Meridon (Wideacre Trilogy 3)

by Philippa Gregory

  ‘Which way?’ Will gasped.

  My mind reeled. I had been heading for home, instinctively threading my way through the fashionable streets and the dark secret mews streets behind them. But I knew I could not keep up this pace. They would be upon us, and in any case I would lose my way in this warren of new gracious squares and back lanes.

  ‘The park!’ I said. I thought of the cool trees and the dark hollows where we might hide. I thought of the icy grass shining under the pale light of early morning. It was as like to country as we would get in London and I had a great longing for earth under my feet. Both Will and I were country children, we needed to be home.

  We swung left down Farm Street and I could see the high trees of the park, it seemed like miles away at the end of the street.

  ‘Down there,’ I said. I was running even more slowly, my throat was tight and my chest heaving. ‘You run, Will, you’ve got the deeds. Get them away. Get away with them.’

  He shot me a swift sideways look, his teeth gleaming in the half-light. The idiot was smiling.

  ‘We’ll make it,’ he said. ‘Keep running.’

  I was so angry with him not understanding that I could not keep running, I was finished, that my anger gave me a spurt of energy which bore me up. Also, I was afraid. That made me faster than our pursuers. Behind us were men, angry and greedy for my land, but they were not scared as I was. I had run from men too many times in my life not to feel my heart race when I heard boots on cobblestones behind me. My heart was thudding in my chest, and my breath was hoarse, like in my illness, but I could still run and run and run.

  We burst across the road. There were one or two carriages in the distance, but no one close enough, and anyway, the hue and cry was after us. If we called for help we might find ourselves before a magistrate, and I had a law-breaker’s terror of the justices.

  ‘Those trees…’ Will gasped. He was near the end of his strength too, he was wet with sweat, his face shiny in the pale light. He headed towards a little coppice of beeches and silver birches. They were stark in the pale shadows, their bare branches thin threads of blackness against the lighter sky. But they would give us some shelter.

  I shot a look behind me. They were hard on our heels, crossing the road even now. They would see us go into the coppice, we would not have time to hide. They would cast about and catch us.

  ‘You go on!’ I said peremptorily. ‘I’ll hold them up! For God’s sake, Will!’

  He turned roughly on me as soon as we were hidden from sight.

  ‘Drop your breeches,’ he ordered. I gaped at him and he dragged my cloak from my neck and bundled it under a bush of blackberry.

  ‘Drop your damned breeches!’ he whispered harshly. ‘You pass as my doxy!’

  Then I understood. I ripped the boots off my feet and tore the breeches off. My cravat went the same way, and I stood before Will in my night-shirt. Without hesitation he took a handful of the material at the neckline and ripped it so that it dropped down to my bubbies, showing my milk-white neck and shoulder, the rounded curve of my breast and the rosy nipple.

  Behind us, at the edge of the coppice we heard Thomas’ voice, and Redfern shouting:

  ‘Look up to the trees, check the boughs!’

  Will flung himself upon me and bore me down to the ground.

  ‘Open your legs for God’s sake, Sarah,’ he said impatiently, and rolled himself over so that he was lying on me. I felt him fumble at his breeches and I felt my white face burn red as he pulled them down so he was bare-arsed.

  ‘Will!’ I said in whispered protest.

  He had a moment to rear up and look at me, his face was brimful with mischief. ‘Stupid little cow,’ he said lovingly, then he dipped his head into my naked neck and started thrusting at me with his hips.

  ‘Holloa!’ came the yell behind him, Captain Thomas skidded to a halt and his bully-boys craned over his shoulder. Will kept his head down, I risked a peep over his shoulder. They were staring at me and at my bare splayed legs. I ducked my head down into Will’s warm jacket and inwardly cursed them and every damned man on the whoreson earth. I hated Will, and Captain Thomas, and Wideacre with every inch of my frigid angry body.

  ‘Did ye see a couple of gentlemen, run through here?’ Thomas rapped out.

  Will let out a great bellow of rage, or it would have passed for frustrated lust. ‘What the devil d’you think I’m doing, keeping watch?’ he hollered. ‘O’course I didn’t. What does it look to you that I’m doing? Go your ways, damn you. I’ve paid for twenty minutes and twenty minutes I’ll have!’

