NEW RELEASE - TYBURN, THE SOUTHWARK SAGA, BOOK 1 - JESSICA CALE
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Tyburn
The Southwark Saga, Book 1
Author: Jessica Cale
Release Date: December 8th, 2014
Publisher: Liquid Silver Books
Tyburn Blurb:
Sally Green is about to die.
She sees Death in the streets.
She can taste it in her gin. She can feel it in the very walls of the
ramshackle brothel where she is kept to satisfy the perversions of the wealthy.
She had come to London as a runaway in search of her Cavalier father. Instead,
she found Wrath, a sadistic nobleman determined to use her to fulfill a
sinister ambition. As the last of her friends are murdered one by one, survival
hinges on escape.
Nick Virtue is a tutor with a
secret. By night he operates as a highwayman, relieving nobles of their riches
to further his brother’s criminal enterprise. It’s a difficult balance at the
best of times, and any day that doesn’t end in a noose is a good one. Saving
Sally means risking his reputation, and may end up costing him his life.
As a brutal attack throws them
together, Sally finds she has been given a second chance. She is torn between
the tutor and the highwayman, but she knows she can have neither. Love is an
unwanted complication while Wrath haunts the streets. Nick holds the key to
Wrath’s identity, and Sally will risk everything to bring him to justice.
Unless the gallows take her
first.
Excerpt (Chapter 1):
Sally was there the
day they hanged Claude Duval.
It was madness in
the January snow, the stands filled to capacity and creaking beneath the weight
of too many bodies. Spectators filled the pit surrounding the gallows shoulder
to shoulder. The grounds were packed and still they let them in.
The usual families
with picnic baskets were disappointed at the lack of open ground on which to
lunch. The vendors had sold out of hot potatoes and cakes and stood uselessly
between the stalls, their hands in their pockets to protect their profits from
the Tyburn Blossoms, young pickpockets who could hear two pennies rub together
at one hundred paces. Prostitutes of every age and disposition sauntered
through the crowd, anticipating a very profitable day. At least a dozen
apothecaries, sorcerers, and quacks waited at the base of the gallows, jars at
the ready to collect pieces of the corpse.
There was magic in a
dead man’s blood.
Claude’s execution
was remarkable, not only for the falling snow that so seldom blanketed London,
cold as it could be, but for the staggering number of ladies in attendance.
The pit swarmed with
them. From fashionable residences in Leicester Fields and St. James they came,
traveling all the way to Tyburn in private coaches and hired hacks, sacrificing
their silk shoes to stand in the muddy snow. They must have ruined ten thousand
pairs among them.
They chattered
happily, trading daring stories of times Claude had robbed them of their jewels
or better, some of them true, all of them embellished. They speculated as to
how he was caught at long last, and bemoaned the loss of such a handsome face.
Their fans churned their sighs and scent in a gale that assaulted Sally’s
senses with the smell of lilies and idleness.
Why anyone would
require a fan in January was beyond her. She pulled her ragged cloak closer
around her shoulders to fend off the wet chill of the morning. The ladies,
their dresses no doubt ordered for just this occasion, pouted and postured in
plush fur capes, their little hands encased in gloves and muffs of sable and
mink, impervious to the punishing cold.
Rounded cheeks
flushed and eyes alight, they were quite breathless at the prospect of seeing
Claude in person, deriving no little thrill from the knowledge that they were
about to see him die.They gasped over copies of his “Last Dying Confession” so
recently printed that the ink rubbed off on their gloves.
Sally hated every
one of them.
They took up places
that should have belonged to the people who knew him and loved him as she did,
ragged wretches obliged to crowd outside of the gate, too poor to purchase a
seat, or too late to find room to stand.
Sally had arrived
hours early, standing in the cold in threadbare finery with an empty belly. She
waited alone, not a blood-thirsty spectator or a sighing ninny, but a friend.
She had met Claude
in Normandy when they were children, long before Charles had regained the
throne, neither of them ever dreaming they would end up in England. They had
been respectable in those days, but in the dank, stinking streets of London,
Claude had become a robber and Sally a whore.
The crowd fell
silent, parting as he rolled up in a lacquered cart behind an enormous black
horse. Claude stood proudly in his long coat and wide-brimmed hat, hands tied
behind his back.
The ladies
collectively gasped.
The cart stopped
abruptly. He gave a measured bow.
The crowd erupted in
cheers. The woman beside her clapped wildly and reached out to him, her
gentleman escort reddening.
Claude stepped off
the cart and began his slow walk to the gallows.
He nodded and smiled
pleasantly as he passed, greeting people and winking at the ladies. He was the
very picture of a swaggering hero, handsome at twenty-seven, proud to meet his
end among so many devotees.
Then he saw her.
His eyes were empty
and his expression rigid. His pale, ghostly face belonged not to her first
love, but to a man who had already died. He paused before her.
“Celestine.” He
called her by her childhood pet name and ventured a sad smile. "Send me
off right?"
Tears clouding her
eyes, she took his cold face in his hands. He closed the distance between them
with a chaste kiss.
Claude Duval,
beloved of ladies everywhere, gave Sally his very last kiss.
It was the last kiss
of a condemned man.
The woman beside
Sally swooned into her escort’s arms. Several others whined in protest, ready
to fling themselves at his boots if not for the watchful eyes of their husbands
and guardians.
Claude felt their
disappointment. Perhaps was afforded some satisfaction from it. As he continued
forward, smiling at those he passed, Sally contemplated her fate. His kiss was
cold as death and tasted of ashes on her lips.
A chill ran up her
spine.
The horse beneath
the gallows stomped impatiently, the falling snow melting into his glossy coat.
Steam rose from his nostrils in great clouds, a promise of brimstone. As far
away as she was, Sally could have sworn that horse was breathing down her neck.
It felt like a
curse.
“Hats off!” someone
bellowed, and the cry was repeated throughout the crowd until every hat had
been removed. It was not a gesture of respect for Claude. They did it so
everyone would have a good view.
At last at the
gallows, Claude climbed onto the second cart. They removed his hat and lowered
the noose around his strong neck. His face was blank. He gave one last devilish
smile as the signal was given. The horse sprung into a trot and pulled the cart
from beneath his feet. Sally looked away before he began to swing.
Claude.
She choked back a
sob and forced her way back through the cheering crowd. He had marked her with
that kiss, and she knew she would be next.
***
Buy it here:
Liquid Silver: http://www.lsbooks.com/tyburn-p975.php
All Romance E-Books:
https://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-tyburn-1695993-340.html
Bio:
Jessica Cale is a historical romance author and journalist
based in North Carolina. Originally from Minnesota, she lived in Wales for
several years where she earned a BA in History and an MFA in Creative Writing
while climbing castles and photographing mines for history magazines. She
kidnapped (“married”) her very own British prince (close enough) and is
enjoying her happily ever after with him in a place where no one understands
his accent. You can visit her at www.authorjessicacale.com.
Links:
Website: http://www.authorjessicacale.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JessicaCale @JessicaCale
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JessicaCaleWrites
Tumblr: http://authorjessicacale.tumblr.com/
Pintrest: http://www.pinterest.com/rainbowcarnage
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Jessica-Cale/e/B00PVDV9EW/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
Goodreads Author Page:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/9819997.Jessica_Cale
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