The Lily Brand Read Online Free PDF

her lips, her hand snaked around the prisoner’s neck to draw him near. He would lick it from her.
    He resisted, and the whip sounded a second time.
    It took ten lashes to make him give up his resistance. By that time, the blood, Lillian saw, was streaming down his back. Regardless, Camille spread her hand over the man’s skin, dug her nails into his ravaged flesh. The smile bloomed on her face as she threw her head back, and Nataraj provided a steady supply of cream.
    Soon, the white sweetness stained the top of her dress, traveling lower with each generous spread. It took another touch with the whip to make the man lower his head to her lap. Across the table, Lillian closed her eyes.

Chapter 3
    The call came in the middle of the following week, on a cold afternoon when the sky was gray and the clouds hovered low with the promise of more rain. Three times the thrush called out in the long-awaited signal. Yet when Lillian rose from the damp tree trunk, her face was expressionless.
    Chained to the other tree, the prisoner stood like a well-trained dog. For his obedience during the past two days or so, he had been spared the gag today.
    Lillian turned and shook her head. They would not yet go back to the mansion.
    Swiftly, she stepped onto the first stone in the water. The clacking of her shoes on the stones sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of the garden. However, she crossed the path to the mouth of the cave without hesitation. Only when she had climbed up to the statues of the men and their horses did she halt and, taking a deep breath, look back to the man on the banks of the lake. He stood so still that he could have been stone himself.
    With a swirl of her coat, Lillian turned to enter the cave. A grotto, Nanette had said it was called. Perhaps the first lord of the mansion had used it for his secret dalliances. If so, his paramour had come from outside the manor.
    In the cave, close to the niche with the statues of the horses and the men, but well hidden from unsuspecting view, Lillian felt for the flintbox and the candle. When her light flared up, it revealed the fantastic decorations, mythic beasts in stone springing from the walls and the ceiling. Then the light touched upon the metal door at the back, which might have once been concealed by a tapestry.
    Lillian’s heart rose to her throat as her fingers skimmed the cool metal. But then, as its coolness seeped into her, she straightened her shoulders and slid the door’s bolt free.
    On the other side, behind the curtain of creepers that had been thinned out weeks ago, stood a bedraggled boy with bare feet. At her sudden appearance he blinked. His eyes surveyed her from head to toe before he nodded briskly, his face suddenly that of a man. “Everything’s ready,” he said in the broad patois of the area. He smelled of the sea; perhaps he was a fisher’s son. A smuggler’s son.
    “When?”
    He raised his brows. “Now.” And he spat, carelessly. As if spitting was a sign of manliness. “Get your things, madame .”
    “Now?” She had thought she would have time to prepare herself, time to gather a small bundle of her belongings.
    “The tide’ll rise in a few hours.” He looked as if he considered spitting again. “We were told that you’d be ready.” All of a sudden, his expression became wary. Perhaps he suspected a trap. This was a risky enough enterprise as it was, defying the mistress of the manor. In the past, nobody had dared help. How Nanette had managed to find somebody willing this time, Lillian did not know.
    To slip the net of control…
    Her hands itched to snake around her body, to protect herself from the cold within. She had thought she would have a few hours. She would have packed a bundle with her herbs. She would have poisoned the man.
    Her head jerked around as she remembered him, chained to the tree. How long would it take him to die out there? Three days? A week? More?
    “ Madame ?” The boy sounded impatient now. Of