Lady of Seduction Read Online Free PDF Page A

than usual.”
    “I’m almost done for the evening. You can go now.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    She started to turn away, but froze when Grant called out, “Has anyone been cleaning around my desk of late?”
    “Oh, no, sir,” the maid answered in a trembling voice. “You said we shouldn’t. I just dusted the tables and some of the shelves,
     sir, like Mrs. McCann told me.”
    “Did you happen to move any papers while you were dusting?”
    “No, sir. Did I do something wrong?”
    Feeling like an utter bully, Grant shook his head. “Not at all, Maeve. You can go now.”
    She scurried away, and Grant kicked at the desk leg in frustration. One false step and they could all tumble down into disaster.
    He thought of poor Bessie falling from the tower, and for a terrible instant, it was Caroline’s face he saw, her dark hair
     streaming behind her as she fell to the sea. Her scream he heard.
    “I
will
protect you, Caroline,” he said. “This time I will protect you. Whether you like it or not.”



Chapter Five
    T he sound of someone singing out of tune pulled Caroline from her dark sleep. At first she thought it was just another strange
     dream, like all the others that had plagued her through the long, restless night, dreams of drowning and lightning and Irish
     gods with bronze-brown hair. Maybe it was a siren singing on the rocks below?
    Caroline pried her eyes open and rolled over to find no such thing. It was only a housemaid in a plain brown dress and white
     mobcap, who knelt by the grate raking up the ashes and singing.
    “And who are you me fair pretty maid, and who are you, me honey? I am me mother’s darling!” she warbled softly along to the
     scrape of her brush on the hearth stones, oblivious to the room around her.
    It was the most wonderfully ordinary thing Caroline had seen since she arrived in this unreal, spooky place. There
were
real people here, not just ghosts! Not just Grant Dunmore with his hard, haunted eyes.
    She stretched out on her back to listen to the maid’s tune, one of her own favorite Irish folk songs, and staredup at the canopy above her head. A pale gray morning light was beginning to creep in at the window, heralding the end of the
     long night, but there was still the staccato patter of the rain against the glass and the rumble of the thunder in the distance.
     The storm was not yet over.
    The green velvet canopy and bed hangings were old and faded, yet Caroline could make out the patterns of the gold embroidery,
     the entwined forms of dragons and flowering vines. If she stared too long, she feared their twisting shapes would creep down
     to wrap around her and trap her there forever.
    She had to escape from Muirin Inish, which she started to fear
was
cursed, just as the villagers in the mainland inn had told her when they heard her destination.
You can’t go there, miss,
they protested in horror.
There are demons and evil spirits!
    Caroline laughed them away. Evil spirits only lived in the old tales that she loved to study. Muirin Inish was only an island,
     a lump of rock where once there was a monastery and a church, a great pilgrimage site. Now—well, now, she feared she should
     have listened a little closer to their warnings.
    The maid’s song ended, and Caroline turned her head to see the girl had laid fresh fuel in the clean fireplace and was gathering
     up her bucket. Surely she wouldn’t leave Caroline alone just yet!
    “Are you already finished?” Caroline asked. She sat up in bed, gathering the rumpled blankets around her.
    “Oh, miss, you startled me! I thought you were sleeping,” the girl cried. She dropped her bucket with a clatter, and powdery
     gray ash spilled out. “Now Mrs. McCann will box my ears for sure.”
    “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” Caroline jumped down from the bed and hurried over to kneel beside the maid
     and inspect the damage. “Surely we can clean it up so no one will know?”
    As the maid watched with wide