Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2) Read Online Free

the pouring rain.
    Gracious. Harriet brought a hand to her mouth.
    The man on the horse . Her hand fell to her side in a clenched fist. Turning on her heel, she faced the closed door that shut out the darkness outside. Her eyes flicked guiltily to an oblong item that sat on the floor by her feet and then resolutely back to the door. Without hesitation, she opened the door and strode into the night. There were a few choice words she had to say to that man. She had waited two years.
     

CHAPTER 2
     
    As he did in every new place that he visited, Lord James Aloysius Oswald Stanton searched the night sky for the position of the stars. It was merely habit; here he knew the landscape like the back of his hand, every lush field and every overgrown track. He did not need to know which way was east or west. Sat high on his horse, he was no longer hiding in a haystack in the unforgiving arid land of the Portuguese peninsular, nor wading through deep rivers to avoid detection. James was back in Brambridge and had been for two long and boring days.
    His hand crept to his waistband where two letters were tucked in a pouch. There was no point in pulling them out and reading them again. He knew their essence by heart.
    Your last mission is to find out who is disrupting the spy routes through Brambridge, yours, Hawk.
    We regret to inform that your father has died. As the new Lord Stanton we ask that you join us for the reading of the will at Brambridge Manor. Yours sincerely, Edward Granger.
    James flexed his fingers and picked up the reins again. Scorpius, the large black stallion, snickered softly and stamped a great hoof. He had found Scorpius, red-eyed and foaming, on the battlefield at Badajoz, his rider dead, hanging from the saddle. He had had no time to retrieve the man’s body. Instead he had unhooked the soldier from the stirrups and left him among the dead.
    James patted Scorpius’ flank absently. Any human feeling James had had was fleeting, and had been so since the day he left Brambridge.
    Damn the Hawk and damn his father.
    He stared at the shadowy fields around him but saw nothing. He had been happy enough to return to England, to London at the end of the war. His friend Freddie, Lord Lassiter, had given him a room to stay in. He had filled his days visiting the Greenwich observatory and attending meetings of the Astronomical Society. But after a few weeks, even the gentle pull of the stars could not change the indefinable knowledge that something was missing. The danger that had gone out of his life.
    James focused on the horizon. A small light blinked out in Longman’s Cove, breaking the darkness. It danced briefly, and then all was dark again. He shook his head and let out a breath.
    Squeezing his knees, he pushed Scorpius into a trot down the dark lane. That had been the good news, his father dying, although he was intrigued as to why he had been summoned to Brambridge Manor. At least his last mission had coincided nicely with it. And that was what it was. His last mission. If the Hawk asked him to do anything more again he would refuse.
    James’ hands tightened on the reins and his stomach tightened. On the morrow the will would be read. And then he would be free. Free to burn the family portraits and paint his blasted father’s study a disgusting shade of yellow. Only then he would turn his full attention to Hawk’s request.
    Scorpius pulled gently at his bit as James set him down the hill of Fountain Vale that led into Brambridge village. Two days he had been in Brambridge and he had not visited the Manor. He had not corresponded with his mother or sister since the night he had left. The Fountain Inn provided him with the hospitality that he needed; there would be time enough to see them in the morning.
    James straightened in his saddle and kicked Scorpius into a canter. After another hundred yards, he arrived at the outskirts of Brambridge. A row of cottages led down to the Fountain Inn, and then further down