Fires of Delight Read Online Free PDF Page B

Selena’s door, Bonwit turned, fumbled with the keys at his belt, and unlocked the spy’s cell.
    “No…” Erasmus moaned.
    The priest stood in the dark, grimy corridor, waiting for the corporal to wrench open the iron door. Selena, peering at him from behind her own bars, sensed something familiar in the set of his shoulders, the slightly stooped manner in which he carriedhimself. She shifted her position slightly, trying to get a look at his face in the shadow of the cowl, and he turned toward her.
    It was no priest. It was Gilbertus Penrod, gem merchant and primary financial supporter of the Colonial cause. He was the man who had warned Royce and Selena that Oakley was after them. Selena’s spirits leapt and soared. Was Penrod’s appearance here part of a scheme to rescue Ward and her? The merchant’s warning glance sobered Selena, however, and when Bonwit stepped aside, permitting Penrod entry into Ward’s cell, her appearance was only that of a hungry prisoner awaiting her dollop of gruel.
    “Sorry, Reverend, but I got t’ lock ye in wi’ ’im,” Bonwit told Penrod.
    “Good Lord, man! Do you think this poor wretch can escape?” Penrod shot back. “What have you done to him? He needs immediate medical attention.”
    Selena saw the horrified expression on the merchant’s handsome, angular features.
    “Sorry, Reverend, orders,” replied Bonwit sheepishly, relocking the door. “Ye say wha’ever prayers ye want, an’ I’ll be back when I finish feedin’ the prisoners.”
    Penrod bent over Erasmus Ward, taking his wrist and feeling for a pulse. Selena realized that even Phineas Bonwit might find such behavior unusual for a clergyman, and sought to distract him. “I thought you were going to bring me tea!” she said, feigning a pout and handing her bowl out through the bars of the cell.
    He ladled a double helping of porridge into it and winked at her conspiratorially. “Sorry,” he said. “Our whole detachment was prowlin’ the streets of New York fer the past hours.” He leaned close to her and whispered, “There’s a fearsome spy loose an’ we got t’ catch ’im.”
    “Oh, my! How dangerous! You must be so brave. Who is it?”
    “Ye musta heard o’ ’im. Practically everybody has. Bloke named Campbell.”
    “No, I don’t believe I have,” Selena said.
    “We’re a’goin’ lookin’ fer him t’night as well. There’s two thousand pounds sterling on his head.”
    Selena was annoyed—and amused at herself for being annoyed—that George III considered Royce to be twice as valuable as she.
    “But I thought you were coming to see me tonight?” she teased, tilting her head and giving him the full effect of her violet eyes.
    She’d discovered their power early when, just turned thirteen, she decided she wanted to be kissed by Eric McCullough. Eric seemed nothing now, but then Royce was far in the future, his existence unimagined. And Eric McCullough was the most dashing man in Berwick and Roxburgh provinces combined, all of twenty years old and, moreover, betrothed to Jessica McEdgar. Selena had loathed Jessica McEdgar. The feeling was mutual because Jessica, an older woman of seventeen, scorned Selena as a “silly child” and a “failed flirt.” But that was before Selena used her eyes, and the tilt of her head and—if the truth be known—a tactical lifting of her blooming breasts to lure Eric McCullough into a public kiss at the Berwick harvest festival. Jessica was still furious about it four years later, even though she was Mrs. McCullough by then, and had cut Selena dead at the Edinburgh Christmas ball the night Selena met Royce Campbell.
    And now Selena trapped Phineas Bonwit with her eyes.
    “I reckon I don’t need two thousand pounds sterling,” he said huskily. “I’ll try an’ get t’ ye later on.”
    A plan had begun to take shape in Selena’s mind, and she hoped that Gilbertus Penrod’s presence here, and Royce’s rumored appearance in New York, meant