The Complete Wideacre Trilogy: Wideacre, The Favoured Child, Meridon

The Complete Wideacre Trilogy: Wideacre, The Favoured Child, Meridon
Philippa Gregory

From the author of THE WHITE QUEEN and THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL, discover Philippa Gregory’s sweeping and passionate epic, The Wideacre TrilogyWIDEACRE is Philippa Gregory’s first novel, a tale of passion and intrigue set in the eighteenth century. Wideacre Hall, set in the heart of the English countryside, is the ancestral home that Beatrice Lacey loves. But as a woman of the eighteenth century she has no right of inheritance. Corrupted by a world that mistreats women, she sets out to corrupt others. No-one escapes the consequences of her need to possess the land…In THE FAVOURED CHILD, the Wideacre estate is bankrupt, the villagers are living in poverty and Wideacre Hall is a smoke-blackened ruin. But in the Dower House two children are being raised in protected innocence. Equal claimants to the inheritance of Wideacre, rivals for the love of the village, only one can be the favoured child. Only one can be Beatrice Lacey’s true heir.MERIDON is a desolate Romany girl, determined to escape the hard poverty of her childhood. Riding bareback in a travelling show, while her sister Dandy risks her life on the trapeze, Meridon dedicates herself to freeing them both from danger and want. But Dandy, beautiful, impatient and thieving, grabs too much, too quickly. And Meridon finds herself alone, riding in bitter grief through the rich Sussex farmlands towards a house called Wideacre – which awaits the return of the last of the Laceys.

PHILIPPA GREGORY

THE COMPLETE WIDEACRE TRILOGY:

WideacreThe Favoured ChildMeridon

Contents

Cover (#u39cbc406-092e-57d1-a531-21601ba78539)

Title Page (#ud9cc439a-b5a1-52a6-b120-2ed642074263)

Wideacre (#u35c56f29-2bc5-52a3-a56f-4a2613a580a3)

The Favoured Child (#litres_trial_promo)

Meridon (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

(#ulink_d609555e-cc8f-583b-99d6-e24c016241b3)

PHILIPPA GREGORY

Wideacre

Contents

Cover (#u35c56f29-2bc5-52a3-a56f-4a2613a580a3)

Title Page (#u527e8495-edf9-571e-a38a-78a756aa5a00)

Map (#u6478fad2-5e5f-517c-977d-f87c2052546c)

Chapter 1 (#ud574b532-b8f9-5f52-8344-3aaf7c8b3bd5)

Chapter 2 (#ua2e65229-f2f7-51e1-8f7d-ea2ecc1f7282)

Chapter 3 (#u8a38e26e-6a85-5c69-9dc5-d8baad1d9424)

Chapter 4 (#uc1ad9faf-6820-597a-b12a-7485b094e03f)

Chapter 5 (#u51aa5e57-7e36-5fd1-ba9a-69647ba1817c)

Chapter 6 (#u4c2eb96d-d408-5d1c-a6bd-678197719363)

Chapter 7 (#u99b892ad-6042-5c34-a901-f3de63fda4c7)

Chapter 8 (#u70261aa1-03b5-538e-ac3b-5f2b30a761df)

Chapter 9 (#u281975ce-a4b0-5c37-aeb0-92bd6ba005f4)

Chapter 10 (#ud1a05c5f-7183-5a6f-98e8-aeffab818e9b)

Chapter 11 (#u3daedbcc-759e-5402-bd60-a6c8ddab2a19)

Chapter 12 (#u3570404c-9ac3-5697-9a8a-d3bc39d84792)

Chapter 13 (#u529712bb-f8bd-5882-bc8e-f621b131e55a)

Chapter 14 (#u5b877f7a-1bbc-5733-b787-64f4ff5afabd)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Map (#ulink_3ebd2742-e155-5968-b014-1f74909fd2e6)

1 (#ulink_9d7c05ab-eebd-5e40-808a-028b96ff86e8)

Wideacre Hall faces due south and the sun shines all day on the yellow stone until it is warm and powdery to the touch. The sun travels from gable end to gable end so the front of the house is never in shadow. When I was a small child, collecting petals in the rose garden, or loitering at the back of the house in the stable yard, it seemed that Wideacre was the very centre of the world with the sun defining our boundaries in the east at dawn, until it sank over our hills in the west in the red and pink evening. The great arch it traced in the sky over Wideacre seemed to me a suitable boundary for our vertical influence. Behind the sun was God and the angels; beneath it, and far more significantly, ruled the Squire, my father.

I cannot remember a time before I loved him, the blond, red-faced, loud Englishman. I suppose there must have been a time when I was confined to a white-frilled crib in the nursery; I suppose I must have taken my first steps clinging tight to my mother’s hand. But I have no childish memories of my mother at all. Wideacre filled my consciousness, and the Squire of Wideacre dominated me as he ruled the world.

My first, my earliest childhood memory is of someone lifting me up to my father as he towered above me in the saddle of his chestnut hunter. My little legs dangled helplessly in space as I rose up the yawning void to the great chestnut shoulder – a hot, red rockface to my surprised eyes – and up to the hard, greasy saddle. Then my father’s arm was tight round my body and his hand tucked me securely before him. He let me grip the reins in one hand and the pommel in the other, and my gaze locked on the coarse russet mane and the shiny leather. Then the monster beneath me moved and I clutched in fright. His pace was erratic and rolling to me, and the long gap between each great stride caught me unawares. But my father’s arm held tight and I gradually raised my eyes from the muscled, steamy shoulder of the mountainous horse, up his long neck to his pointy signalling ears … and then the sweep of Wideacre burst upon me.

The horse was walking down the great avenue of beech and oak that leads to the house. The dappled shadows of the trees lay across the springing grass and the rutted mud tracks. In the banks glowed the pale yellow of spring primroses and the brighter sunshine yellow of celandine. The smell, the dark, damp smell of rain-wet earth filled the arch of the trees like birdsong.