A Midnight Dance Read Free Page A

unsheathed his sword. The ominous blade gleamed in the moonlight. Sabine’s stomach dropped. He placed the tip to Gerard’s chest in proximity to his heart. Her cousin stiffened. A scream lodged in her throat. Dear God . . .
    “We don’t share,” the brute said, “unless it’s the woman you’re offering.” The roar of male laughter assailed her ears. Every pair of eyes from the unruly bunch was fixed on her in lewd assessment.
    “Wh-Who is the leader among you?” Gerard asked. “I w-w-will offer the woman to him and only him in exchange for food.”
    “ Jésus-Christ , Fabrice, put the sword down before he pisses his breeches.” A tall thinner man with blond hair approached.
    With a muttered curse, Fabrice reluctantly lowered the blade.
    “Who are you?” the blond man asked Gerard. “State your business here in these woods truthfully, or I’ll have Fabrice finish what he started.”
    Gerard looked up at her, his reluctance to continue clearly readable on his face. She nodded to him to proceed. Courage, now . The blond man didn’t seem as frightening as his friends.
    Gerard looked at the ground. Taking in an audible breath, he released it slowly before he was able to speak again. “We’ve been traveling all day and are hungry,” he wove his tale. “We offer some wine to your men—and the woman only to your leader—in exchange for food.”
    “Why only him?” Fabrice lamented.
    “Silence!” the blond man snapped. He then looked up at her and said, “Step down and come closer.”
    Sabine clenched her teeth to keep them from chattering. The moment her feet touched the ground, she was relieved her knees didn’t buckle beneath her.
    She approached the blond man on shaky limbs, managing to conceal her disquiet.
    He looked over her upturned face, then down her body with a dispassionately critical eye. She held in her outrage. Never in her life had she been so crudely assessed. But then, a whore wouldn’t mind the preview.
    And that is how you must act.
    “Turn around,” he demanded.
    Sabine turned slowly, allowing him time to assess her backside, fighting down the humiliation with purposeful resolve. This is all part of the role.
    When at last she faced him again, he said, “Good. Wait here. I’ll speak to the commander and suggest your deal to him.”

    “ Merde , Raymond, have you lost your fucking mind?” Jules Thomas de Moutier snarled. Members of his crew who’d been sitting around the fire immediately rose and cleared the area, noting his escalating ire. “You allowed someone close to the camp when we hold our biggest capture to date?”
    The rest of the men stood guard around the perimeter of the camp. Too many desperate peasants would risk death for what he had in his covered carts.
    Raymond shook his blond head. “They’re harmless—a woman and two men, no, more like boys, merely looking for food. Take a look at the woman. You will like what you see,” he implored.
    “I don’t care what she looks like. Jésus-Christ , I’ve more important things on my mind.”
    Five years. Five horrific years he’d spent privateering, preying on Spanish ships and ports during the realm’s ongoing war with Spain. And finally he’d accumulated enough wealth.
    With this latest prize he could repurchase his family’s lands. Or at least part of them. By God, he’d repurchase parcel by parcel if he had to, until he’d reclaimed everything that had belonged to his family.
    Everything that had been wrongly stripped from them.
    Everything that was rightfully theirs.
    Once he had enough land, respectability would follow. Enough time had passed since his family’s disgrace. He prayed that he could convince someone to talk. Someone out there knew the truth about who’d so treacherously doomed his father.
    And why.
    “My lord, as a loyal servant to your family for many years, to you, personally, during your time in the King’s Navy, I know how difficult it has been for you since your father’s