Naughty in Nottinghamshire 02 - The Rogue Returns Read Online Free PDF Page A

parchment and stared at the drawing. It looked like a map—a treasure map.
    They were to be pirates after all.
    The paper was in remarkable condition for having been buried. Other than a slight dampness and curling at the edges, it could have come directly from her brother’s library. It was covered in odd symbols that seemed to make no pattern.
    “Just bloody wonderful,” Roane swore as he studied the drawing.
    The map had been marked by her brother; she would recognize his writing anywhere. And there was a small poem of some kind on the bottom.
    No, not a poem. A riddle.
    “He’s moved the gold.” Roane was pulling his hair at the roots, clearly trying not to go mad.
    “Who has?”
    “James.”
    “James? But that is hardly possible.”
    “Before,” was all he said, but she knew what he meant. Before James had been lost to drink. Before he’d killed himself with gin.
    “But that is absurd. Why would James move the gold?” Her heart stopped. “Perhaps he simply took it and squandered it.” Like all the other money.
    Roane waved at the map. “There, on the bottom. The riddle.”
     
    “ Once was mine was mine, and once was mine was yours.
    Now, once was yours is mine, upon the distant shores.” She looked up at Roane. His face was twisted, as if he’d caught an offending odor. “It’s a rather dismal riddle.”
    He dipped his chin. “Read on. Please.”
     
    “Upon this reading, your return. For that I’m in delight,
    Yet my fate, and my path of late, is the endless night.
    Dear friend, brethren of my blood, I must bid farewell
    But not before I share with you a bit of my fiery hell.
    For grace and curves and lips divine once I dreamed on me.
    Until you slithered in, you feckless friend, and on you was she.
    For that, there’s this, a game to end and begin
    You, a new start, me, a laugh, and all of us a sin.
    You will find the end of your rainbow, that I do swear
    And mine as well, for my kin, but I will not say where.
    North it is, then east, then west, then south once more,
    For you, a penance, a trial, a game is in store.
    A wound to heal,
    A hand to deal.
    Where there is a scar, there is a cover.
    A lace, a veil, sometimes a lover.
    Good luck, good luck, brethren and friend,
    One last quest for a friendship without end.
     
    Helen’s throat hurt from the effort of reading her late brother’s words. He’d been gone over a year, but her sorrow was undiminished. The riddle sounded so much like him. It was as if he were there, playing a joke, laughter in his voice.
    She glanced up at Roane and caught her breath at the anguished expression on his face.
    “He says your gold is safe,” she rushed.
    Roane snorted. It was not the gold that bothered him; she could see that now. He felt the same grief that twisted her heart. He had lost a friend. A good friend. A brethren of my blood , James had written. She was not sure when Roane had learned of her brother’s passing, but it was recent, judging by the letter he’d sent to their townhouse addressed to James.
    Roane scrubbed his palm over his face and turned to her with his hand outstretched. She thought at first he meant to escort her across the meadow, but then realized he wanted the map.
    Little chance of that.
    She knew she was being childish, but she thrust the scroll behind her back. Whatever her brother had meant, he had said his half of the gold was for his kin. For her.
    She wasn’t about to trust Roane with that.
    “Helen,” he grumbled.
    She scowled, wondering how in the world she was going to keep the map from the rogue before her.
    ***
    S NEAKY, BLOODY J AMES.
    Roane could pull his hair out. He didn’t know whom he was more exasperated with at the moment: the woman standing before him, refusing to let him look at the map. Or James, for drinking himself to death while Roane had been unable to help. It was a damned shame James had thrown his life away—he was missed more than he would know. Sorrow hung heavy in Roane’s chest, the