circumstances. If Mary gave a cry for help, why did she refuse to see the man who answered it at such great personal cost? Since she sent Susan Deakin to London, why was she so uninterested in the girl’s fate?

The visit to Crock Street had produced one result. Lucy Whetcombe seemed to know him. During a momentary encounter at the house, he felt a bond being forged without quite daring to believe what it might be. Was Lucy part of the reason that her mother refused to admit him? Whose were the other faces at the window? What had the girl been holding when she waved to him? Why did her hair and complexion remind him of someone else? Who was she?

There was a possible way to unravel that mystery. Nicholas left his room at the Dolphin Inn and came out into Joy Street. Turning down the first lane, he went through to the open land on which St Peter’s Church stood. It had altered since he had last seen it but it still had the same power to wound him. He let himself into the churchyard and went first to his mother’s grave, running an affectionate finger over the name that was carved in the moss-covered stone. There was no doubt about the date and cause of his mother’s death. His hatred of his father momentarily stirred, but he put the death from his mind. It was a marriage and a birth that had brought him there.

Nicholas went into the church and other memories flew around him like carrion crows. They pecked so greedily at his mind that he lifted an arm to brush them away. A young curate came over with pop-eyed curiosity and welcomed him. Nicholas asked a favour and the curate was happy to oblige. The visitor was soon poring over a ledger that was kept at the rear of the building. The leather-bound volume had its counterpart in every church in England. Henry VIII, father of the present Queen, had decreed that all births, marriages and deaths in a parish had to be scrupulously recorded. Nicholas flicked over the pages with gathering emotion.

He found the date of the wedding first. Mary Parr had married Matthew Whetcombe on a Saturday in June. Nicholas was shocked that it seemed so soon after his flight from the town. He could not blame Mary for marrying someone else when he was gone, but she might have waited a decent interval and she could certainly have chosen someone more worthy of her than Matthew Whetcombe. The merchant was an industrious man with a flair for trade but he was otherwise a highly unattractive character. Mary had sworn she would never wed a man like that, and it bruised Nicholas to see how easily and how soon that vow had been broken.

Nicholas turned to the front of the parish register and read the sonorous words that chimed out like a great bell.

Here followeth all the names of such as have been christened within the parish of Bar’ from the xth day of October in the year of our Lord God a thousand five hundred xxxviii until the Annunciation of our lady next following according to the king’s graces injunction and his viceregent the lord Thomas Cromwell lord privy seal and Knight of the Garter.

The commandment was dated 1538. Nicholas spared a fleeting thought for Thomas Cromwell whose name enforced the edict. Two years later, he had fallen from favour and was executed with barbarous inefficiency. Somewhere in England was a parish register in which his own death was recorded. But it was the start of a life that fascinated Nicholas Bracewell now and he turned the pages with a trembling hand until he found the correct one. His finger went down the list until he saw her name. Lucy Whetcombe. The girl had been christened barely ten months after the wedding. Matthew Whetcombe was named as the father but her date of birth suggested a startling possibility. Nicholas thought of Lucy’s hair and complexion. He thought of those eyes. He recalled the stab of recognition he felt when he first caught sight of her. He remembered something that Mary had been trying to tell him on their last night together. It had all happened so long ago that he could not be certain of dates and times, but an idea now began to gnaw at him. The girl might have just cause to respond to him. Though he was flying in the face of recorded fact, he asked himself if there was a special bond between them.

Could Lucy Whetcombe actually be his daughter?

Gideon Livermore’s anger was all violence and bluster but Barnard Sweete did not submit to it this time. He replied with an acid sarcasm that stung the merchant hard.

‘Nicholas Bracewell is dead,’ mocked the lawyer. ‘And even if he lives, there is no way that he will get within ten miles of the town.’

‘He will never leave it alive, I know that!’

‘Where are your men, Gideon? Still waiting under some tree to jump out on him? Still chasing every shadow?’

‘Leave off, Barnard.’

‘You stop him by road so he comes by sea.’

‘Leave off, I say!’

‘Lamparde will kill him. What happened to Lamparde?’

‘He failed.’

‘There is nothing else but failure here, Gideon!’

They were in the lawyer’s chambers and he was not mincing his words. Barnard Sweete had been rocked when the name of Nicholas Bracewell had been brought into the hall. At the very time he was securing Mary Whetcombe’s approval of the will, the one man who might repudiate it had come knocking on the door. Partnership with Gideon Livermore was highly productive but it rested on a division of labour. Sweete handled the legal side of things and he left the more disagreeable work to the merchant. The latter had clearly not fulfilled his side of the bargain.

Gideon Livermore tried to reassert his authority.