  They hesitated, two of them fell back.

  ‘They went that way…’ I said. My voice was silky, slurred. I gestured with an outflung hand and they saw my naked shoulder and the line of my throat, gleaming in the pale light.

  Captain Thomas bowed to me, ironically. ‘I am much obliged to you ma’am,’ he said. ‘And I apologize for disturbing you, sir.’ We heard him take two steps. ‘It seems the lady is less attentive than the man,’ he said and the men laughed. Then his voice changed. ‘Is that them? Boarding that coach? Dammit! After them!’

  We heard the noise of them crashing through the undergrowth and their yells to the coachman. We froze, as still as leverets in bracken, while we listened to the coach pull away, and them chasing after it, yelling to attract the guard’s attention. Then it was quiet. They had gone.

  Will Tyacke lay on top of me, his face buried in my neck, breathing in the smell of my sweat, his face rubbing against my skin, his hardness pushing insistently through my rumpled shift at the deep inner core of me where I could feel I was as soaking wet as any loving strumpet behind a hay stack.

  ‘It’s all right, Will,’ I said, my voice warm with laughter. ‘You can stop pretending. They’re gone.’

  He checked himself with a shudder but the face he raised to look at me was alive with love.

  ‘My God, I love you,’ he said simply. ‘It would be well worth being hanged for card-sharping to rip your nightgown open and lie between your legs – even for a moment.’

  I stretched in a movement as languorous and sensual as a cat. I felt as if blood had never flowed in my veins before this moment. I felt warm all over, I felt alive all over. My skin, the inside of my wrists, the soles of my feet, the warm palms of my hands, the tingling tip of my tongue, every tiny fraction of me glowed like gold. And deep deep between my legs I felt a pulse beating as if I had never been alive there before, as if Will was a plough to turn the earth and make it fertile, and that suddenly my body was no longer wasteland; but rich fertile ploughland, hungry for seed.

  ‘Not now,’ I said unwillingly. ‘They’ll be back when they’ve stopped the coach. They’re not stupid.’

  Will leaped up. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Here! Your clothes!’

  He reached into the blackberry bush, stamping his feet and cursing in a whisper when the briers scratched him. Then he turned his back in incongruous chivalry while I got dressed. I crammed my hat on my head, and wrapped my cloak around me.

  ‘Home to Wideacre,’ Will said decisively.

  ‘I’ve got to fetch Sea,’ I said.

  Will checked, looked at me to see if I was jesting.

  ‘We cannot!’ he said. ‘We cannot risk retracing our steps, going back the way we’ve come. We should strike across the park now, go west, double back later.’

  ‘I want Sea,’ I said stubbornly. ‘Sea will get us home. And you’ll want your horse.’

  ‘They’d send them on…’ Will started.

  ‘Not they,’ I said certainly. ‘I’m finished with the Haverings for all time. They’ll not send on as much as a pocket handkerchief of mine. I’m getting my horse out of their stables before they know their pigeon’s flown the coop.’

  Will hesitated, looked from my resolute face to the streets of the city which were getting noisy and busy as the sun rose.

  ‘I’m not going without Sea,’ I said.

  ‘Oh very well,’ he said sullenly, and
we strode out of the coppice shoulder to shoulder without a spark of passion or even affection between us. Cross as cats.

  39

  We saw a hackney coach going down Park Lane and we hailed it and bundled in. Will counted his silver in the pale light through the window to see if he would have enough to meet the fare without flashing his gold guineas around. He was always as cautious as a yeoman, Will Tyacke.

  I leaned back against the dirty squabs of the coach and sighed. ‘How much have you got?’ I asked.

  Will pulled out his gold coin by coin and carefully counted. ‘Ninety-eight guineas,’ he said. ‘You lost all your stake, didn’t you?’

  ‘Aye,’ I said smiling at him under my half-closed eyelids. ‘I like to play like a gentleman.’

  ‘You play like a cheat,’ he said instantly. Then he cocked his head. ‘What was that?’

  I dropped the window and we listened.

  There were shouts from behind us, I heard a voice say: ‘Hey coachman! Wait!’

  Will’s face was white. ‘They turned,’ he said. ‘What now?’

  ‘We outpace them!’ I said.

