Read Online The Cocoa Conspiracy by Andrea Penrose - Free Book Online

footsteps thrashed through the bushes. “Sandro!” Mellon must have seen the earl fall, for he had cut away from his place in the shooting line and was rushing to help.
    “Get down , Charles,” he ordered, grabbing his uncle’s legs and pulling him to the ground. “You too Rochemont. Don’t move.”
    The comte gave a dazed moan. A purpling bruise on his forehead showed that he had struck his head on a rock. “My face, my face,” he whined. “I fear I shall have a permanent scar.”
    “Stop squirming,” snapped Saybrook. “And stop mewling, unless you wish to draw another round of fire.”
    “What the devil—” wheezed Mellon as the comte froze.
    “Stay here.” Slipping a long-bladed knife from his boot, Saybrook scrambled to his feet and set off at a run.
     
    Arianna didn’t linger long over her tea and toast. Discreetly avoiding the main drawing room, where her hostess was busy organizing a shopping trip to the nearby village, she hurried up one of the side staircases and took refuge in her chambers. Looking at lace or plumes held absolutely no interest for her. Feminine frills were more often than not a cursed nuisance. She much preferred the freedom of men’s garb—breeches and boots—rather than yards and yards of suffocating skirts and delicate slippers.
    Arianna thought longingly of her buckskins back in Grosvenor Square, and the many times in her previous life that she had ventured into public dressed as a boy. Ha! The other guests, both male and female, would most likely swoon on the spot if she were to gallop across the marquess’s manicured lawns riding astride.
    Not that she would give rein to any such unladylike urges. She had vowed to herself that Mellon would have no cause to regret his invitation.
    Still, her spirits were brightened by the mere notion of shocking the ton .
    Humming a cheerful Bach fugue, Arianna began gathering up her projects. There was Dona Maria’s journal, with its deucedly difficult German script to decipher—not to speak of measurements and ingredients that sounded even more foreign. Without a kitchen close by for constant experimenting . . .
    Huffing a sigh, Arianna set the notebook aside in favor of starting with a simpler task.
    Coward, she chided herself.
    But she quickly assuaged all twinges of guilt by reminding herself that tomorrow was Saybrook’s birthday, so it made sense to take advantage of his absence and wrap his gift now.
    Perhaps the magnificent engravings of the cacao fruit would help assuage whatever ill was plaguing him, she mused. Chocolate was, after all, considered to have potent medicinal benefits. Even Saybrook’s good friend Basil Henning, the highly skeptical Scottish surgeon, conceded that its effects on both body and spirit were intriguing.
    Taking up her purchase from the rare book shop, as well as a colorful pasteboard box, scissors and ribbon, she carried them to the escritoire.
    Once the brown paper wrapping had been stripped off the leather-bound volume, Arianna paused to once again admire the exquisite detail and subtle hues of the colored illustrations. They were truly lovely works of art, and she looked forward to seeing Saybrook’s expression when he opened the cover—
    Her own face suddenly fell as her fingers touched upon the inside of the back binding. A corner of the marbled end paper had come loose.
    “Damnation,” she muttered under her breath. It must have been snagged during the scuffle.
    Setting the book down on the blotter, she angled it to the light and smoothed at the rough edge. The damage appeared to be minor, so perhaps if she could find a glue pot in the marquess’s library . . .
    How odd.
    There seemed to be a bulge beneath the decorative paper. She took a moment to check the front cover.
    Yes, yes, there is a distinct difference .
    Frowning, Arianna fetched Saybrook’s silver book knife from the adjoining room. Sliding the slim blade into the opening, she ever so gently worked it up and down.
    A bit