Free Love & Folly by Sheila Simonson

chilly, and very publick embrace. Tom had never met Elizabeth's late
stepmother.
    "What is it, Tom?" Dishevelled but not displeased, she pulled away.
    "I'll explain in a few minutes, my dear. Is Owen Davies about?"
    "Upstairs in the withdrawing room with the girls."
    "Good" Tom sounded grim but turned and began instructing the butler to see to a double ration
of rum for the coachman and Sims.
    "Aye, that's the ticket," said Sims. "Cor, I wasn't 'arf glad to see the old pile loom up A close run
thing, me lady, but th'major would push on."
    Sims had been Tom's bâtman and was outspoken, but he rarely slipped into calling his
master by the old rank these days Elizabeth deduced that he had wanted to stop at Chacton. "Never mind,
Sims, you're here in one piece."
    Sims felt his nose. "I ain't so sure, me lady."
    Barney Greene stood shivering behind Tom, Mrs. Smollet bustled out to receive her orders, the
footman slammed in laden with portmanteaux, and Fisher tried to hustle Sims to the kitchen for his noggin
of rum. It was quite a mob scene but eventually Elizabeth sorted everyone out. She led Tom upstairs, with
Barney, still shivering, and the butler trailing behind. Both gentlemen made for the fire when they reached
the withdrawing room. Fisher plied them with brandy whilst Owen Davies and the twins watched in
wide-eyed silence.
    At last everyone was seated once more and Tom, standing before the fire with one foot on the
fender and a glass of brandy in his hand, had their full attention.
    "What is it?" Elizabeth prompted. "What has happened?"
    He frowned down at the glass. "A plot to assassinate the Cabinet was uncovered Thursday. There
was a skirmish in Cato Street between the Runners and the conspirators, and the Guards were called out.
Some of the ringleaders of the plot escaped, and one at least was killed. Most of them have been rounded
up. They meant to blow up Lord Harrowby's house whilst the Cabinet members dined."
    "Good God," Elizabeth muttered into the stunned silence.
    Lord Harrowby's house in Grosvenor Square lay within sight of the Conway town house. Tom
had been living in a powder keg. Elizabeth felt sick.
    "How I wish I'd been there!" Owen Davies was very pale.
    Tom regarded him for an unsmiling moment. The poet's eyes dropped. "You may thank your
stars you were safe in my book room, Davies. It was a stupid, wrong-headed business, and it has probably
set the cause of Reform back ten years."
    Owen bit his lip. "But if it had succeeded..."
    Barney Greene growled in his throat.
    Tom set his glass on the mantel. "Do you fancy you'd have had your revolution? Don't be a fool,
Davies. If the ministers had been killed, they'd have been replaced at once, and you may imagine the
repression their successors would have exercised in the name of self-defence. It's bad enough as it is. The
group was riddled with informers, a practice such conduct justifies. Respectable opinion was against the
government after Peterloo. It will now reverse. Mark my words, Englishmen do not like violent threats
against Parliament, however unrepresentative it may be. The government are now clapping every known
agitator in prison, confiscating pamphlets, and stiffening enforcement of the sedition laws. Publick opinion
will support them."
    "Sheep!"
    "If by sheep you mean the Publick, I think they show good sense. Blood in the streets may sound
animating in the safe precincts of a college, but there is nothing ennobling about it."
    Davies said between clenched teeth, "Was there not blood in the streets of Manchester?"
    "Yes, and if that colonel of fencibles had had the wit of a peahen he'd never have ordered his men
out into the crowd. Don't fancy these fatheads in Cato Street were heroes, Davies. They were fools and
knaves and deserve the fate that awaits them."
    The twins had been watching this exchange with their hands clasped in identical attitudes of
horror, Jean pale as snow, Maggie flushed.
    "Did you come home to warn Owen?" Jean burst out.
    Tom