  Before he had a chance to protest I grabbed his handful of guineas and stuffed them in my pockets. I went head-first out of the coach window clutching the door frame and up on to the box beside the driver like a street urchin.

  ‘What?’ he said. He was already pulling up his horse in obedience to the shouts from behind.

  ‘Go on!’ I yelled.

  He gawped at me.

  I put a fistful of guineas in his hands. ‘Card-sharpers,’ I shouted over their noise. ‘They don’t like losing. And they’re blown. Keep this old nag going and there are twenty guineas for you at the end of the ride!’

  He glanced quickly behind. Only the captain and a couple of men had kept up. They would not catch us if the damned nag between the shafts could go faster than a knock-kneed stumble.

  ‘Faster!’ I said.

  The man broke into a wide broken-toothed grin. ‘Twenty guineas?’ he asked.

  ‘Thirty!’ I said.

  He flashed his whip over the horse’s back and the creature, startled, broke into a shambling canter. Will, sticking his head out of the window, could see we were drawing away from the gamblers.

  ‘Howay!’ he yelled.

  I laughed aloud.

  Then I looked to the front.

  Some damned hay-wagon was blocking our way. It had turned on its side and there were half a dozen men scurrying around trying to right it, a couple of idle milkmaids pausing to watch, and four or five link boys.

  The hackney could edge around the wagon if the people would give us space but they were all over the road. I looked back. Captain Thomas was red in the face but he saw we were stuck. I saw him smile.

  ‘Stop thief!’ he yelled, damn his strong lungs.

  I thrust my hand deep in my pocket.

  ‘Let me pass, lads!’ I yelled. ‘Look here!’

  With a great broadcast sweep I flung the coins in my pocket – guineas, silver, coppers – wide into the sky. The urchins and the milkmaids dived to the ground out of our path. The men righting the hay cart looked blankly at me and then chased after the rolling coins.

  ‘Drive on!’ I ordered. Another handful of coins as we got through and, as from nowhere, beggars and street-walkers and urchins and thieves were all out of their doorways and lodgings falling over each other in their haste to chase the money.

  ‘Sarah!’ Will exclaimed, anguished.

  I laughed. ‘Look!’ I said pointing back.

  Captain Thomas had pushed someone in his haste to get through the crowd and the man had pushed back. What had been a little scramble was now a promising street-fight. The man had punched Thomas roughly in the shoulder and had hold of his coat collar and would not let him pass. I danced up and down on the box waving farewell and holloaing.

  ‘Goodbye, pigeon-plucker!’ I yelled in triumph. ‘Goodbye, curtal! Goodbye, you glim-glibber! You poxy tatsman! You hog in armour!’

  The hackney whirled around the corner and threw me off balance. I fell down to the seat and grinned at the driver.

  ‘Drop us at the corner of the mews behind Davies Street,’ I said, and he nodded and drove where I ordered.

  ‘A fine night you’ve been having,’ he observed.

  I stretched luxuriously, thinking of the deeds safe, and Will safe, and me safe away from the Haverings and the Quality life at last.

  ‘A fine night,’ I agreed.

  The coach drew up at the corner and Will tumbled out. He shook his head at me. ‘Good God, Sarah!’ he said. ‘That was near all the money I had!’

  ‘I promised the driver thirty guineas if he got us away,’ I said. ‘Turn out your pockets, Will.’

  The driver came down from the box as Will and I went through every pocket in our coats and breeches. We mustered seventeen guineas and some coppers.

  ‘I won’t hold you to it,’ he said. ‘Seventeen is fair, I’ll have that off you.’

  He helped himself to the coins out of Will’s reluctant palm and drove off, beaming.

  Will’s face could have modelled for an etching of a countryman fleeced in the big city.

  ‘Sarah that was all our money!’ he said. ‘How d’you think we’ll get home?’

  ‘Ride,’ I said cheerily.

  ‘And go hungry?’ Will demanded. ‘We’ve little money for food.’

  I gleamed at him. ‘I’ll steal it,’ I said. ‘Or you can call up a crowd and I’ll ride on the street corners.’

  Will’s cross face collapsed into laughter. ‘Oh you’re a rogue,’ he said. ‘By rights I should never bring you to Wideacre, they’re an honest crew there and you are a brigand!’

