And the Archers would evermore be known—and muttered about—as a family in which resurrections were quite commonplace: not only the Squire’s sister, “dead” these many years past, but his brother-in-law as well, “dead” in the Taunton jail and now sailed home from Holland! But then the Archers always were a daring lot and left a spellbinding trail of glamour and adventure wherever they trod.
And Margaret, who had so long ago lost her way and had known so much of tragedy, knew at last the deep bittersweet ecstasy of a love that had transcended time and trouble and won out over all. Lonely Dartmoor was forgotten. She had transported Clytie and Lys and big purring Tiger, along with her unworn trousseau, to Somerset. She was back again at Warwood, where she had long lived in her dreams, and gallant Captain Warburton roamed abroad no more. Indeed he was too busy siring children these days and growing rich, his brother-in-law and old friend, the Squire of Axeleigh, was apt to taunt him. The irises that Constance came and planted with her own hands flowered purple over Ned’s grave every spring, the color of her eyes. Ned rested there in the walled family plot along with other valiant Warburtons who had ever ventured, ever dared.
At Warwood, following his old friend Clifford Archer’s sage advice, Captain Warburton’s fortunes flourished and he was able to restore the great house to its former grandeur. There he and Margaret reared a whole new brood of wild Warburtons to astound the county—and the lads had their father’s dash and the lasses their mother’s recklessness and her beauty. The Masked Lady had thrown away her mask and faced the world at last, viewing it from her beautiful green eyes—for Tony Warburton’s yearning glance told her every day that she would always be beautiful to him. They gave great balls which the whole county attended and when Margaret rode out none dared ask her where she had been all these years, for the most dangerous blade in the West Country rode beside her and his cold gray eyes suggested that any who tried to bait his wife might soon be leaving this world for another.
Even roaming Tiger Lilies find their garden spot!
The Daffodil was firmly rooted in the Valley of the Axe and by adding Huntlands had merely extended her flowery domain, and the flaming Tiger Lily had come home at last to valorous Warwood with its long and thrilling tradition of chivalry.
But the Iris had found new soil in the garden land of Kent and a country seat that was every girl’s dream.
For Constance—Lady Roxford now—strolled almost unbelieving through the vaulted corridors and sumptuous rooms of Wingfield, on the arm of her husband, handsome, debonair Lord Roxford, who was so well thought of at Court now that William of Orange had come to the throne. Sometimes she asked herself by what miracle it had all come to pass? For she had loved Dev when he was a stableboy, and when he was a highwayman, and now that he was a peer of the realm she loved him still—and always would. Their tall slim son would inherit Wingfield—and the title. Their flower-faced daughter would one day marry a duke—oh, nothing was impossible, not to such as they who had won through against such awful odds!
And at Wingfield, beneath a stone that says only “Gibb, a good man who got his wish at last,” a one-time highwayman, transferred from a grave in Somerset, lies buried—upside down in a deep shaft—awaiting the Resurrection. Dev had kept his word to an old friend.
And sometimes Constance, brooding over that grave and thinking back to Somerset, remembered gallant Captain Warburton who had swept like a fury into her life and nearly unhinged her senses. She remembered then the last look he had given her as he gripped her hand, just before he and Margaret rode for Bristol—and Holland. There had been relief in his gray eyes—and gratitude. And a kind of consternation at how close he had come, all unknowing, to betraying Margaret.
We so nearly took a wrong turn, she told herself. And we would never have forgiven ourselves—never. It would have ruined all our lives.
But fate must have been watching over them, for they had won through—to this.
At Wingfield, that glorious mansion in Kent, the Earl of Roxford and his countess presided over their estate and rarely left it—not because they feared the dashing Earl would be recognized as a former highwayman, for he looked so distinguished now with his great full-bottomed black periwig that he clapped over his russet hair when they went out, and she with her piled-up powdered hair, and both of them dressed in the latest French fashion—no, they stayed at Wingfield because its great echoing halls were filled with their love, and the vista from the big carved and canopied bed in their gilded bedchamber with its mighty bay windows overlooking the reflecting pool was to them the finest view on earth. They seldom bothered to lock their doors, for was not the young Earl the deadliest shot in all of England? And the Countess twined her white arms around his neck and thought how thin had been her chances and how narrowly she had won through and marveled. But it was over now, she was clasped in the arms of—in truth—her only love.
The Girl With The Wrong Father had come home at last.
But on summer nights the Earl and his countess sometimes lifted their glasses and their laughing eyes met and they drank a toast to all that they had been....
When desperate loves and lives must clash,
Each seeks to claim his own,
And through the fire and dark and sword
Win safely back to home!
Lovely Lying Lips Page 52
