My Dangerous Duke Read Online Free PDF Page A

no questions asked.
    The bold and speedy smuggler captains had honed their talents at evading Customs; they were a highly useful resource, considering that the Prometheans had spies watching every port in Europe. The smugglers were able to get in and out of any harbor before the enemy even knew they were there.
    The end of the war against Napoleon, however, had lifted the trade tariffs, shutting down the lucrative black market that had been the smugglers’ bread and butter for twenty years. Devil take them, how many times had he warned the fools not to squander the fortune they were raking in while the fat times lasted? To put some gold aside for later? Had they listened?
    Of course not. Indeed, they had infuriated him several months ago with their outrageous plea for yet more money.
    The tersely worded letter he had sent back had been the end of it, or so he had thought. Apparently, he had been wrong. Greed, ambition, desperation had driven his unruly tenants to overstep the simple boundaries he had laid down for them.
    Now they had drawn themselves to the attention of the Coast Guard with their activities, and he was all that stood between them and the gallows.
    Well, rules were rules. If he did not bring down the hammer on them and deal with them privately in his own fashion, it was going to become a public scandal, and the Order could not have that.
    There was an old seaside ploy, a trick of the trade, that English smugglers had indulged in for centuries.
    By the clever use of multiple large lanterns, they could simulate the signals of a lighthouse, luring unsuspecting ships to wreck on nearby rocks. This done, they would run down onto the beach, steal whatever washed ashore, and even row out and claim whatever booty they could scavenge from the wreckage.
    It was a reckless, cutthroat procedure, and, of course, highly illegal. He could hardly believe the fools had done it. They clearly needed reminding of whom they answered to.
    Pacing past the row of tattered ruffians lined up before him, he sent each one a glance of dark severity. He still dangled his unusual sword from his hand as casually as a dandy might swing his walking stick.
    He paused to stare the largest man into submission, the one they called Ox. The sweaty mountain of a smuggler dropped his gaze.
    “How many times have I warned all of you against this sort of thing?” Rohan continued, moving on. “I drew the line for you and bade you not to step over it, and yet you have the temerity to disregard my orders. Then—well!” He let out a sudden, harsh laugh that made them jump; he stopped at the end of the line and pivoted. “You bring me one of your drunken wenches—as if that’s going to get you off the hook!
    “Don’t misunderstand me, she is a fine-looking lass, and I shall use her well. But if you believe that a willing harlot and a few bottles of decent brandy are going to make this go away, then you fail to grasp the seriousness of your situation. There is such a thing as consequences, gentlemen,” he added. He swept them with a fiery look, though in truth, he was making more of a show of anger than the irritation he actually felt.
    Those who saw him genuinely angry rarely lived to tell about it.
    “The most amusing part is that you actually imagined I wouldn’t find out. Ah, yes! You must have assumed that I was still abroad. Obviously, you were wrong.”
    He had returned from his rather bloodthirsty mission to Naples months ago.
    Of course, they knew nothing of that. He never explained his long absences to anyone. He let them draw their own conclusions, and usually, they believed he traveled merely to entertain himself, seeking new pastures, new populations of women he had not yet bedded.
    There was, perhaps, a grain of truth to that—but a man had to vent his tensions somehow.
    “I was at my London house when I received a most enlightening visit from a high-ranking Coast Guard official, come to inform me of my tenants’ mischief. Oh,