The Pleasure Trap Read Online Free PDF

publisher, and if anyone knows who Angelo is, I’m sure it will be Mr. Fleming. There’s a luncheon afterward, when readers and writers mix informally. Perhaps Angelo will be there.”
    Tempting, but not tempting enough for Ash. There must be an easier way to discover who Angelo was.
    He said lamely, “I’d feel like a fish out of water at your symposium. You can’t seriously expect me to accompany you?”
    Amanda smiled. “Poor cornered little rabbit! Of course I don’t. But I’m not letting you off easily. Read Mrs. Barrymore’s latest novel and we’ll call it quits. Agreed?”
    He plucked the book from the table and weighed it in his hand. Finally, he nodded. “You drive a hard bargain, Amanda.”
    Amanda beamed at him. “I always said you were my favorite cousin, Ash.”
    The dowager seized on the moment of harmony and quickly interposed, “I’ll have Molly bring refreshments, shall I? Then after tea we’ll go for that drive in Hyde Park.”

    True to his word, later that evening Ash settled himself in his favorite chair in front of a blazing fire and embarked on the trials and tribulations of
The Vanishing Heiress.
He made up his mind to give the book half an hour of his time and, if his interest wasn’t caught by then, to skim to the end.
    The fire died down, the candles burned low, and still Ash read on. Occasionally he chuckled. He skipped here and there, but only the sappy bits where the author described what the hero and villain were thinking and feeling. Obviously, Mrs. Barrymore didn’t know the first thing about men, but she’d written a cracking good story.
    When he closed the book and came to himself, he was amazed to see how late it was. He’d enjoyed the story but not enough to make him want to meet the author.
    The following morning, after a hotel footman had delivered his breakfast and that morning’s paper, he turned to the back page. Sure enough, there was another breathless piece by Angelo. He looked at the bottom of the page. The date, time, and place of the symposium blazed out at him.
    He swallowed a mouthful of coffee and began to read. When he came to the end of it, he sat back in his chair. His breakfast was untouched.
    Now he understood Colonel Shearer’s feelings of revulsion when he’d recognized his home as the backdrop to what was supposed to be a work of fiction. He was in exactly the same position. But there was more to it than that. Angelo knew things that he ought not to have known, things that Ash had never confided to anyone. If Angelo had appeared in front of him right then, he would have taken him by the throat and squeezed the life out of him.
    He read the piece again and a lump formed in his throat. The story was based on the accidental death of his own brother, Harry—Harry, who’d never matured beyond a simple-minded child. He’d gone out swimming one day in the Thames, alone, and hadn’t had the strength in his wasted limbs to stay afloat.
    The details were sparse, but there were enough broad strokes to paint a reasonable picture of life at Denison Hall: the overpowering father; the mother who was too fragile to withstand the hardships of daily life; himself, the elder brother, who was being groomed as the heir; and Harry, the only light in that dreary pile of bricks they called home.
    What stuck in Ash’s craw was the faint suggestion that Harry’s death might not have been an accident. After all, there were no witnesses to what had happened.
    His first call that morning was to the
Herald
’s offices. Brand was not expected back for another week, he was told, and no one else could tell him what he wanted to know.
    There was only one course open to him. It looked as though he would be escorting his cousin and grandmother to the symposium after all.

Chapter Three
    Leigh Fleming was taken aback when he and his bevy of writers entered the Clarendon’s public dining room, which served temporarily as the meeting place for the symposium. It was standing