Ravishment

James Walker

Description

A 17th-century whodunnit - It's 1653 and Lady Jane Tremayne has inherited the estate of her late husband. When a young woman is raped, as Lady of the Manor, Jane decides to investigate, assisted by her closest friend, Lady Olivia Courtney. Then the stakes are raised when the rapist strikes again.More than just a whodunnit, this is an absorbing tale of a brave woman living in dangerous and unique times.

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Conrad Press
• Date de parution: 02 juin 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912924929
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Ravishment
A 17 th -century Whodunnit
The first diary of Lady Jane Tremayne
James Walker


Ravishment
Published by The Conrad Press in the United Kingdom 2019
Tel: [phone] www.theconradpress.com [e-mail]
ISBN 978-1-912924-92-9
Copyright © James Walker, 2019
The moral right of James Walker to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
Typesetting and Cover Design by: Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc


To Jo for her love and understanding.


1
Widowhood
I t was, I recall, St George’s Day, the twenty-third of April, in the Year of Our Lord 1653, a Wednesday morning, and I was at home at Altringham Manor in East Devon. I could not possibly have known, when I woke, that it was to be a day destined to begin a transformation of my life for ever, both for good and ill.
My home was built three storeys high, in stone, in the early years of Good Queen’s Bess’s reign, nearly a hundred years previously. With its long gallery and well-stocked library, as well as a pleasing aspect, it was a place of which I had grown deeply fond.
It had been a harsh winter, with snow lingering on the ground even into late March and beyond. However, evidence that spring had properly arrived was now plain to be seen and could be heard everywhere.
I was especially taken by the profusion of primroses that had flowered on the edge of the copse to my left, beyond which lay the southern boundary of the Manor. I remembered that they had been coming up in the same spot ever since I had first arrived there, as an eighteen-year-old bride, nearly a dozen years before. Still, with each succeeding year, they had grown in numbers, and I fancied they had never previously looked quite so dazzling in the morning sunshine.
It being St George’s day, I felt minded to celebrate that fact by going for a ride. There could be no dragons to slay, real or imagined, but I still had confidence that a gallop on my seven-year-old mare, Hera, would help to raise my spirits and give me the courage I believe I needed to look the world properly in the eye after long years of war and all the misery it had brought to my country.
Firstly, though, I needed to summon my personal maid, Mary Moffat, to help me dress, so stepping back from the window, I opened my bedroom door, and called out to her.
Mary was a diminutive, pretty seventeen-year-old minx with long brown hair, now respectfully tied up in a clasp, and hazel eyes, who had been a member of my household since she was thirteen. At that tender age she had been engaged as a lowly scullery maid by my cook and housekeeper, Alice Cowper. Mary, possessed of a naturally cheerful disposition, had proved herself to be both competent and conscientious in the performance of her duties. When, six months previously, my maid Jessica Wilkes had married a local tenant farmer and consequentially left my household, Alice had recommended Mary to replace her, and since then she had adjusted well to her new role.
‘It’s time I got dressed, Mary,’ I told her as soon as she appeared. ‘The weather looks set fair and I’ve decided to go for a ride.’
Mary dropped me a curtsey before hurrying to fetch the clothes I required. I knew that I would wish to ride astride rather than side saddle, and in order to do so would put on a man’s breeches, over which I would wear a black, velvet riding habit with split skirt. They would not be just any breeches either, but rather ones which had belonged to my late husband, Sir Paul Tremayne, who had died at the Battle of Worcester eighteen months previously, fighting for the forces of Charles Stuart, whom, as a true royalist, he had recognised as his rightful, if yet to be anointed, King.
Mary was also ready to assist me with my toilette, above all the combing of my thick, auburn hair, which would then be bunched up under a white, silk coif. Finally, whilst I invariably preferred to wear no make-up as I still possessed a fair complexion, unblemished by any marks of smallpox, I was content to apply a touch of my favourite jasmine based scent to both my neck and wrists.
Only the briefest of pleasantries passed between us as I was in a reflective humour, and Mary, sensitive to my moods, seemed to know instinctively when she had licence to prattle on and when she did not. She had, after all, taken on her role at a time when I was just emerging from a year of mourning for my late husband, and that my riding habit was black, bore testimony to the fact that I still grieved for him.
