Read Online The Lion's Daughter by Loretta Chase - Free Book Online Page A

sort on the way to Tepelena,” Esme had
answered. “We're not likely to meet up with courtesans in these
parts. Just tell him he must wait. Ali will give him as many as he
likes.”
    “No, you must
tell him, for he never listens to me. He says he cannot understand my
English. You will tell him, and explain so cleverly, as you did the
other night. Never have I seen him so angry. I thought he would beat
you. But you scold and he only smiles and listens.”
    The
Englishman was not smiling now. His gray eyes were fixed on the
humble village ahead, and his face had set into taut lines.
    “Rrogozhina,”
she said. “I told you we would reach it well before dark.”
    “You
said it was an important town. I count six houses — or
hovels. It's hard to tell where the mud leaves off and architecture
begins.”
    “I
told you the site marked an important crossroads” she said. 'Two branches of the
ancient Romans' Via Egnatia meet here, one from Apollonia and one
from Durrès.”
    “Then
the Romans have fallen sadly behind in upkeep. Even had Caesar
Augustus possessed the visionary powers of the god he claimed to be,
I would defy him to discern so much as a path, let alone two great
roads in this godforsaken sea of mud. For two days we've crawled
through it. Two days to cover twenty miles — to
reach a cluster of muddy little huts which, as far as I can see, were
abandoned by all human inhabitants about six centuries ago.”
    “You
were expecting Paris, perhaps, efendi? ”
    “I
was hoping for something connected, however distantly, to
civilization.”
    Esme
experienced a powerful desire to connect her boot with his backside,
but told herself he was like a spoiled child and didn't know any
better. Also, being childish, he was relatively easily managed. If he
were not, they'd yet be huddled in the cramped shelter by the mouth
of the Shkumbi.
    Fortunately,
he needed her far more than she needed him. In England he may have
been a powerful lord; in Albania he was helpless as a baby.
    Efendi, she'd called him, as a joke, from
the first. It was a title of respect, yes, but for a learned man, a
scholar or cleric. She might have called him a pile of offal, for all
he understood or cared to understand. Y' Allah, but these English
lords were ignorant provincials — and
proud to be so, evidently.
    “I
shall not tell you,” she said now, “not to make such
remarks to the villagers, for you are an English gentleman, and Jason
told me a true gentleman is courteous.”
    “I
am not a gentleman. I am an animate piece of mud, crawling with
fleas.”
    “Yet
I will warn you not to flirt with the women.”
    His
head turned slowly toward her. “I beg your pardon?”
    “You
are not deaf. Don't flirt with the women, if you wish to depart
Rrogozhina in one piece. If we come across a whore, I shall tell you
so, but it's most unlikely we will. Albania has many more men than
women, and the women are guarded jealously. A Moslem, for instance,
may pay as much as a thousand piastres for his bride. An important
investment. Please keep this in mind.”
    He
glanced ahead at the mass of structures, lumpen forms in the gray
rain, then back at her. “Certainly I will. Thank you for the
warning. How dreadful if I should run amok among Rrogozhina's hordes
of fair maidens.”
    “There
is no need to be sarcastic,” she said.
    “I
should like to know,” he said, “what put it into your
head that I'd flirt with every female who crossed my path.”
    Petro,
at present, trailed miserably many yards behind them. Even though he
couldn't possibly hear, Esme was reluctant to reveal her source. She
didn't want the master to know she'd gossiped with his servant.
    “Because
you look as though you do,” she said. “I should be
interested to watch you flirt sometime, for surely it would be
amusing, but I must wait until we reach Tepelena, I expect.”
    “ Watch me?”
    “Flirt,”
she clarified. “I am certainly not curious about the rest. That
is a private