Lovely Lying Lips

by Valerie Sherwood

  Her face was crimson. “ G day to you, Captain Warburton!”

  “Good day to you, Mistress Constance.” Again the tall Captain favored her with an ironic bow.

  She stood very still on the stairway as he swept out and rode away.

  He was riding away to Warwood, and her heart rode with him.

  Axeleigh Hall, Somerset,

  February 2, 1685

  Chapter 27

  In the Valley of the Axe no snow had fallen since the Christmas season but Constance’s wedding day dawned bright and cold and before breakfast was over a leaden sky had settled overhead and there were occasional flakes of snow flying. Before the morning was half gone it was snowing hard and the Squire frowned as he looked up at the sky.

  “We’ll be lucky if we don’t get another blizzard,” he muttered.

  Constance stared out at a world gone white and hoped silently that the roads would be blocked, the preacher unable to get there, and the wedding perforce delayed.

  But of course she would not be that lucky! She left Chesney chatting with the Squire and went up to her bedchamber.

  A terrible lethargy had come over her since her enforced betrothal to Chesney Pell, a fatalism. She felt as if she were being swept along by great forces and was powerless to resist. Now she walked about wringing her hands. She had been watched every moment, even the stables were guarded—it was obvious this wedding was going to happen.

  An hour or two passed and then Pamela stuck her head in—a very fashionable head, every golden curl done up in the latest style, pomaded and adorned with ribands. An adoring Tabitha had slaved over it since breakfast.

  “There’s someone waiting in the side corridor by the garden door who says he must see you,” she told Constance.

  Constance, who was just listlessly holding up a brilliant to her hair, swung her head around. “Who is it?” she asked—but Pamela was gone, dashing on to the “housewifely duties” her tomboy soul seemed to enjoy so much.

  Pamela was enjoying this wedding far more than she was, thought Constance. She rose with a swish of amethyst satin skirts and hurried down to the little corridor that let out onto the garden—although unused in weather like this. Could it be Galsworthy with some message for the Cause? she wondered as she rounded the back-stair landing and clattered down the last flight on her high heels into the dark little vestibule where her caller must be waiting. If so, he had certainly picked a bad day for it!

  It was certainly no one for the Cause. Her breath caught as she recognized the tall figure of Tony Warburton, lounging against the doorjamb. He had not removed his heavy woolen cloak and his hands were still encased in wide-gauntleted riding gloves. He strode forward with a jingle of spurs as she came to an uncertain halt, not sure what to expect.

  “I have come for you,” he said briefly. “I cannot think that you mean to marry this fool, but Ned thinks you will and Clifford means to see that you do.”

  Escape! He was offering her escape!

  “I thank you for this, Captain Warburton,” she said shakily, her eyes large and luminous—and very grateful.

  His smile gleamed down at her. “Change to your riding clothes,” he directed. “I will wait for you here. I have a horse for you saddled and waiting by the gate.”

  “I think I should warn you I am a very poor rider—in case there is pursuit,” she told him doubtfully.

  “I have already observed your riding.” There was a note of gentle triumph in his laughter. “But no matter. Your horse is gentle, and if need be, mine can carry double.”

  “Were you seen coming here?” she asked fearfully.

  “Certainly,” he said in an easy voice. “But ’tis believed I am an early guest, here to attend the wedding—not to abduct the bride!”

  Abduct the bride! Her heart was beating hard enough to smother her. “What shall I pack?” she asked helplessly, for she had so many clothes and how much could a horse carry?

  “No need to pack anything. We will buy what we need on the way.”

  His calm control of the situation held her fascinated. “Where are we going?” she asked in a small voice.

  “We will ride for London,” he told her. “Where a quick marriage ceremony can be readily had. And then if need be we will come back and have the banns cried here and I’ll marry you again before all of Somerset!”

  They would ride for London—and on the way she would escape him and find her way to Margaret in Devon. She looked away.

  “They may—follow us,” she said in an uneven voice.

