“Jeffreys will want to make a show here,” speculated Captain Warburton thoughtfully. “He’ll prefer to hang us in bunches and make a spectacle of it, I suspect, rather than string us up one by one. So there’ll be a little time after sentence is passed upon me.” His hand gripped hers and there was strength and comfort in that grasp. “If I’m released, I promise that—blind or no—I’ll get you out of here, Constance, away from the threat of arrest. I’ll get you away to Holland. But if the trial goes against me, I’ll arrange with the jailer, for a price, to give us a private cell the night before I’m to be hanged. He’ll view it as a condemned man’s last request and pocket the money righteously!”
Unable to speak, she leant against him and inwardly railed at a world that would let so gallant a man die.
“I’m sure it won’t come to that,” she said unsteadily, and drew away from him as the jailer rattled his keys as a sign that their visit was over. “But if it does, I’ll be ready.”
“Remember,” he said softly. “Tomorrow night.”
He pressed her hand again and then for a moment his lips sought hers in a hungry lonely kiss that almost broke down the last of her reserves. At the jailer’s roar of “Here now, none of that!” she stumbled away from him and went through the door dabbing at her eyes. But once outside she raised her head proudly. With an erect back and a face sternly set she walked with Pamela past the curious who thronged the jail.
Pamela’s face was flushed, her eyes snapping. “They mean to hang Tom, Constance, but I won’t let them!”
“Come away,” murmured Constance. “We’re attracting attention.” She drew the angry blonde aside. “We’ll speak of it,” she said, “on the road home.”
“I’m not going home! I’m going to stay in Taunton!”
“You’re going home,” said Constance harshly. “We have to consult your father—make plans!”
Pamela realized the sense of that. Reluctantly she assented
They rode home almost in silence. Pamela was occupied by imagining—and rejecting as impossible—one scheme after another to save Tom. Always in her excitement she would think up a new one.
Beside her Constance was quiet and sad. Whatever harebrained scheme reckless Pamela had in mind, she herself could see no way out. Tom and Tony would be tried and condemned. Pamela would have to be physically restrained from assaulting judge and hangman alike. She herself would spend one unforgettable night with Tony Warburton beneath the shadow of the sword and a day would come when the two men would walk out into the sunlight and mount the tall gibbet and die with the rest while a sad, angry, frightened crowd of watchers, people who knew they might well be next, muttered below.
And it would all be over—no, not quite. Because soon an arrest order Would come for her and Pam and they too would be hauled away to jail.
But for herself she had decided not to go.
She would not wait for the King’s men to come for her. She would sweep up Pamela and head for Tattersall in Devon!
Axeleigh Hall, Somerset,
August 1685
Chapter 35
A chestnut horse cantered down the driveway of Axeleigh and a woman with striking red hair, wearing a riding mask, dismounted easily, tossed her reins over the hitching post and clanged the front door knocker.
Stebbins, who let her in, fell back half a step and lost color.
“Mistress Marg—no, it can’t be!” he gasped.
“I thought you might recognize me, Stebbins,” said Margaret with composure. “Not a word to anyone else though. Is my brother in?”
Constance appeared on the stair landing, stopped in amazement, and then flew down the rest of the flight.
“Margaret!” she cried. “Oh, I’ve been so worried about you—the Squire rarely gives me any word of you.”
“Doubtless because I’ve not written,” said Margaret. “Bring my saddle bags in, will you, Stebbins?”
Stebbins, who had by now recovered himself, gave her a wide grin and hurried outside to do her bidding. Wild and beautiful Margaret Archer had always been a favorite of his, and he had grieved sincerely when he had heard of her “death.”
“Before Stebbins comes back,” said Constance, knowing Margaret would not wish to burst into tears before Stebbins, “there’s something I must tell you. Captain Warburton has been blinded.”
“I know,” said Margaret, with surprising calm. “It is what brought me back.”
“You—knew?” Constance could not understand how Margaret could take such bad news so well—and then she realized. Of course, now that Tony could not see her and realize she had lost her beauty, Margaret could afford to come back. “There is something else,” she faltered. “Captain Warburton and Tom Thornton are both in jail in Taunton awaiting trial tomorrow.”
