“Did Chesney tell you that his mother does not know you are marrying him?”
“No, he did not tell me,” said Constance.
“But this is terrible! She will cast you out!”
“I must take that chance.” For how could she admit that this marriage was but a device to take her to Dorset and there she would escape Chesney and flee to Devon?
“Anyway it’s too late. The ceremony is about to begin.”
The sonorous words fell dizzily upon her. Cherish ... honor... obey ... words which had taken on such glorious meaning in Essex when she had looked deep into Dev’s smiling green eyes and plighted forever her troth. If God struck down liars with lightning bolts, I would be the first to go, she thought as she said “I do.” She tried not to look ahead. To her bridal night. Soon the guests would be boisterously snatching away her bride’s garters.
And then—!
Novels by
VALERIE SHERWOOD
This Loving Torment
These Golden Pleasures
This Towering Passion
Her Shining Splendor
Bold Breathless Love
Rash Reckless Love
Wild Willful Love
Rich Radiant Love
Lovely Lying Lips
AND COMING SOON:
Born To Love
PUBLISHED BY
WARNER BOOKS
WARNING
The reader is hereby specifically warned against using any of the unusual foods or the cosmetics or medications mentioned herein. They are included only to give the authentic flavor of the times and readers are implored to seek the advice of a doctor before undertaking any "experiments" in their use. For example, the popular seventeenth-century cosmetic ceruse contained white lead, which is lethal; other concoctions of the day were often as bad, and the "cures" used for illness were sometimes worse than the disease itself.
WARNER BOOKS EDITION
Copyright © 1983 by Valerie Sherwood
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Gene Light
Cover art by Elaine Duillo
Warner Books, Inc.,
666 Fifth Avenue,
New York, N.Y. 10103
A Warner Communications Company
Printed in the United States of America
First Warner Books Printing: December, 1983
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To lovely Spicy, who came to us as a bedraggled thrown-away waif of a kitten peering out of an empty barn and won through to box and cushion of her own; Spicy the indomitable, surmounting all her misfortunes with a proudly waving tail; Spice the cynic, who learned to trust only us and ever viewed the world with scathing watchful aquamarine eyes; dear Lady Spice who mated with our beautiful long-haired Fancy, a real “puss in boots” of a fellow, and gave us six lovely kittens; Spice, whose story is as “rags to riches” as any of my tormented heroines and whose spirit is as reckless and dashing as any of them; brilliant Spicy, whose vivid imagination is in constant evidence; lighthearted, playful, brave and loyal Spicy, our beautiful Calico cat, grown fragile with age but ever loved and loving, this book is dedicated.
Table of Contents
Lovely Lying Lips PROLOGUE The Impetuous Lie
Somerset, England,
June 11, 1685
Book I PART ONE The Daffodil and the Iris
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
Part Two The Dangerous Lover
CHAPTER 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Book II Chapter 7
Book III Part One First Love
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Part Two The Lightskirt
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Three The Wild Reunion
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part Four The Highwayman's Bride
14
Chapter 15
Book IV Part One The Gallant Lie
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Part Two Midsummer Madness
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Book V Part One The Tangled Web
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Part Two The Strange Wedding
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Book VI PART ONE Midnight Silk
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Part Two The Beautiful Liar
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
AUTHOR'S NOTE
In the magical world of the 1600s, no single summer was perhaps more eventful than the stirring summer of 1685 when England’s West Country rose in rebellion in a desperate attempt to place Charles II’s illegitimate son, the handsome young Duke of Monmouth, upon the English throne. My characters and their tumultuous lives are purely fiction, of course, but the settings and the times are as authentic as I could make them—from snowy Yorkshire with its romantic ruins of Fountains Abbey, rising like upflung stone lace above the River Skell, to the green loveliness of the Valley of the Axe, to the wilds of Dartmoor with its far gray-green vistas and ancient granite-topped tors.
Old houses have always been for me a consuming interest and the great houses that I have described herein are all based on actual houses from England’s storied past that still exist, although I have made certain changes within and without to better suit the action of my story.
Thus “Axeleigh,” home of the lovely and tempestuous Pamela, will be observed to be strikingly like beautiful Wilderhope Manor in Shropshire—that Wilderhope made famous by the dramatic escape of its owner during England’s civil war by a great leap on horseback over Wenlock Edge, which is still today called “Major’s Leap.”
“Claxton Hall” in Yorkshire’s remote West Riding, where so many dramatic events of Constance’s early life take place, will be easily recognized as East Riddlesden Hall in
Yorkshire’s West Riding—and it seemed a perfect choice, for its early owners, the Murgatroyds, were as wild a lot as the Daceys who inhabit it in my story. Imprisoned, fined—even excommunicated—it is said that below the house the Aire River actually changed its course to protest the Murgatroyds’ myriad debaucheries!