  “Pell is a fool,” he said softly. “We will lose him handily. And Clifford will head for Warwood to confront me, believing I would take you to my stronghold to defy the world—he will be too late to catch up with us. They will both abandon the search, for they are not like me—I would follow you to hell!”

  And then his strong arms were around her, drawing her to him. His lips were upon hers, warm, seductive. Her every sense tingled rapturously—and then stilled.

  I would follow you to hell, he had said. And he meant it! That meant, if she ran away, that he would follow her to Tattersall—and Margaret. And he would see Margaret without her mask and Margaret would drain a vial of hemlock.

  She would be responsible for Margaret’s death! And even if she did not go to Tattersall, if she followed her heart and ran away with Tony, Margaret would hear of it and the result would be the same.

  A cold numbing stillness stole over her. She seemed to wilt in his arms.

  Mystified, he let her go, looked down at her in puzzlement. “What is wrong, Constance?”

  She cast about in her mind for some way to push this man she loved so much away from her. “Have you thought of Ned?” she whispered. “How he would take the news that we have run away together?”

  His jaw hardened. “Ned is young. He will get over it.”

  “But he may not!”

  The gray eyes that looked into hers were very steady. “Ned is my brother and I love him well,” he said. “But it is I and not Ned who stand here ready to rescue you from an abominable marriage.”

  “How do you know it is so abominable?” she muttered.

  “Because you cannot see yourself bound to a fool!” he burst out. “Of that I am certain. Just as I am certain that you told Clifford a lie to rid yourself of Ned and somehow got caught up in it!”

  She flashed him a startled look.

  “So I was right,” he said, and gave a low laugh. “Pell did not bed you. I’ll wager you are still a virgin.”

  All her senses urged her to go to him, hold him, never let him go. But for Margaret’s sake, she had to fend him off. To Dev she owed nothing—he did not love her, had left her for another woman. But she could imagine in terror how Margaret would feel if she heard that Constance—the girl she had entrusted with her innermost thoughts—had run away with Tony Warburton. Putting herself in Margaret’s place, it made her feel sick to think about it. She took a step backward and her face was very pale. “You are wrong about me. I am not a virgin.”

  He caught his breath. “No matter,” he said briskly. “I care not what went before. We will start afresh, you and I.” If only she could!

  “We cannot—start afresh, Tony.”

  “And why not?” He seized her by the wrist even as she cringed away from him. “Little fool, I will take you away from here by force! I will not stand by and see you marry an insipid boy!”

  “I cannot go with you, Tony,” she said hopelessly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because”—it was hard to get the words out—“I have made a bargain and I must honor it.”

  “Are you saying you love Pell?” he demanded.

  Her eyes fell away from him. “No. But I mean to marry him.”

  He looked amazed. “Why this changeabout? A moment ago you were hot to escape him!” His voice harshened. “Is it Ned’s tender feelings you fear for? Let me handle Ned!”

  “No—it is not Ned.” She took a deep breath. “I want to ma
rry Chesney,” she said stubbornly.

  “I’ll not believe it! You want to marry him?” He sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, I do.” And suddenly she did—for it would solve everything so neatly. She could not go to Margaret, and if she ran away from Chesney now, Tony would surely follow. And she had no money, no other place to go. Chesney offered safe haven, far away in Lyme Regis. She would go with him to Lyme and there she would release him from this “fake” marriage, she would admit herself a bigamist! But first she would go with him to Lyme! And put long miles between herself and this masterful captain who threatened to drown her resolve with his vibrant presence! “I will admit that you attract me, Tony,” she added shakily. “But I intend to marry Chesney.” And as his jaw hardened, “No one is forcing me, it is my own desire.”

  She heard his sharp intake of breath. He took her lightly by the shoulders, touching her as if she were delicate and precious, and she stirred beneath his touch. He looked down keenly, searching her face.

  With the greatest effort of her life, she managed to keep every feature immobile and looked back at him with big unfathomable velvet eyes.

