Read Online The Book of the Seven Delights by Betina Krahn - Free Book Online

door. The wood splintered and shouts of fury erupted as her attackers tore away the broken wood and encountered yet another obstacle. Coordinating their efforts with a verbal count, they alternately pushed and pulled to rock the washstand free.
    "Keep out—I'm warning you—" She thought frantically of her journals and maps… her precious cache of coin… her gun !
    Just as she dove for her carpetbags, the invaders gave a last, mighty heave that sent the washstand toppling across the tile floor and slammed the broken door back against the wall.

Chapter Seven
    Bod ies— men —poured into the darkened room from the torchlit loggia. Some paused to locate the room's occupant and others rushed forward with weapons drawn to defend their possession of the room.
    Her involuntary-scream served only to draw them down on her as she knelt by her carpetbags… up to her elbows in table linen, metal teapots, tins of sugar, and boxes of quinine…
    They hauled her to her feet, shouting: " Ou est le deserteur? " When she didn't answer immediately, they gave her a shake and barked: " Ou est Smeeth !"
    Light bloomed around them from a lantern… held by the hotel manager, who was himself being held by two burly men in uniforms.
    "How dare you invade my rooms in the dead of—"
    "Where is he?" the manager said as they dragged him into the room. The quiver in his voice and the haunted look in his eyes fed her rising fear. "Just tell the sergeant where he is, mademoiselle, and they will leave you alone."
    "I have done nothing wrong, and I—" She twisted and shoved against their grip on her arms, mildly astonished by her own behavior. Where did this mad impulse to fight come from? "Tell them where who is?"
    She stilled long enough to turn to the manager and then the man he seemed to be watching… the one he called "sergeant." The man was thickset and muscular, with coarse features and flat, black eyes.
    "I have no idea what you're talking about."
    "Smeeth," the sergeant spat out, shoving his grizzled face into hers. " Ou est —Smeeth? Dites nous ."
    They thought Smith was here with her? It was only then that she made sense of the fact that they wore khaki uniforms and white cylindrical hats with neck flaps and military badging. They were dressed like those men on the dock earlier… the ones who had refused to go after the thieves… "Legionnaires."

    "Tell them I have no idea what they're talking about," she ordered the manager, to translate. "I've been in my room since I left dinner with Mister LaCroix." The sergeant's response to the translation was a guttural snarl that sounded like an oath and a rough wave to his men that ordered them to search everything.
    Suddenly teapots, petticoats, shoes, brushes, linen, and journals were being dragged out, examined, and tossed onto the floor.
    "Stop!" She strained against the Legionnaires' grip. "Make them stop! I have no idea where this 'Smith'
    person is." She looked to the ham-fisted sergeant, whose sullen gaze was roaming her nightgown with alarming interest. "I swear to you, I have no idea where he is!"
    The sergeant looked to the men at the window who had opened the shutters to search the tiny balcony and the street below. They shook their heads. Then he looked to the men who were riffling her bags and then to the soldiers who had checked under the bed and behind what little furniture might offer concealment. Nothing there, either. He turned back to Abigail.
    "Smeeth is deserteur . You know thees word? Deserteur ?" He began to speak freely in French and snarled an order at the manager, who translated: "He says… Smeeth abandoned duty… fled under fire.
    His cowardice cost many lives. They will not rest until he is found and punished."
    Her gaze caught on the sergeant's huge hand, which was clenched in a fist so tight that his sun-darkened skin was turning white. She looked up, and the soul-deep malice in his face stopped her breath.
    "The sergeant says"—the manager's final translation