Yes, thought Constance, remembering that strong face as they headed their horses toward Somerset... Tony Warburton was the kind of man who would indeed spring to a woman’s rescue. Yet still she hated him—for so quickly forgetting Margaret.
They had crossed the Exe and were riding through the Blackdown Hills as they spoke. Soon they would he in the vicinity of Taunton. And now Constance stubbornly brought up again a subject that was worrying her.
“But suppose Tony Warburton does recognize you?”
“Then he’ll believe he’s dreaming—so long as he does not unmask me. But if by chance he tears off my mask...” Margaret gave Constance a steady look and pulled out a little vial from her saddlebag. “Then I’ll use this.”
Her voice had a harsh finality that made Constance ask fearfully, “What is in it?”
“Hemlock,” said Margaret, her mouth a straight line and her jaw very square. “I could not survive the next day and the day after, knowing Tony had seen me like this, knowing his revulsion—no matter how cloaked—would be like the Welshman’s.”
The words. Oh, you wouldn’t! rushed to Constance’s lips but were never spoken.
She knew with inner certainty that Margaret would.
So it was imperative that Tony Warburton not recognize Margaret. That single consideration outweighed everything else, for Constance had only just realized how she felt about Margaret. This strong, dominant, tragic woman had somehow taken the place of the frail, valiant mother who had died along with her childhood, taken the place of the older sister she had never had. She felt for Margaret a real blood tie—she would have died for her.
And instinctively she knew that Margaret felt the same way about her.
Wearing light cloaks and riding masks, they rode into the Valley of the Axe beneath a white moon—for on this leg of the journey Margaret had insisted on riding by night, and avoiding towns, highwaymen or no. She had kept her large pistol ready at hand lest a dark shape spring from the bushes crying “Stand and deliver!” But none had challenged their passage, the road had been a ribbon of moonlight before them. And riding the gentle gray beside Margaret’s fractious roan, Constance had thrilled to the sight of the silvery river where her father must have fished as a boy.
In their avoidance of towns, Margaret’s expert knowledge of these barely discernible country trails had led them out of the way, and suddenly in the moonlight over the treetops the square tower and chimney stacks of a great house appeared. Margaret halted her roan and pointed. “Warwood,” she told Constance quietly.
And Constance, looking at that moon-washed square tower and soaring chimney stacks, knew that they had ridden out of the way for a purpose: for Warwood was the lair of the elusive Captain Warburton, and Margaret must be thinking. This could have been mine. I could have been mistress here.
They were silent after that, riding along slowly. And Margaret was watchful for this was a part of the Valley where she was well known—and must not be challenged.
True to his word, the Squire had made arrangements for them. A tiny hut, some distance from the road by a winding path that led through the trees, awaited them. Constance, thinking that Margaret must have eyes like a cat to lead the way so unerringly, was startled when they came to a little clearing and the moonlight showed them a cottage roofed in thatch.
Margaret approached it warily, kicking open the door with her riding boot, pistol at the ready. But the moonlight showed it empty and when they went inside and lit the candles that were stacked neatly to hand, they saw that the place had been scrubbed spotless and that fresh linens had been spread on the two cots and food and drink had been set out upon the rude table.
“But your brother’s servants must have done this—how could he explain it?” exclaimed Constance.
Margaret shrugged and threw off her cloak. “His servants will have scrubbed the place down and piled wood in that fireplace so we can heat water for our baths, but I’ll warrant that Clifford himself brought the food and wine and linens and made these beds, for he’s a careful man.”
Exhausted from her long ride, Constance flung herself stiffly upon the nearest cot. “I’m too tired to eat,” she told Margaret.
And Margaret was too excited to eat. She walked out of the hut and stood looking about her. Just over that rise lay Axeleigh Hall, where she had been born and spent her early childhood. It seemed eons away, unreachable, part of some other life. She could not believe that she had really done this, come all this way back into her past, driven by the fiercely burning star that for her was Tony Warburton.
