The Princess and the Pauper Read Online Free PDF

picked this moment to finally do her duty.
    “ Is it true, Emily?” demanded
Wright.
    Emily’s eyes flitted between the two men. She
covered her mouth with her hands. Tears streaked her flushed
cheeks. She said nothing. But she shook her
head—violently.
    Grey’s heart fell.
    “ Liar! Traitor!” cried Wright.
“You dragged her from her bed and ravished her!”
    Wright raised his fist again,
but this time Grey didn’t move to avoid it. Emily had denied him.
She had denied the truth about them . And that took the breath from his lungs more
than any pummeling.
    “ No, Papa!” She jumped
forward and grabbed her father’s arm. “Don’t hurt him. He didn’t
ravish me, I swear.”
    “ What?”
    “ He didn’t hurt me. You . . . you
stopped him.”
    “ He wanted to hurt
you.”
    “ But he didn’t. You saved me. Oh,
Papa. Don’t! You’ll go to prison if you kill him.”
    “ No judge would convict a father
for defending his daughter’s honor.”
    “ Please , Papa! Think of me. Think of the
scandal. Who would marry me?”
    That stopped the man, sobered
him.
    “ Get out,” he ordered Grey, hellfire still
burning in his eyes. “Out!”
    He grabbed Grey and yanked him from the
room. In full view of the other servants, who’d gathered at the
commotion, Wright dragged him across the hall and shoved him down
the stairs. He kicked the suitcase after him.
    Grey seized the banister for support,
still dazed. He looked over his shoulder and watched as Emily
reached for the violin case, but her father snatched it first and
sent it into a wall.
    The case opened and the
instrument clattered to the floor before Wright smashed it with his
heel.
    Emily gasped and covered her
mouth.
    Grey stared at the splintered
wood —and his
heart hardened.
    He looked at
E mily. She
shook her head again and mouthed the words “I’m sorry.” But it was
too late for remorse.
    How quickly love turned to
hate.

CHAPTER
3
     
    Spring
    London, 1888
     
    Grey watched his energetic fingers dance
across the violin’s strings. He ended his latest masterpiece with a
presto passage and yanked his right hand back, raising the
bow.
    He couldn’t hear his heartbeat anymore as
the audience erupted with echoing applause. More than five thousand
spectators offered him an ovation, and he bowed before walking off
the stage of the Royal Albert Hall.
    The amphitheater still resounded with
acclaim as he entered his dressing room. Closing the door, he
tossed the violin on the Turkish divan, then removed his dress
coat. The room was filled with flowers and cards from men and women
alike, begging for a private audience. He dismissed the fanfare and
poured himself a glass of red wine.
    Grey dropped into a chair and stared at
his reflection in the oval mirror. His music was often compared to
his macabre looks. He had let his hair grow unfashionably long and
unruly. He never wore a cravat when he played, leaving his neck
exposed. And he engaged the violin like a man making mad love to
his mistress. The sexuality of his performances publically
shocked—and privately tempted—his contemporaries, making him a
sensation. He had earned more fame and money as a scandalous, even
immoral musician than a respectable violinist, and that epithet
suited him fine.
    The door burst
open .
    “ That was a smashing
performance, me old mucker!”
    Harry Hickox strode into the
room with the confidence of a n intimate friend, one who knew he’d be tolerated
under any circumstances. He was a young man of aristocratic blood
with no fortune or influence, and he’d appointed himself a central
part of Grey’s musical attaché, travelling with him abroad and now
here in London. He was the one constant in Grey’s haphazard
life.
    Grey swirled the wine in his glass. “I
always give a smashing performance, Harry.”
    “ But never at the Royal
Albert Hall! You’ve made it, chum. Londoners finally love
you.”
    “ Yes, finally. I didn’t think it
would ever happen. A prophet is