Becket's Last Stand Read Online Free PDF

sugar treats in the candy dish. "Ladies? Can we please entertain suggestions from the floor? You start, Julia. I'll leave my idea for last."
     
     
"And, knowing you, Morgan, that's probably a good thing," Julia said, looking at Mariah and winking. "It will at least delay, if not spare our blushes."
     
     
Cassandra looked to the other women, one by one. "You think I could do that?" she asked, her heart pounding.
     
     
"Do what?" Morgan asked innocently, popping a sugar treat into her mouth.
     
     
"Seduce him, of course. That is what you're suggesting, isn't it?" Cassandra asked, and then waited while Mariah slapped Morgan's back, to help dislodge the candy stuck in her throat.
     
     
"Ah," Julia said, sighing theatrically. "Our little girl is all grown-up now, isn't she? This should help divert our minds from worries over Edmund Beales."
     
    CHAPTER TWO
"YOUR PARDON, SIR? Sir Horatio Lewis and Mr. Francis Roberts to see you, sir."
     
     
Edmund Beales did not look up from the papers on his desk, aware that the men were standing just inside the door, but perversely refusing to acknowledge that fact. "Thank you, Walters. Please keep them waiting. A half hour should be sufficient to depress their any remaining pretensions."
     
     
"Uh…um…sir? That is, they're…here."
     
     
Beales smiled, swiveling on his chair to look at the two men who, although they were not standing there, hats in hand like supplicants, were in fact only minus the hats. Their joint demeanor was that of inferiors come begging…most probably for their miserable, pathetic small lives.
     
     
"How utterly tactless of me. Gentlemen, do come in." Beales did not rise from behind his desk. Nor did he offer his hand other than to wave rather languidly in the direction of the two deliberately placed uncomfortable chairs facing the massive desk that had once graced one of Bonaparte's many residences. Not that the man had much need of such a glorious piece of furniture now, freezing his skinny shanks on the rocks of Saint Helena.
     
     
He'd had the desk shipped to his new mansion in Portland Square, along with other treasures he'd collected over the past two decades, leaving behind in Paris the few pieces "collected" during his privateering days he had deemed impressive enough to keep. He hadn't been much interested in collecting chairs, or rugs, or other furnishings all those years ago, the way Geoff had been. An oversight, one he regretted now, but there was nothing that couldn't be corrected with ample infusions of money, of which he had more than a sufficient amount.
     
     
Still, the Emperor Napoleon's desk? That was rather a coup. Perhaps he should have a brass plaque attached to it, so that all could know of his prize. Ah, but that would be the old Edmund Beales, and spoke too much of flash and dash. Today he was a solid citizen, sober and earnest and…"Oh, for the love of heaven, gentlemen, sit down. I'm not going to bite."
     
     
Sir Horatio was the first to speak, but not until he had squirmed uncomfortably in his chair, as if doing his best to avoid a tack someone had placed there to poke at his enormous backside. "We, um, we didn't know you'd be returning, Mr. Beatty. Your departure two years ago— is it two years now?— well, it was rather precipitous, wasn't it? And…and so soon after poor Rowley disappeared. His house burning down like that, his dear wife fleeing to the country, seemingly to bury herself there, as yet to return to society."
     
     
"This cheers you?"
     
     
"Rowley disappearing?" Mr. Roberts asked rather incredulously, and then winced, as if sorry he had spoken, drawn attention to himself. "Not that we don't know where he went to, not with Horatio here working at the Admiralty. Died just a few weeks ago, you know. Hanged himself in his cell, poor bastard."
     
     
"Hell of an end for a man with so much ambition," Sir Horatio said, touching his hand to his neck cloth.
     
     
Beales nodded, assuming a woebegone