Sweet Lass of Richmond Hill: (Georgian Series) by Jean Plaidy Read Free Book Online Page B

coughed incessantly. She wanted to call a physician, but Thomas said it was only a chill and would pass. There was work to be done. More of the priests were in acute danger and it was the duty of men such as himself to bring them out of it.
    But when he tried to rise from his bed he could not do so and Maria decided that whatever he said she was going to call a doctor.
    She was scarcely aware of what was going on outside because Thomas was very ill, through an inflammation of his lungs; Maria was at his bedside day and night listening to his delirium.
    Meanwhile the rioters were threatening St James’s Palace and the Bank of England, and the King, realizing drastic action was necessary, called in martial law. The troops fired on the mob and after several hundred rioters had been killed, order was at last restored.
    The Gordon Riots were over.
    But Thomas Fitzherbert was very ill indeed: and even though the fever subsided, he did not regain his former good health.
    With the coming of that winter as his health did not improve, Maria decided to take him to the South of France where a warmer climate might be beneficial. They took a villa near the sea where Maria devoted herself assiduously to his comfort. But it was no use. Thomas’s lungs seemed permanently affected.
    Never before had Thomas realized what a blessing his marriage had been. In Maria he had the perfect nurse. Every hour of the day she devoted to him; she would sit with him at the open window looking out over the sea and talk about events in England, for which Thomas was homesick. Not so Maria. Those early years in France had given her a love of this country and she would not have objected to settling there altogether.
    But as the winter wore on it became apparent that Thomas was no better in France than in England and that far from improving he was growing steadily more feeble.
    He grew anxious about Maria’s future, knowing what had happened in the case of her first marriage, how the will which would have left her very comfortably off had never been signed, he was determined that nothing like that should happen again.
    He told Maria that he had made a will and that if he died she would be a comparatively rich woman.
    Maria said that she did not wish to talk of such an unlikely eventuality, but he insisted that she did.
    ‘The estates at Swynnerton and Norbury will have to go to my brother Basil. They were left to me with that provision. It is always a male heir who must inherit … and if we should have no son …’
    Maria nodded. The hope of children was one which she had been obliged to subdue, for it was almost certain now that Thomas would never father a child.
    ‘But that will not prevent my looking after you, Maria. The lease of the house in Park Street is not part of the family inheritance. That shall be yours, with all the furniture in it, also my horses and carriages, and in addition there will be an income of two thousand pounds a year – so, my dear, although you will not be as rich as I should like to make you, you will be well provided for.’
    ‘Oh, Thomas, do not speak of these things.’
    ‘Nor will I again. This is settled. I can now have the consolation of knowing that if I should die, you will be comfortably placed.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ she said sharply. ‘You are not going to die. When the spring comes …’
    But the spring came and there was no change in Thomas’s condition. His cough grew worse and when she saw the blood on his pillow she knew.
    That May he died. He was only thirty-seven; she was twenty-five years old – and once more a widow.

An Evening at the Opera
    SHE WAS NO longer young; she had been twice widowed; and now she was completely free to live the life of her choice. Deeply she missed Thomas; she thought affectionately now and then of Edward her first husband; but she discovered that freedom was pleasant. She was no longer beholden to anyone and she had enough money to live in the utmost comfort.
    She did not