Read Online I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers by Katharine Ashe - Free Book Online

beneath February’s weak sun.
    “Coming to the crossroad soon, sir,” Treadwell called from the box.
    The foundling home where Martin Caulfield had discovered the three sisters was tucked in a crevice two miles beyond the northern edge of the village that they headed toward now. They would avoid the orphanage. Nothing could be found there. In that fishing village where the little girls had washed ashore twenty-three years ago, Eleanor intended to begin her search.
    A bell on the wharf rang, and a trio of weathered old fishermen lifted their heads as the carriage drew to a halt before the inn at the base of the village. At the feet of the buildings layered two deep along the rise of the coast, a strip of sand glowed silvery-gold in the late-day sun, stretching to a wharf where fishing boats that had already returned for the day were securely moored. Gulls circled overhead, white and gray against the pale sky. The place was quiet now, a sleepy wintertime village that, come summer, would be bustling with traders and merchants.
    “A prettier spot I’ve never seen,” Treadwell exclaimed as Taliesin dismounted. “Now you take care there,” he said to the boy who’d come from the mews alley toward the carriage horses. “Morgan le Fay will take a bite out of your arse if you snag the rein.”
    Taliesin walked forward and gave his mount into the boy’s hand. “This is Tristan,” he said with a hand on the stallion’s back. “Care for him as you would for your own mother.”
    “Don’t have a mother, sir. Just me ol’ da, an’ he’s out on the boats all but one Sunday a month.”
    “Then care for him as you would care for a gold coin, and I will see that you have a gold coin in return for it.”
    The boy’s eyes flared and he led Tristan away carefully.
    Taliesin went to the coach, but the door burst open before he reached it and Eleanor flew out. Eyes bright, she scanned the beach.
    “I remember this place,” she said, the wonder of a girl in her face. “But how could I remember it? I wasn’t but four at the time.”
    Her maid poked her head out of the opening. “Well, I’ll remember it for the rest of my life, miss, that’s for sure.”
    Eleanor smiled, and Taliesin’s throat thickened.
    “Will you, Betsy?”
    “Yes, miss. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen the sea.”
    “How perfectly delightful for you.” Her eyes were soft now in honest pleasure. “Then I am glad we set off on this journey after all.” Then her gaze came to him. It darted away swiftly. She was shy today of the challenge he had offered her the night before, apparently. But then her shoulders straightened beneath her cloak and her jaw set, delicate lines of bone and flesh he had once longed to caress. “Let us be about our task then, shall we?”
    NO ONE HAD anything to tell her. While the maid dozed in a corner of the taproom, Eleanor walked from shop to shop, emerging from each with a firmer step and averted face. From the base of the street, Taliesin traced her progress until she reached the end of the long row of buildings. She returned to him.
    “Nothing,” she said as she drew near. The breeze lifted the shimmering locks peeking from beneath her bonnet, and ruffled the hem of her cloak. “Some of them recall our wrecked ship, but no one has memory of a man searching for his three tiny daughters.”
    “Did you expect it?”
    “I did not. Of course. Don’t be smug.”
    “I’m not being smug.” Rather, he was having trouble ordering his thoughts. He’d never in eleven years imagined he would be alone with this woman again. He had never imagined he would want to be, and that he would want to touch her with the intensity with which he wanted to touch her now. “I hope you will find what you’re searching for.”
    She stared at him for a stretched moment, her brow creased in concentration. So familiar. So many times she’d looked at him like this, her eyes upon him but blind to him, her thoughts traveling