And the seething Captain had to be content with clandestine meetings and short wild bouts behind latched bedroom doors to which they had stolen away in other people’s houses, with laughing intervals in the gardens at Axeleigh Hall, or beneath the trees at Huntlands—and even once beneath the great yew hedge at Warwood, where Margaret any day she chose could become mistress.
Heedless Margaret was driving him wild. She went her way with abandon and it seemed she could not get enough of dancing and parties. Captain Warburton kept hoping she would get pregnant and decide of a sudden to marry him—but she did not.
Instead she seemed to thrive on clandestine meetings and flaunting her lover. For her, nothing seemed really to have changed except that she reveled in having Tony Warburton clasp her to his breast and pour out his love for her. She still flirted outrageously and had it not been for the Captain’s mounting reputation with the sword, which made most recipients of her slanted smiles extremely wary, she would have gotten into far worse scrapes than she did.
Tony Warburton ground his teeth as Margaret’s satin skirts swirled gaily by him at balls—in the company of somebody else. As other encouraged swains drank impassioned toasts to her eyelids, her instep, her slippers, her flaming hair. And on a summer afternoon at Huntlands matters all came to a head.
It was a day when Margaret was at her reckless worst, for the night before in the attics of Hawley Grange, during a respite in the dancing, Tony had seized her in an ungentle grip.
“D’you think I’m going to spend my life creeping up dark stairs like a thief?” he had grated, bringing her lithe young body hard up against his own. “Don’t you realize that sooner or later we’re bound to be discovered in each other’s arms? Do you want our first child to be born in scandal?”
Margaret, who had already come to the same conclusion and who had actually lured him up here to tell him that she was ready at last to marry him, took exception to his tone.
“Don’t hold me so tight!” she exclaimed. “You’re hurting me!”
He relaxed his grip, fighting off the sweet opiate of the senses that always came over him just from touching her. She was like a strong drug, he thought bitterly. Addictive—and not good for him. But she would good for him—once they were married!
“Hush,” she cautioned nervously. “I think I hear someone coming. One of the servants probably—they sleep up here.”
He shook her in frustration. “That’s what I mean, Meg. We can’t go on like this. I want you in my bed—at Warwood, where you belong.”
His voice had a carrying quality. It irritated Margaret that he might be overheard. She was not listening to him—she was listening to those soft half-heard footsteps. Now they had gone away. She relaxed.
“Oh, Tony,” she sighed. “Can’t we just forget everything for a few moments of bliss?”
And Tony Warburton, victim of his own ardent desires, had indeed forgotten everything for a blissful joining that fulfilled his fondest hopes.
But afterward he had stood up while she—looking fetchingly disheveled—smoothed down her silken skirts and gave him a demure smile in the moonlight that lanced in through one of the vast dormers. “Meg,” he said through clenched teeth, “you must set the date.”
And something perverse in red-haired Margaret had caused her to skip away from him, crying back over her shoulder, “Oh, Tony, not just yet. Tomorrow is the picnic at Huntlands and after that there’s—”
Tony Warburton had not followed to hear what came after that. He had picked up the old feather bed on which they had lain and thrown it against the low rafters so hard that it burst and feathers filled the air.
Margaret was already dancing down the stairs.
For the rest of the evening Captain Warburton ignored her, choosing instead to drink deep of his host’s wine, and to watch from beneath lowering brows as his flirtatious betrothed whirled about the floor, favoring him from time to time with a tossed head and a malicious smile.
Reckless Margaret had not recognized her danger.
She had arrived at the picnic at Huntlands the next day determined to humble Tony. Indeed she had started out early so that Tony, when he arrived at Axeleigh Hall to squire her to Huntlands, would find her gone—as a punishment for pointedly ignoring her last night after their argument at Hawley Grange. On arrival at Huntlands she found herself immediately swept into a laughing crowd that included Ralph Pembroke, who was of a mind to wrest laughing Margaret from Warburton’s grasp—after all, a betrothal could easily be broken. When the frowning Captain arrived, she merely waved at him.
