Read The House at Bell Orchard for Free Online Page B

silence and some trepidation for him to speak. It was not easy for her to persist in the face of his obvious disapproval, but she was stubbornly determined not to be turned from her purpose. Now that every other hope and dream was shattered, the solving of the mystery had somehow become the most important matter in her life.
    The Colonel turned at last to face her, but he did not move away from the window, and the golden evening light behind him dazzled her so that she could not clearly see his face. In that low-pitched, shadowy room, against that bright background, his tall figure seemed for a moment to be charged with indefinable menace, and a little tremor of fear passed through her. Impatiently she shook it off, telling herself that she was being intolerably foolish.
    “Have you never heard, Miss Tarrant,” he said slowly, “that it is sometimes prudent to let a sleeping dog lie?”
    Was it a warning, or a threat? The cold, quiet voice seemed to be the voice of a stranger, and not of the kindly man who had shouldered for her the burdens of the recent terrible days. Charmian pressed her hands tightly together, feeling the palms cold and clammy with an unnamed fear, but still some inner obstinacy drove her on.
    “I want to know the truth,” she replied flatly. “Perhaps I am wrong to disregard your advice, perhaps I appear ungrateful in not being guided by it, but I cannot rest until this mystery is solved.”
    “Then the truth you shall have,” Fenshawe replied coldly. “For your own sake I have sought to keep it from you, but I cannot permit you to start an investigation which must inevitably have consequences more far-reaching than you can even imagine. Remember that, when you begin to regret your curiosity.”
    “You know the truth?” Charmian spoke in a tone of incredulous inquiry, and then added with growing conviction: “You have always known it!”
    “Yes, I know it,” he repeated dispassionately, and moved away from the window at last, and came to stand before her. “Are you aware, Miss Tarrant, where your father’s political loyalties lay?”
    She shook her head, staring at him in growing bewilderment. “He had no interest in politics.”
    There was irony in the dark, secret face confronting her. “You are mistaken, Miss Tarrant. He felt a deep and passionate loyalty to his rightful King, and a profound faith in the ultimate triumph of the Stuart cause.”
    Charmian rose slowly to her feet, one hand at her breast, her eyes wide and horrified.
    “Are you trying to tell me, sir, that my father was a Jacobite?”
    He inclined his head. “That is precisely what I am telling you. He was a Jacobite, as I am, and all my family. That was the interest we had in common, the shared loyalty which first drew us together.”
    She shook her head, still staring at him in patent disbelief. “I cannot credit it,” she murmured. “All he cared about was his studies, the history he was preparing.”
    “A history of the struggle between King and Parliament,” the Colonel agreed in a level tone. “Studies which traced the fortunes of the Stuart dynasty for over a century. Do you marvel that from these should arise a deep conviction of King James’s unassailable right to the English crown and a desire to see the German usurper overthrown?”
    Charmian dropped down into her chair again; she was trembling so violently that she could no longer remain standing.
    “This is treason, sir,” she said in a shaken whisper.
    He shook his head. “In this house, Miss Tarrant,” he replied grimly, “the only treason is sympathy with the Elector of Hanover.”
    Charmian made a small, incoherent sound of dismay and disbelief, and covered her face with her hands. She knew, of course, that there were still people in England who hoped for the return of the exiled Stuart king, and there had been talk of late that his son, Prince Charles Edward, with the aid and blessing of Louis of France, was planning an attempt to recover