The Spider's Touch Read Free Page A

so ye can toast his Grace and our rightful king.”
    He turned to stagger away, and in that moment, Lord Lovett recovered his footing. He quickly banged on the roof of the coach, slammed its door, and shouted, “Coachman, whip up the horses!”
    As their driver complied, the coach gave a huge lurch forward. “High Church and Ormonde!” Lord Lovett called back out the window. Sir Humphrey had never ceased his cheering, and now he stuck his round face out the opposite window and cheered even louder. Hester joined them, waving with friendliness to the mob as their coach was allowed through.
    One horrible sight after another met their eyes. One man who was brave enough—or foolish enough—to huzzah King George was dragged from his carriage box and soundly beaten. A nonconformist church was set afire.
    They had no notion of what had become of their footmen and dared not stop to see if they’d been hurt. No one in the coach spoke or exchanged a glance until they had left the rioters far behind.
    By the time they cleared St. Paul’s, Sir Humphrey’s breaths were coming in deep gasps and his eyes were wide. He started to say something, but Lord Lovett cut him off.
    “It would seem—” he stared at his friend— “that you were right and I was wrong. I owe you an apology, Cove, and I must thank you for your quick thinking, which has saved me from a beating, if nothing worse.”
    Sir Humphrey looked as if he might make a reply, but he was too overcome with emotion. His eyes filled with tears, and he nodded, remaining silent until they dropped him before his lodgings in Jermyn Street.
    “Quick thinking, that,” Harrowby agreed, once Sir Humphrey was gone. He was still holding onto Isabella, whether for his comfort or hers Hester could not say. “I only hope his Majesty never gets wind of this.”
    “I doubt he will.” Lord Lovett’s amusement seemed to indicate that he had fully recovered from the frightening ordeal. Indeed, he seemed admirably relaxed. “I doubt that anyone in that mob will be eager to report his participation in it, or even what was said. Our  attempts at self-preservation are likely to go unremarked.”
    “The confound impudence of it!” Harrowby began to fume again. “How dare they hold up Ormonde so high? I have never heard them cheer his Grace of Marlborough in that scandalous way. Damned Jacobites! Ormonde had better be careful if he don’t want trouble for himself. They shall see what comes of all this treasonous talk. Mark my words, but they will!”
    Lord Lovett eased his body against the cushions. In shifting his position, he met Hester’s gaze, where he must have spied a sign of his own reflections, for he gave her a secretive smile. “I am certain you will soon have them quaking in their boots, my lord.”
    Hester tried not to laugh, but after all the shock and the excitement, she found it nearly impossible.
    * * * *
    Thomas Barnes, groom, valet and general man of business, had started to fret at the absense of his lord. If truth be told, he’d been anxious from the moment his master, the Viscount St. Mars, had decided to take himself off to France. They had quarreled mightily about St. Mars’s going alone, Tom refusing to be parted from him, and his master insisting that Tom stay behind.
    “I will not have you getting caught sneaking out of the country with me,” St. Mars had said. “They would be sure to hang you. Is that what you want?” Then, with a ghost of his former humour, he added, “And, besides, I thought you did not care for the French.”
    Ignoring an obvious attempt to distract him, Tom retorted, “And I thought you said you wouldn’t be in any danger, my lord.”
    St. Mars sighed. “Travelling alone, I do not expect to be, but I can hardly escape unnoticed with an army at my heels.”
    “I ain’t no army, my lord.”
    “A retinue, then. Have we not established that you are my gang of one? I’m counting on you to keep up the pretense with Lade. I want him