  “Then this marriage is on your own head!” he said abruptly, and his hands left her shoulders.

  She closed her eyes—and heard the door slam.

  At that moment she felt all her resolve leave her. She sank to the floor in a satin heap and wept. Wept for the old love that had proved false, wept for the new love she could not have. Wept for herself, and for the life that stretched out desolate before her.

  It was Tabitha who found her.

  “Here, get you up!” cried the serving girl, scandalized. “What will people think if they find you crying, with the wedding guests already arriving!” -

  “Yes, they must not see me like this.” Constance dashed the tears from her lashes as sturdy Tabitha tugged at her.

  Pamela, who had been watching from the windows, expecting to see at any moment Captain Warburton gallop away with Constance and make a sensation in the county by abducting Axeleigh’s bride, could control her curiosity no longer. She arrived just as Tabitha got Constance to her feet.

  “You didn’t go with him?” she gasped.

  “No,” sighed Constance. “I didn’t go with him.”

  “Then you’re really going through with it?” marveled Pamela.

  Constance nodded.

  “I don’t understand you!” cried Pamela, exasperated.

  Neither did the Captain. Although he flung out of the house at Axeleigh in a rage, before he was a mile from the gates his temper had cooled. There was something here he did not understand but his instinct for the woman had been sure. Constance desired him—and not Chesney Pell. He had felt her tremble in his arms, felt her heart race—and he had seen the patient boredom with which she looked at Chesney.

  Thoughtful now, he brought Cinder to a stop and then turned the big charcoal stallion’s head around and arrived, covered with snow, back at Axeleigh’s front door. He would attend the wedding. All was not lost until the final vows were spoken!

  Captain Warburton was but the first guest to arrive. Others straggled in all day, half-frozen. They shook off the snow from their cloaks and stamped their numbed feet to restore the circulation before the great hearths that were piled with fragrant woods, apple and hickory, in honor of the occasion. It was a strange time for a wedding, most of the guests agreed—most brides sensibly chose to wait for May or June, when people did not have to struggle over icy roads to attend the ceremony! But they whispered their criticism behind their hands, for the Squire of Axeleigh was a generous host and well liked across the county, and if he chose to hold the wedding of his ward in such weather, that was of course his privilege—he was paying for it.

  “Maybe there’s need for hurry, could be there’s an heir on the way,” whispered a gossipy lady in saffron plush, just being revived from her cold journey by a glass of wine.

  “Nonsense, the girl is marrying him for his money,” reproved a lady who was just coming unwrapped from the wet shawl and cloak she had worn through the driving snow.

  Pamela, threading her way through the arriving guests, heard both comments and frowned. Better to have had the wedding in June, she was thinking unhappily. Without all this haste. In June (if the wedding was still on) Chesney could have given his bride a proper nosegay instead of that dried gilded bouquet. And the couple could have thrown open their bridal casements on their wedding night and breathed deep of the garden’s perfumed air, and the next day beneath blue skies they could have ridden off through summer meadows fresh with dew. They could have crossed the silver ribbon of the Axe on their way down into Dorset to the seaport town of Lyme.

  All the way to Lyme... it wasn’t as if Constance would be living nearby—at Warwood, for example, where they could see each other often. Oh, dear, she was going to miss Constance most awfully! She cast an angry look at Captain Warburton, urbane as ever, who leaned against the mantel with one booted foot resting on the heavy brass fender. Before the evening was over Constance would be a married woman. Married to the wrong man. Why didn’t Captain Warburton do something? It was unthinkable that he would just stand by and let this happen!

  Someone remarked that the wedding couple would be lucky if they could get through the gates tomorrow at all, the way it was snowing, and someone else laughed and said, “We’ll all be here for a week, the way it looks—let’s hope the Squire’s wine cellar holds out!”

  Pamela’s eyes automatically sought the windows and she saw that the snow that had been falling throughout the day was indeed coming down heavier now. It formed a curtain of white outside, gradually turning blue in the early winter dusk.

