Tony Warburton, a striking figure in black and gold with his dark cloak streaming out behind him in the wind, had elected not to man a sleigh, but to lead the way on Cinder, his big charcoal stallion. He had done this in order to give Ned a better chance with Constance, and he frowned as he saw Ned’s face darken at this slight. Ned gave his sleigh a vicious turn and promptly invited Margie Hamilton to ride with him. Delighted to be noticed by so dashing a young buck as Ned Warburton, Margie promptly leaped in beside him with a flurry of saffron wool skirts.
Cart Rawlings had Melissa in tow, in a two-seater he had borrowed from the Hawleys. Tom squired a triumphant Pamela for the occasion. And half a dozen other sleighs, some with four horses to draw them and carrying as many as six or eight merrymakers, glided on greased metal runners through the gates of Axeleigh and were off on the long tinkling ride to Warwood, where they would spend the night.
Almost at once a fallen tree circumvented them. Its massive bulk blocked the road and after a hurried conference it was decided not to waste time trying to move it, but to take a detour down a country lane which would lead them to the main road again.
Once again they were foiled. Another tree had fallen across the lane and resisted all efforts to remove it. Now the only way around was by a path hardly wide enough for the sleighs beneath low-lying branches that whipped unpleasantly into the passengers’ faces, causing them to duck or be frosted with snow as they passed under.
“Bad planning,” Chesney assured Constance loftily. He gazed sourly at the broad back of Captain Warburton whose big stallion was breaking trail just ahead, for with the various turnabouts they had made due to the blocked roads they were now the lead sleigh. “Captain Warburton should have checked the roads before he invited us to Warwood!”
Constance was nettled. “He didn’t know about it!” She clenched her hands in her muff. “The tree fell after he came through.”
“But look at all this mess! Watch out! That branch has enough snow on it to bury us!”
Constance ducked, her fur-trimmed hood fell over her eyes and she fell against Chesney.
“I would have arranged it all much better,” he told her confidently as she righted herself.
“No doubt,” said Constance with dry irony, brushing snow from her purple velvet cloak with her gloves. “Possibly you would even have arranged for the trees not to fall on these unused back roads?”
That cherubic red-cheeked face gave her an uncertain look. Could she be laughing at him? His mother never laughed at him. True, she drove off any girl who showed even the remotest interest in him and she selected his clothes and his food and his companions and she kept a tight rein on his money—but she never laughed at him. It occurred to him suddenly that to Mistress Constance he might appear just as one of the pack and not as the Leader of Men his mother in her gentler moments was always telling him he was. Well, he’d just demonstrate his leadership right now! For up ahead Captain Warburton was electing to plunge through a narrow spot between some low-hanging branches while to their left the woods opened suddenly into a wide aperture and there was a smooth snowy rise just beyond.
“We’ll take this way,” he cried. “And save you being drenched with snow from those branches!” He sawed on the horse’s mouth (he had a notoriously heavy hand on the reins) causing the animal to swing sharply to the left and through the aperture.
Behind them there was a shout and out of the corner of her eye Constance saw Captain Warburton wheel his mount around and gallop toward them waving his hat.
“I think we’re going the wrong way,” she said nervously.
“Nonsense!” cried her masterful companion. “See how smooth the runners glide over this? We’ll find the road shortly, and—”
They were just mounting the rise and now Captain Warburton had come alongside. His face was full of fury and alarm. “Pull up!” he roared. “Pull up!” And when Chesney only laughed. Captain Warburton dashed forward and seized the reins and turned the horse’s head by main force to the right while behind them someone screamed and a furious Chesney half rose in his seat and howled, “Let go, are ye mad?” and brandished his whip at the Captain.
Chesney was thrown back in his seat by the sudden swerve of the sleigh as Captain Warburton brought the horse around, and snow flew in the wake of the runners as the sleigh slithered to a halt.
“Whatever is wrong?” gasped Constance.
“This fool beside you near cost you your life!” ground out the Captain.
