Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series)
Read Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series) Online
Authors: Jean Plaidy
Contents
About the Book
The day the Prince of Wales set eyes on Maria Fitzherbert on the towpath at Richmond, she was twice widowed and eminently appealing. The Prince was in love. The more she resisted him, the more determined he became.
The courtship of Mrs Fitzherbert, set against the backgrounds of the Brighton Pavillion, the court at Windsor and Carlton House, was to bring betrayal, scandal and the downfall of one of the greatest politicians of the day.
It is a story full of the elegance and arrantry of the close of the eighteenth century, peopled with characters like the wily Charles James Fox, the coy Fanny Burney, and old George III, slowly descending into madness, while the balladmongers sang …
About the Author
Jean Plaidy, one of the preeminent authors of historical fiction for most of the twentieth century, is the pen name of the prolific English author Eleanor Hibbert, also known as Victoria Holt. Jean Plaidy’s novels had sold more than 14 million copies worldwide by the time of her death in 1993.
Also by Jean Plaidy
THE TUDOR SAGA
Uneasy Lies the Head
Katharine, the Virgin Widow
The Shadow of the Pomegranate
The King’s Secret Matter
Murder Most Royal
St Thomas’s Eve
The Sixth Wife
The Thistle and the Rose
Mary, Queen of France
Lord Robert
Royal Road to Fotheringay
The Captive Queen of Scots
The Spanish Bridegroom
THE CATHERINE DE MEDICI TRILOGY
Madame Serpent
The Italian Woman
Queen Jezebel
THE STUART SAGA
The Murder in the Tower
The Wandering Prince
A Health Unto His Majesty
Here Lies Our Sovereign Lord
The Three Crowns
The Haunted Sisters
The Queen’s Favourites
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION SERIES
Louis the Well-Beloved
The Road to Compiègne
Flaunting, Extravagant Queen
The Battle of the Queens
THE LUCREZIA BORGIA SERIES
Madonna of the Seven Hills
Light on Lucrezia
ISABELLA AND FERDINAND TRILOGY
Castile for Isabella
Spain for the Sovereigns
Daughters of Spain
THE GEORGIAN SAGA
The Princess of Celle
Queen in Waiting
Caroline, the Queen
The Prince and the Quakeress
The Third George
Perdita’s Prince
Indiscretions of the Queen
The Regent’s Daughter
Goddess of the Green Room
Victoria in the Wings
THE QUEEN VICTORIA SERIES
The Captive of Kensington
The Queen and Lord M
The Queen’s Husband
The Widow of Windsor
THE NORMAN TRILOGY
The Bastard King
The Lion of Justice
The Passionate Enemies
THE PLANTAGENET SAGA
The Plantagenet Prelude
The Revolt of the Eaglets
The Heart of the Lion
The Prince of Darkness
The Battle of the Queens
The Queen from Provence
The Hammer of the Scots
The Follies of the King
The Vow of the Heron
Passage to Pontefract
The Star of Lancaster
Epitaph for Three Women
Red Rose of Anjou
The Sun in Splendour
QUEEN OF ENGLAND SERIES
Myself, My Enemy
Queen of this Realm: The Story of Elizabeth I
Victoria, Victorious
The Lady in the Tower
The Goldsmith’s Wife
The Queen’s Secret
The Rose without a Thorn
OTHER TITLES
The Queen of Diamonds
Daughter of Satan
The Scarlet Cloak
Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill
The seventh book in the Georgian Saga
Jean Plaidy
A Birth in Tong Castle
DUSK WAS BEGINNING
to throw long shadows across the Red Room in Tong Castle as Mary Smythe pushed aside the red hangings about the bed and sat down uneasily. It was too early as yet for the child to make its appearance – but how could one be sure? Children had a habit of coming before their time.
She wished that the child could have been born in their own home. Walter had said that as soon as they had a child they must certainly look for a house, and she anticipated with great pleasure the prospect of choosing her own furniture and making her own home; it would be quite different from living in her brother-in-law’s mansion at Acton Burnell or here in Tong Castle.
It was of course very kind of the Duke of Kingston to lend them his castle until after the birth of the child; he preferred to have someone living there during his absence, to keep the servants in order and see to the running of the place, so why not his good friend Walter Smythe whom he knew was longing to leave the parental roof now that he had acquired a wife?
