Moonspun Magic by Catherine Coulter Read Free Book Online

in Damien’s chair and brought the candle closer. It was a letter to Damien from a solicitor, Mr. Abner Westover. She read it slowly, then read it again with a growing sense of unreality.
    She finished it a third time, and tucked it neatly back into the pile with the others. My God, she thought, this was incredible. At least now she knew exactly where she was going. London. To Mr. Abner Westover.
    She realized her hand was shaking, not from fear, but from pure, clean rage. The bastard.
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    Rafael mounted his new stallion, Gadfly, that he’d purchased the day before from Viscount Newton, and clicked the white-stockinged bay forward. The stallion was strong, a good sixteen hands high, and was sweet-tempered to boot. Rafael didn’t know ifhe could handle a stallion that was a devil, and he hadn’t been stupid enough to try. His legs were used to the rolling deck of the Seawitch , not clamping about the belly of a horse.
    â€œLet’s go, boy,” he said near Gadfly’s twitching ear. “It’s to London we’re going.” Rafael had bidden goodbye to his crew earlier, and to Hero, of course, his scruffy savior.
    â€œYou’ll be careful,” Rollo said.
    â€œNo more brandy,” Flash added, trying to pet a struggling Hero.
    Rafael merely grinned. “Keep the repairs going,” he said. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.” He absently rubbed Hero’s chin. “Keep our Romeo here safe. I don’t want him to be a dog’s sport.”
    â€œHa,” said Flash. “I pity any beast who’d take him on.”
    Rafael grinned as he remembered Flash’s further descriptions of Hero, his temperament, his morals, and his character. Hero the Plague was his favorite epithet. He sighed, gently tugging on Gadfly’s reins to turn him onto the left-branching road out of Falmouth. He didn’t want to go to London. He didn’t particularly want to see Lord Walton. He wanted nothing more to do with any of it, now that they had seen fit to dismiss him. Well, that wasn’t really what had happened, he admitted grudgingly. It was simply that he’d ridden on the edge too long and had been found out. It was bound to happen, and it had. At least he was still whole-hide. He wondered, though, very often, what he was going to do with himself now. Something that mattered, something that would make him content.
    He would be riding quite close to Drago Hall. The temptation was great, but even as he smelled the familiar sea air and took in the countryside, he knew it wouldn’t be wise to stop. Not yet.
    He would return and then he would remain.
    He reached Truro by noon and stopped at one of his favorite inns, the Pengally. He wasn’t at all surprised to be greeted by the host, Tom Growan, as Lord Drago. So, he thought, even though five years had passed, he and his brother still looked alike. He had halfway hoped that Damien would have gained flesh, gone bald, lost a tooth or two. He laughed at himself. He corrected Growan.
    â€œMaster Rafael? By all that’s holy, is it really ye, lad?”
    â€œAye, Tom, it’s really me, the black sheep.”
    â€œNay, boy, don’t prattle like that. Come along, and the missis will feed ye up right and proper.”
    The missis fed him and hovered. All the while, Tom questioned him, as bold as brass, no reticence at all in Cornishmen.
    â€œI have business in London, Tom, but I’ll return shortly. Aye, I’ll build my own place. Er, how is the baron?”
    Tom merely shrugged. “About the same as ever, I suppose. Don’t see him all that often, not anymore.”
    Tom talked on, but Rafael didn’t glean any satisfying information. He took his leave and rode out of Truro, heading east. He would ride within miles of Drago Hall. He felt something deep stir inside him as he neared St. Austell. Boyhood memories flooded him. Most of them good until he remembered his sixteenth