Silken Rapture: Princes of the Underground, Book 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

staggered toward it. Inside, she discovered a closet that was larger than her apartment bedroom. The closet led to a bathroom, she observed, peering through the door. Only two garments hung on the empty clothes rack in the closet—her purple dress and a soft microfiber robe. She grabbed her dress and hurriedly donned it, eager for even that flimsy bit of armor when she felt so vulnerable. Her heart began to pound uncomfortably in her chest. Now that her dazed disorientation was lifting, panic was quickly rushing in to take its place.
    Had Lesterbrought her here? The memory of her mentor’s tatty tweed blazers and generous heart, yet emaciated pocketbook, didn’t make the possibility seem likely.
    She rushed back into the bedroom. The wet-bar was well-stocked with premium liquor and wine. She flipped open drawer after draw and finally found what she wanted.
    The small, sharp knife in her hand didn’t make her feel any safer, but it steadied her.
    She opened the bedroom door and stepped warily onto an open landing. Her feet struck cold, hard marble. She rushed down the remainder of the hallway into a vast foyer with a domed ceiling. The ornate balustrade she passed was so white it might have been carved from snow crystals. She didn’t draw a breath as she flew down the grand staircase, her bare feet making her descent eerily silent.
    She reached the bottom and found herself standing in a circular gallery with multiple doorways leading off it and magnificent tapestries and paintings adorning the walls.
    She purposely pricked one of her fingertips with the small knife. Pain flashed through her, sharp but quickly gone. No. She wasn’t dreaming.
    Isabel had grown up in Lettering, Pennsylvania—a gray, meager, mean little town. She’d never seen colors, textures and riches as she did in that moment, let alone dreamed them. Yes, she’d seen true wonders since arriving in England six weeks ago, and her visions while touching objects often revealed wondrous places. But those were other people’s memories, other people’s lives…
    …and none of them even compared to this.
    She stilled and raised her knife when she heard male voices in the distance then a woman’s laughter. Her rabid curiosity to understand how she’d ended up in such a wondrous house outweighed her fear at waking up in a strange place with a large black hole in her memory.
    She eased into the narrow opening in the wood paneled doors and peered cautiously into the room.
    It was a salon, of sorts—large, but made intimate with a roaring fire and multiple seating areas furnished with rich, plush fabrics on the chairs and sofas. Closest to her she saw a man with a patrician, handsome face twisted into dissatisfaction as he looked at something outside of Isabel’s vision.
    She started when she fully took in his aura.
    It was…bizarre. Unlike anything she’d ever seen—more like an inverse of an aura, like a film negative. He wore a crisp white shirt and a wool scarf tied artfully around his neck. His straight-legged black pants were modern enough—actually quite chic—as were his highly polished black shoes. He spoke adamantly.
    “Not that tint for her breast, you fool!”
    “Now you are a master painter as well, Cane? Being a master of magic and architecture and alchemy and medicine isn’t enough for you, you are now the master of Lorenzo Titurino ?” An Italian-accented voice boomed in fury from the part of the room Isabel couldn’t see.
    A woman laughed. “Well, Aubrey is a Renaissance man, after all, Lorenzo.”
    Isabel heard a sound of disgust. “Most of the Literati are Renaissance men, my pet, being born in the sixteen hundreds. I myself am considered to be the epitome of a Renaissance artist,” the man said pompously.
    “Of course, Lorenzo. It’s just that in the modern meaning of the phrase, Aubrey is the ideal Renaissance man.” The woman’s voice went from patient to a purr. The man called Aubrey Cane, whom Isabel could see, smiled