The Pride of Lions Read Online Free PDF

toward an Italian influence, having spent nearly forty years in exile there.”
    “Papists,” Colonel Halfyard snorted. “The Old Pretender is an old fool. Maintains a royal court in Rome! Who does he think he is?”
    “The rightful heir and King of England, Scotland, and Ireland,” Merriweather drawled. “Ousted from his throne by a German usurper.”
    “King George is a direct descendant of James the First.”
    “Through the daughter’s succession, not the son’s.”
    “James Stuart is a fool, like his father before him,” Sir Alfred insisted. “He should be thankful he was only exiled and not beheaded for his papist spoutings. Smartest thing Cromwell ever did, you ask me, lopping off any fool notion Charles might have had to try to reclaim his crown. A pity we don’t have generals like him today … er, present company excepted, naturally. At any rate, why these Jacobites persist in making threats and screaming treasonous accusations is beyond me. Only last month they arrested one of them right in the Commons!”
    “Cheek of them,” the colonel agreed. “Cropping up everywhere. Can’t be trusted. Don’t know who your friends are anymore.”
    “One thing we do know is that Louis of France will never mount another invasion fleet to support the Stuart claim. Not after that sorry fiasco last year.”
    “Lunacy.” Halfyard nodded. “Launching a fleet in February. Crossing the Channel in the dead of winter. Eleven good ships lost. Hundreds … thousands of stout lives lost for no good reason.”
    “A pity Charles Edward Stuart did not go down with the rest of the fleet.”
    “Yaas.” Merriweather pursed his lips. “The insolent pup. Imagine him declaring to all and sundry that he will not rest until he has returned victorious to England and won the throne back in his father’s name. Such impudence deserves a watery grave, what?”
    Sir Alfred harrumphed emphatically to show accord. His complexion was ruddier than normal, an indication that he had been enjoying a liberal quantity of Spanish Madeira wine. The lace that was bunched around his throat and cuffs was sprinkled generously with the crumbs he had taken away from the dinner table, some of which parted company with the cloth as he gestured angrily with one hand.
    “I say we should hang all the blasted Jacobites we can lay a hand to. The higher the better.”
    “That would likely involve laying waste to a vast portion of Scotland,” Hamilton suggested blithely, “since most of the Pretender’s support comes from that quarter.”
    “Nothing but savages,” Sir Alfred sputtered. “We should have driven them all into the sea when we thrashed them raw back in ’15. But what did we do? We gave ’em amnesty, that’s what we did. We gave ’em back their land and built them military roads better than our own. All of Scotland was to be disarmed and subdued thirty years ago, but tell me, can you walk anywhere in that godforsaken land and not find one of their skirted warlords brandishing a bloody great broadsword across your face? Especially now that they’ve found themselves an idiot who actually believes he can rouse them into conquering the world.”
    “Not all of Scotland is eager to fight for a Stuart king,” Damien pointed out cautiously. “Most of the population is as wary of stirring up old feelings as we are. As for their being savages, I daresay there were as many Scots at Cambridge and Oxford as there were Englishmen.”
    “Bah! Is that why I sent you to law school, boy? So you could sound like a lawyer? Where is your anger? You lost a grandfather and an uncle in the last Jacobiteuprising, and I’m not ashamed to admit you damned near lost your father from sheer terror. Not savages, eh? They live in mountain caves and dress like wild men. They walk about in woolen petticoats, which they are not in the least modest about casting aside when they need their sword arms free. Dash me, can you even begin to imagine the sight of a