A Rose at Midnight by Anne Stuart Read Free Book Online Page A

wrapping his silk handkerchief around his palm, he walked out into the early-morning light.
    One week later he killed his first man in a duel. His Uncle Teasdale died within the year, but by that time even the inheritance of his estates didn’t help Nicholas’s financial situation. He sold what he could, let the rest molder, and returned to the gaming tables with a vengeance.
    It took a great deal longer to go to hell then he would have imagined, given the single-minded dedication he applied to the task. Even the bottle couldn’t provide the oblivion he sought, and fleecing young men of their fortunes began to lose its charm. Particularly since he refused to cheat, and his victims were such abysmally rotten gamesters.
    He’d been half-hoping Jason Hargrove would put a merciful end to his existence. He hadn’t really been attracted to his greedy, lust-filled little wife, but he seldom turned down an invitation to bed if the woman issuing the invitation was married, wealthy, and quite beautiful. When he’d deloped he’d known the man he was meeting wasn’t the type to honor that implied apology.
    If only Hargrove hadn’t been such a terrible shot. Nicholas Blackthorne certainly wanted to die, but he was damned if he was going to stand around in the early-morning chill while a backstabbing fool took potshots at him. He’d finally given up and ended the farce, probably ending Hargrove’s life too. And then he’d decamped, his long-submerged survival instincts coming to the fore.
    And now here he was, with someone quite determined to kill him. Human nature was odd, he thought, disdaining Tavvy’s help as he dressed with care. One might wish an unbearable life to come to an end, but it had to be on one’s own terms. He certainly wasn’t going to sit still while a petty poisoner finished him off.
    The door to his bedroom opened. Tavvy of course, never bothering to knock. “You sure you’re ready for this?” he asked, his swarthy face disapproving. “You still don’t look quite steady on yer pins.”
    Nicholas waved an airy hand at him. “I’m perfectly fit. At least, fit enough to deal with the cook, if indeed she is our Lucretia Borgia. I still can’t imagine why she’d want to kill me.”
    “Finding people who want to kill you isn’t the problem, Blackthorne,” Tavvy said. “Finding people who don’t want to kill you will be a great deal more difficult.”
    Nicholas found himself amused. “I haven’t lived an exemplary life,” he allowed. “As a matter of fact, I was more than ready to have it ended for me. Until this.”
    Taverner snorted. “You sure you wouldn’t want to just eat whatever gets put in front of you and take your chances?”
    “A week ago I would have done just that. Now I have a new interest in life. It’s amazing how having someone try to murder you can give you a new lease on life.”
    “It can that,” his valet drawled, but even Nicholas couldn’t miss the dark shadow of concern in Tavvy’s flat black eyes. “I’ll tell her to bring up the tray myself, shall I?”
    “Do that,” Nicholas said, running a hand through his rumpled hair and smiling sweetly. “I’m ready to be entertained.”

Chapter 4
    “Penny for your thoughts,” a gentle, mellifluous voice broke through Ellen’s abstraction as she sat with her brother in the Shakespeare garden at Meadowlands, and she looked up, straight into the warm gray eyes of Antony Wilton-Greening.
    “Tony!” she shrieked, maidenly decorum abandoned as she flung herself against his broad chest.
    “Honestly, Ellen, you’d think you were twelve years old instead of someone on the shelf,” her brother, Carmichael, said irritably. “Stop pawing Tony and let the rest of us greet him.”
    At her brother’s sharp words, sudden self-consciousness flooded her, turning her pale face pink with embarrassment, and she tried to pull away in shame. But Tony, dear, sweet Tony, caught her hand and pulled her arm around his waist,