Shadow Dance Read Free Page A

“I don’t think so,” he said enigmatically.
    The door to the private parlor opened, breaking the odd impasse, as the second serving girl rushed in, breathless. “You’re needed in the kitchen, Julian,” she said importantly. “I’ll help out here.”
    “But I want the lad to wait on us,” Sir Neville announced in a peevish voice.
    “Let him go, Neville,” the lady murmured. “You don’t need to debauch anyone today. Concentrate on me instead.”
    “Lovely though you are, Valerie, you’re not my type,” Neville said, still casting a longing look at Julian.
    “You might be surprised, dear Neville,” the lady cooed.
    For a moment Julian couldn’t move. He had the strange notion that each person in the room, from the two serving girls who’d flirted with him mercilessly earlier in the evening to the lovely lady and the two disparate gentlemen, was viewing him with an unexpectedly sexual curiosity.
    It was an absurd, irrational thought. The two gentlemen couldn’t be further apart, in looks, in temperament, and presumably in amatory interests. Nevertheless, Julian backed away, completely unnerved. No one made any move to stop him, but as he closed the door quietly behind him, he heard the young lady’s husky voice drawl in amusement:
    “You know, Philip, maybe we should keep him instead of Neville.”
    The door closed before Julian could hear the tall man’s reply. Only the sardonic tone of his voice carried through the thick oak door. Just as well, Julian told himself, moving down the narrow back stairs to the kitchen. Things were already getting too complicated.
    Bessie took one look at him and shooed him upstairs to the loft over the kitchen. It was a hot, airless place, with a small, sagging bed near a window. Someone, probablyBessie, had made an effort to make the place more homelike, and Julian stared at it in numb surprise, the soft coverlet on the thin mattress, the jug of water for washing. Even his small satchel had been left, untouched, at the foot of the bed.
    At least he hoped it was untouched. He hated to think how people would react if they peeked inside at his only possessions.
    They were little enough. A change of clothes, this one even more threadbare than the outfit he was wearing. Lace-trimmed, fine lawn undergarments. Another swath of linen. And a pair of diamond-and-pearl drop earrings worth a small fortune.
    Julian glanced toward the window, at his reflection in the moonlight. The village of Hampton Regis was still on such a warm summer night, though he could hear the trill of laughter from the tavern below, the sound of the ocean in the distance. And he still marveled that it was Sir Neville who owned that light, feminine voice, not the lady.
    He unfastened his jacket and leather waistcoat and took them off, folding them in a neat pile. He stepped out of his breeches and stockings, wiggling his toes in the evening air. Reaching up under the voluminous white shirt, he unwrapped the linen, breathing a sigh of relief.
    And then Julian Smith, better known as Juliette MacGowan, daughter of the infamous Black Jack MacGowan, lay down on the pallet and fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.
    “What do you mean, we’ll keep him instead of Neville?” the man called Philip asked.
    “Now don’t quarrel,” Neville drawled. “You know I detestarguments that aren’t of my own making. Besides, I saw him first.”
    “But my interests in him aren’t perverse,” Valerie cooed.
    “He’s about half your age, and doubtless a virgin,” Neville replied. “That’s perverse enough.”
    “Oh, I thought I’d get him for Philip.”
    “The two of you are giving me the headache,” the tall man said, dropping down into a chair with lazy elegance and reaching for the glass of brandy Agnes had already poured. “Leave the boy alone.”
    “I suppose I should,” Valerie said with an exaggerated pout. “Still, he tickles my sense of the absurd.”
    “Why?” Neville inquired, mystified.
    Valerie