Free Love & Folly by Sheila Simonson Page A

glanced at Elizabeth and smiled slightly. "I came home because I wanted to come home." He
sighed. "And to warn Davies. You would be well advised to lie low for a sixmonth, Davies. That pamphlet
your friends published..."
    "It was privately printed," Davies said angrily.
    "Be that as it may, the Runners have come by a copy."
    "Oh, no!" Jean whispered.
    Davies twisted his hands. "How?"
    "I don't know. An informer, perhaps."
    "Not among my friends."
    "Perhaps one of your friends was careless," Tom went on. "You need have no immediate
apprehension for your safety, but I'd avoid sending out any work that might be construed as sedition.
Including lampoons on Lady Conyngham's girth."
    Davies blushed, as well he might. Prinny's mistresses were all substantial ladies. Hardly an
original subject for satire.
    Elizabeth felt a twinge of sympathy. Davies's political poems were full of bloodthirsty images and
clarion calls. The association would do Tom no political good at all, but the boy was young. As she watched
her sisters, her inclination to sympathy faded. Maggie looked worried. Jean--lips parted, wide eyes fixed on
Davies--looked as if she had seen a fearful vision.

6
    Rumours of the conspiracy to kill the ministers at a banquet shot through the countryside ahead of
the worst snowstorm in a decade. It was two days before the mail coach broke through drifts on the London
road to bring Winchester reassuring news of the plotters' capture. There was much bustle in the garrison,
but it was Emily's opinion that any stray revolutionary would be too cold to move, far less throw
bombs.
    The newspapers Richard and Johnny pored over were full of the most alarming ideas. Johnny
chafed at his inaction. Emily suspected her husband was saving the more outlandish details of the hysteria
for his next satire, which, he said sardonically, would probably see print sometime around mid-century at
the rate the government was restricting the press. Prinny--no one could remember to call him King--had
offered a thousand-pound reward for the apprehension of a caricaturist.
    That fact and confirmation of the more lurid events of the Cato Street affair came in a letter Tom
writ Richard from Brecon. The catalogue of books in the Brecon library went on apace, and Lady Jean and
Lady Margaret were assisting the poet in his labours. That announcement galvanised Johnny. Although he
had taken only a few tottering steps with the aid of crutches, he announced he was healed and meant to
depart for Brecon the next morning. It took Emily's pleas and his own weakness to convince him that
laming himself in the cause of chivalry was an extreme course, and that Clanross's presence at Brecon would
keep the poet in bounds.
    As the week-end wore on, Johnny's moods ranged from champing impatience to flat despair, until
even Emily, who entered into his feeling with the utmost sympathy, wanted to shake him. He was copying
Volume Two with savage speed and considerably less elegance than Volume One.
    On Tuesday, the surgeon replaced Johnny's clumsy splint with a contraption of canvas and
whalebone that kept the bone immobile so long as Johnny did not put his full weight on the limb. He
learned to manoeuvre on his crutches and dined at table like a Christian. His temper improved, but his
desire to leave did not abate.
    So heartened was Emily by her patient's progress that she gave a small dinner party in his honour,
with Richard's friends, the Wilbrahams, and their daughter as guests. Miss Wilbraham was an amiable girl,
popular with the subalterns in garrison, and Major Wilbraham and his wife, though unfashionable, were
easy, unaffected people. Though the gentlemen showed a tendency to lay out battle plans on the napiery,
Emily's dinner went smoothly. Afterwards, Miss Wilbraham sang one too many Italian airs. She
accompanied herself on the lute and looked classical.
    Emily fancied she had succeeded in diverting Johnny from his obsession with the Brecon ladies for
a few hours. She sent