Rebellion & In From The Cold Read Free

the window.
    As a boy he’d been allowed to look but not to touch, and his fingers had always itched to hold the statue of the shepherdess with the long porcelain hair and the fragile face.
    There was a portrait of Mary MacDonald, the strong-willed woman who had become Lady Ashburn. It stood over the crackling fire and showed her at an age very close to what her grandson claimed now. She’d been tall for a woman and reed-slim, with a glorious mane of ebony hair around a narrow, fine-boned face. There was a look in the way she tilted her head that said she could be persuaded but not forced, asked but not commanded,
    The same features, the same coloring, had been passed down to her grandson. They were no less elegant in their masculine form—the high forehead, the hollowed cheeks and full month. But Brigham had inherited more than his height and his gray eyes from Mary. He’d also inherited her passions and her sense of justice.
    He thought of the letter, of the decisions to be made, and toasted the portrait.
    You’d have me go, he thought. All the stories you told me, that belief in the rightness of the Stuart cause you planted in my head during the years you raised and cared for me. If you were still alive, you’d go yourself. So how can I not?
    “So it’s time.” Coll folded the letter. In his voice, in his eyes, were both excitement and tension. He was twenty-four, only six months younger than Brigham, but this was a moment he had been awaiting for most of his life.
    “You have to learn to read between the lines, Coll.” This time Brigham rose. “Charles is still holding out hope of support from the French, though he’s beginning to realize King Louis would rather talk than act.” Frowning, he twitched back the curtain and looked out at his dormant gardens. They would explode with color and scent in the spring. But it was unlikely he would be there to see them in the spring.
    “When we were at court, Louis was more than interested in our cause. He has no more liking for the Hanoverian puppet on the throne than we,” Coll said.
    “No, but that doesn’t mean he’ll open his coffers to the Bonnie Prince and the Stuart cause. Charles’s notion of fitting out a frigate and sailing for Scotland seems more realistic. But these things take time.”
    “Which is where we come in.”
    Brigham let the drapes fall back into place. “You know the mood of Scotland better than I. How much support will he get?”
    “Enough.” With the confidence of pride and youth, Coll grinned. “The clans will rise for the true king and fight to the man behind him.” He rose then, knowing what his friend was asking. Brigham would be risking more than his life in Scotland. His title, his home and his reputation could be lost. “Brig, I could take the letter, go to my family and from there spread word throughout the Highland clans. It isn’t necessary for you to go, as well.”
    One black brow rose, and Brigham nearly smiled. “I’m of so little use?”
    “To hell with that.” Coll’s voice was bluff, his gestures wide. Both were as much a part of him as the rumbling cadences of his homeland and his fierce pride in it. “A man like you, one who knows how to talk, how to fight, an English aristocrat willing to join the rebellion? No one knows better than I just what you can do. After all, you saved my life more than once in Italy and, aye, in France, as well.”
    “Don’t be boring, Coll.” Brigham flicked at the lace at his wrist. “It’s unlike you.”
    Coll’s wide face folded into a grin. “Aye, and there’s something to be said for the way you can turninto the earl of Ashburn in the blink of an eye.”
    “My dear, I
am
the earl of Ashburn.”
    Humor kindled in Coll’s eyes. When they stood together like this, the contrasts between the men were marked. Brigham with his trim build, Coll with his brawny one. Brigham with his elegant, even languid manners, Coll rough-and-ready. But no one knew better than the Scot