Noble “Warwood,” home of the redoubtable Captain Warburton of my story—beloved by two of my characters—is really Buckland Abbey, the home bought by another adventurous gentleman, Sir Francis Drake, after his remarkable buccaneering voyage on the Golden Hind which took him round the world—and I have transported it, along with part of its history, practically unaltered from Devon to the Valley of the Axe,
For “Hawley Grange,” whose flirtatious daughters make Pamela so jealous, I could not resist recreating one of the ancient and enormous stone tithe barns with their baronial architecture and churchlike “naves.” Such barns in medieval times used to be scattered all over England—and why should not a “wool-rich” country gentleman transform one into a home for his family?
I was so beguiled by Moseley Old Hall in Staffordshire, where Charles II was hidden during his escape from the disastrous Battle of Worcester, that I have transported it practically intact to the lonely wastes of Dartmoor to become my “Tattersall,” which shelters the tragic but indomitable “Masked Lady.”
For the “Huntlands” of my story, with its great balls and its debonair and dangerous owner, I have combined two famous Cornish homes—Trerice and Cotehel
e—magically recreated in Somerset, while beautiful Blickling Hall in Norfolk (suitably transformed from red brick to typical gray-brown Kentish stone) is whisked away to Kent to become romantic “Wingfield,” the lost heritage of Deverell, my story’s wild young highwayman.
The dates of particular trials during England’s Bloody Assizes have been adjusted slightly, the better to suit my story—and Christmas in 1684 actually fell on a Monday, not on Sunday as my story records. But I have tried to truly recount Essex as it was then with its ancient hornbeam forests and lighthearted “penny bridals.” Before the Norman Conquest, Hatfield Forest was a royal hunting demesne, and the Old Doodle Oak, some sixty feet in circumference, beneath whose spreading branches Constance and Dev spend their wedding night after their wild “penny bridal,” still exists (although it no longer greens in spring) and who is to say this eight-hundred-year-old giant is not the oak shown on the Domesday Survey made for William the Conqueror?
Gibb’s bizarre burial is based on an actual case in Surrey. And smallpox was the true scourge of the day. While the Black Death claimed many victims, the Red Death was ever present and there were few whose lives were untouched by it (even Queen Elizabeth I, for all her precautions, contracted smallpox and upon her face at her death was measured half an inch of permanent makeup to hide the scars). Whether the Red Death’s scarring was ever minimized or eliminated by a “red glow” is entirely a matter of conjecture—it has been so claimed.
And the timeless Valley of the Axe with its silvery river is real as well, as is the deep green gash of the Cheddar Gorge where Constance nearly plunges to her death. Real too is the George, that quaint half-timbered inn at Norton St. Philip where a sniper fired on the ill-starred young duke on the morning of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which would decide his fate—although of course the identity of the sniper has been changed to suit my story. Monmouth, Lord Grey, Lady Alice Lisle, Judge Jeffreys and the Bloody Assizes he held at Taunton and elsewhere were all real enough, although the story I have woven around them is entirely my own invention.
But I yearn to believe that this tale of dazzling ladies in riding masks and their reckless loves, of sword-swinging plumed-hatted gentlemen and their desperate ventures, might really have come to pass. Even if it did not, it should have happened, and so, dear readers, I commend it to you with all my heart.
And as a benediction for those thrilling times, gone alas forever, and for my story of flaming passions, bright honor and dark despair:
Let the sun shine in at last
And illuminate the past!
Let the World That Was be with us once again!
Let the lovers who are dust
And the swords that all are rust
Come back to shining life and live again!
Valerie Sherwood
PROLOGUE
The Impetuous Lie
Somerset, England,
June 11, 1685
Truth shines abroad, its rosy glow
Lights up another summer,
Yet a wild sweet lie is on her lips—
And the lady's lie's a stunner!
It was a glorious day for a hanging. In the bright sunshiny weather people had been filtering into the market town of Bridgwater since morning and now a motley collection of carts was clustered in a circle around the hastily constructed gibbet. For a gentleman was to be hanged this day for murder on the Bridgwater road, and hangings were great social occasions. Now, as the moment approached, satin-clad aristocrats jostled with country fellows in rough homespun, and ladies who had arrived in open carriages with big silken skirts billowing waved their ruffled parasols next to rude farm carts. From all about they had come and now their fascinated faces peered upward at the scaffold where a green-eyed gentleman in russet was about to be hanged.
Outstanding in the crowd was a new arrival, a girl—perhaps sixteen—of striking beauty. She had ridden into town on a dancing white mare whose long flaunting mane was almost as silky as her own daffodil yellow hair. Her grip on the reins was firm, her bearing reflected confidence in her wealth and position, and many turned from regarding the scaffold to gaze admiringly at her. Her lovely figure was encased in one of the new mannish riding habits that had become so fashionable— this one of thin scarlet taffeta that shimmered in the light. A burst of expensive white lace was caught round her neck with a small ruby, and lace cuffs spilled over her riding gloves. A sweeping hat, afloat with vivid tulip red plumes, flamed in the sun above her cascading daffodil yellow hair. The hat’s wide brim shadowed a face both piquant and charming with a flawless pink and white complexion. But anyone who looked closely would note that it was a restless face, that there was a certain tension around the soft mouth, and that the wide crystal blue eyes had a reckless gleam.