Chesney, standing up bewildered with the reins slack in his hand, cried, “Are ye mad? There’s no danger here—only a guide who chooses to run us through the forest where the branches beat at us—”
“I invite ye to view it!” thundered Captain Warburton, and of a sudden he was off his horse and seizing Chesney Pell by the shoulder, dragging him off his sleigh. While the rest watched, he dragged Chesney forward until they stood silhouetted against a gray winter sky at the top of the rise and Constance saw Chesney suddenly cringe back. He broke free of the Captain’s grasp and floundered back to the sleigh while Captain Warburton sauntered along behind him.
“Oh, Mistress Constance,” wailed Chesney, eagerly confessing his fault as he had to his mother for so many years. “There’s a sheer drop past the rise. It must be hundreds of feet down!”
“Ye exaggerate. A mere hundred and fifty,” came Tony Warburton’s sardonic voice. “This lad near carried ye over the brink of the Cheddar Gorge. And while the horse might have seen the danger and balked or turned, the sleigh could have upset and its momentum could well have carried it over anyway.”
Constance, to whom their bewildering turns and changes of direction in this alien snowy landscape had rendered everything unfamiliar, blanched. She had seen the mile-long Cheddar Gorge but once and that was in summer and from below. Above her the great monolithic stones had seemed to rise upward like the heavy slanted foundations of some ancient giant’s keep, now overgrown with greenery. And this smooth white surface with only sky beyond was the top of those massive cliffs! She saw suddenly that Chesney looked about to cry.
“You couldn’t know that, Chesney,” she said rapidly to comfort him. “It looked perfectly safe to me.”
Captain Warburton snorted and remounted his horse. But Chesney’s woebegone face brightened—as it always did when his mother forgave him his blunders. “Then ye aren’t angry?” he marveled.
“No,” sighed Constance. “Chesney, your boots are filled with snow. You’ll have to shake them out or your feet will freeze on the way to Warwood.”
As he followed her instructions, Chesney glowed. Back home he had never had a sweetheart. In Oxford, girls had not taken him seriously. Now at last he had found a lady who was not only beautiful and sought after and aristocratic and wealthy—she understood his perfectly natural mistakes! He had found the perfect Woman! His cherubic face beamed on Constance with such adoration that even Captain Warburton’s grim, “Ye’ll follow where I lead this time or I’ll take over your reins myself and let ye follow along behind!” did not shake him.
The rest of the journey to Warwood was uneventful. And in the lead sleigh that followed Captain Warburton astride Cinder, mainly silent.
Constance was thinking how wonderful it would be if all of her past could be magically erased and she could start out fresh and new, if the man beside her could miraculously change places with Tony Warburton and she and Tony could glide off together into some happy future. Or alternatively if things could have worked out with Dev....
Beside her Chesney Pell thought she looked adorably pensive with her purple velvet eyes looking out into the white distance.
They made their approach to Warwood down a stately drive lined with great ash trees and Constance thought how the last time she had seen those trees they had been festooned with leaves and now they were festooned with snow. Somehow Warwood’s approach always seemed decked out for a holiday.... And now above the snowy branches of the big trees rose up the huge square tower.
“Is it a castle?” wondered Chesney, impressed.
“No, it was once an abbey,” said Constance. “But it does look like a castle from here.”
And then the massive bulk of the big stone house was spread out before them with its gothic tracery above the mullioned windows and its snow-covered ivy and its look of having been there forever.
“A large house for—did you say two unmarried brothers?”
Constance nodded. “One is a widower,” she said.
And then Captain Warburton himself was ushering them into the echoing great hall. The servants had brought in enormous amounts of holly and Christmas greenery, and as they stood on the magnificent Aubusson carpet and admired the decorations, Chesney whispered with a chuckle, “I see there’s plenty of mistletoe.”
Constance made a little dismissing gesture with her shoulders as if to shake him off. And then their cloaks were being whisked away and the ladies were repairing to the upper regions of the house to shed their riding masks—Constance and Pamela had disdained to wear theirs—and to comb their windblown curls and to dab at their faces with face powder. Some of them were using the dangerous ceruse based in white lead but most, like Constance and Pamela, were using powder made from ground alabaster—although Pamela whispered to Constance that she thought the Hawley girls were using cheaper powder made from perfumed laundry starch. Constance put this down to Pamela’s jealousy of Melissa, and asked if she had enjoyed her sleighride with Tom.
