Stormswept Read Online Free PDF Page A

she’d ever had, and it had stripped her youth from her in one clean swipe.
    “Juliana! ” came a shout from behind them. Mr. Vaughan had broken free of Mr. Pennant.
    Instinctively Juliana turned, but Lettice yanked her forward. “Don’t look back. You’ll only encourage him.”
    Juliana choked off her protest. Lettice was right. Rhys Vaughan might speak like an angel and kiss like someone out of a Welsh myth, but the minute he found out who she was, he’d spurn her. Better to get the pain over with now, before she let herself hope too much.
    So when he called her name the second time, she kept walking and didn’t look back.

2

    Such my woes, sorrow’s harvest,
    She, day-bright, won’t let me rest.
    Spellbinder, lovely goddess,
    Speaks to my ears magic, no less.
    —DAFYDD AP GWILYM, “HIS AFFLICTION”
    R hys stared hungrily after the woman named Juliana. “Tell me who she is.”
    “Forget about the girl, all right?” Morgan snapped.
    “Why?”
    “As Lettice said, she’s not for you.”
    Coming from Morgan, that stung, and his friend was wrong anyway. Rhys could still feel her lips softening under his, could see her brilliant eyes grow dreamy at his words.
    But why would Miss Johnes and Morgan say such a thing? Wait—hadn’t Miss Johnes called Juliana “my lady”? Surely not.
    Though that would explain why she was “not for him.” Servants didn’t speak cultured archaic Welsh, or know poetry or have such soft skin. She should have smelled of lye, not lavender. “She’s isn’t a servant, is she?”
    Morgan sighed. “Nay.”
    “I’ll make a nuisance of myself trying to find out who she is, if you don’t tell me.”
    “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
    “Why not?”
    “For one thing, she’s English.”
    Rhys’s jaw dropped. “But she spoke beautiful Welsh.”
    “She’s fluent in it. From what Lettice says, she’s a bit of a bluestocking, and likes to read Welsh tales and such.”
    The blood rushed to Rhys’s head as he tried to remember if she’d had an accent. God, as if he could tell. English was his own native language. Father had always made them speak it at home. He’d learned Welsh from the servants.
    Then something else Morgan said made his throat grow dry. “A bluestocking? How did a bluestocking come to be a friend of Miss Johnes?”
    With a sigh, Morgan turned back toward his shop. “She’s Lettice’s mistress.”
    “Mistress! ” A slow dread burned through him. “And her name?”
    Morgan glanced at him with pity. “Lady Juliana St. Albans. Her father is the Earl of Northcliffe.”
    Feeling sick, Rhys stared at Morgan. Northcliffe had killed Father as surely as if he’d pushed him into the river himself.
    Then he remembered how sweetly Juliana had encouraged him during the lecture. “I don’t believe you! ”
    “She followed Lettice here this eve, and Lettice didn’t send her home.”
    God help them all. As he realized why the woman musthave sneaked into their meeting, Rhys tensed. “That little, conniving—”
    “Here now, don’t talk that way about the lady. I understand why you’re upset, but—”
    “Lady?” Rhys whirled on him. “What was the ‘lady’ doing at a gathering like this?”
    “Just curious, I suppose. Lady Juliana does like Welsh things.”
    “By thunder, why didn’t you warn me who she was?” He felt like breaking something, like tearing into someone, anyone. Why did she have to be Northcliffe’s spawn?
    “So you could badger her for her father’s crimes? Lettice would’ve cut out my tongue if I’d caused trouble for her mistress.”
    “Her mistress could cause trouble for us! She could name our members to her father, and we’d all find ourselves hounded by the burgesses. You know how fond the press gangs are of carrying off radicals to serve in His Majesty’s Navy.”
    “She wouldn’t turn us over,” Morgan protested, a bit nervously.
    “She might do it for her father.”
    “I don’t think so. Besides,