“I knew that too.” Margaret was peeling off her riding gloves as she spoke. The black velvet riding mask remained firmly in place.
“And since he feels that I am bound to be implicated sooner or later—you must have known that I was?”
“Yes, I heard of it.”
“He expects to be found guilty and hanged, but—oh, my life has become very involved since I left you and—and Captain Warburton plans to bribe the jailer for us to spend a night together so he can get me pregnant, and then if I am taken I can plead my belly and gain time until the Squire can rescue me!” she blurted.
Margaret paused in removing her gloves to consider this. Then she looked directly at Constance and the green eyes behind the black mask gleamed. “How very resourceful of Tony,” she murmured. “But you must let me handle it. And now take me directly to Clifford—we have much to discuss.” They found the Squire reclining against the slanted back of his brocaded “sleeping chair,” which had gilded ratchets for adjusting the angle. He leaped up at sight of Margaret and fell back, wincing.
“Are you ill, Clifford?” she demanded.
“No, ’tis just that I fell—twice. And hurt my back both times. ’Twill eventually heal but—what brings you here, Margaret?”
“Tony, of course. And other things.”
“I would swear Tony never conspired to bring down the King,” burst out the Squire. “And if he was at Sedgemoor, then I’d believe he was there to bring Ned home!”
“Yes, but others will not believe it,” said Margaret crisply. “And they’re sending George Jeffreys out, and he’s a hanging judge—you will remember how he executed Russell and Sidney on faulty evidence?”
“Aye,” agreed the Squire soberly. “And others too.”
“Yes.” Margaret’s lovely mouth tightened. “And was rewarded with a peerage for it! ’Tis plain to me that Tony will be found guilty—and Warwood will be forfeit to the Crown.
To prevent that. I’ve brought papers with me, Clifford, which Tony will sign and you will keep—and show if necessary—deeding Warwood and all its goods to you. And a deed which he will keep hidden, deeding Warwood back to him.”
The Squire was regarding his always surprising younger sister in open-mouthed wonder. He would have expected her to insist they gather men together and take the jail by storm and free Tony Warburton—and instead she was mouthing words about deeds and property!
“His deed to me will have to be signed—and witnessed,” he heard himself say.
“Oh, we’ll manage that,” said Margaret coolly. “I would suggest Tom Thornton do the same thing—deed Huntlands to you, and you deed it back to him. For he’s like to be hanged as well.”
Pamela came into the room just then in a flurry of scarlet riding skirts, for she was planning to ride to Taunton with Constance. “Indeed he will not be hanged!” she cried. “For I shall not allow it!” She stopped with a gasp. “You’re—”
“Margaret,” supplied the graceful red-haired lady in bronze silks. “Please do not raise your voice or alert the servants. I would prefer my presence here not to be known.”
“But—but we thought, I mean we all thought—”
“No, Clifford always kn
ew—and so did Constance.”
“Margaret,” said her father with a wry glance at Constance, “is here to decide all our futures for us.”
“Hardly that,” demurred Margaret. “Just Tony’s. And mine.”
She was so sure of herself. Constance, who had never been that sure in her life, envied capable Margaret—proposing, disposing, settling, all with the greatest dispatch. She was reminded in a way of Captain Warburton, who never seemed to falter or know qualms or indecision.
“Are you worried about Tom?” Margaret shot at Pamela.
“Yes,” admitted Pamela.
“You are right to be,” said Margaret. “But there is time yet. We will snatch him from the scaffold by force, if necessary.”
Both Pamela and Constance looked at her with admiration and awe. Margaret had such aplomb. They could almost imagine her riding up, pistols blazing, and scattering the crowd before her.
“However,” added Margaret with a shrug, “there are better methods and we will try them first.” She turned a challenging expression on Constance. “Are you still married? For I learnt of it but lately. Clifford here did not write me of it.”
“Indeed I did,” protested the Squire. “The letter must have been lost.”
“Anyway, word did not reach me until recently that you were wed.”
