Read Online The Courtesan by Susan Carroll - Free Book Online

softly, Cass fought to choke back her impatience and feel carefully, terrified lest she tip the bottle over and spill out those few remaining precious drops. Her tension mounted until her fingers closed around the welcome shape of the bottle.
    Clutching the brandy to her like a miser guarding her last coin, she made her way back to the table and sagged down in her chair. Uncorking the bottle, she did not even bother with the refinement of a glass this time, tipping the brandy straight to her lips.
    The fiery liquid flowed over her tongue and down her throat. Only when the brandy pulsed its warmth through her veins did her dark need begin to ease.
    Cass lowered the bottle to the table with a long sigh, feeling ashamed of her frantic haste. Cerberus came to thrust his head in her lap, his cold nose nudging her hand as he emitted a low whine.
    The poor beast had seen her at the bottle too many times, Cass reflected ruefully. Witnessed the loss of control, the rages, the unleashing of unbridled impulses that could make her a danger to others, even more so to herself.
    She petted the dog, scratching him behind the ears. “Don’t fret, old friend,” she murmured. “There is not enough left in the bottle to get me drunk tonight. I’ll have no more until that idiot girl Finette turns up here again.”
    Her fingers tightening around the bottle, Cass reflected that she would have a few sharp words to say to the girl about betraying the secret of Cass’s ability to practice necromancy to Gabrielle Cheney.
    Cass almost trusted Gabrielle as a friend, as much as Cass ever trusted anyone. But all the same, Finette needed to be taught a lesson. Cass lifted her bottle and took another long swallow although she despised herself for it.
    The drink was a weakness, she knew, and one she could ill afford. But sometimes it seemed the only magic that could keep her ghosts at bay. Her sisters had risen unbidden from her copper bowl upon more than one occasion to stare at Cass with hard accusing eyes.
    The dead did not forgive. That at least was one true thing Cass had told Gabrielle. Too often Cass had lain wakeful, tormented with memories of the witch-hunters tearing apart the house, her sisters’ terrified shrieks as they had been dragged to torture and death.
    But not tonight, Cass mused, as the brandy’s warm haze enveloped her. Tonight she would entertain far more agreeable memories. Stolen ones of a war-weary soldier with hair of ashen gold and melting dark eyes. A lean, battle-hardened body and strong hands. Long fingers as capable of tenderly unlacing a woman’s bodice as they were of killing without mercy, driving his sword up to the hilt through an enemy’s heart. That sword of Remy’s had pulsed with such dark ruthless power, the memory of it still sent a warm shiver through Cass.
    Cass held a grudging admiration for Gabrielle. Her new friend was clever and worldly wise. But in other ways she was a bit of a fool, because there was so much Gabrielle did not know about Nicolas Remy, including the most astonishing fact of all.
    The great Scourge was still alive.
    Cass laughed softly to herself even as she drained the last of her bottle.
    “I have never known any other witch as gifted at conjuring the dead as you.” Gabrielle had told her.
    Gifted? Indeed she was, Cass thought. So much so that no spirit had ever failed to answer her call, willingly or otherwise. There could be only one reason why Remy had refused her summons from the underworld. The valiant captain from Navarre wasn’t there. He still walked the realms of the living, this man who might prove invaluable to Cass.
    He could possibly be the one, although Cass was not yet certain of that. Or how she would go about finding Remy. But Cass knew that she would, once she had made up her mind that the Scourge truly was the man she sought. She licked the last drop of brandy from her lips and smiled.
    Her dear friend Gabrielle would be amazed to discover that poor blind Cass