Princess in Love by Julianne MacLean Read Free Book Online

however, that in reality his father’s presence in England had more to do with
     the high-priced charms of his current mistress, Georgia Stanhope—one of the less celebrated
     actresses on the London stage.
    Her carriage was parked out front when Leo arrived (the woman had no shame) and it
     galled him to think that he had come all this way and sacrificed so much to do his
     duty in the name of the Royalist cause, when his father was constantly distracted
     by shinier, less permanent toys.
    Leo stepped out of the coach, pulled off his leather gloves and tapped them against
     his thigh as he climbed the steps and met the butler at the door.
    “Does he know I am here?” Leo asked as he shrugged out of his coat and removed his
     hat.
    “Yes, my lord. I have just informed His Grace of your arrival. He has asked that you
     wait for him in the library.”
    “Fine.” Leo strode purposefully across the hall to pour himself a brandy.
    He waited for a quarter of an hour before his father finally appeared.
    “Leopold, you’re late,” the duke scolded. “I was expecting you yesterday.”
    “The roads were treacherous,” Leo explained.
    There was no need to inform him about the chance meeting with Princess Rose. His father
     still knew nothing of their brief affair two years ago. If he had learned of it, he
     might have strung Leo up from the rafters.
    But those days were done. He would have no more of it.
    “Well, you are here at last,” the duke said. “Pour me a brandy, will you?”
    Leo poured his father a glass from the crystal decanter and carried it across the
     room. He set it down on the large mahogany desk.
    His father sat down in the chair behind the desk and crossed his legs. “I am afraid
     there has been a change in plans,” he said.
    Leo sat down also and regarded his father with a dark, simmering fury he felt quite
     unable to control. Nothing was the same between them, and he was quite certain it
     was the war. He was not the same man he once was. Ever since his return from the battlefield,
     he was always looking for a fight, craving a forward charge. “What is it this time?”
    “Don’t take that tone with me, boy. You know it hasn’t been easy. We must tread carefully
     toward our goals or we might all end up in Briggin’s Prison for high treason.”
    Leo’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe that’s where we all belong.”
    His father frowned. “What is wrong with you? You’ve been irritable of late. Have you
     lost your courage?”
    “It was never courage that drove this cause, Father,” he replied. “It has always been
     something else. You know it as well as I do.”
    The duke leaned forward and slapped a hand on the desktop. “What are you implying?”
    “I imply that your desire to crush the Sebastian monarchy has nothing to do with duty
     or honor. On the contrary, you hunger for power, and you have been using me to attain
     it.”
    “I beg your pardon? Watch your tongue, boy!”
    “Or what?” Leo replied, rising to his feet to tower over his father. “You will lock
     me in my room or beat me insensible? I wouldn’t recommend it, Father, because I am
     no longer that defenseless young boy. I have been to war. I have seen far worse than
     the back of your hand, sir, so if you ever raise it to me again, I swear to God I
     will beat you back twice as hard.”
    Bloody hell! He had never spoken to his father in such a manner, but it had been a tumultuous
     year.
    “Something has happened,” his father said. “Why are you suddenly doubting your purpose?”
    The floor shifted beneath Leo’s feet. He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t possibly admit
     that since he had faced death on the battlefield, he wanted only to live and quench
     his own hungers, not his father’s. And what were those hungers exactly?
    He could only think of one …
    Besides, Prince Randolph was a good man. Leo had begun to consider him a friend in
     recent years, and despite what the Royalists said about the New