The Gathering Storm (The Jacobite Chronicles Book 3) Read Online Free

thing you two have in common is unpredictability. Men are usually very uncomfortable with babies. I should have expected, therefore, that Anthony would be relaxed with them, but it still came as a surprise. Whereas women are usually accustomed to children and know exactly what to do. But you look as though you’ve never held a baby before in your life. Have you?”
    “Yes,” said Beth, a little put out. “Once or twice. But you’re right. I haven’t had many dealings with babies. I didn’t have any younger brothers or sisters, or any other relatives with children, as you know. I like them, but I’m a bit frightened of them, too, to be honest.”
    “Whereas I had three younger sisters,” said the baronet smoothly. “And I lived in France for a time. The French are very child-orientated.”
    Beth thought of a marble headstone in an icy country churchyard in Switzerland, and then of a baby Angus with slate-blue eyes and ridiculous eyelashes, and a fuzz of fair hair, gazing mischievously up at his eight-year-old brother, anticipating the volatile, action-packed years to come.
    “Didn’t one of your servants have a baby?” Sir Anthony asked, breaking into her thoughts. She realised she was smiling foolishly, and bestowed the smile on the infant in her arms, where it would be understandable.
    “Martha,” Beth said. “Yes, she did, but when she got pregnant she was disowned by her father, and went away to her aunt’s to have the child. It was over a year before Thomas managed to track her down, and Ann was nearly two before Martha could get away from her aunt. She was a horrible woman, insisted that Martha owed her a lifetime of slavery because she’d allowed her to have her bastard child in the house. Children are quite different when they’re two,” she pointed out.
    “So I assume Martha’s not gone back there then,” Sir Anthony asked.
    “No, that was the first place Thomas asked. She’s just vanished. It’s very odd.”
    As Caroline was looking confused, Beth explained about Martha’s resignation after an altercation with Richard, and her inexplicable disappearance.
    Little Frederick, or Freddie as Edwin was already calling him, had now gone to sleep on Beth’s knee.
    “I’d like to get accustomed to babies,” she said wistfully, looking down at him.
    “My advice is to take your time,” Caroline said. “Get to know each other first. Because once a baby arrives, you’ll have no time for anything else.”
    “Unless you hire a nurse,” Anthony said.
    “Yes. But I didn’t want to do that, not straight away, at any rate. Your attitude is a relief, to be honest, Beth. I thought I was the only woman in the world who didn’t know much about babies. I’ve been learning as I go along. It’s fun, but exhausting, too. I though Edwin would be able to help more than he has. He really wants to, but what with the gin tax, all the argument about whether England should be paying for Hanoverian troops who are doing nothing at the moment, and now the imminent invasion, we hardly see each other.”
    “How is the invasion?” Sir Anthony asked, as though enquiring after the health of a mutual acquaintance.
    “Still imminent, as far as I know,” Caroline answered. “I’ll worry about it when the French are hammering on the door. To be honest, by the time Edwin gets home he’s too tired to talk about it, and I’m too tired to listen. But there was a letter from a spy at Louis’ court which pretty well detailed the whole plans, and gave a list of Jacobites who have since been rounded up. A lot of troops are being mobilised, and the navy is preparing. Or is prepared, probably, by now. Oh, and the king has written to Louis to demand the removal of the Pretender’s son from French soil.”
    “Louis will like that,” Beth said.
    “He did. He’s written back, basically saying ‘go to hell’. Something on the lines of ‘you abide by your treaty with us, and we’ll abide by ours with you,’ you know