Rebellion & In From The Cold Read Free Page A

just what lay beneath the well-cut coats and the lace.
    “It wasn’t the earl of Ashburn who fought back-to-back with me when our coach was attacked outside of Calais. It wasn’t the earl of Ashburn who damned near drank me, a MacGregor, under the table in that grimy little gaming hell in Rome.”
    “I assure you it was, as I remember both incidents very well.”
    Coll knew better than to banter words with Brigham. “Brigham, be serious. As the earl of Ashburn you deserve to stay in England, go to your balls and card parties. You could still do the cause good here, with your ear to the ground.”
    “But?”
    “If I’m going to fight, I’d like to have you beside me. Will you come?”
    Brigham studied his friend, then shifted his gaze up and beyond, to the portrait of his grandmother. “Of course.”
    * * *
    The weather in London was cold and dank. It remained so three days later, when the two men began their journey north. They would travel to the border in the relative comfort of Brigham’s coach, then take the rest on horseback.
    For anyone who remained in London during the miserable January weather and chose to inquire, Lord Ashburn was making a casual journey to Scotland to visit the family of his friend.
    There were a few who knew better, a handful of staunch Tories and English Jacobites whom Brigham trusted. To them he left in trust his family home, Ashburn Manor, as well as his house in London and the disposition of his servants. What could be taken without undue notice, he took. What could not, he left behind with the full knowledge that it probably would be months, perhaps even years, before he could return to claim them. The portrait of his grandmother still stood above the mantel, but on a sentimental whim he’d had the statue of the shepherdess wrapped for the journey.
    There was gold, a good deal more than was needed for a visit to the family of a friend, in a locked chest beneath the floor of the coach.
    They were forced to move slowly, more slowly than Brigham cared for, but the roads were slick, and occasional flurries of snow had the driver walking the team. Brigham would have preferred a good horse beneath him and the freedom of a gallop.
    A look out the window showed him that the weather to the north could only be worse. With what patience he’d learned to cultivate, Brigham sat back, rested his booted feet on the opposite seat, where Coll sat dozing, and let his thoughts drift back to Paris, where he had spent a few glittering months the year before. That was the France of Louis XV: opulent, glamorous, all light and music. There had been lovely women there, with their powdered hair and scandalous gowns. It had been easy to flirt, and more. A young English lord with a fat purse and a talent for raillery had little trouble making a place in society.
    He had enjoyed it, the lustiness and laziness of it. But it was also true that he’d begun to feel restless, fretting for action and purpose. The Langstons had always enjoyed the intrigue of politics as much as the sparkle of balls and routs. Just as for three generations they had silently sworn their loyaltyto the Stuarts—the rightful kings of England.
    So when Prince Charles Edward had come to France, a magnetic man of courage and energy, Brigham had offered his aid and his oath. Many would have called him traitor. No doubt the fusty Whigs who supported the German who now sat upon the English throne would have wished Brigham hanged as one if they had known. But Brigham’s loyalty was to the Stuart cause, to which his family had always held true, not to the fat German usurper George. He’d not forgotten the stories his grandmother had told him of the disastrous rebellion of ‘15, and of the proscriptions and executions before and after it.
    As the landscape grew wilder and the city of London seemed so far away he thought once again that the House of Hanover had done little—had not even tried—to endear itself to Scotland. There had always