Seize the Fire by Laura Kinsale Read Free Book Online

she'd had someone official on her side.
    His mouth flattened a little. The pay couldn't be much if she was in it all on her own. He wished he could get a closer view of the diamond. Three carats, at least.
    If she had a few more of those tucked away, things might come right enough.
    "I'd hoped to get a letter of introduction to the Carbonari," she said wistfully.
    "The Carbonari."
    At his exclamation, she bit her lip and looked down. "Perhaps they would not wish to bother with me."
    Sheridan sucked in a long breath. He saw what kind of clandestine organizations she was talking about now, the preposterous little piece. How the devil she came to think he'd be mixed up with a bunch of ravening Italian revolutionaries like the Carbonari, he couldn't conceive. God, the very thought of it made his palms sweat.
    But he needn't ever go that far with the whole thing. And there was that diamond, winking at him, sending back prisms of color, a tiny concentration of all the hues in the stained-glass window behind her. He needed money; he needed it quite desperately, and he needed it now.
    Máshallaah, as Mustafa would say. What God wills is good.
    Good enough for gallant Sherry, at any rate.
    "The Carbonari," he repeated thoughtfully. "Difficult…" He scratched his jaw for a long moment. Then finally, slowly, he nodded. "But I believe it could be done."
    Her face took on that shine of silent joy again. She managed to look elated and terrified at the same time.
    "It will be dangerous," he added. "You realize that."
    She nodded, chewing at her lower lip in a nervous rhythm.
    He allowed a long silence to pass before he finally straightened up with an air of decisiveness. "In point of fact," he said, "I think if you're determined to carry through with this, I'd best tag along myself."
    Her lips stilled, parting a little.
    He spread his hands in an imitation of self-conscious rue. "I doubt I'd sleep well, you see, knowing I'd sent you into the fray alone."
    She came about and fell onto the proper tack like the sweetest ship in His Majesty's navy. "Sir Sheridan," she whispered, "you are a truly noble man."
    A shrug and a faint smile were the only answer to that. "Line of duty, ma'am."
    "No. It is not your duty." She looked at him for a moment and then dropped her eyes. "Your duty is to your own country—it is an act of generosity and kindness to trouble yourself on my account."
    Considering that he didn't plan to go to much trouble at all, beyond peddling her stone to the highest bidder, it wasn't difficult to make light of the matter. Playing at hero wasn't always so easy; it required a fine hand to strike the right note between truth and fantasy, but Sheridan took a sinful delight in the game. He was his father's son after all, he reckoned—that it pleased him to make a fool of the world in general. And as far as he was concerned, there was nothing more blindly simpleminded than the world that had managed to find a hero in Sheridan Drake.
    "Well," he said, shoving away briskly from the mantel, "we won't split hairs about duty when you and your country's freedom are at stake. After all, the brotherhood of liberty knows no national boundaries, does it?"
    She made an incoherent exclamation of relief and concurrence, a sound that didn't have tears far behind it, if Sheridan was any judge of female feeling, which he modestly fancied that he was. He sat beside her again, pouring out a lukewarm cup of tea and shoving it in her hands to forestall a spate of maidenly sniveling.
    "Steady on," he said. "We won't get far if you're going to indulge in waterworks already."
    She took hold of herself, tossing her chin up with a quick sniff. "Of course not," she said.
    In spite of himself he wanted to smile. It fleetingly occurred to him to plant a quick kiss on the tip of her quivering mouse-nose. But that was out of the question now. He might run a minor swindle on a princess, but he certainly wasn't going to compromise one. He had no desire to get