“In February,” supplied Pamela. “To Chesney Pell. He was hanged by the King’s troops.”
“I am widowed,” admitted Constance.
Margaret stared at her. “And what will you do if your part in this uprising becomes known?” And at the Squire’s sudden start, “What, did you not know of it, Clifford? Constance here has been a focal point for messages for the Cause in this part of Somerset.”
Constance moistened her lips. “I—I had planned to come to you at Tattersall,” she admitted.
“Impossible. I shall not be there.”
“Well, then—” Suddenly she knew what she wanted to do. It was all blindingly clear to her. “I shall go and search for a certain highwayman,” she said defiantly, “who rode off in the wrong direction. He should have taken the Bristol Road but he did not.”
Only Margaret had any idea what she was talking about. “And you think you might find him on the Great North Road?” she asked softly.
It was Constance’s tum to stare. “You know about Dev?” she whispered.
Margaret laughed. “Information is my stock in trade. And remember, I have roved the roads these summers past. But come now.” Her voice raised. “If you should find your highwayman, do you think he would take you in?”
“I think he would protect me from all the devils of hell, could I but find him!” Constance’s own voice rang out with all the surety of love.
“He is nearer than you think,” said a voice from the hall, and they all spun around to see a tall russet-clad man lounging in the doorway—a man Pamela instantly recognized as the “George Mayberry” she had rescued from the gibbet in Bridgwater.
“Dev!” cried Constance, and all the gladness of spring was in her voice. “Oh, Dev, you didn’t desert me after all!”
“I did, but I came back,” he said, as she flung herself into his arms.
“Then there was no heiress, no ship leaving for America?”
“Plenty of ships,” he shrugged, smiling fondly down into her face. “But none for me—and no heiress, unless you’ve come into a fortune!”
“I think I should introduce my—” she began.
“No, let me,” interposed Deverell. “Deverell Westmorland, Earl of Roxford.” He swept the company a low bow. “And this lady”—he indicated an open-mouthed Constance—“is the Countess of Roxford, as the marriage records of Essex will show—although we did a bit of fancy footwork with the names!”
Constance gasped. “But Dev, you said—”
“I lied. I thought you had found a new life and that I could offer you nothing. But when I returned to Lincoln, Gibb told me that the Earl of Roxford and his son had been drowned at sea—’twas thought they might have been mixed up in some plot against the Crown and were escaping at the time but nothing could be proved. The earldom is mine now—and with it, Wingfield.”
Wingfield! His wonderful ancestral home in Kent!
“I can take care of you now, Constance—and I intend to. Constance Dacey may be sought for in the West Country for crimes against the Crown, but Lady Roxford of Wingfield will never be questioned!”
It was all too much for Constance. She swayed against him dizzily.
It was also too much for the Squire, who demanded explanations—and got them.
“Gibb is dead,” Dev told her soberly. “He rode west with us from Lincoln.”
“You mean you came together?”
“All three,” said Margaret. “But Gibb had a heart seizure not ten miles from here. We brought him to Axeleigh—and now we will take him on to Taunton.”
“I do not understand,” complained Constance. “Why—”
“You will,” said Margaret briskly. “Are you ready, Dev? We must ride for Taunton at once if we are to get there tonight. Clifford, we’ll need fresh horses.”
The Squire was only too glad to furnish them. And anything else they needed. His exhausting younger sister was as usual sweeping all before her.
“I am surprised you kept those drapes,” she murmured as she went out. “In the drawing room, I mean.”
“Father kept them because you selected them,” said Pamela, who insisted on riding along on the chance of seeing Tom. “He’s always been very sentimental about you.”
Margaret laughed. “For an unsentimental man!” she quipped. “No, you can’t go, Constance. We need someone here in case things go wrong.” She was striding through the front door even as she spoke, with all of them trailing in her wake.
Outside they could see Gibb’s body, lying inert across the saddle.
“I forgot—we’ll need something to prop him up. Wooden braces beneath his cloak will do nicely.” Margaret was giving directions even as Stebbins raced to bring what she asked. “And then we’ll pull his hat down over his eyes—so. And he will ride between us and appear merely taciturn or drunk if anybody speaks to us.”