Margaret flaunted her femininity that day with reckless abandon, and to some she seemed like a firefly, glowing with her own light, flitting and sparkling against the dark backdrop of foliage of the ancient oaks and holly.
Captain Warburton had not been amused.
In late afternoon, after a game of forfeits, there had been dancing on the greensward and Captain Warburton had been even less amused when Margaret in her light copper silk dress had whirled away with Ralph Pembroke and disappeared behind a screen of holly. He had left the dancers, lengthened his stride, and gone in pursuit. One or two of the guests had nudged each other and turned to watch him, muttering there’d be hell to pay if Tony Warburton found Ralph Pembroke taking liberties with wild young Margaret!
They were not disappointed.
What Tony Warburton saw on the other side of the thick branching holly caused him to spring forward with a growl in his throat.
For Margaret was standing clasped in Ralph Pembroke’s arms and Pembroke was kissing her.
Ralph heard the crunch of Tony’s boots breaking fallen twigs and holly leaves and broke free, almost upsetting Margaret, who staggered back painfully into the holly.
This time there was no gentlemanly slapping of gloves across the face, no exchange of challenges, no seconds called for. With a snarl, Tony Warburton, his nerves rubbed raw by Margaret’s dalliance, leaped for Pembroke’s throat. Pembroke went down, clawing at his sword. He brought his elbow up in the Captain’s face and was happy to see that devilish countenance snap away from him, but a moment later the Captain’s hard fist dusted across his jawbone with enough force to break an average jaw.
But Ralph Pembroke’s was no average jaw. He was built like a castle keep. With a herculean effort he managed to throw his assailant off and stagger to his feet, dragging out his sword as he did so.
“So that’s how ye want it, is it?” In an instant the Captain’s sword had flashed out too.
“No, Tony!” White-faced, Margaret wrenched loose her hair from the spiny clutch of the holly leaves. Too late she realized what her recklessness had unleashed. “I was but paying a forfeit to Ralph for—”
Her voice was lost in the clash of steel on steel. Neither combatant heard her. They were concentrating with fierce intensity upon each other, for Ralph Pembroke had been nettled by the young lady’s preference for the dashing Captain and was eager to down him, and Tony’s gorge was up and at that moment he thirsted for nothing so much as for Pembroke’s blood. In his left hand, Pembroke brought out a dagger, a wicked-looking twelve-inch blade, and the Captain retaliated by bringing out his own dagger, just as wicked.
The clash of blades alerted the revelers on the other side of the holly and they streamed toward the sound. They found the pair locked in combat, fighting with sword and dagger, circling each other warily, plunging in, parrying, leaping back.
“Warburton! Pembroke! Are ye gone mad?” cried the elder Thornton, aghast. “ ’Tis one thing to call a man out, formally and with seconds, but to skirmish this way in the bushes—if one of ye kills the other, he’ll like as not be charged with murder!”
Neither combatant paid the slightest attention.
“As your host, I feel responsible!” roared Roger Thornton, pulling out his own blade.
He might have interposed that blade to separate them had not Margaret just then created her own diversion. No one had been noticing her, all eyes h
ad been riveted on the duelists—Pembroke the heavier and stronger, Warburton steel hard, tempered and experienced and with a longer reach. Wagers as to the outcome were being murmured among the gentlemen, while the ladies gave little shrieks of horror every time the blades clashed and the two angry faces spun close to each other.
Having freed herself of the holly that had torn her light silk dress, ruined her coiffure and scratched her skin, Margaret had come to the same conclusion as her host—Tony looked in a mood to do murder and she had brought him to it. And Ralph Pembroke, who had been pursuing her for months, was in no mood to back down. Even as Roger Thornton bellowed his admonitions to the pair, she was taking action.
Looking about for what was at hand, she seized a heavy piece of wood, part of a fallen tree branch, lifted it high above her head and brought it crashing down on the swords just as they clashed again. Pembroke’s blade skittered from his hand to the ground and Tony’s was nearly knocked from his.
