To Tempt An Angel (Book 1 Douglas series) Read Free

turning his horse around.
    “There is much in life to cause bitterness unless one is a member of the Quality,” Angelica informed him.
    “Do you actually believe the Quality lead perfect, happy lives?” he asked.
    “None of them need to scratch like barnyard chickens for their next meal,” she answered.
    Robert couldn’t argue with that. “What is beyond the hamlet?” he asked, changing the subject.
    “Saint John’s Wood.”
    Robert nudged his horse forward. Slowly, they descended Primrose Hill to the hamlet below.
    “Stop here,” Angelica said when they reached the last cottage.
    Robert halted his horse in front of a pale pink cottage trimmed in white. He dismounted and then lifted her down from the saddle.
    “Angelica, darling,” a woman’s voice called. “Thank God you’re home.”
    Though she appeared to be in her early forties, a youthful beauty still clung to the woman hurrying toward them. Auburn-haired and brown-eyed, the woman was voluptuous of figure. When she smiled to acknowledge his presence, two adorable dimples adorned her cheeks, making her appear even younger.
    “What’s the problem, Aunt Roxie?”
    “Your father is a bit under the eaves,” her aunt told her. She flicked a quick glance at Robert and added, “He drank my lavender perfume.”
    Angelica raced inside the cottage. Robert followed her through a large common room into an inner chamber where an older man lay on a cot and moaned as if in agony.
    “He’s poisoned himself,” Robert said, taking charge. “Fetch me an empty bucket and a jar of heavily salted water.”
    “What are you going to do?” Aunt Roxie asked, hurrying into the tiny bedchamber.
    “Help me get him into a sitting position,” Robert ordered, ignoring her question.
    On either side of the cot, Robert and Aunt Roxie pulled the man up until his back was against the wall. He opened his eyes, looked at Robert, and mumbled, “Magnus? Is it you, Magnus?”
    The words startled Robert. His own father was named Magnus, and some people said he looked like his father as a young man. How could this desperate alcoholic know his father?
    “Graham, he’s not Magnus,” Aunt Roxie was telling him. “He’s—” She looked at him.
    “Robert,” he supplied.
    Graham Douglas moaned and clutched his stomach. “Roxanne, it is Magnus,” the old man insisted breathlessly.
    “He is not Magnus,” Aunt Roxie replied.
    “You cannot win an argument with a drunk,” Robert told her. “I’ll answer to Magnus if it will help him.”
    “What a sweet boy,” Aunt Roxie said as Angelica returned with the salted water and empty bucket.
    Robert lifted the bottle out of her hand and put his left arm around the older man’s head in order to force his mouth open. He poured some salted water into his mouth and clamped it shut forcing him to swallow.
    Robert repeated this procedure again and again until the bottle was empty. Then he grabbed the bucket and planted it in the man’s lap.
    “What do we do now?” Angelica asked, her anxiety apparent in her voice.
    “We wait,” Robert answered, his gaze fixed on her father. He reached out to grab the back of the man’s head and force it forward until he’d vomited everything in his stomach. Then he handed the bucket to Angelica.
    “You’ll soon feel better,” he told the older man, helping him to lie down on the bed.
    “I already do. Graham Douglas patted his hand. “I knew you’d come to help me, Magnus.”
    “Graham, he is not Magnus,” Aunt Roxie repeated.
    “Roxanne, you’ve always been a good sister and remained loyal to me,” Graham Douglas said. “You were there the day I fell off the horse, weren’t you?”
    “Yes, I was,” Aunt Roxie answered with a nod of her head.
    “You were there the day my sweet wife died,” he rambled on.
    Aunt Roxie nodded her head again. “A sadder day I’ve never seen.”
    “And you were here today to help me in my distress.”
    Once again Aunt Roxie nodded.
The older man’s