Beguiled Read Online Free PDF

asylum, I
should be delighted to instruct young Hamilton.”
    “He would not listen in any case!” Strachan cried and then
tried to smile to cover his frustration. “Branson is pursuing a plan of revenge
against the entire Hamilton family. He is as proud as Lucifer and twice as
deadly. If it were not for my intervention, Arthur Hamilton would lose his
company tomorrow, and quite possibly his liberty. Branson Hamilton does not
care about Clara. She was a pawn.”
    Mrs. Brockville shook her head firmly. “Perhaps that is what
he wanted Clara to believe and you too, Captain. But I do not believe it. That
man is in love with Clara Hamilton.”
    “Give it up, my boy,” laughed the colonel. “My wife is a
hopeless romantic. You will not persuade her.”
    As Colonel and Mrs. Brockville resumed eating, Trudy Delisle
leaned across the table to have a quiet word with her fiancée. “When this is
over, darling, I shall expect you to tell me what it was about your loan of
money that caused Miss Hamilton’s collapse. I am not a fool. Do not think you
can treat me as one.”
    Strachan nodded and tried to appear unconcerned. The
shareholders’ meeting was tomorrow and immediately after, he intended to ride
to Gateshead Asylum to rescue Clara. Once she was in
his power, there was little anyone could do to prevent him from taking her to
bed.

 
    §

 
    BRANSON FOUND a tavern that was still open
and inquired after lodgings for the night. The landlady led him down a narrow
hall to a plain room furnished with a bed and nightstand. Gladiator was stabled
at the smithy’s and Branson was too exhausted to eat.
He kicked off his boots and flopped down on the mattress.
    He had sent Harkness with the
carriage back to London after the horses were watered and rested; a hired boy was
sent to fetch Gladiator from Windemere Hall for the
journey to Berkshire. A single rider could make better time and even with these
measures he was forced to find lodgings when it became too dark to see the road.
    The Parish Records book was in his leather satchel. Branson
withdrew the heavy volume and carefully turned the pages to the year 1860. He
found the correct month and running his finger down the column, Branson located
their names.
    Grace Leeds and
Branson Reilly married on this day in Windemere Chapel. Vicar Merrick presiding. Piers Leeds was
down as their witness.
    Branson stared at the entry dully recalling the idealistic
young man he used to be. That young man had stood at the altar with a girl he
thought he loved and made a vow. A vow that had torn him up inside, destroyed
his conscience, his hope, and his joy in living.
    Branson swore aloud to the God he no longer trusted. He had
been trapped in youth by a corrupt society and held prisoner in adulthood by a
corrupt love. The phantasm of Grace Leeds
would not release him. Their marriage was a bitter gall at the back of his
throat that he had tasted every morning for seven years.
    Until Clara.
    That introduction
was the real cruelty. To show him what his life might have been but for a
cursed twist of fate, and then demand that he turn the very one who made him
happy against him! It was like cutting a vein. If he had any sense of
self-preservation, he would leave her in Gateshead .
Turn around and ride back to Windemere where he
belonged.
    Did he love Clara
Hamilton?
    Branson shoved the records book back in the satchel, wishing
he could shove the question away just as easily.
    He did not know if he loved Clara. He didn’t know what real
love felt like. He thought he was in love once and it proved to be the greatest
mistake he’d ever made. Why would allowing himself to love his cousin be any
different?
    Branson wished he had not introduced the question to his
mind because he was unable to stop the progress of his brain from seeking the
answer. He felt whole with Clara. Complete. And the oddity of it was that up
until meeting her, Branson did not know he was missing something. He had
everything a