Read Online The Purloined Heart (The Tyburn Trilogy) by Maggie MacKeever - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Maggie MacKeever
Tags: Romance
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Queen Caroline, consort of George II, in 1730, and was so called because of its sinuous shape.
The viscount craned his neck to take a better look around him, no easy feat due to the height of his cravat. He for one grew weary of the round of celebrations that began with Bony being banished and hadn’t ended yet, the most recent a great thanksgiving ceremony at St. Paul’s featuring Wellington and the Sword of State. But Tony wasn’t a shabbing fellow, nor begrudging either, so when Maddie mentioned this expedition he’d offered his landau and, entering into the spirit of the occasion, rigged himself out in a bottle green frock coat, sage pantaloons and a white waistcoat dotted with embroidered purple posies, at the last minute setting aside a many-caped driving coat because, since he wasn’t driving, it wouldn’t be the thing.
Tony wished he’d set aside his corset. He hadn’t realized he would be required to bend , and as a result was finding it difficult to draw breath.
The lesson had progressed to the plague of 1665, when a large number of the poorer inhabitants of London, who couldn’t escape into the country, brought their household goods and set up tents in the park. Benjie demanded to know the location of the camp. “Now you’ve done it,” sighed Maddie. “He won’t be satisfied until you’ve shown him the spot.” Tony found this schoolboy energy exhausting, but their mama didn’t seem to mind. She looked more the thing today, for which he took full credit: he’d refused to take her up in his carriage if she wore a single stripe.
The landau halted so Benjie could inspect the site of the plague camp. The next thing Tony knew, the small party was strolling through the park. Stiffly strolling, in his case, his new corset not having been designed for the taking of exercise.
The boys, and their tutor, were a short distance ahead, discussing Mr. Oliver Cromwell, who during his tenure as Lord Protector of Parliament had suffered an attempt on his life while riding through Hyde Park. Maddie drew closer to Tony, as if she expected Mr. Cromwell’s ghost to be lurking among the trees. Which reminded Tony that she still hadn’t explained why she’d fled Burlington House as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her arse. And so he asked.
Since he phrased the inquiry rather more politely, Maddie merely said, “I thought I saw — but I must have been mistaken. Did you notice a pharaoh? Or anything unusual?”
The queerest thing the viscount had noticed was one Colonel Armstrong, dressed as a patched and painted lady from the reign of Queen Anne, who had sat fanning his hooped and beruffled person while his maids of honor clustered round. Tony reminded himself to discover what manner of corset the colonel had employed. “That depends on what you’d consider ‘unusual’.”
“Well, I did.” Dare Maddie tell Tony what she’d seen? “It disturbed me very much.”
“Then you shouldn’t have watched!” he scolded. “Warned you, didn’t I? Lightskirts and libertines?”
“Not that manner of disturbing. I met your cousin-in-law there.”
Tony said, bewildered, “Bea?”
“Not Mrs. Denny, Mr. Jarrow.” Maddie fell silent, debating with herself. Matthew’s voice drifted back to them, explaining how, after Mr. Cromwell died of natural causes, his body had been exhumed and executed posthumously and left to dangle in a cage at Tyburn as warning to others who might conspire to depose the monarchy, which prompted the twins’ curiosity about the gallows that once stood at the northeast corner of the park.
Tony recalled the time his cousin-in-law had spent talking with Maddie at Bea’s musical party. “I’m supposed to drop a word. Maman says to tell you Angel is on the downward pathway to perdition and she don’t doubt he’ll arrive there before long. Seems to me it’d be deuced uncomfortable to be forever tripping over females, but each man to his own taste.”
Maddie smiled to imagine
The viscount craned his neck to take a better look around him, no easy feat due to the height of his cravat. He for one grew weary of the round of celebrations that began with Bony being banished and hadn’t ended yet, the most recent a great thanksgiving ceremony at St. Paul’s featuring Wellington and the Sword of State. But Tony wasn’t a shabbing fellow, nor begrudging either, so when Maddie mentioned this expedition he’d offered his landau and, entering into the spirit of the occasion, rigged himself out in a bottle green frock coat, sage pantaloons and a white waistcoat dotted with embroidered purple posies, at the last minute setting aside a many-caped driving coat because, since he wasn’t driving, it wouldn’t be the thing.
Tony wished he’d set aside his corset. He hadn’t realized he would be required to bend , and as a result was finding it difficult to draw breath.
The lesson had progressed to the plague of 1665, when a large number of the poorer inhabitants of London, who couldn’t escape into the country, brought their household goods and set up tents in the park. Benjie demanded to know the location of the camp. “Now you’ve done it,” sighed Maddie. “He won’t be satisfied until you’ve shown him the spot.” Tony found this schoolboy energy exhausting, but their mama didn’t seem to mind. She looked more the thing today, for which he took full credit: he’d refused to take her up in his carriage if she wore a single stripe.
The landau halted so Benjie could inspect the site of the plague camp. The next thing Tony knew, the small party was strolling through the park. Stiffly strolling, in his case, his new corset not having been designed for the taking of exercise.
The boys, and their tutor, were a short distance ahead, discussing Mr. Oliver Cromwell, who during his tenure as Lord Protector of Parliament had suffered an attempt on his life while riding through Hyde Park. Maddie drew closer to Tony, as if she expected Mr. Cromwell’s ghost to be lurking among the trees. Which reminded Tony that she still hadn’t explained why she’d fled Burlington House as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her arse. And so he asked.
Since he phrased the inquiry rather more politely, Maddie merely said, “I thought I saw — but I must have been mistaken. Did you notice a pharaoh? Or anything unusual?”
The queerest thing the viscount had noticed was one Colonel Armstrong, dressed as a patched and painted lady from the reign of Queen Anne, who had sat fanning his hooped and beruffled person while his maids of honor clustered round. Tony reminded himself to discover what manner of corset the colonel had employed. “That depends on what you’d consider ‘unusual’.”
“Well, I did.” Dare Maddie tell Tony what she’d seen? “It disturbed me very much.”
“Then you shouldn’t have watched!” he scolded. “Warned you, didn’t I? Lightskirts and libertines?”
“Not that manner of disturbing. I met your cousin-in-law there.”
Tony said, bewildered, “Bea?”
“Not Mrs. Denny, Mr. Jarrow.” Maddie fell silent, debating with herself. Matthew’s voice drifted back to them, explaining how, after Mr. Cromwell died of natural causes, his body had been exhumed and executed posthumously and left to dangle in a cage at Tyburn as warning to others who might conspire to depose the monarchy, which prompted the twins’ curiosity about the gallows that once stood at the northeast corner of the park.
Tony recalled the time his cousin-in-law had spent talking with Maddie at Bea’s musical party. “I’m supposed to drop a word. Maman says to tell you Angel is on the downward pathway to perdition and she don’t doubt he’ll arrive there before long. Seems to me it’d be deuced uncomfortable to be forever tripping over females, but each man to his own taste.”
Maddie smiled to imagine
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