But Margaret was not finished. As she flung the wood she followed it with her body so that she seemed to fly at the flashing steel almost simultaneously with her missile.
Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw her coming. Pembroke’s angry and astonished face was nearly nose to nose with his own at that moment, for in his confusion Pembroke was not sure just what had hit him. He took a wild slash with his dagger at Tony’s face in the same moment that Tony brought up his blade and threw his right arm to the side in an effort to ward Margaret off and keep her from catapulting headfirst into the flashing daggers.
Margaret was thrown free and landed, skirts swirling above a froth of lacy chemise, some distance away.
But saving her had cost Tony something. It had put him in line for Ralph Pembroke’s dagger and that jabbing dagger described a jagged course from just below his left eye down nearly to his mouth before Tony’s own dagger plunged into Pembroke’s neck and caused him to jerk spasmodically away.
Both men staggered back, covered with blood, to be seized and disarmed by the excited onlookers—Captain Warburton by his host and his host’s sixteen-year-old-son, Tom, and Ralph Pembroke by two of his boon companions from Bridgwater.
Margaret, on her knees now on the grass where she had been flung, thought for a horrified moment that Tony had lost his eye. She was near fainting when she realized he had not, that he was holding a bloody kerchief to the wound and had shaken free of the two men who held him and was striding toward Ralph Pembroke, whose condition was serious.
“I had not meant to wound him so badly,” Tony Warburton muttered. “I but meant to teach him a lesson.”
“We all saw Mistress Margaret enter the fray,” said Tom Thornton’s father heavily, for the way Pembroke was bleeding, he half expected him to expire on the spot.
Captain Warburton, who had some experience with wounds in his eventful life, pushed through and insisted on trying his skill.
“’Twas a fair fight,” gasped out Pembroke, willingly submitting to the Captain’s ministrations—or anyone else’s who could staunch the flow of his blood.
Cleverly, Tony managed it.
“Hold very still,” he counseled softly. “No, he’s to drink nothing”—he waved away the leather flask of liquor someone held out—“for ’twill only excite his blood and make the wound bleed worse. I saw a worse wound in the Netherlands and the fellow who had it held it—so. He was determined not to die. He held rigid for hours and eventually the blood did clot by itself.”
The fellow had been himself.
A doctor was sent for—but who knew when he would arrive? In any event the battle was over and most of the guests wandered off to resume their revelry.
Margaret was not among them. Disheveled and pale, she crouched by Pembroke, silently willing him to live—not only for himself, although she liked him well enough, but so that Tony would not be accounted a murderer.
Tony Warburton mistook her silent vigil for real concern. A lover’s concern. He watched her bitterly. Meg, his Meg—at least he had thought her his—and that blustery Pembroke fellow!
Eventually Pembroke was deemed fit enough to be carried from the site and Margaret got up stiffly, brushing holly leaves from her dress. She turned to Tony, who had also stayed nearby.
“I think he will live,” she said tonelessly, for she felt exhausted, drained.
“Yes. I think so,” he agreed, watching her.
They stood silently surveying each other for a moment. Margaret was about to blurt out a heartfelt apology, but Captain Warburton was the first to speak.
“I wish you joy of him, Meg,” he said bitterly and whirled on his heel and strode away.
For a moment Margaret stood stock-still. Then, as what Tony had said sank in on her, she gathered up her skirts and began to run after him. “Tony—wait!” But a servant, ordered in an undertone while Margaret’s gaze was fixed on the fallen Pembroke, had already brought up Captain Warburton’s horse and before she could reach him the Captain had swung up into the saddle and galloped away without a backward look.
There wasn’t a horse there that could catch Cinder. No use trying to follow! With a pounding heart she watched him go, for that afternoon had wrought a change in Margaret. She repented her teasing of Tony and promised herself she would surprise him by setting the date for their wedding—she would tell him tomorrow when he rode over as usual to Axeleigh.
