Weather Witch by Shannon Delany Read Free Book Online Page A

quick hands, Rowen caught the rogue curl and held it a moment, running his thumb along its silky length before tucking it behind her ear. “Yes.” He unfurled a smile. “I do have a surprise for you. Would you like it now or shall I draw you out more publicly for my presentation?” he asked, straightening from where he leaned against the veranda’s banister.
    “No, no…” She slipped her fingers free of his and clutched his arms, standing a good distance from the French doors and the crowd surely wondering where the party’s hostess had disappeared to with her most regular gentleman caller.
    He grinned. “Make up thy mind,” he whispered. “Chaperoned or…” He skimmed her lips with his thumb. “… not?”
    “Not. But only for a moment longer,” she promised. “Rowen, you know I adore you.”
    His back went ramrod straight at her choice of words. “Yes.”
    “You are an absolutely amazing and talented man of fine breeding and nearly noble rank. Socially speaking we would make a fine pair, but…”
    “I’m sorry. Are you…” His eyes searched her face, confusion plain. “Are you telling me we are … finished?”
    She sighed. “Not so much finished as—”
    He crossed his arms over his chest and did his best to peer down his nose at her although she was dressed in the high-heeled shoes the wealthy deemed fashionable for such parties. “It’s your seventeenth birthday and you’re ending things with me.”
    “No. No. Wait!” She reached for him, grasping at his arm. She could not tug it free.
    His chin tipped up in defiance, he watched her struggle with a coolness in his gaze she had never seen before.
    “Rowen, I’m confused,” she apologized, wrapping her arms around him and leaning her head on his chest. His stance softened, his arms sliding out from between them to wrap her up once more. “I was so worried you’d ask for my promise and that I wouldn’t be able to give it to you with everyone watching and…”
    “Is that all this is?” he asked into the top of her head. “You were in a panic because you thought…” His arms tightened around her. “Be brave, sweetheart. I’d never embarrass you that way—no matter how much I tease,” he promised. “I do have a surprise for you, but it has nothing to do with asking for your promise. Not just yet.” He cocked his head. “I’ve brought you a fine gift…”
    “Wait.” She searched his face. “So we are well?”
    “Yes, darling girl, we are well. Now for your gift—”
    The French doors swung open and the party burst onto the veranda, Catrina and Thomas Dorsey himself at its head, bearing drinks. “You cannot monopolize the party’s guest of honor for the entire event,” she scolded Rowen, handing them both a cup. “Things are about to become quite hot,” she promised, waving her hand so the move ended with her pointing back the way they had come. The ruby on her ring finger flashed.

 
     
    Chapter Three
     
    Dame Fortune is a fickle gipsy,
    And always blind, and often tipsy;
    Sometimes for years and years together,
    She’ll bless you with the sunniest weather …
    —WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED
    Philadelphia
    Entertainers streamed onto the porch, men and women in parti-colored outfits that clung to their forms in all the most interesting places. It was at once scandalous and delightful—and utterly foreign. Rowen grinned, leaning back against the porch’s railing and taking Jordan with him.
    A man wearing a hat that shadowed his eyes with fat fabric tendrils topped by bells stretched into a bow so low only the most supple of dancers might do it. “My lords and my ladies, most gracious hosts and hostesses,” he said in an accent Jordan had only heard the day Rowen dragged her down to the Cutter docks to watch the men make sails and the ships go out, “tonight we will delight and astound you by setting your senses afire .” He tugged a lit torch out from behind him and the crowd jumped back.
    “I assure you,