Lord of Temptation Read Free

“I’m sure we could work out a suitable
arrangement.”
    A corner of his mouth lifted. “It’s bad luck to
have a woman onboard. My men would not be particularly pleased by your presence.
You would have to remain very close to me so that I could offer you
protection.”
    He was striving to manipulate her now, seeking to
intimidate, to make her wary. She had four brothers. She knew how the game was
played. “I sought you out because I’d heard that you were somewhat of a
hero—”
    He tightened his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and she
realized he wasn’t at all pleased with that characterization.
    “—although the particulars regarding your heroics
were not forthcoming. But I was assured you had excellent command of your men.
Surely if you tell them to behave, they will behave.”
    “For the chance at one of your kisses, I suspect
they’d be willing to risk the bite of a cat-o-nine.”
    “I don’t give my kisses freely.”
    “And I have no need of your two hundred pounds. So
tell me, Princess, what else are you willing to barter?”
    L ord
Tristan Easton, more commonly known along the waterfront as Crimson Jack,
couldn’t stop his smile from widening as she released a small gasp and snatched
her lovely hand free of his grip. He wasn’t certain he’d ever encountered such
silkiness before. Or such fire in a woman’s eyes. But then he wasn’t in the
habit of taunting women. Yet something about her called to the devil in him.
    “You’re a cur,” she snapped.
    “I never claimed otherwise.” And he’d hang from the
nearest yardarm whichever of his men was spouting tales that he was a hero. He
wasn’t. Not like his brother Sebastian who’d fought in the bloodiest of battles
and barely survived to tell the tale. “You’re asking me to go someplace that I
have no desire to go. It needs to be worth my while to be so
inconvenienced.”
    Although presently he had no commitments other than
lifting tankards of ale and doing as he pleased.
    “Obviously the tales I’ve heard of you are
untrue—you’re not a man of honor.”
    He refused to acknowledge how her words bit into
his soul. He’d long ago stopped caring how anyone judged him, so why the devil
did he give a fig what she thought?
    She rose elegantly to her feet. “I’m sorry to have
wasted your time and mine. Good night to you, sir.”
    With an indignant swish of her skirts, she pivoted
on her heel and marched toward the door. Someone jumped forward to open it for
her, and then she was gone into the storm.
    Pity.
    Tristan shifted his gaze over to the nearby table
where a lad of sixteen was trying to entice a serving girl onto his lap.
“Mouse,” he barked.
    The boy immediately snapped to attention. “Aye,
Cap’n?”
    He gave a quick nod toward the door. “I want to
know where she goes.”
    Without delay or complaint the nimble lad took off.
If anyone could follow her, he could.
    Tristan caught the eye of the disappointed maid and
signaled another tankard be brought to him. When it arrived he took a long swig
of the thick dark ale and leaned back his chair until it bumped against the
wall. His thinking pose.
    He’d grown remarkably bored of late. Two years ago
he and his brothers had finally made good on their promise—a bit tardy, but
still they’d returned to London, routed their uncle, and reclaimed their
birthright as the lords of Pembrook.
    But London Society had not been so quick to welcome
the lords back into the fold. Once Sebastian’s position as the Duke of Keswick
was secured and their uncle dead, Tristan had returned to the love that had
usurped Pembrook in his heart: the sea.
    But after nearly twenty months of fighting tempests
and gales, he was back on England’s shores, feeling untethered, as though he’d
somehow broken free of his moorings. He had no desire to return to the tedious
London ballrooms. While there, he discovered women aplenty to warm his bed, but
they were all cut of the same cloth: satin and silk and lace. They