Eloisa James by With This Kiss Read Free Book Online Page B

who couldn’t bear the unnecessary death. “I thought he looked . . .”
    “He looks like one of those dead men walking,” Colin’s father said. “Phoebe cried all night after he went back to his ship. I couldn’t console her. I never imagined that I’d have a child in danger—and in such deep despair—and be unable to help him.”
    James came over and gave him a rough, one-armed hug. “Colin is going to survive. He’s a brilliant sailor, obviously. Isn’t that the second commendation he’s received? Or the third? And he doesn’t only keep himself alive, Griffin, he saves his men. Every time. From what I’ve heard, they talk about him in the Admiralty with awe because he never loses a man.”
    “Oh, he loses them,” Griffin said. “Not at the rate of other sea captains, but he loses them. And he doesn’t forget them, the ones under his command, his responsibility, who are gone. That’s why he doesn’t sleep.”
    “So it’s not fear,” James said.
    “No.” Griffin shook his head. “He’s the bravest man I know. It’s easy to go to war again and again if it doesn’t touch your heart.”
    “You must be wildly proud of him,” James said. He walked over to the sideboard, poured a stiff drink of cognac, and handed it to Griffin. “Here.”
    There were white brackets by his cousin’s mouth. “It’s damnable being a parent who can do nothing other than watch. And wait. He’s led a charmed existence so far—never injured, sailing through storms as if the gods themselves were watching out for him. It’ll give out some day. It must.”
    “No,” James stated. “Not necessarily.”
    Griffin tossed back the cognac. “At any rate, Colin is not in love with Lily, and he can’t marry a woman just because she’s a soporific.”
    “It’s a unique reaction. In general, men don’t feel sleepy on meeting Lily,” James said with some amusement. He adored his second child, but he was perfectly aware that she was both the sweetest and silliest of them all.
    Griffin gave him a wry smile and poured another measure of cognac. “I will admit to being surprised when he mentioned Lily.”
    “Not as surprised as I was,” James said, hearing a thread of steel in his voice. He couldn’t stop himself. He felt fear for Colin—but at the same time he wanted to snatch the young man and shake him until his teeth rattled, if not hit him in the jaw so hard that he flew into the next parish.
    Griffin nodded and sipped the whisky. “He told me once, years ago now, that Grace’s voice made him think of a summer day. So I would have thought Grace would be the one.”
    James’s whisky slid down his throat, burning a path to his gut. “So did Grace.” His voice came out rough with anger.
    Griffin began pulling billiards balls from the bag hanging at the corner closest to him and rolling them onto the table. Three rolled, clanked together, then stopped. “Colin is a fool. But he’s not the first man I’ve seen make the same mistake.” The wry note in his voice made James’s mouth curl up.
    “I should claim that honor myself, I suppose,” he said. “But I’ll be damned if I let him disregard Grace the way I did Daisy.”
    “No more should you.” Griffin began pulling balls from the bag on the opposite corner. “I thought it would be Grace, because he always talked about her in a slightly different fashion from the others. And there were the letters, of course. Phoebe thinks that Grace is able to reach him when the rest of us can’t. He won’t listen to us.”
    James shook his head. “She doesn’t speak to him. He didn’t make more than a feeble effort to see her when he was on leave this last time.”
    “And then he asked for Lily’s hand in marriage.”
    “He can’t have it.” James hesitated, but it had to be said. “He’s overlooking Grace. Grace . She’s brokenhearted.”
    Griffin put his glass down. “Just pray for him to come home safe and sound and you’ll have given me everything