Read Online The Royal Sorceress by Christopher Nuttall - Free Book Online Page A

kept their lives hellish.
    “I’m sure you’re pleased to see me,” he said. Lucy shrugged as she poured them both a drink. Jack sniffed the aroma as she passed him one of the glasses and lifted an eyebrow. A bottle of good brandy cost more than the average inhabitant of the Rookery could hope to make in a year through honest labour. He took a sip and placed the glass aside. “It has been such a long time.”
    He studied Lucy with frank interest. She had once had long red hair and perfect skin. Now, her hair was still red, but her skin was marked by age and despair. She wore a dark dress that contrasted oddly with her hair colour, tight in all the right places, yet decent enough to pass unnoticed in most parts of London. The Bow Street Runners wouldn’t move her along if they saw her, although some of them might solicit her for free sessions in the brothel. It was always nice to know which of the Runners could be corrupted at will.
    “Too long,” Lucy said, as she sat down opposite him. “I had almost given up hope of seeing you again. The French might have wanted to keep you.”
    “They knew better than to try,” Jack assured her. “Whatever differences we might have with King Louis and his Court, anything that weakens the British Empire would be sure of their support.”
    “Until they discover that the movement is also targeted on the French monarchy,” Lucy pointed out. “Don’t they realise that the British are not the only people in bondage?”
    “Oh, I’m sure they know,” Jack said. He grinned at her, mischievously. “That’s what makes the game so exciting.”
    He took another sip of the brandy. “I spoke to the American – Franklin – while I was at Versailles,” he said. “He still has high hopes of a second revolution in the colonies and he may be right, but Arnold is still clamping down hard on any expression of dissent. And the savages didn’t make it any easier by rising up against the settlers three years ago. They’ll forget what the redcoats did for them in a few more years, but right now all Arnold really has to worry about is Shays. And Shays has only a small band behind him.
    “No, the only hope for freedom is here, in Britain,” he concluded. “Once I did my duty by the French, I set out to return to the land of my childhood.”
    “And I’m sure you positively hated doing your duty by the French,” Lucy said, sweetly. Jack flushed. It had been years since they’d been lovers, back when he’d first become involved in the underground movement, but she still had the power to embarrass him. Lucy had always been so delightfully crude, unsurprisingly. Living on the streets did nothing for one’s airs and graces. She was so much more alive than many of the aristocratic ladies he had once known. “Do you really trust them to support us when the crowd starts making threatening noises in Paris?”
    Jack shook his head. “I think they’ll be sending for the troops again,” he said. The period following the aborted American Revolution had been followed by popular unrest in France, Prussia, Austria and even Russia. It had been a heady time, with hope burning brightly in the population, but the established order had been able to clamp down and reassume control. The streets of Paris had run red with blood as troops had fired on the crowds, dismantling the barricades and restoring King Louis to his throne. “But until then, we can count on their support.”
    The French had fought countless wars with the British over the last two centuries – and they’d lost every one of them. France, with its open borders, simply couldn’t concentrate its might upon building a navy to match its island rival, rendering it supreme in Europe, but weak at sea. The British Empire had expanded rapidly under Pitt to the point where it ruled nearly a quarter of the known world. There were British missions in China and even Japan, ones that might lead to conquest and settlement. King George and Lord