Dark Fires by Brenda Joyce Read Free Book Online Page A

frustration welling. His grip on the snifter in his hand tightened. It shattered. Cursing, he let the shards fall to the floor. He ignored the cuts, the burning of the whiskey. He poured himself another drink.
    He would have to put an end to her going without a crinoline. He was too experienced; he easily could imagine her endless legs beneath her skirts when he saw her thus. Now he vividly imagined them, white, slender, impossibly long. And fantasizing made him recall her soft, graceful hands—sliding down her hip beneath his regard. Did she know what she was doing, touching herself like that, so sensuously? Did her skin flame beneath her own touch? Was she inviting him to touch her like that? Did she touch herself when she was alone—while thinking of him?
    He was going to explode.
    He drank more whiskey.
    It eased his groin. He knew damn well she wasn’t teasing him, had no idea of her effect on his libido, knew she didn’t masturbate and fantasize about him. He debated fucking Molly, or any one of a dozen passable maids in his employ, but decided the self-inflicted torture was welcome—he deserved it for his depravity. He must find her a husband immediately—and get her the hell out of his house and his life.
    By the time he had finished the glass of whiskey, he had an overwhelming urge to see his son. Just thinking of Chad, upstairs, asleep, well fed, well cared for, and loved, brought a rushing warmth to his insides, something the whiskey could never achieve. In case Chad awakened, Nick wrapped his hand in a linen handkerchief, so as not to scare him with the blood. He silently moved upstairs, ignored her closed bedroom door, quelled the thoughts that tried to rise, and entered his son’s room.
    Chad lay sleeping on his belly, his face turned toward the door, his breathing deep and even. Nick didn’t want to awaken him, but the need to touch his son was uncontrollable. He dropped to his knees beside the boy’s bed and gently let his hand slip into the child’s hair. Chad stirred, sighed contentedly, but did not awaken.
    Nick felt the anguish then.
    He was here, where he did not belong, and he had no choice. But this, all of this, all of Drag-more and all of Clarendon, would one day be Chad’s. This made his own life bearable. This made it worth it.
    Yet the fantasy was incipient but tangible. He pictured Chad in dungarees and bare feet running in the Texas woods. He pictured him running with his cousins, his sister Storm’s children. He pictured him sitting on his grandfather’s knee, being regaled by tales of Apaches and Texas Rangers and grizzly bears, in the house where he had been raised. By the man who had raised him.
    Raised him, loved him, lied to him.
    Shit, Nick thought, caressing his son. The anguish was worse now. Well, regardless of what Derek and his mother had done (he just couldn’t think, much less say, my parents anymore), one day Chad would have to go to Texas to visit. It was his heritage as much as Dragmore.
    And just the thought of taking his son to Texas brought something hot and hard to his chest. Something choking. It had been so long since he’d been home. What would he say to Derek? Derek, to this day, did not know he knew the truth. Nick had seen him only once since he had found out, in late ′65, right after the War Between the States, while he was on his way to England and his new life.
    He didn’t want to think about any of it. Not about the blood and stench, the death and dying, of the war. He didn’t want to think about the day he’d left, ridden off to fight—which was also the day he’d learned the truth about his father. It was amazing. He’d just made love to his girlfriend, the daughter of a neighboring rancher, a kind of farewell. And then she told him. Told him his mother’d been abducted by a Comanchero who’d raped her. Told him how his father—not his real father, but Derek—had hunted the Comanchero— his real father—down and killed him. Miranda had