Shadow Play Read Online Free PDF Page B

the time being, by leaving Brazil and coming here." He turned to face her. "Your father knew the kind of man he was dealing with, yet he risked everything he owned, and most of what his friends owned, on a gamble that was doomed from the start. I'll tell you what I told His Excellency, the Governor, to his face: He was a goddamn fool."
    She flew across the room and slapped his cheek. He grabbed her wrist, twisting it behind her so that she fell against him, her breasts pressed against the sweating wall of his chest.
    "Just who the hell do you think you are?" he demanded. "Let's get something straight, beautiful. You may control men across five continents with a bat of those long, pretty lashes, but I'm not so easily impressed."
    "Barbarian!" she hissed through her teeth. "Take your hands off me."
    He shoved her away.
    Her cheeks burning with color and her eyes flashing with green fire, she swept her bonnet from the floor and planted it back on her head. She stormed to the door before facing him. There was a cold determination in her voice that sounded nothing like the frail, frightened girl who had first addressed him only moments before.
    "I intend to get to Rodolfo King somehow, with or with- out your help. And when I do, he will sadly regret the day he was born. Good evening, Mr. Kane, and thank you so much for your generous show of compassion over the death of my father."
    Then she was gone, leaving in her wake a rush of wind that smelled of jasmine and night air.
    He was still staring at the door and rubbing his cheek when Henry entered. The pygmy, dressed in a gray flannel suit with a diamond stickpin twinkling in the folds of his pristine cravat, shook his head and frowned.
    "I say, Morgan, I really must teach you the finer art of wooing beautiful women."
    Morgan snorted, grabbed a bottle of whiskey from the table, and uncorked it.
    "My, my, Miss St. James has left you rather frazzled and... ah... red-faced. She's quite lovely, don't you think? Of course you do. I must say I'd heard stories of her somewhat fiery nature while I lived in London, but you know how rumors are. Once a sheikh imported a camel because she said she'd like to ride one. She rode the dromedary through Hyde Park on a bet—wearing a stableman's breeches, if I recall. Seems she wasn't impressed. She climbed off the woolly bugger, handed the sheikh the reins, and said, 'Sorry, your Highness, I cannot marry you.' When he asked why, she replied, 'Your mounts are uncomfortable .. .and they smell.' "
    "Ah. Well, no doubt she's a spoiled bitch, no matter how beautiful she is. As my dear mother used to say, 'Pretty is as pretty does.'" He laughed in his throat and added, "What she was trying to tell me, of course, was that I was as likable as a wood-rattler with a hangover." He drank the liquor, then wrist-wiped his mouth—tried to ignore the smarting of his slapped face and the rat that was nibbling a piece of hard bread on the floor. He swigged the whiskey again before speaking. "Someone needs to bring her down a peg or two."
    "Someone has. King."
    Morgan looked at his companion. "That's her problem, my friend. Understand? I told you—I told St. James and his daughter—I ain't goin' back into that hellhole for any reason—not even King. That's courting death, Henry, and I've decided the last few months that I kinda like breathing.''
    "Come, come, Morgan, let's be rational. Think with your brain for the moment and not your bruised ego. You want King as badly as I do. You want revenge, and you want his gold. The opportunity to get both has just been placed at your feet."
    "You aren't serious, are you? You got any idea what he'll do to me if he catches me inside Brazil again?"
    "Tsk, tsk, Morgan, that yellow stripe down your back is showing."
    Morgan dragged the chair to the window and straddled it. He grabbed up the cigar he had earlier tossed aside and slid it into his mouth, rolling it between his lips as Henry moved up behind him. Insects hummed in