Amour: Historical Romance (Passion and Glory Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

sweet a ring of fire! Nicolas thought. Then he remembered she was still waiting for him to respond to her question. Blood, and then color, ran to his face. How long had he been lost in his reflections?
    Nicholas finally spoke. “Rome is street theater. Greece is an opera, and a German one.” 
    The chevalier returned Sérolène’s smile measure for measure, hoping to brush away the lingering tracks of his embarrassment.
    “I confess, Mademoiselle, I can hardly get three volumes into Thucydides before my eyelids begin to feel as heavy as stones.”
    Sérolène’s face lit up with enthusiasm.
    “Three volumes? Most of the bookish pretenders I know can barely make it through the first few chapters. How different you are from what I had imagined, Monsieur. I had not on first glance taken you at all for a scholar.” 
    It took a moment for Sérolène to realize that perhaps she had not phrased her comment in the most flattering light. She blushed in apology, hoping the chevalier would overlook the candor of her admission. Nicolas, however, didn’t seem to mind the remark at all.
    “I suppose it does not help to have the physique of a stonemason. Come now, what did you take me for before I introduced myself? A smith’s son is the most common supposition.”
    “I did think you might make an excellent cooper or smith, especially given your admitted fondness for horses. You are very good natured to bear such false presumptions so well, Monsieur. Tell me, how is it you are such amusing company? If your brother and the marquis are half as agreeable as you, I should think I’ve made a dreadful mistake in hiding from everyone.”
    “You are very naughty, Mademoiselle, to deprive us of such splendid company.”
    “Well, had I known how much I should have enjoyed meeting you, Nicolas, I would not have been so mischievous.”
    “My father and brother are far more interesting company than I, Mademoiselle. However one looks at it, I must be considered the most fortunate to have encountered you by chance.”
    “Perhaps fortune smiles upon us both. I hope you’ll think no less of me if I confess I’ve only read your beloved Thucydides in translation. In the convent they teach us only enough Latin to allow us to properly recite our prayers, and we learn no Greek at all. What little knowledge of either language I do possess is self-taught and mostly of very poor utility. Still…do you really enjoy spending so many hours buried in the august and severe tomes of Roman antiquity, when there is so much to keep you more happily engaged?” Sérolène asked, with genuine interest.
    “Well, Mademoiselle, what, pray tell, would you recommend so my mind should be better occupied?”
    Sérolène gave Nicolas a long, considered look before replying, acutely aware that whatever counsel she gave would reflect as much about her own sensibilities as it would about what she imagined his areas for improvement might be. But how much am I willing to reveal of myself? For the first time, she was not wholly certain of the answer.
    “Tragedies and poems of love, Monsieur, for they speak to the most important truths. Though it is useful to inform the mind, it is nobler, I believe, to nurture the heart. Is that not the true task of gentlemen? Reflect well on the history you love, and you will find the source of great deeds is often great love…or hatred. Both are matters of the heart.”
    Nicolas glanced at Sérolène, the sound of her voice thundering in his head like the braying of the trumpets at Jericho. The barrier of all his civilized artifice, constructed layer after painstaking layer over thousands of years of breeding—a high wall, built to keep man, the beast, separated from man, the thinker, came tumbling down in an instant. As he gazed at Sérolène, his heart pounded with the pure essence of primal man. He knew then, the true wonder and power, which is always and ever, woman. In that moment, Nicolas understood that if this enchanting