-Like the North Star, she supposed, she revolved around his fixed radiance, which had reached her even on the faraway sightless moors to pull her back into orbit. Now she stood beside the old stone well in the tiny clearing and wondered what tomorrow would bring. She told herself she was a fool to have made this journey, to flirt with discovery like this. That it was six years since gallant Captain Warburton had ridden out of her life. He had forgotten her by now, she told herself firmly. He would not even notice her in the crowd. Perhaps he would even dance with her and never know—of course it must be that way, she reminded herself, for to have him discover her, looking as she now did, would be more than she could bear.
Still she stood for a long time shivering in the moonlight of the warm summer night and every tremor that went through her reminded her of Tony’s kisses, of the richness of his laughter, of the glow that lit up his eyes when he looked at her. She was lost on a sea of memories and it was with a sigh that she told herself she must get some sleep and went back inside the hut where Constance, fully dressed, lay across the cot where she had flung herself in exhaustion.
Margaret smiled at her tenderly. She had plans for Constance, great plans....
But Constance, tired as she was, was only feigning sleep.
After Margaret went to bed and Constance knew from her rhythmic even breathing that she was asleep, she stole stiffly from her cot and very carefully rummaged in Margaret’s saddlebag until she found the little vial of poison hemlock. She tiptoed outside and emptied its contents on the ground. Then she washed and rinsed the vial with water from the wooden bucket at the well and refilled it with water—the vial was opaque, Margaret would notice no difference in the color.
When Constance woke it was well past noon. Margaret, she discovered, had already unpacked their ball gowns and indeed had shaken them out and hung them up outside in the damp air of early morning to get the wrinkles out. They had dried in the sun and with a touch-up from an iron would look as crisp as those of any of the ladies who had jolted to Huntlands in coaches, crushing their skirts as they went, or come down the dusty road in carriages.
“Bring us some more water,” said Margaret, who was already busying herself heating water for their baths. “I am sure you will have no trouble finding the bucket.”
Neither were hungry, but as the water heated they ate some of the ham and bread and Cheddar cheese the Squire had left for them, and washed it all down with apple cider. As they ate, Margaret calmly told her how the cheese was made—the curd mats were stacked, or “cheddared,” to expel whey. It was aging that set the flavor—a few months for mild cheese, but years for sharp cheese such as this. Constance, tense and excited, hardly tasted her food and wondered how Margaret could be so calm.
They took their baths in the metal tub the Squire had left for them. And then as the shadows deepened they dressed by candlelight for a night they both desired—and dreaded. And mounted their horses, riding carefully not to disturb their elegant ball gowns, and set out through the trees for Huntlands.
They had not been riding long when Margaret signalled to Constance to stop and they dismounted, and tethered their horses to a tree.
“We will walk from here,” she said, lifting her skirts in her hands, and moving forward. Constance followed.
They were very near to Huntlands now. They could hear music and distant laughter, when Constance came to a sudden halt.
“What did
you mean this afternoon by saying ‘I am sure you will have no trouble finding the bucket’?” she demanded.
Margaret turned to regard her. The rising moon had cast a shadow over her face in its black velvet, lace-trimmed mask, and only her green eyes flashed with a haunting gleam.
“Because I saw you out by the well last night. You had forgotten perhaps how lightly I sleep. When your hand rattled the latch I came awake and saw you, vial in hand, stealing out to the well. I guessed what you were doing and this morning when I sniffed the vial it no longer had that peculiar mouselike odor—it smelled clean and fresh.”
“Oh, Margaret, I did it for you,” cried Constance in consternation. “I want you to live, whatever happens!”
“Well, now at least I will not die by poison,” sighed Margaret with sad irony, for the moment was at hand and her own nerves too were rubbed raw. “Instead, should Tony recognize me and rip the mask from my face, I will simply leap on a horse and ride for the Cheddar Gorge.”