“It wasn’t so exciting as yours,” laughed Pamela. “At least Tom didn’t try to carry me over the Cheddar Gorge!” And as Constance’s brows shot up ruefully, “But perhaps you talked about more interesting subjects! Tom talked about politics the whole way—he told me Dick Peacham wasn’t ‘sound’!” She giggled. “He kept lecturing me. Going on and on about Judge Jeffreys and his ‘judicial murders’ at the time of the Rye House Plot.”
“Tom’s right—he is a terrible man,” murmured Constance, studying her reflection and deciding that she was pale enough—she needed no crushed alabaster.
“Oh, of course Judge Jeffreys is a terrible man,” said Pamela impatiently. “And James if he succeeds to the throne will subordinate England to Ireland! And it would be awful to have the burnings of Smithfield all over again! But for myself, I don’t see how we can possibly get a good king out of all this mess, for as Captain Warburton says, he will still be a Stuart and probably a bad king! But why ruin a perfectly good sleighride talking about it?”
Constance cast a nervous glance about her. The room was alive with chatter and swishing skirts as the girls, gathered together now and not yet assigned the rooms they would have later on, tore off wet-hemmed petticoats and gowns and hastily repaired rips and spatters with the assistance of all the female servants who could be spared. Since this was a sleighing party and no one had wanted to overburden their sleighs with maidservants, this gathering them all together in one room was Captain Warburton’s device for seeing that every lady in the party had some assistance. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them—indeed most were occupied with watching Melissa Hawley wire up her taffy curls and apply Spanish paper to rouge her cheeks. Or with helping each other apply black patches to contrast with alabaster skin. But still Constance wished that Pamela would not express her views so freely. She wondered if Pamela knew that the Duke of Monmouth had visited England in November. She had heard that he had been denied an audience with the King. She considered warning Tom not to be so free in his talk with Pamela but decided against it—surely it would seem treacherous when Pamela, for all her shortcomings, loved him so much.
“At least you do not need the aid of Spanish paper,” she told her flushed companion.
“No, I never do!” laughed Pamela, struggling with the help of a maid into her favorite stiff pink damask gown. She was glad to be rid of the subject of politics. “The trouble is this cold weather makes my nose red too!”
“Some alabaster powder will change that!” Constance rose and accepted assistance from one of the maids in changing her own costume.
When she was gowned at last, when Pamela had breathed, “Oh, I do love your gown, Constance—it’s prettier than of the fashion dolls!” when several ladies who considered themselves leaders of fashion had cast her covert envious looks, Constance stared into the mirror with a flash of defiance. Trying to be mousy and understated and casting down her eyes shyly had not worked with Ned—he had pursued her anyway. So tonight she would be flamboyant and flaunt her interest in other men and discourage him that way!
To that end she had chosen a rich rustling rose-violet taffeta that brought out ruby-flecked lights in her violet eyes. It had a tightly fitted bodice that tapered to a tiny waist and enormous billowing three-quarter sleeves that spilled out an extravagance of white point lace over her slender forearms. Deep purple velvet ribands were tied into bows at the elbow of each sleeve and similar velvet bows held back the overskirt above a swaying petticoat of rippling amethyst silk. The gown was daringly low-cut and showed her snowy bosom to great advantage, for she had recklessly scorned to wear a pinner—one of those concealing scraps of lace or semisheer material pinned or sewn into the décolletage for modesty’s sake. Lavender silk stockings and violet satin slippers completed her costume.
She had combed the windblown tangles from her rich dark hair, scented it with violets, brushed it until it shone, swept it into great bewitching curls at the sides that dangled fetchingly and swayed whenever she turned her head—no wired-up frizzy curls for her! At the back she wore her thick hair in a great bun and she had set an alexandrite ornament sparkling with brilliants near her right ear where it would flash as she moved.
But despite Pamela’s open admiration, she now regarded her handsome reflection in the mirror with some trepidation for it had belatedly occurred to her that she was also flaunting herself before Captain Warburton. Well, that could not be helped!
