Moonlight Surrender (Moonlight Book 3) by Marie Ferrarella Read Free Book Online Page A

stamped its imprint on the round face. “You wouldn’t.”
    No, she wouldn’t, even though she was sorely tempted. But Beth was secure in the knowledge that Sylvia was too fearful to risk the chance. Beth raised the whip in her hand as if to snap it over the horses’ heads. She looked down at Sylvia one last time.
    “All right, all right, all right,” Sylvia cried. As if a pack of wild animals were snapping at her heels, she scrambled into the coach. Fear thickened her throat as her eyes bounced from the dead man on the floor to Duncan and back again. “But your mother shall hear of this. This I swear to you upon my immortal soul.”
    Beth was counting on it. “Fine. Then perhaps the next time I need to make a long journey, my mother will refrain from sending you with me.” She glanced down to make certain that Sylvia had closed the door.
    Sylvia dug her wide fingers into the coach door, holding on for dear life. “Nothing could please me more.”
    Beth snapped the whip and the horses were off. “And neither me.”
    With a quick forward lunge they were off, heading due east.
    Duncan had been drifting in and out of a dark, formless world. He was aware of a body being deposited into the coach and of a faint buzzing about his head that turned into a caterwauling. He opened his eyes just as Sylvia was struggling into the coach.
    “She’s a virago, isn’t she?” His eyes drifted toward the ceiling.
    Smarting at being ordered about by a mere chit of a girl, angry at the indignities she had been forced to suffer, Sylvia sniffed.
    “A hellcat from the day she was born, they tell me.” It suddenly occurred to Sylvia who she was addressing. She shrank into her seat, not an easy matter, given her girth. “Keep your distance, sir.”
    He couldn’t have risen up if the coach had been on fire. Her order struck him as humorous. “Your wish is but my humble command, madam.”
    “Mistress,” she corrected primly.
    “I rather thought that,” Duncan muttered softly, a mo ment before he slipped away again.
    Samuel ran his hand through his hair, causing a ripple in the thick, silver mane. There was no getting away from it, he thought, as he paced about the small tower room. Old age was besetting him. Together with unnec essary, unwanted aches along his lanky, thin-boned body had come a change in temperament.
    He had transformed into a worrier.
    Fifteen years ago, this would not have transpired. He’d been too full of life to worry about its possible ramifications. Where once nothing had concerned him except the next meal, the next full wind, and the next wench, and not always in that order, now concern would gnaw at him with the annoying persistence of a galley rat.
    It was Duncan’s fault, all of it. Nothing but Duncan’s fault. Duncan had been the one who’d taken him away from his element, taken all of them away. For Duncan had been the leader since before the time he had reached full manhood.
    Samuel sighed. The rain increased the ache in his bones, fouling his mood further.
    It had been too long since they’d been at sea, living by their wits, their fates in the hands of Neptune, he mourned. He ran his hand lovingly along the smooth, cylindrical spyglass as if it were the long, supple limb of a willing woman.
    Much too long.
    The land did things to a man. It civilized him, for one. The very word left a bad taste in Samuel’s mouth. The land made a man think of things such as harvests and tax collection. On the sea, the only harvest was one they’d reap from another ship and the only tax collector was fate, not some flesh-and-blood man with too much kidney pie and spirits in his belly.
    Samuel spat on the dusty wooden floor. Then, as an afterthought, he rubbed it in with his foot.
    He leaned out the narrow window, the wind covering his face with rain.
    Damn it, where was that boy?
    The storm was growing too intense for him to see very far, even with his spyglass. He wrapped bony fingers around the instrument