Read Online On a Long Ago Night by Susan Sizemore - Free Book Online Page A

letters he had had Honoria
    write to the British trade representative in the city — letters that
    would ensure an easy captivity and quick freedom for her and her
    companions if he were to hand them over to Ibrahim Rais for
    delivery. He would see that two of those letters were delivered; he
    could do that much for her. She had not questioned his asking for
    three separate letters, though she had thought asking for Greek and
    Latin as well as English was peculiar. He had told her that he was
    testing her since she was so proud of knowing languages. That, at
    least, had not been a lie.
    "Two of the captives I hold will go to the cells in the Citadel,
    lord," he told Ibrahim. He handed two folded letters to Ibrahim's
    clerk. "We will transfer the red-haired woman from my ship to the
    bagnio cells," he informed another of the servants. "She can at
    least earn our master a commission on her sale."

    "I cannot go in there," James said as he stood before the clean
    white Georgian face of the Pynehams' townhouse. I cannot face
    her. Not after what I did to her . He looked at his father in utter
    panic. The cool blue gaze the viscount turned on him was pitiless.
    "You do not comprehend, sir." The viscount said not a word, but
    kept a stern, steady gaze on his son. James was well aware of the
    man's own years' long search. "It does not compare," James told
    him as a trio of familiar women, dressed as gaily as butterflies,
    emerged from the next carriage in the line crowding the street
    before the Pyneham residence.
    The women crowded up behind them, leaving James no
    chance to back away and run for his life. He took a deep breath,
    reminded himself that he had faced hell itself a few times, and this
    could hardly be very much worse. Duty and honor required this of
    him, though the strange woman who awaited him inside would care
    not a fig for the requirements of his conscience. The girl he had
    known in Algiers. He sighed. That girl was gone forever. She had
    been glad to go, though sometimes he pretended otherwise. He had
    seen her face and form at the ball, and discovered his craving at
    least was no pretense. But he had seen no sign of his Honoria's
    personality within the stiff, stern, but altogether glorious shell of
    the duke's daughter.
    Perhaps he could remember the scent of his Honoria's skin
    with vivid longing, and the feel of her legs wrapped around him
    when they cradled him inside her, but that was only memory and
    imagination. The woman he intended to claim was a stranger, and
    clearly counted herself his enemy. There was battle waiting inside,
    not reunion.
    The relish of the challenge stirred to cunning life. He smiled
    with wicked anticipation. Honoria, dried up and marinating or not,
    had the same memories of his bedchamber as he. And he'd had
    eight years more practice at making love. The woman who'd
    snubbed him the other night was a bluestocking spinster, but she
    had wildness running deep inside her that he knew very well.
    Rumor and gossip proclaimed the duke's heir to be beyond
    any interest in men, but she had been his wanton lover once. Was
    the wildness dead? Had he killed her passion? There were heavy
    bets laid in the clubs against the duke's heir taking a groom despite
    the dowry and her father's open attempt to find her a husband. He
    had heard those rumors without knowing the cruel jests were aimed
    not at a stranger, but at a woman he'd known with delicious
    intimacy. There were bets about who would take her and her huge
    dowry.
    James didn't want the dowry. He didn't want to win the
    wagers. But, he decided as he stood on the steps, he would see that
    no one else won the bets, either.
    Then the women behind them were on the stairs. James found
    himself suddenly immersed in the scent of perfume and the sound
    of breathless laughter as his father made a witty comment to Mrs.
    Ashby and her daughters. In this crowd, James marched forward
    bravely into the lair of the Pynehams.
    There were no odd looks