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

again in frustration. Duncan had promised to be home before the noon hour, and now it was more than twice past that.
    As if to verify his assumption, Samuel glanced at the pocket watch that Duncan had given him last Christmastide. As he had looked down at the gift all those many months ago, Samuel had scoffed at it as a symbol of a landlocked man. But truth be known, he had admired the gold case around it and the fine craftsmanship on the face.
    Samuel had always loved fine work and pretty objects.
    He closed his hand about the watch as he pocketed it in the pouch at his baggy trousers. Touching the watch only reminded him of things, made him long for the life he’d once known. A life of privateering on the high sea; a life of danger and excitement, where a man felt alive.
    Before then, he and the crew had lived on the streets of London, seeking their fortunes in other men’s lapses. But Samuel preferred the sea, even though it was on the streets that he had first found Duncan. He’d been a young, angry whelp of a lad then, in danger of being de voured by the bands of miscreants who roamed the dark alleys, plundering and taking from those weaker than they.
    Duncan was his. He had given him life, though his loins had not produced the boy. Samuel had rescued Duncan from meeting his maker that fateful day, jumping in beside him when there were four to his one. Then there were two, and the odds had turned drastically.
    Samuel smiled fondly, remembering. He had been a fine one with a sword in those days. None better. He could slice the hairs from a peach without bruising the skin. He sighed longingly. That was when his eyes were clear. Now he squinted when cutting Duncan’s hair, secretly fearful of cutting his neck instead.
    Old age was a bastard thief that mercilessly stole the most meager possessions of its victims.
    He sighed more deeply, then raised the glass to his eye again, vainly sweeping the road that led to the doors of Shalott.
    Silly name, that, he thought, fruitlessly attempting to make out the figure of a horse and rider when there was none to see. Shalott ... it sounded as if a fop lived here, instead of Duncan, the former terror of the English sea. Not that this estate was Duncan’s, of course. It was only his to oversee for that former British transplant, Sin-Jin Lawrence. But it felt like his, and they had the run of it. The arrangements Lawrence had made were generous. Food and shelter for Duncan and the crew and money to line their pockets with amply.
    So they had remained and continued to do so. And grew soft in the bargain, he thought with a trace of bit terness. He thought of Duncan. Soft enough to fall prey to things that they wouldn’t have before.
    Something appeared on the road, materializing out of the shadows. A large, dark shape. It was moving, and moving quickly.
    Samuel started and leaned forward. Rain thudded against the end of his glass as he strained to make out what was approaching.
    A ghostly apparition.
    His heart stopped.
    He forced himself to look again. It was a coach from hell, the horses’ hooves pounding the earth as they came straight for the manor. The very earth trembled as they grew larger.
    “Sweet Jesu.” He crossed himself the way his mother had each time she’d uttered the oath.
    His breath caught in his throat as he made out the form of a woman, her rain-lashed hair flying about in the wind as she urged the horses on.
    It couldn’t be real.
    Samuel took an instinctive step back away from the window. The spyglass nearly slipped from his icy fingers. He could see the coach now without benefit of the glass.
    A moment later, he came to life and fled the room.

Chapter Six
    He was turning into an old woman, Samuel upbraided himself, as he hurried down the narrow stairwell that eventually led to the second floor. That wasn’t a ghost coach approaching, no vehicle from hell searching for a passenger to take over the River Styx to the netherworld. That was a woman driving