Ours could never be a relationship of equals, but all the same there was an easy familiarity between us; an indication that our two personalities complemented each other. I also sensed that she had grown fond of me thanks to my patient forbearance of her and was even somewhat in awe of my good looks. Certainly, I had received enough admiration over the years from both sexes to know that I was something of a beauty. Apart from my hair, I thought my hazel eyes and small, regular shaped nose, my most attractive features although I sometimes wished for more fulsome lips and smaller ears.
My toilette was complete, and I was almost fully dressed for my ride, when I heard a discreet tap on my door. It was one I had been expecting for it formed part of my daily ritual.
‘M’lady, may I enter?’
‘Of course, Alice.’
Now in her early forties, Alice was somewhat rotund and short in stature but nonetheless carried herself well and combined her duties as cook and housekeeper with an air of calm authority. Like me, Alice was a widow, having lost her husband, Jack, at the battle of Edgehill, nearly eleven years previously. They had originally both been servants together of Sir Paul’s father, who had died only a matter of months after I married my husband. Jack had been one of the company of men, which Sir Paul had raised for the king at the outset of the civil war with Parliament.
Lost husbands were not all we had in common, for we both had lost offspring to the ravages of illness, which so readily afflicted infants regardless of their status in life. In one respect, however, Alice was more fortunate, as she still at least had a son, who had survived to reach the cusp of adulthood, now being the same age as Mary, whereas I had been left completely childless, thus compounding the loss of my husband.
‘I shall take a little breakfast in the dining room and then, as you can see, I have dressed to go riding,’ I told Alice. ‘You’ll need to tell the stable lad, Toby, to have Hera saddled and ready to depart in half-an-hour.’
‘Of course, m’lady. And will your ride be a short one?’
I looked Alice in the eye while I pondered this question. ‘I’ve a mind to ride over to Lady Olivia’s so I may not return before evening. I will be back in time for supper, though.’
‘Shall I prepare a sack posset for you then, m’lady.’
‘Certainly, that’ll do me very well.’ By now I was walking out of my bedroom towards the staircase, leaving both Alice and Mary to follow on behind. ‘And are there any household matters that require my attention?’ I asked.
‘Not today, m’lady. I believe I ‘ave everything in hand.’
I turned my head towards her and smiled. Particularly since my husband’s death, I felt immense gratitude for her loyal service. Sir Paul, an only son, had left Altringham Manor to me in his will, and, as I had struggled with my grief, it had been a considerable relief to know that I could always rely on Alice to ensure that the household was efficiently run. Likewise, I felt a similar measure of gratitude towards my steward, Harry Parsons, whose job it was to manage my estate as profitably as my straitened circumstances would allow.
I still found myself waking in the middle of the night in great distress in fearful memory of the evil day, the previous September, when I had received a most unwelcome visit from one of Parliament’s Local Commissioners for the County of Devon. He had come with the intention of sequestering all of my estates on behalf of the Parliamentary Committee for Compounding with Royalists and Delinquents, and in order to save myself from this disaster I had been given a mere six weeks to pay a massive fine of three times the estate’s annual value.
Six years previously, at the end of the first civil war, the Committee had imposed a similar fine, which had come very close to leaving Paul and myself destitute as we struggled to meet it. This experience had proved a major factor in restraining Paul from taking up arms again on behalf of the king at the onset of the second civil war in 1648.
Yet, after the King’s martyrdom the following year, none of my pleadings, nor the threat of yet another sequestration, could constrain my beloved husband from taking up arms on behalf of the man he regarded as his rightful monarch. The consequence had been not only his tragic death, but also another visit from the Commissioner although for whatever reason this had come blessedly later than I had feared it might.
This time, in order to meet the fine, I had had to sell every valuable piece of jewellery I possessed, save for my wedding ring. Even then the money raised had been insufficient, so, as a last resort, I had obtained a loan from a goldsmith in Exeter at a six percent rate of interest, the maximum which the law permitted, and the repayment of which still left me in dread of the poor house.
Fortunately, the harvests of the last two years had been good, tenants’ rents had not, with a few exceptions, fallen into arrears, and Harry’s hard work had surely also made a difference too. With a fair wind I knew I might therefore manage to repay the loan