Lady Madeline's Folly Read Free Page B

law or medicine.” He sat thinking a moment. When he spoke, he said, “I wonder if there won’t be plenty of opportunities for positions with the new government when it takes over. It stands to reason a new broom will sweep out a goodly number of the old boys.”
    Such an expression of interest in working for the opposition would have sent Lord Fordwich flying into the boughs. Lady Madeline was not the least distressed. It showed her he was wide awake, alive to an opportunity when he saw one. She would soon head him in the proper direction.
    Before lunch was on the table, she had already begun dropping hints of so interesting a nature that Mr. Aldred had become half a Tory. Other comments revealed that so far as political principles went, he was not very well versed in partisan politics at all.
    “Yes, no doubt there are opportunities on either side,” he agreed over a raised pigeon pie, “but there is no advantage to aligning oneself with a party on its way out the door, if you see my meaning.”
    “There is many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, Mr. Aldred. The regent’s main friend on that side of the house was Charles Fox. Now that he is dead, the inclination to change the government will not be so strong. Of course some of Prinney’s best friends are Whigs—Lord Moira, Sheridan, Lord Hutchinson and others. It is not certain he will depose Perceval, though he does hate him for his support of Princess Caroline.”
    “The regent’s wife, you mean?”
    “Yes, he took her side some years ago when the trouble developed between them. It has been a dreadfully unhappy marriage from the outset.”
    “The princess is extremely popular in the countryside,” he told her.
    “Well, she is not terribly popular here,” she said stiffly. “Only the Whigs support her. We have more allies on our side. Lady Hertford, a great friend of the prince, and even the prince’s own brother Cumberland, are by no means Whiggish. Never speak the words Catholic Emancipation before either of them. Then too, some of the Whigs wish to call off the Peninsular War, and I cannot think Prinney would like that.”
    “I personally believe Catholic Emancipation is long overdue, but as to the war, surely no man who calls himself an Englishman would speak of stopping now, when it seems Boney is pulling many of his troops out of the Peninsula. I hear rumors he is mounting a campaign in Russia.”
    She nodded in satisfaction to hear he was well aware of what passed around him, even if he had no particular interest in the government. Approving of Catholic Emancipation was tolerable—many of her father’s crones did likewise. After lunch they returned to the grate in the Gold Saloon.
    “You lead a very interesting life,” Henry said, as she offhandedly mentioned various doings with the nation’s most elite personages.
    She smiled softly and began to reel him in. “Did it never occur to you to involve yourself in Tory politics, Mr. Aldred?”
    “I am as ignorant as Paddie’s pig in such matters,” he confessed bluntly. “I haven’t the connections for it, nor the financial backing either.”
    “I will undertake to arrange the connections. We are cousins, after all. I would be happy to do it, but the ignorance you must correct yourself.”
    “I am a fast enough learner. You are very kind, ma’am. I am convinced it would be a great bore for you, to have an unlicked cub like myself on your hands. Then too, there is the matter of money.”
    “I expect your credit is good. You cannot have done anything to destroy it. You’ve only arrived in town.”
    “I would not like to run into debt!” he said, aghast.
    “It won’t cost as much as you might think. We will find something that will keep you afloat for the nonce. Papa knows the ins and outs of the Civil List. You have some money, I expect?” she asked quite frankly.
    “I am not completely destitute,” he answered, showing a little pink around the collar at the open discussion of what