Will You Love Me in September

Thoughtfully I went to the butler's pantry and there found Harper already warming up the beverage my uncle took at this time. I understood now what the tension in the house meant. They were preparing for a coup, which meant that they were planning to bring James back to England. It was only natural that Hessenfield Castle-the home of staunch supporters of the Chevalier should be at the heart of the plot.

I thought of my great-grandfather, my great-uncle Carl and Lance Clavering. I did not believe the plotters could succeed, and I knew that there would be war.

I wanted to be alone to consider what this meant. As Priscilla had said, what did it matter which King was on the throne? But it mattered to fierce Protestants and perhaps fiercer Catholics. Wars, it seemed, were always about religion. Why was it that people who thought one thing was right wanted to force their views on others?

Uncle Paul was mild and gentle normally, but he had looked quite fierce when he had talked about the return of James.

I wondered what the family at Eversleigh would do if there was war and I was up in the north, which I presumed could be called Jacobite country, for the Scots would be more likely to support the Stuart line than the Hanoverian, although they were not of Catholic opinion by any means-except perhaps in the Highlands.

It was later in the afternoon when I went to my uncle's sitting room. I had made up my mind that I would ask him to tell me more of what was happening. I knew that there had been a company of Jacobites whose goal it had been to set James on the throne, though during the reign of Anne we had not heard a great deal about them-but perhaps I had not been sufficiently interested to notice. They had been mentioned from time to time, it was true, and there had always been a colony of them on the Continent, but I could see that now a new branch of the royal family had been brought to England, they might consider it was time to rise.

I came into the sitting room, but my uncle's chair was not there. I was just about to leave when I heard the sound of a movement in the anteroom which led from the sitting room. I went over to it, my footsteps silenced by the thick carpet. Then I heard someone-in a voice I had not heard before-mention me. I stood still, listening.

"But is it not strange that she should be here just at this time? I'll warrant she's acting as a spy. I suspected that from the moment I saw them on the road. She was with Eversleigh ... General Eversleigh ... though he was disguised as a plain citizen, and there was another of them with him ... a fop ... who perhaps is not such a fop ... Clavering. They were with the girl ... priming the girl. That's what she's here for. Who would suspect a girl of that age ... little more than a child?”

"No. no." That was my uncle. "She came because I invited her.”

"Why did you invite her ... at such a time?”

"It was before this seemed possible. Her visit was delayed.”

"Delayed! Of course it was delayed. I tell you they had wind of it. That's why she's here ... at this moment. She'll be peeping and prying into everything. I tell you she's a danger. She's putting us all at risk.”

I was too stunned to do anything, though I knew that at any moment the door would open and someone come out and find me here.

Yet I felt it was necessary for me to stay and listen. On the other hand, I wondered what they would do if they discovered me.

"You are making a great matter over nothing, Frenshaw," I heard my uncle say. "She is young ... innocent ... she knows nothing of these matters. She is concerned with riding and what color sash she will wear and visiting a family she has just discovered ...”

"They have made a Hanoverian of her, Hessenfield. Don't you see that? She's here to spy. Why, I wouldn't be surprised if ...”

I turned but I was too late. The door between the two rooms was suddenly opened.

I swung round. The man in the brown frieze coat and black stockings was looking at me, and his expression in those first seconds of confrontation was frightening. There was triumph and malevolence. He was proved right and at the same time he was face to face with someone whom he believed to be a spy from the enemy's camp.

"I came to see my uncle," I said as firmly as I could. "I was surprised not to find him here.”

"He is with friends," said the man, advancing toward me.

My heart was pounding so fiercely that I thought he must have noticed its beating against my bodice. I put my hands behind my back for fear he should see them trembling.

"Then I must not disturb him now," I said.

"Have you been waiting long?" The eyes, I noticed, were gray and penetrating. I felt that he was trying to look right into my mind and was convincing himself that he found there what he suspected.

"No ... I had just come in.”

"You must have heard us talking and known that he had visitors.”

"I did not realize it until a moment ago.”