Love Not a Rebel Read Online Free PDF

while. A long, long while. Ever since he had first set eyes upon her that long-ago night in the city of Boston.
    It had all begun then. The tempest of war.
    And the tempest that lay between them.…

Part I
Tempest in a Teapot

I   

    Boston, Massachusetts

December 16, 1773
    “W hiskey, Eric?” Sir Thomas suggested.
    Eric Cameron stood by the den window in Sir Thomas Mabry’s handsome town house. Something had drawn him there as soon as the contracts had been signed. He stared out at the night. An occasional coach clattered by on the cobbled streets, but for the most part, the night was very quiet. The steeples of the old churches shone beneath the moonlight, and from his vantage point, high atop a hill, Eric could see down to the common. The expanse of green was dark with night, cast in the shadow of the street lamps, and as peaceful as all else seemed.
    Yet there seemed to be a tension about the city. Some restlessness. Eric couldn’t quite describe it, not even to himself, but he felt it.
    “Eric?”
    “Oh, sorry.” He turned to his host, accepting the glass that was offered to him. “Thank you, Thomas.”
    Thomas Mabry clicked his glass to Eric’s. “Milord Cameron! A toast to you, sir. And to our joint venture with your
Bonnie Sue
. May she sail to distant shores—and make us both rich.”
    “To the
Bonnie Sue
!” Eric agreed, and swallowed the whiskey. He and Sir Thomas had just invested in a new ship to sail to far-distant ports. Eric’s stores of tobacco and cotton went straight to England, but with some of the recent trouble and his own feelings regarding a number of the taxes, he had wanted to experiment and send his own ships to southern Europe and even to the Pacific to acquire tea and some of the luxuries he had once imported from London.
    “Interesting night,” Thomas said, looking to the window as Eric had done. “They say that there’s to be a mass meeting of citizens. Seven thousand, or so they say.”
    “But why?”
    “This tea thing,” Thomas said irritably. “And I tell you, Parliament couldn’t be behaving more stupidly over this than if foolishness had been a requisite for representatives!”
    Amused and interested, Eric swallowed most of his drink. “You’re on the side of the rebels?”
    “Me? Well, that hints of treason, eh?” He made a snorting sound, then laughed. “I tell you this. No good will come of it all. The British government gave the British East India Company a substantial rebate on tea shipped here. It’s consigned to certain individuals—which will shove any good number of local merchants right out of business. Something will happen. In this city! With agitators like the Adamses and that John Hancock … well, trouble is due, that it is!”
    “This makes our private venture all the more interesting,” Eric pointed out.
    “That it does!” Thomas agreed, laughing. “Well, we shall get rich or hang together then, my friend, and that is a fact.”
    “Perhaps.” Eric grinned.
    “Well, now that we’ve discussed business and the state of the colony,” Sir Thomas said, “perhaps we should rejointhe party in the ballroom. Anne Marie will be quite heartbroken if you do not share a dance.”
    “Ah, Sir Thomas, I would not think to break the lady’s heart,” Eric said. He had promised his old friend’s daughter that they would not tarry on business all night, that he would come back to the ballroom and join her. “Of course, her dance card is always filled so quickly.”
    Sir Thomas laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “But she has eyes only for you, my friend.”
    Eric smiled politely, disagreeing. Anne Marie had eyes that danced along with her feet. She was ambitious, and a flirt, but a sweet and honest one. Eric was wryly aware of his worth on the marriage mart. His vast wealth would have made him highly eligible even if he had been eighty, his family pedigree would have stood him well had he rickets, black teeth, and a balding pate. He was