Love & Folly Read Online Free

Just keep practising and you'll have it down pat any day
now."
    Beside her Jean gave a watery giggle. Brecon had caused some consternation over Christmas by
calling all female persons above a certain age mama. At the time Elizabeth had been less amused than her
sisters, but she was glad now that the baby had diverted his aunt from her self-absorbed gloom. "Will you
go to Auntie Jean, then, Ba?"
    Lord Brecon gave an assenting bounce and was duly handed over. Dickon, on Maggie's knee,
crowed with delight as she began to tickle his round person, and the atmosphere lightened
appreciably.
    Elizabeth's sons, like her sister, were twins, though the boys did not look much alike. It was some
consolation to her that she had produced not one but two heirs to the earldom at the first try. Among them,
her father's wives had borne eight daughters and no sons, which was why Tom was Lord Clanross.
    In another sense the boys were a fortunate gift. As with Maggie's Una, the birth had been attended
by complications. When she woke at last from a high fever, a week after she had begun labour, the
physician had informed Elizabeth that she would bear no other children. In the weeks--nay, months--of
melancholic reflection that followed, Elizabeth had clung to the fact that at least she had given Tom an
heir.
    She could not help feeling that she had failed him, even so. Tom had been orphaned young and
had lost his own twin sister to the same illness that had killed his mother. While he cared not a whit about
securing the succession, Elizabeth thought he needed a large family and she had wanted to give him many
children, daughters as well as sons.
    Elizabeth's barrenness was grief to her, but it was a grief she kept to herself. Tom had never
spoken of it. Indeed she sometimes wondered whether he had been told. However, his affection for the
boys was unqualified. And, she thought, half sad, half amused, if she had not given him daughters, at least
she had given him a raft of sisters.
    Besides Jean and Maggie, who were great favourites with him, there were Anne in London and
Kitty in Scotland, Elizabeth's full sisters. And, in the Dower House down the gentle hill upon which the
palace of Brecon sat in icy neoclassical splendour, where they were attended in great comfort by the
redoubtable governess, Miss Bluestone, resided the three other Conway daughters. Fanny, Georgy, and
Caro, Jean and Maggie's full sisters, were still in the schoolroom. Quite a population of Conway females. And they will all have to be presented, Elizabeth thought. Perhaps Tom and I should emigrate to Upper
Canada before the evil day arrives.
    She watched her sons and her sisters romping on the Turkey carpet and wished Tom would come.
Parliament would be dissolved at once, he had said in his letter. The Whigs were hopeful that Prinny would
bring them in at last. Tom was less sanguine and less enthralled by the current Whig leadership. The
questions he considered most urgent--the want of work, the price of bread, Catholic Emancipation to
placate turbulent Ireland, redistribution of Parliamentary seats--were not likely to receive much attention
even from the Whigs, if, as rumour had it, Prinny intended to divorce Queen Caroline.
    On what grounds? Elizabeth wondered. Infidelity? But Prinny was famous--or notorious--for a
series of plump mistresses, not to mention his morganatic wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert. Surely he would nor be so
brass- faced as to sue for divorce on the grounds of his wife's amatory adventures. What then? And if he
does bring a bill of divorcement, will the queen countersue for divorce on the grounds of bigamy?
    A divorce was bound to be a political matter. The parties would take sides, not on the truth or
falsehood of the evidence, but on the basis of the advantages to be gained from taking one position or the
other. Precisely the sort of false dilemma to produce rioting in the streets, as if there were not already
enough civil disorder.
    Elizabeth sighed.
    "Do look,