But Tony Warburton did not ride over to Axeleigh on the morrow or for many morrows to come. Instead he rode for Warwood, but paused there only long enough to change horses and fill his saddlebags. He rode that night for London and took ship for the Continent.
His days as a lover, he told himself grimly, were over. He would take his women where he found them and leave them there when he left. No more flinging his heart beneath the slippers of some heartless wench who’d lead him to believe she loved him and then turn to somebody else!
But he thanked God most fervently when he was informed by letter that Ralph Pembroke was recovering nicely. Lord, he’d meant to best Pembroke, but not to kill him! And he laid that at Margaret’s door too, that he had nearly killed a man for her—and how she must love the fellow to have hurled herself into the swords like that! It was a miracle she had not been hurt.
Night after sleepless night as he roved the Continent he pondered the perfidy of women. He was out of touch with Warwood; his mail reached him infrequently and it was six months before he received Margaret’s letter. His jaw worked as he stared down at the familiar handwriting and with a violent gesture he flung it unread into the fireplace and watched it burn. So much for Margaret, who was doubtless signing herself “Margaret Pembroke” by now and was writing to him only to clear her conscience!
He plunged again into his intelligence activities, which led him deep into France, for he was convinced that a French king who considered himself a “lieutenant of God” and was already persecuting French Dissenters, a king moreover who was assembling the most formidable army in Europe, would bring no good to his neighbors across the Channel. It alarmed Tony Warburton that Louis had invaded Dutch territory, and April of 1677 found him at Saint-Omer, where the French were locked in battle with William of Orange, a man the Captain grimly admired for having opened the Dutch sluices and halting the French advance. But Tony Warburton, intent on making a full report, had edged too close to the battle. A stray shot found his thigh and he spent a slow time recovering. Fierce raged the seas and all of his mail went astray—or sank. It was months before he again received mail from Warwood and learnt from his father’s own hand—along with belated news of the startling “Popish Plot”—that Margaret was still unmarried, considered herself still betrothed to him, although “deeply hurt” that he had not answered any of her letters, and that Ralph Pembroke had been wed September last to a great heiress in Wiltshire (though nothing for looks) and had removed to her home there, reputed to be over a hundred rooms! Margaret had shrugged when told about Pembroke’s impending nuptials and was quoted as saying that fortune hunters
usually got what they deserved and Ralph Pembroke would be no exception, that his wife-to-be was as awkward as a scullery maid among the fine china, and that he would live to see all of his children trip over the furniture legs, elegant though those legs might be.
Tony Warburton had grinned at that. His Meg had always had a biting tongue! But it stunned him to learn that she was still waiting. How had he so mistook her?
Nevertheless, all the love he had ever felt for her rushed back to warn him and it was a restless Captain Warburton who, with one leg still moving a bit stiffly from his latest wound, took ship for England.
Having disdained to write to Margaret that he was coming—faith, he would deliver himself to her door instead of some scribbled parchment!—Captain Warburton arrived in his native land to find his world changed. William of Orange had married Mary, eldest daughter of that James, Duke of York, whose eventual ascent to the English throne was regarded by the Squire of Axeleigh with such foreboding. In Somerset he was shocked to learn that both his parents were dead and Ned returned from Oxford and trying to cope with matters at Warwood.
It was from Ned’s lips that he learned that which turned his saturnine face pale beneath its tan: Margaret, his Margaret, was ill of the smallpox in Bath, caught while visiting some people named Forbush there. But, Ned assured him anxiously, the latest word was that she was expected to recover.
Tony Warburton, dusty from his journey, paused only to mount a fresh horse. “I’m for Bath,” he called back to Ned. “And Margaret. Hold things here for my return.”
“But ye cannot!” cried Ned belatedly. “Half the city is down with the pox!”
It is doubtful Tony heard him. If he had, it would not have mattered. Nothing would have kept him from Margaret at that moment—nothing short of death.
He was banging the Forbush knocker when he learnt the news—news told him through the door panels by a weeping voice he recognized as belonging to Margaret’s old nurse.
Lovely Lying Lips Page 5
