Stormfire by Christine Monson Read Free Book Online

desk, wadded the garment, then began to wrap it in paper.
    Catherine stared dully as if in a trance, but when realization of his intention finally pierced her mind, she shrieked and flung herself across the room, nearly tripping as pain wrenched at her abdomen. Desperately, she snatched at the package. "No! You won't shame my father so! Give it to me!"
    Sean eluded her as he would have a gesticulating drunkard. "Shame him? He has enough blood on his hands to taint the North Sea. Not an Irishman born won't raise a cheer as your unworthy father kicks into hell, a precipitous journey he'll be taking sooner than he knows."
    "You're a liar! He's one of the most respected statesmen in England! He's never hurt anyone!" Stumbling, she made another futile grab. "You're not fit to lick his boots, you filthy cur! You're striking at his back because you haven't the courage to face him!"
    Leaning over the desk with a contemptuous sneer on his dark face, Culhane interrupted her tirade. "He's respectable, twit, not respected! Oh, he's spotless enough to the eye. He does his murdering with a stroke of a pen. I'll wager he's never even quirted a horse. How do you suppose he's managed to rise two steps in the peerage? Well, I'll be telling you. He's an efficient butcher, as well as an accomplished thief and traitor. And as for my craven reluctance to carve him up in gentlemanly fashion, face-to-face, it's too good for him. By the time I've done with the bastard, he'll think hell's a holiday!"
    "You miserable, lying . . . !" She hooked for his eyes and diverted his attention as her other hand snaked toward the packet and successfully flicked it out of his grasp. She backed with it toward the fireplace.
    Culhane pulled a pistol from a desk drawer, cocked and leveled it. "Drop the bundle, girl. Your father's pride isn't worth dying for." When she did not move, he murmured softly, "So, you'd not die for yourself, but you'd toss off in a trice for Papa. You've a slapsided notion of the way the world wags, girl, if you'll trade your life for a bit of dirty linen. For clean, now, that's another thing altogether, as you'll soon discover."
    Eyes blazing in contempt, Catherine whirled and accurately chucked the bundle into the fire. As the packet began to flame, she tensely held her breath, waiting for the pistol explosion that would send her into oblivion.
    Blackness clouded in Sean, the packet conjuring up the image of Megan's oil-soaked, blazing corpse. Imperceptibly, his finger tightened on the trigger. The girl was John Enderly's blood, she was Enderly; but a part of his mind, too familiar with the dreadful ritual of death, warred with his impulse to murder. He knew how small she would be in death. The bullet would explode that straight, proud little back to crumple her on the rug like a mangled kitten.
    Catherine, hearing his strides eat the distance between them, lunged to block his way to the fire. Culhane knocked her aside. She fell to the carpet, then flew at his back and tore at his hair as he knelt to dig gingerly in the hot coals. Flicking the packet out of its glowing bed, he growled and shoved her off, then turned the gun on her as she came at him again. As the cold muzzle touched between her breasts, she froze in a crouch, panting with fury, midnight hair smoking about her face and shoulders, eyes opal-eerie. Without warning, Sean's loins blazed into a desire so intense he caught his breath. With a lust he had never before known, he wanted to take her. To feel her wind about his body, to arouse response in her as fierce as her suddenly savage beauty. Fiery serpents of light darted across their taut bodies as the chill tip of the gun trailed slowly upward between the soft breasts until he rested it in the hollow of her throat. He felt sweat trickle down his kneeling body, down the crevices where his thighs met his groin. Fighting for control, he gritted hoarsely, "Get back." As Catherine obeyed him warily, his voice was ragged with effort