Gill Paul - No Place For A Lady

GILL PAUL

Published by Avon

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2015

Copyright © Gill Paul 2015

Cover Design © Lisa Horton 2015

Gill Paul asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008102128

Ebook Edition © May 2015 ISBN: 9780008102135

Version: 2019-03-01

For my brother Gray and sister Fo, who mean the world to me.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Map 1

Map 2

Prologue

PART ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

PART TWO

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

PART THREE

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

PART FOUR

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

PART FIVE

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

PART SIX

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

PART SEVEN

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

PART EIGHT

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Historical Note

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Enjoyed this book? Read on for the start of Gill Paul’s new novel, Another Woman’s Husband .

By the Same Author

About the Publisher

25th October 1854

Mrs Lucy Harvington stands shivering on a hilltop near the coast of Crimea, watching armies massed for battle below, waiting to find out if her husband will die today. Charlie is somewhere in the group to the far left: she has overheard Lord Raglan pointing out the Light Brigade when giving an order and she peers in the direction he indicated to see indistinct figures on horseback, cold sunlight glinting on the steel of their bayonets. All around she can see lines of men standing poised, waiting for the order to rush forward and try to kill each other – men who are sons, nephews, husbands and fathers, even grandfathers. She can hear the impatient whinny of horses and the squawk of a bird high above. It sounds like a warning.

Suddenly it seems incomprehensible that she should find herself in such a situation. In less than a year her entire fortune has turned on its head: she’s gone from being a young lady of just seventeen years who lived at home with her father and older sister, to being the wife of an army captain who has followed her husband to war in a remote, inhospitable land. She still can’t quite believe the change in her circumstances. In London she has a wide circle of friends and is used to attending balls and soirées wearing fashionable new gowns and the latest hairstyles. Now she has been wearing the same gown for almost a week without the opportunity to wash, her cloak is smeared in mud and her hair hangs in matted coils. She spends most of her time alone while Charlie is out in the field. She is cold, her clothes are damp – they never seem to dry completely – and she is very, very scared.

But her fate has been sealed since that first unforgettable meeting with Charlie Harvington, the beginning of a chain of circumstances that had led her to this godforsaken hillside.

It was a dull November day in 1853, when London was thick with sooty fog and the stench of the Thames. Lucy had called upon the Pendleburys, old friends of her parents, in the hope of seeing their son Henry, whom she knew was home on leave from the army. They’d enjoyed a brief flirtation during his last leave and she was curious to see where it might lead. Unfortunately, Henry was absent and she had to make conversation with his mother and father, a rather staid couple. Once they had run through the usual topics – the weather, plans for the festive season, health of respective family members – Lucy offered to play the pianoforte and sing for them, simply to pass the time until she could decently make her excuses and leave.

She picked a Mozart lied that suited her first soprano voice. Her singing teacher was critical of her pronunciation of the German lyrics, but she was fond of the pretty melody. As she was singing, she heard the drawing-room door open and glanced up to see Henry Pendlebury standing in the doorway with a friend, a very handsome friend, kitted out in a royal blue tunic with gold braid draped over the chest, who was staring directly at her. The attention made her sing a little more sweetly, play a little more precisely, while she felt herself flush at the unexpected audience.

When she finished, all clapped heartily and Lucy bowed her head.

‘Please don’t stop. I could listen to you forever,’ the stranger said. It appeared he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Henry Pendlebury laughed. ‘Miss Gray, meet my army colleague, Captain Charlie Harvington. Charlie, this is Miss Lucy Gray.’

Charlie came forward to take her hand. He raised it to his lips, kissed it, then fell dramatically to his knees. ‘I declare in front of all witnesses here present that I volunteer to be Miss Gray’s willing slave and do her bidding for as long as she will tolerate me. Please, Miss Gray, tell me some service I might perform for you. I ask nothing in return but the honour of being allowed to remain in the presence of such breathtaking beauty.’

Lucy laughed, startled by his unconventional forwardness. ‘Very well. I should like a cup of tea to wet my throat after its exertion.’

There was a pot of tea on a tray by the fire and Charlie bounded over to fetch her a cup, enquiring carefully about her taste for cream and sugar.