And hurl yourself over! thought Constance in dismay. Oh, she had achieved nothing, nothing by emptying out the vial! Margaret had a will to self-destruction, she would bring death crashing down on her in a moment if the evening went wrong! For the first time, Constance wished they were back on the moors—safe.
Huntlands, Somerset,
Midsummer 1684
Chapter 19
The annual Midsummer Masque at Huntlands was in full swing when Constance and Margaret arrived, running with their full skirts held up across the side lawns and managing to slip unobserved through a side entrance. Constance had an impression of a long E-shaped stone house glimpsed through the trees as she ran, a house with rather simple rectangular chimneys rising tall above its steeply pitched roofs, and beautifully scalloped gables and enormous windows. Through a dark corridor they hurried toward the sound of music and seemed to burst through all at once into the great hall with its high medallioned ceiling, its strapwork, its scrolled overmantel held up by caryatids. On this warm summer night all the doors and windows stood open to let the breezes blow through and cool the dancers as they whirled about the floor, and moonlight, coming in through an enormous mullioned and transomed bay window of no less than twenty-four lights, mingled with the candlelight from the vast central chandelier.
“Remember, we are not together,” muttered Margaret. “If I can find Clifford, I will bring him to you—but if anyone asks, you do not know me.”
Constance nodded, a little taken aback by the sheer size of Huntlands and by the number of masquers whirling about in full costume. She cast a look toward the screened passage and saw above it a little gallery with a row of recessed arches where the musicians as they played could look down upon the dancers.
As I looked down through the bannisters at Claxton House as a child, she remembered with a little pang.
Beside her she felt Margaret stiffen convulsively and followed her gaze. She had a flashing glimpse of a tall dark man dressed in black and gold before the crowd moved between them. His black mask was so tiny it made no effort to conceal his features—the features of the face in Margaret’s locket! Constance felt a sudden leaping anger at this tall fellow who could so swiftly have forgotten a woman as true as Margaret. But wait—she had had a swift impression of a long scar on his face. This could not be Tony Warburton. The painted likeness in Margaret’s locket bore no scar.
Beside her Margaret had forgotten the dancers, forgotten the world, forgotten Constance standing beside her. It was her first glimpse of Tony Warburton in six long years and she knew it might have to last her a lifetime—but it was heady wine. She moved her head and managed to find him again through a break in the crowd. He was bending gracefully over a lady’s gloved hand and as he lifted his head his sardonic features came once again into view.
“There he is, Constance,” she murmured.
“But the man in the locket—” began Constance, confused.
“Bore no scar?” Margaret drew a deep shuddering breath that came from the depths of her. She felt herself responsible for gashing that scar into Tony’s lean amused face. “No, because the portrait in the locket was painted before Ralph Pembroke gave Tony that wound.”
A sudden vision of Tony’s wedding—that darkest day in her life—rose up to haunt her. She had stood there in the crowd, black-veiled and silent, knowing she should hurry away lest she be recognized, yet loath to leave the sight of him, for this time it would be forever. And beside her Annabelle Hamilton, who had once competed with her for Tony’s favor, had said with a light laugh, “Tony Warburton took his wound and left the country—and now he has come back with a scar across his face that lends itself to sinister imaginings! Do you think he could have invited that wound to make himself even more glamorous in our eyes?”
She had wanted to strike Annabelle. Instead she had turned and fled—to Devon.
The truth about the scar was that Tony Warburton had paid less attention to the dagger cut than he should, so wrought up was he about other things, and the wound had healed rough so that it left a jagged white line extending from the corner of his left eye down to his sardonic mouth. Men thought it made him look keen-honed and battle-edged; women thought it made him look romantic, heroic, dangerous. Tony Warburton couldn’t have cared less what any of them thought. His face—other than keeping it shaved and presentable—was of little concern to him.
“Tony wears that scar because of me,” Margaret told Constance huskily.
