The Mask Revealed (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 2) by Julia Brannan Read Free Book Online

take the stage. He did, standing silently and forbiddingly until all chatter had ceased. He cleared his throat loudly.
    “A Hymn to Virtue!” he declaimed solemnly, frowning down on his audience as though he knew them all to be guilty of the most heinous sins. Beth remembered him now as the puritanical gentleman who had sat next to her on the day she had thrown the wine in Edward’s face.
     
    “’Hail, heav’n-born virtue! Hail, supremely fair!
    Best-loved, and noblest object of my care!
    Inspire with wisdom, in the tempting hour,
    To spurn at pleasure and confess thy power;….’”
     
    A light spattering of applause greeted the end of this poem, which was some eight stanzas long. A vague sound as of musicians unpacking their instruments came from the adjoining room, and more than one eye turned hopefully to the door. Jeremiah Johnson smiled condescendingly at his audience.
    Beth sighed drowsily and settled into her seat. It was going to be a very long evening.
    “And now, a few stanzas from an ode occasioned by the recent happy success of His Majesty’s troops in Europe:
     
    ‘But how, blest sov’reign! shall th’ unpractis’d muse
    These recent honours of thy reign rehearse!
    How to thy virtues turn her dazzled views,
    Or consecrate thy deeds in equal verse?’”
     
    “How indeed?” cried Sir Anthony, springing from his seat and rousing Beth, who had been falling into a doze. “Why then make the effort? Being but recently wed, I have a fancy for a love poem. Do you have such a verse in your repertoire, my dear Mr Johnson? If so, please indulge my dear wife and I by performing it without further ado.” He smiled up at the disgruntled countenance of the performer, who was not at all inclined to indulge the ignorant fop with the sort of trivial nonsense he would no doubt appreciate.
    “I am sorry to disappoint you, sir,” he replied. “But I have not the facility to commit to memory verses of a superficial nature.”
    “Come, sir, one can hardly dismiss love as superficial!” came the rejoinder. “Was not Anthony undone by his love for Cleopatra? Were not Romeo and Juliet driven to the most desperate act of suicide by their passion? Was not King Arthur’s Camelot laid to waste because of…”
    “Yes, yes,” said Mr Johnson, thoroughly discomfited by the combination of Sir Anthony’s flowery outpourings, the titters of the company, and the general expressions of relief that his oration had been interrupted. “Perhaps you are right. Nevertheless, I do not recall any poems of love. If I may continue…”
    “Then perhaps I may be so bold as to recite a small verse, if the audience and my dear wife will indulge me?”
    The audience made it clear they would, and Beth, who thought she would rather hear anything than forty stanzas on the military prowess of King George, also nodded assent.
    “Very well, then,” said the baronet, placing one lace-covered hand on his hip and striking a tragic pose. “The poem is entitled The Constant Lover.” He bestowed a smile on his wife and began.
     
    “’Out upon it, I have loved
    Three whole days together!
     And am like to love three more,
     If it hold fair weather.
     
     Time shall moult away his wings
     Ere he shall discover
     In the whole wide world again
     Such a constant lover.’”
     
    Sir Anthony paused to bend and place a kiss on his stunned bride’s forehead, before continuing;
     
    “’ But a pox upon’t, no praise
     There is due at all to me:
     Love with me had made no stay,
     Had it been any but she.
     
     Had it any been but she,
     And that very, very face,
     There had been at least ere this
     A dozen dozen in her place.’”
     
    He bowed to the assembled company, seemingly oblivious of the shocked silence that greeted his performance.
    “Em, I believe the musicians are ready, Isabella,” said Lord Edward in an uncharacteristic forced tone of joviality. He never would have believed that he could feel pity for his