With flashing eyes, she joined the ladies in their elegant trek down Warwood’s wide main stairway. And had the satisfaction of seeing the eyes of the gentlemen below light up at the inspiring sight of her!
“You’re dazzling Captain Warburton!” murmured Pamela mischievously and Constance bit her lip.
“I have no desire to dazzle him!” she muttered.
But Pamela had already forgotten her. Her searching crystal blue eyes had sought for—and found—Tom among the crowd of gentlemen below. His golden head shone in the candlelight and his smiling roguish face was upturned, looking at her—or was he looking at Melissa Hawley who was mincing down the steps right behind her? Pamela left Constance’s side, lifted her heavy pink damask skirts and darted around the leisurely lady posing just ahead. There would be no doubt as to who Tom would take in to dinner tonight! She meant to reach him first!
From the stairs Constance too had caught Captain Warburton’s cool gray gaze, looking up. He stood below her, a dominating figure in elegant black and silver. His sardonic face was calm beneath the heavy gleaming hair that swung to his broad shoulders. A jewel of price sparkled from the snowy burst of Mechlin at his throat. Not by so much as the quiver of a muscle did he display what he must be feeling. Not by so much as the flicker of an eyelash did Constance acknowledge that penetrating look. Her gaze negligently passed on to Ned, lingered there without recognition—and she could see him flush. His face was angry, for this morning’s slight when Constance had chosen to ride with Chesney instead of with him still rankled. She let her gaze drift past him, found Chesney in the crowd, and broke into a dazzling smile.
Pamela, had she been watching, would have been amazed.
Thus encouraged, Chesney charged forward and met Constance amid the hubbub of descending perfumed ladies at the foot of the stairs. Constance smiled indifferently at Ned, who had rushed forward too, and took Chesney’s arm with determination. She rustled past both a fuming Ned in a new green satin suit he had bought expressly to please her and an unsmiling Captain Warburton whose thoughtful gaze followed her
progress before he gallantly offered his arm to the nearest lady.
For the most part that evening Constance adroitly managed to avoid both the Warburton brothers—mainly by flirting madly with Chesney Pell. Ned did arrange to seat himself beside her at dinner, where she answered his remarks with monosyllables and mainly favored him with a view of her rose-violet taffeta back. Ned retaliated by deserting her after dinner and devoting himself to Margie Hamilton, who laughed and dimpled and displayed her white teeth and flirted with him for all she was worth.
Weary of Chesney’s dancing attendance—for somehow his puce satin form always inserted itself between her and anyone who desired so much as two words with her—Constance managed at last to escape while Chesney and Cart Rawlings, both of them overheated by wine, were occupied with a bitter denunciation of Judge Jeffreys, a matter about which they were in complete agreement. Midway in Cart’s indignant “Ye’ll remember that four years ago the court had to replace Jeffreys as recorder—caught him trying to intimidate the men who controlled the City of London!” Constance made her escape. She detached herself from the merrymakers and strolled alone through the vast echoing rooms until she came at last to the armory and stood looking about her in wonder, for this was a place she had not seen on her brief call last summer.
Garnishing the walls and ceiling of the cathedral-like room were the implements of personal warfare as men of England had fought it since the time of the Norman Conquest. Pikes bristled from the walls along with ancient chain mail, bucklers, breast plates, visored helmets, spiked maces, halberds, metal gauntlets—and there were shields and lances which Warburton men must have used in long-ago jousts. Dented armor proved these contests had been no laughing matter. And some of those dents, she thought with some trepidation, looked as if they might have been made by musket balls. There was a bewildering assortment of longbows and hunting crossbows, of javelins and spears. She stared in awe at a mighty two-handed sword. It would take a giant to wield it! And there were modern weapons as well: Stacked in a corner were a number of long matchlock muskets so heavy they had to be rested to take proper aim, and in another corner were stacked iron-hilted “mortuary” swords, some of them gilded and pierced and chiseled, wicked-looking daggers from Elizabethan days, handsome chiseled cup-hilted rapiers and brass basket-hilted rapiers of the kind the Warburtons settled their differences with now.
Lovely Lying Lips Page 33