  She sighed as Constance, pursued happily by Chesney, moved into her line of vision.

  To Constance the whole day had had a nightmarish quality—surely it must be a bad dream from which she would soon wake. None of it seemed real to her: Not the richly garbed wedding guests thawing out in the drawing room or clustered around the Squire. Not the wedding gifts. Not the impressive display of refreshments in the dining room, where two great swans in full feather and stuffed with chestnuts flanked a suckling pig with an apple in its mouth. All three reposed on large silver chargers in the center of a long board piled high with delicious Cheddar cheeses, pigeon pies, oysters, plum cakes and dainties of every description.

  The sight of Pamela looking as if the enormity of her costume might overset her brought a wan smile to Constance’s lips. Dear Pam! She had fussed and fumed over every detail of this wedding about which she herself couldn’t care less, and there Pam was—her maid of honor—bravely gowned in blue and silver. Pamela’s gown was of stiffest sky blue damask. Its full bell-like sleeves and enormous overskirt were lost under a forest of blue satin rosettes, her sky blue plush petticoat so heavily encrusted in silver it crunched as it moved. For a moment affection for generous, warm-hearted Pamela overwhelmed Constance and her eyes smarted.

  A trifle pale, the dark beauty stood calmly receiving guests in a violet-hued gown of deep supple French pile velvet darkly spangled with silver. Its dramatic effect was only slightly marred by the bewildering profusion of riband rosettes which, according to custom, had been lightly stitched to the gown and would be snipped off and carried away by the guests as “favors.” Beneath her petticoat she wore a pair of ornate beribboned bridal garters which would be ceremoniously—and boisterously—snatched off later by members of the company. She stood very straight and proud, her lovely face was very set. A gilded wedding circlet gleamed from her cloud of dark hair and a necklace of small pearls—gift of the groom, who had sent for them from Bristol—encircled her white throat. Her deep purple eyes had never looked so velvety—or so lost.

  It was all that Captain Warburton could do to restrain himself from seizing her on the instant and carrying her away.

  Beside her, Chesney, her flushed-faced groom, seemed to need to restrain himself from kicking up his heels. A look of childish triumph was spread a
cross his cherubic face and his weak chin was obscured by the goblet that he raised repeatedly to his lips. He was beginning to stagger a bit and Pamela wondered if he would be able to stay on his feet through the ceremony.

  Ned Warburton was conspicuous by his absence but Margie Hamilton was there, pouting, in the company of her parents.

  Melissa Hawley was there too, in a crimson dress edged with black braid. She was hanging on to Cart Rawlings’s arm and she giggled as she looked at Chesney.

  “Chesney is probably drinking because he is afraid of how his mother will take this,” she told Pamela.

  Pamela was startled. “Afraid?” she echoed. “Why should he be afraid?”

  “She believes him to be still at Oxford,” Melissa laughed. “Indeed he has written to her as if he still at Oxford—”

  “Come along, Melissa,” interrupted Cart, giving her arm a tug. He was red with embarrassment that Melissa should divulge what Chesney had told him in confidence.

  “Wait,” cried Pamela. “I am sure Constance thought—do you mean his mother actually knows nothing about this marriage?”

  “Nothing at all,” purred Melissa. “Constance is to be a surprise to her.” Cart wrenched her away before she could say anything more.

  All the wedding guests who were expected in such weather had arrived by now and Pamela drew Constance aside and repeated what Melissa had told her. “Did Chesney tell you this?” she demanded. “For he told Father that his mother was ill in Dorset and that was why she would be unable to attend!”

  Earlier that day Constance had suffered an attack of remorse. It had seemed to her that she was playing a very shabby trick on Chesney—after all, she had no intention of staying with him past their arrival in Lyme! She had drawn him aside.

  “You do not have to go through with this marriage, Chesney,” she had told him soberly. “We can escape together. Pamela will help us. And I will go with you as far as Lyme.”