Written in My Own Heart's Blood Read Online Free PDF

of house, sometimes a man was required to wash his parts first. He’d encountered the custom once before, but on that occasion the whore had performed the ablution for him—plying the soap to such effect that the first encounter had ended right there in the washbasin.
    The memory made the blood flame up in his face again, and he ripped at his flies, popping off a button. He was still throbbing all over, but the sensation was becoming more centralized.
    His hands were unsteady, and he cursed under his breath, reminded by the broken skin on his knuckles of his unceremonious exit from his father’s—no, not his bloody father’s house. Lord John’s.
    “You bloody bastard !” he said under his breath. “You knew, you knew all along!” That infuriated him almost more than the horrifying revelation of his own paternity. His stepfather, whom he’d loved, whom he’d trusted morethan anyone on earth—Lord John bloody Grey—had lied to him his whole life!
    Everyone had lied to him.
    Everyone.
    He felt suddenly as though he’d broken through a crust of frozen snow and plunged straight down into an unsuspected river beneath. Swept away into black breathlessness beneath the ice, helpless, voiceless, a feral chill clawing at his heart.
    There was a small sound behind him and he whirled by instinct, aware only when he saw the young whore’s appalled face that he was weeping savagely, tears running down his own face, and his wet, half-hard cock flopping out of his breeches.
    “Go away,” he croaked, making a frantic effort to tuck himself in.
    She didn’t go away but came toward him, decanter in one hand and a pair of pewter cups in the other.
    “Are you all right?” she asked, eyeing him sideways. “Here, let me pour you a drink. You can tell me all about it.”
    “No!”
    She came on toward him, but more slowly. Through his swimming eyes, he saw the twitch of her mouth as she saw his cock.
    “I meant the water for your poor hands,” she said, clearly trying not to laugh. “I will say as you’re a real gentleman, though.”
    “I’m not!”
    She blinked.
    “Is it an insult to call you a gentleman?”
    Overcome with fury at the word, he lashed out blindly, knocking the decanter from her hand. It burst in a spray of glass and cheap wine, and she cried out as the red soaked through her petticoat.
    “You bastard !” she shrieked, and, drawing back her arm, threw the cups at his head. She didn’t hit him, and they clanged and rolled away across the floor. She was turning toward the door, crying out, “Ned! Ned!” when he lunged and caught her.
    He only wanted to stop her shrieking, stop her bringing up whatever male enforcement the house employed. He got a hand on her mouth, yanking her back from the door, grappling one-handed to try to control her flailing arms.
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” he kept saying. “I didn’t mean—I don’t mean—oh, bloody hell !” She caught him abruptly in the nose with her elbow and he let go, backing away with a hand to his face, blood dripping through his fingers.
    Her face was marked with red where he’d held her, and her eyes were wild. She backed away, scrubbing at her mouth with the back of her hand.
    “Get . . . out !” she gasped.
    He didn’t need telling twice. He rushed past her, shouldered his way past a burly man charging up the stairs, and ran down the alley, realizing only when he reached the street that he was in his shirtsleeves, having left coat and waistcoat behind, and his breeches were undone.
    “Ellesmere!” said an appalled voice nearby. He looked up in horror to find himself the cynosure of several English officers, including Alexander Lindsay.
    “Good Christ, Ellesmere, what happened?” Sandy was by way of being a friend and was already pulling a voluminous snowy handkerchief from his sleeve. He clapped this to William’s nose, pinching his nostrils and insisting that he put his head back.
    “Have you been set upon and robbed?” one of the