Intrigued by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online Page B

French relations, will be invaluable to you, Autumn, which is why she wants you to meet them first. Trust Mama to do what is right, and I will wager a year from now, if not sooner, you will be a happily married young woman,” Henry Lindley assured his sister as, linking his arm in hers, they returned to the house.
    It rained for the next week, and Autumn thought often of her brother Charlie, on the road north with his children. Actually, the weather would be of help to them, provided they didn’t catch an ague. Only someone in a great hurry, or in desperation, would ride in such weather.
    The day before she and her mother were to leave for France, the Earl of Welk arrived, angrily demanding to know what had happened to his daughter’s children, and where they were now.
    The Marquis of Westleigh welcomed the angry man into his Great Hall and then told him, “My mother will discuss the matter with you, my lord. I know little, if anything, but that my sister-in-law was murdered in cold blood by parliamentary forces. My youngest sister, Lady Autumn Leslie, was there and can tell you what happened that day, but you must speak gently to her. The shock of that day still pains her.”
    The Earl of Welk was a spare man of medium height and sallow complexion. His severe black garb did little to alleviate an impression of meanness. He turned to the Dowager Duchess of Glenkirk. “Well, madame?”
    “My son and our grandchildren were here several weeks ago, but where they are now, my lord, I have not the faintest notion. I told Charles that I did not want to know, in order that I might protect his safety, and that of our shared grandchildren. Surely you can understand.”
    “Your son is not fit to care for my grandchildren, madame!” came the angry reply.
    “Indeed, my lord, and what makes you think such a thing?” Jasmine demanded in haughty tones. “My son is their father.”
    “Your son is profligate, a wastrel,” the earl answered.
    Jasmine laughed. “Even in his callow youth Charlie could neither be called profligate nor wastrel by any. And once he had met your daughter, my lord, once his heart was engaged, there was no one for him but Bess. He was loyal, loving, and faithful to her from the moment they met, and you, my lord, know it well.”
    “My daughter would be alive had she not been wed to your son,” the earl responded.
    “Your daughter spent the happiest years of her young life with Charlie and their children. She is dead not because of my son but because of the actions of one of your godly parliamentary troopers. They burst into her home and battered her majordomo to death. When Bess protested, this devil, without a word, shot her dead. My own daughter witnessed the entire incident and would, herself, have been killed had the captain of these men not entered the house. When he did, the trooper was stripping the rings from your dead child’s stiffening fingers. These are the creatures you and your ilk have loosed on England, my lord! Thieves and murderers of the innocent.”
    “The Stuarts are not innocent,” the earl muttered.
    “The Stuarts, for all their royalty, are like the rest of us, John Lightbody. They are human, and subject to human frailty. The king was a bad king, but he was a good man. You were not satisfied with deposing him. Nay, your ilk had to murder God’s own annointed, and then mouth piously to excuse your crime. Shame on all of you!”
    “It is easy to see where your heart lies, madame,” the Earl of Welk said grimly.
    “My heart, sir, lies in a tomb at Glenkirk with my husband, who died at Dunbar in defense of king and country. I espouse no cause, nor did my not-so-royal Stuart son. As to our grandchildren, as I have told you, I do not know where Charlie has taken them, but wherever it is, it is for their safety’s sake. Their surname would, it now appears, have made them targets of your godly parliamentarians. Given the way in which they treated Charlie’s little cousin, the