Tony looked older, she thought, less lighthearted, more thoughtful. And her heart went out to him now more strongly than ever, seeing his—to her—grave new demeanor.
“Tony has—changed,” she murmured, and was unaware that she had spoken that opinion aloud. The words drifted to Constance on a sigh.
Constance, terrified by what might happen tonight when these two came face to face at last, said nervously, “How do you mean, changed?”
There's less of the boy in him, more of the man, thought Margaret. But she didn’t tell Constance that. Instead she shrugged. “Older,” she said, moving around to get a better view of Tony. She couldn’t get enough of the sight of him. All these years apart and now suddenly to see him again, not in her broken dreams, not in her wild imaginings, but here in vivid masculine flesh, strong, alive, desirable!
And once he had been hers.
With mingled pain and joy she saw him turn and look in their direction. She trembled. Did he see her? No, he did not. Wait—he was smiling at someone. Who? She turned and saw that it was on Constance that his gaze was fixed. On Constance, standing there clothed in all the radiance of her dark young beauty.
Jealousy sprang up in Margaret. Wild, unreasoning. Beautiful Constance... oh,once she could have matched her, once....
And then she realized, dizzily, that Captain Warburton was striding through the throng toward them. For a moment as he approached, tall and straight as a rapier in his black and gold, with that narrow black mask only half shielding his keen gray eyes, her knees beneath her bronze silk skirts threatened to buckle. She felt faint. In a burst of panic she almost turned and ran but Constance’s quick frightened gasp stopped her. In a defiant rush, her courage—and she had much of it—returned. Tony, she told herself, was undoubtedly approaching to ask beautiful Constance, so showy in her violet silks, to dance. He would ignore the tense woman over whose white bosom the copper lace rose and fell.
She waited bravely for what would come.
The music struck up just then and it was at that moment that Tony saw her, for up to then the crowd had obstructed his view. Arrested in mid-stride, a kind of shocked stillness spread over his features, to be instantly replaced by his usual cool sardonic expression, perhaps a trifle more pensive than was his wont. Through the dancers he moved toward Margaret almost without volition, as if there was no one else in the room—and paused before her with a slight bow.
It was as if Margaret had willed him to do it, thought Constance, thrilled.
Tony Warburton did not even g
lance at the long-stemmed beauty in violet silks. He presented himself squarely to the woman in bronze.
“Will you do me the honor?” he asked Margaret gravely. And Margaret, struck speechless by this glorious crown to all her hopes, was silent as he led her out on to the floor.
“I know we must wait for the unmasking but—could it be that you’re a stranger here?” he asked her, puzzled.
Margaret, well knowing how distinctive her voice was, dared not reply. The musical raw-silk rustle of her voice would tell him what he dared not ask. Silently, she shook her head.
“So you think I might know your voice?” he chuckled, whirling her about so that her bronze silk skirts floated out around her and then drawing her back toward him in a lithe gesture that brought those skirts swaying round his boots.
Margaret shrugged—a delightful shrug that set in shimmering motion her gleaming flame-colored curls and called attention to her magnificent white shoulders and the snowy expanse of bosom above her flawless bustline.
Behind the mask the gray eyes narrowed. “You remind me...” he murmured. “I am wondering if you could be a relative—” He broke off, shaking his head suddenly as if to clear it. “So you are no stranger to this valley. Then let me ask you this: Are you married to one of my friends perhaps? A wife I have not yet had the pleasure of meeting?”
She could shake her head with perfect truth to that.
“Nor am I married—any longer,” he said softly. “Tell me—were you married? Are you perhaps a widow?”
Not a widow of the body, she thought. A widow of the heart. And again she shook her head.
So rapt were they, this pair, that neither took their eyes from the other’s face. The music had stopped but neither had noticed. They continued to whirl to an inner music they both heard in unison—a love song of the spirit that had begun its melody the moment their fingers had touched.
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