Her name was Pamela Archer, and although she detested hangings, she had a good reason for attending this one—she was looking for Tom Thornton, and the butler at Huntlands had told her Tom had ridden off for Bridgwater as if the devil were after him.
She was certainly not looking for the young fellow in gaudy yellow and violet satin some distance away who was jumping up and down and waving his yellow-plumed hat to attract her attention.
Dick Peacham.
Pamela’s crystal blue gaze considered him levelly—and with enormous distaste. No wit, no flair, no gallantry, no wild impulses, no deep-throated laughter, no dangerous reputation—in short, none of the attractions that golden-haired Tom Thornton of Huntlands possessed in such abundance. But he was her betrothed, was Dick Peacham, the banns were already being cried and her father had sworn that she would marry him in a fortnight. She gave Peacham a curt bow, just the barest nod of her lovely head—which she hoped would not encourage him to join her. Anxiously searching for Tom, she had hoped to avoid Peacham today of all days.
Her maid, Tabby, who had ridden into town with Pamela as became a young lady of wealth and fashion, muttered that they could not see from here and with a sigh Pamela plunged her horse’s head forward, easing through the throng.
Of a sudden her breath caught as a wild thought occurred to her. There was a way to rid herself of Dick Peacham once and for all, no matter how her father raged! She was at the moment urging the mare forward past a gaily painted farm cart when her bright head swung back and she regarded the condemned man with such a lively interest that a nearby lady nudged her companion and was heard to mutter tartly that the Squire of Axeleigh’s daughter seemed quite taken by the prisoner!
Indeed he was something to look upon, was the tall fellow just now mounting the scaffold. His clothing was nothing remarkable—serviceable russet broadcloth suit, dusty wide-topped russet boots. His gleaming shoulder-length hair was russet too. It was his arrogant manner that caught her attention. Indeed, he might have been mounting the steps of a throne, thought Pamela with a queer little tug at her heartstrings, rather than climbing toward death at the end of a hempen rope. Sinewy lean, he moved almost contemptuously to the platform with the light-footed grace of a prowling tiger.
The daunting look in the cold green eyes that raked the assemblage made the hangman wonder nervously if the prisoner might not try at the last minute to break free—and he felt the ropes that bound the prisoner to make sure he was well shackled.
Now it was time for the customary speech made by every condemned man on the scaffold just before the rope cut off his breathing forever, and the crowd quieted expectantly.
At that moment, Pamela would have given much to know his thoughts.
This truly put the crown to a wasted he was thinking sardonically. To die for a murder he didn’t commit! He cast a last thoughtful look at the blue skies that rode over Somerset—the last blue skies he would see this side of hell. He knew he could perhaps buy his life—at least for a little while, until they discovered that he was in reality a famous highwayman, wanted dead or alive all over England—by naming a certain lady whose face, he noted regretfully, he did not see in the crowd below. But name her he would not!
“I say a
gain that I am innocent.” His grim voice carried over those upturned faces. “I repeat that I had spent the night in question at the Rose and Thistle in the company of a lady—”
“Name the lady!” cut in a raucous voice from the crowd.
In the sudden expectant hush, Pamela rose in her stirrups. The sun shimmered on her scarlet taffeta riding habit and the breeze ruffled her scarlet plumes.
“You have been very gallant, sir, in protecting my reputation” —she gave the prisoner a smile as sunny as her daffodil yellow hair, and her calm voice rang out across the throng— “but I cannot let you die for it. It is true, good people, what this gentleman says. He did indeed spend the night in question at the Rose and Thistle in Bridgwater. With me. In my bedchamber.”
Around her there were gasps. Townsfolk and countrymen alike gaped at her. Satin-clad ladies dropped their fans from nerveless fingers. Gentlemen choked on their snuff.
For the golden-haired lady in scarlet was one of the beauties of the county. Indeed she had turned up her dainty nose at proposals of marriage from half the eligible gentlemen here. They could not, they felt, be hearing her aright.
And then they remembered—she was a lightskirt’s daughter. Had not her gorgeous but willful mother slept with half the county both before and after wedding the Squire of Axeleigh?
On the wings of her reckless words, the lady in scarlet had become on the instant a scarlet lady!
Pamela ignored their shocked mutterings. “So I demand that you release him,” she added, heedless that she was shredding her reputation with every word she spoke. “For I can swear that on the night in question he had no part in any murder. He was”—the slight flush on her soft cheeks deepened— “otherwise engaged.”