She had been delighted to come to Tong Castle, as grand and impressive an edifice to be found not only in the county of Shropshire but in the whole of England. But it was not one’s own home. She had tried to make it so by installing the priedieu in a corner of the room, the crucifix over the bed and the flask of holy water on the carved mantelpiece. But whenever she was conscious of the manner in which the servants eyed these things, an irrepressible indignation swept over her. She would never be reconciled to the laws of England which, while they did not go so far as to forbid Catholics to worship as they pleased, excluded them from their civil rights and penalized them in a hundred different ways.
Mary clenched her hands together and reminded herself that she would be ready to die for her faith in the same way in which those of her own faith were murdering those not of theirs throughout the world.
Walter came into the room. He was the best of husbands, good looking, financially secure and, most important of all, a Catholic. The marriage would never have taken place if he had
not been. She had brought him a good dowry; they were even remotely related to each other, which was often the case with Catholic families in England, for few married outside their own religion.
He looked startled when he saw her. ‘Mary?’ he cried questioningly. She nodded. ‘I am not sure. But it may be.’
‘It’s a little soon.’
‘It often happens so, I believe.’
‘Should I call the midwife?’
‘Not yet. Wait a little. She will laugh at me for being over-anxious.’
He sat down beside her and took her hand.
‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘that the child should be born in a castle.’
‘I’d rather he were born in our own home.’
‘We’ll find a house as soon as you are ready.’
‘I should like to settle near my brother in Hampshire.’
‘In Red Rice?’ mused Walter. ‘An excellent spot, as it is not far from Winchester.’
‘Walter, after your adventures in the Austrian Army do you think you can settle down?’
‘With you … to raise a family, yes.’
To raise a family. She saw the gracious house, the garden with its peaceful lawns and the children they would have clustered about them. It was a pleasant picture; and the subsequent births would be less tiresome than this one. The midwife had told her that the first was always the most difficult.
‘A house,’ she mused, to take her mind of the pains which she fancied were becoming a little more frequent, ‘with a chapel.’
‘Perhaps it would be a little unwise to have a chapel in the house, my love.’
‘Oh, Walter, why should we be persecuted?’
Walter admitted that the intolerant laws were a burden to all Catholics, but being a fair man he pointed out that they were less severe in England than in any other country in the world.
‘Yet … we are penalized,’ cried Mary, her eyes flashing. ‘If this were not so we should have our own house now. You would not have had to leave England to follow a career.’
‘Well, I have at least travelled and seen service in the Austrian Army.’
‘And that was England’s loss,’ cried Mary vehemently. ‘Oh, Walter, if only it had gone differently at the ’45.’
‘But it did not, Mary, and we know full well that the Stuarts lost all hope after Culloden. Charles Edward will never come back now. He is drinking himself to death across the water and the Hanoverians are firmly on the throne. They say young Prince George is a good young man, and popular with the people. No, Mary, the Hanoverians are here to stay so we had better make the best of it.’
‘But to live as we do … hearing Mass almost by stealth, being debarred from privileges. What of our children? Are they going to grow up in a society which will deprive them of their rights because they worship God in the only true way?’
‘You must not excite yourself, my dear. One thing is certain. Our children will worship God in accordance with the laws of the Roman Catholic Church no matter what the laws of the country.’
Mary sighed. Anything else was unthinkable, of course.
‘You should not concern yourself. As long as the laws are not made more harsh we shall be able to look after ourselves.’
Dear Walter! He was so resigned. Perhaps she was apt to become excited over this matter simply because she was about to bear a child. The future looked bright enough. Soon the uncomfortable business of childbearing would be over; they would have their own house and she would be a happy matron. How different that would be from sharing her bother-in-law’s house at Acton Burnell – large and comfortable though it was. Perhaps the Duke of Kingston hoped they would buy Tong Castle, for he wanted to sell it. But no, Tong Castle was too grand for them; they would not be able to keep it up, for in spite of her dowry they were not rich according to the Duke’s standards as Walter was the second son of the late Sir John Smythe and naturally his inheritance could not equal that of Sir Edward, his brother, who had inherited the title and the bulk of the family estates.