In awe Constance watched this ghoulish procession ride away. Lady Roxford! She still could not believe Dev was back—or that she had become a countess!
“Constance,” called the Squire, who had hobbled out leaning on his cane. “Come in and tell me again what all this is about. I can’t get the straight of it!”
Pamela learned the details of the planned operation as she rode beside Dev and Margaret, who, she felt, were remarkably cool, considering that Dev was a wanted highwayman and Margaret the famous Masked Lady they were combing England for! And they were going directly into Taunton, which was full of royalist troops! But what they were going to do nearly took her breath away.
Taunton was teeming with people. They milled about uneasily. For the demon Judge Jeffreys and his entourage had just arrived. He would begin Taunton’s own Bloody Assizes tomorrow, dealing with the miscreants as speedily as he had dispatched Lady Alice Lisle and others in Winchester. Pamela was horrified to hear that poor old Lady Alice—widow of a member of Parliament in Cromwell’s time—had been sentenced by Judge Jeffreys to be burned to death at the opening of the Bloody Assizes at Winchester for innocently giving shelter to two “traitors.” King James had allowed beheading instead and Lady Alice had had her head chopped off in Winchester marketplace. It brought to Pamela anew the horror of their situation, with Jeffreys already in Taunton and their own Bloody Assizes about to begin.
She was still under the dread spell of Judge Jeffreys’s ferocity when Dev bribed his way into the jail and, bearing Gibb’s weight on one arm while Pamela propped him up on the other, with the connivance of the jailer they substituted his limp body for Captain Warburton’s live one.
Margaret had remained outside.
“And you must shout out loudly that a man is dead here and, when the jailer comes, iden
tify the body yourself and let no one else near,” Pamela cautioned Tom just before they left. “For although Dev has given the jailer enough gold to make him rich, there’s still the chance that if somebody saw that the body wasn’t Captain Warburton’s they might make an outcry and then we would all be lost.”
“I’ll do my part in it,” promised Tom, looking down hungrily at Pamela. “Oh, Pam, if I had it to do over again!” he burst out.
“I know.” Wistfully she put a finger to his lips. “But it’s no good wishing backwards, Tom. I’ll be at your trial tomorrow. I’m not going home—I’m staying in Taunton. And if worst comes to worst, we’ll snatch you from the gallows!”
He gave her a sad proud smile. Dainty Pamela, so slight and yet so brave! But they both knew that talking about “gallows snatchings” was only whistling in the dark, for the gibbet would be well surrounded by the King’s men and it would take a large force to dislodge them.
“Do not despair, Tom,” Pamela said softly, and kissed him on the lips.
It was all Tom could do to restrain himself from trying to overpower the jailer and making a break for it there and then!
Captain Warburton was silent as, dressed in Gibb’s unfamiliar clothes, which almost fit him but not quite, he was led into the light. In silence the four of them left the jail—only to meet another problem.
Pamela refused to go home, even though Captain Warburton broke his silence to urge her in his deep rich voice to go home first and counsel with Clifford. Surprisingly, Margaret said nothing.
By good fortune a room was found for Pamela in short order—no mean feat, for with a motley collection of King’s partisans and Dissenter families rubbing elbows uneasily in common rooms all over town, the inns were crowded. But space was made for her in the room of two weeping old ladies who had come in to plead for the life of their nephew who would be tried tomorrow.
Pamela bade them a swift good-by, for to linger here was dangerous. She stood in the bright sunlight outside her inn and watched the three of them depart: Margaret, the superb rider, swaying like a willow reed on her chestnut mount; Dev, giving her a lazy wave as he rode off on one of those fleet unpretty nags he favored; and between them, tall in the saddle, the broad-shouldered figure of Captain Warburton, oddly dressed in the slouchy clothes Gibb had favored. Captain Warburton’s command of his horse was as sure as ever—she supposed some things never left you no matter what happened to you. She sighed. In the brief time she had seen them together Margaret had not made herself known. Perhaps she was glad just to be with him, to have him back, any way at all.
Lovely Lying Lips Page 49
