Read Online The Cornish Heiress by Roberta Gellis - Free Book Online Page B

people how we are going to discover all
Bonaparte’s secrets.”
    Roger laughed. “I suppose d’Ursine is a bit
unbalanced, but he is not a fool for all that. And as for Hawkesbury’s talking,
it’s necessary in the Foreign Office. Look at the mess Cornwallis made of the
peace because Talleyrand talked circles around him.”
    “You are not thinking that Hawkesbury would have done
better, are you?” Philip asked, turning his eyes from the street and in his
astonishment nearly running down an innocent, crossing sweeper.
    “Watch where you’re going!” Roger exclaimed, but he had to
laugh at Philip’s protest.
    “Unfortunately not. I don’t think there’s anyone in our
government that can match Talleyrand for sly cleverness. But Hawkesbury might
have exhausted him—or put him to sleep—so that a few reasonable provisions
could be slipped in.”
    Philip shrugged. “All right for diplomatic conferences, but
he still talks too much for my taste. I can just see him mentioning to a small,
select group the latest effort to discover Bonaparte’s intentions about
invasion. Then one of them will mention it to a friend, a wife, a secretary.
Pretty soon we might just as well have published what we are going to do in the
Court Calendar.”
    That was just what Roger feared. He bit his lip. “If you’ve
changed your mind, Philip—” he began eagerly.
    “God, no!” Philip exclaimed, grinning. “I have not enjoyed
myself so much since Perce and I took that boat out and nearly drowned. I would
just like to escape the consequences this time.”
    The light remark sent a chill down Roger’s spine. He had
caned both boys for their disobedience and ill-judged daring, but the
consequences this time might be more permanent than a few welts. Then he said,
“That Perce! Oh, Lord!” because he suddenly connected the boy with the friend
of Philip’s who had hung around Sabrina for a while. He hadn’t given him much
thought because he had realized that no one had much chance once Lord Elvan
entered the field, but if he had then remembered the tall, fair stripling with
a cultivated expression of vacuity and a devil of mischief in his pale eyes, he
might have…
    No, it was Sabrina’s right to marry whom she chose. Roger
prayed he was wrong about Elvan for Sabrina’s sake. She was so precious to
Leonie, the last of her father’s family, the only one saved from the shipwreck
that had drowned her Uncle Joseph, his wife, and his son. It had been thought
that the two little daughters were also lost, but a strong Irish maid had been
holding the little girls when Lady Alice and her son had been swept off the
lifeboat trying to save Joseph. The small boat had been driven north by wind
and current and had come to ground at last on a tiny island west of Scotland.
    The people were poor and rather primitive, they had done
what they could for the survivors, but Sabrina’s elder sister and the maid had
died and Sabrina herself had been sick for a long time. None of the other
survivors had known her, and she knew her name, Sabrina Evelina Alice de
Conyers—but that was all. To the ignorant people of the island the name was no
clue to where or how to inform Sabrina’s relatives, if she had any. They knew
she was “a lady”, but that was all. No, Roger thought, life had to come right
for Sabrina. It was a miracle she was alive; it was by a second miracle she had
been found; surely a third miracle would make her happy.
    The ride was not long, and Roger brought his attention back
to Philip, offering a few practical suggestions about the kind of behavior that
would attract the least attention on the road. Once home, Philip ran upstairs
to his father’s dressing room to change into the riding clothes that been laid
ready earlier. He exchanged his white nankeen pantaloons for rather stained
buckskins, his Hessian boots for a pair with tan, turned-down tops and spurs.
Philip did not ordinarily use spurs, his horses being lively enough