  I laughed back, then we turned and walked side by side down the cobbled street to the stables.

  It was early still, and quiet in these back streets. In the distance there was the noise of milkmaids and the water-carrier; at the end of the road the night-soil cart went past with a stench blowing behind it. The city was not yet awake. Only working people, with the hardest jobs, were up this early.

  The groom was waiting for us, his eyes wide at the state of me, and the state of his best suit, and Will with his shirt hanging out the back.

  ‘My lady…’ he said helplessly.

  ‘I’ll have to keep your suit,’ I said pleasantly. ‘But I’ll send you money for another and for the service you’ve done me this night, when I get to my home.’

  ‘To the house?’ he said hopefully.

  ‘Sussex,’ I said.

  His face looked stunned. ‘M’lady, you’re never running off,’ he said. ‘I’ll lose my place if they know I let you go, and you’ll be ruined. Go home, m’lady, I’ll say anything you want.’ He turned to Will. ‘You know she’s not for you,’ he said fiercely. ‘I could see how you looked at her, but you know she’s Lady Havering now. You’ll ruin her if you take her away.’

  Will gave a snort of laughter. ‘I take her!’ he said. ‘I don’t want her. She can go home if she likes, I can no more control her than I can order the wind to blow. I’ve got what I came for. I want nothing more.’

  I had my hand on the stable door but at that I turned and smiled at Will with all my heart in my eyes. It was the smile of a woman who knows herself to be utterly and faithfully beloved. There would never be anyone for Will but me, we both knew it. There would never be anyone but him for me.

  ‘I want Sea,’ I said. ‘And Mr Tyacke wants his horse. Put a man’s saddle on Sea, I’m riding astride.’

  He gave an audible moan at that, but he went into the darkness of the stable and I heard him curse Sea as he blew out as the girth was being tightened. Then he led the two horses out into the street. Their hooves clattered loudly on the cobbles and he looked around nervously.

  ‘What am I to say?’ he demanded. ‘They’ll ask me where Sea is. What am I to say?’

  ‘Tell them her ladyship ordered it,’ Will said curtly. ‘How could you argue with her?’r />
  ‘They’ll ask what she was wearing! And that’s Lord Perry’s saddle…’ the man said despairingly.

  ‘Oh dammit, you come too,’ I said, suddenly impatient with the nonsense. ‘Take a horse and come with us. We’re going down to Wideacre. There’s work you can do there. We can send the horse back later, and it will be better if there’s no one here to gossip.’

  Will looked at me. ‘We take a groom with us?’ he asked incredulously.

  I grinned. ‘Why not?’ I demanded. ‘I thought it would appeal to your radical conscience. We release him from his servitude, we break his chains. We stop him bellyaching on about what they will say to him.’

  Will nodded, his eyes dancing. ‘Get a horse,’ he said to the man. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Gerry,’ he said from inside the stables. ‘Could I have one of Lord Perry’s hunters?’

  ‘For God’s sake, no!’ Will exclaimed. ‘A working horse, what d’you think this is, a picnic?’

  ‘Seems a waste, if we’re stealing a horse, to take a cheap one,’ I muttered mutinously, but at Will’s sharp look I fell mum.

  Gerry led a handsome black hack out of the stables and swung into the saddle. He was beaming.

  ‘Now we’d better move fast,’ Will said. ‘When will they notice you gone, Sarah?’

  ‘Not till eight,’ I said. ‘And no one will disturb her ladyship before ten.’

  Will squinted at the sky. ‘Must be six now,’ he said uneasily. ‘I’d give a guinea to be safe home.’

  He helped me up into the saddle and swung up into his own. Sea’s ears went forward and he side-stepped and danced on the spot, impatient to be off.

  ‘Knows he’s going home,’ Gerry said admiringly. ‘He’s a fine animal, I’ve never seen better.’

  ‘You lead the way,’ Will said to him. ‘Get us on the Portsmouth road, but use as many back streets as you can. I’d rather we weren’t seen.’

  Gerry nodded importantly, and led the way down the mews street. The hooves echoed loudly and someone looked out from a high window. Will glanced at me.

  ‘Pull your hat down,’ he said, then he looked a little closer. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked. ‘You look awful pale.’