Captive Splendors by Fern Michaels Read Free Book Online

devil could promise to turn him into another Caleb van der Rhys. Sold it cheerfully, with no regrets.
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    Caleb climbed lightly into the hired hack and gave the driver directions to Tyler Sinclair’s home on Pall Mall, near Charing Cross Road. He estimated that the drive through London at midday would take more than an hour, and he looked longingly at the Rooster’s Tail Pub, where he could be enjoying a cool ale instead of a hot, dusty ride. He sighed, knowing there was no hope for it; he had to contact Tyler for news of Sirena and Regan’s arrival.
    The route to Tyler’s home took him along Thames Street, which ran parallel to the wharves along the river. He pulled at his collar with irritation and wished he were still at sea aboard his Sea Siren. Having kept true to a promise she had made him long ago, Sirena had put her ship, the Rana, into Caleb’s care. Because of his regard for her and for an adventure they had both shared, he had renamed the ship the Sea Siren.
    Caleb’s attention was centered on the view through the grimy windows of the hack. It was always the same, never better, only a little worse now. This was the London of the people. The groomed, tree-lined streets near Charing Cross and Hyde Park were the London of the privileged. These narrow streets and byways and tall buildings leaning heavily on one another, where the shadows seemed darker than anywhere else in the world, represented the people’s city.
    And yet, for all its ugliness, there was a beauty here, too. London was a polyglot of the ages, old and battered and touched with evil; still, it brimmed with color and a decadent glory. Here was the heart of the city, not behind those beautiful brick edifices of the rich. Here the city teemed with life. The streets were crowded with porters struggling to carry their heavy loads of merchandise as they cried dire curses at any who dared to detain their progress. Merchants and vendors pushed their carts through the narrow alleys, calling out their wares to housewives who swarmed to make their purchases.
    Church steeples stabbed the gray sky, which was thick with smoke from the chimneys and rife with the stench from the soap stewers, and through which only the strongest sunlight could penetrate. And each steeple boasted its own melodious bell but only added to the cacophony.
    The very center of an Englishman’s life was the numerous taprooms and pubs, which were recognized by swinging signs painted in gaudy colors and identified, by those who could not read, by their caricatures of yellow bulls, crimson roosters, goggle-eyed owls and various shields and, most of all, by tankards of ale.
    Having seen these sights all too often and feeling stifled by them, Caleb settled back in the hack and thought ahead to his visit with Tyler and Camilla. While Caleb’s business in London was infrequent, he did manage to see Tyler on occasion, but never Camilla. Tyler had always met him at his offices on New Queen Street or aboard the Sea Siren or at a convenient taproom. It had been years since Caleb had set eyes on Camilla, and he wondered if those years had been kind to her. Each time he was in his company, he had asked Tyler how Camilla fared, always expressing his interest with friendly courtesy, never with any obvious familiarity. He didn’t know how knowledgeable Tyler was about his and Camilla’s affair while she had been married to Regan, and he didn’t wish to dredge up old laundry and leave Camilla to pay the bill with her husband.
    Caleb pulled at his collar again. He didn’t like having these old memories crop up. He remembered all too well the way he had agonized over his betrayal of Regan with his stepmother. And yet he hadn’t been able to help himself. He remembered the way his heart had hammered in his chest and his hand had itched to run his fingers through Camilla’s soft golden curls. His involvement with Camilla had tortured him, had stung his