Captive Splendors Read Online Free Page A

chewed with a vengeance. Two more rolls and two more cups of coffee laced with rum—or was it three cups of rum laced with coffee?—and he was ready to meet any and all challengers, providing they didn’t carry a rapier or a cutlass. Damn it, he was feeling the edges of drunkenness and it was still breakfast time. To be cut down in his prime! “Never mind the coffee, just give me the bottle,” he demanded of the cook.
    â€œBut, Baron Sinclair, your kippers are ready, and Cook prepared them especially for you.”
    â€œKip, kip, kip,” Tyler hiccuped drunkenly. “The child is nothing more than a little kipper, that’s what she is.”
    â€œDo my eyes deceive me, or are you drunk?” Sirena’s melodious voice called out from the doorway. “Two hours past dawn and you’re in your cups.” Camilla must be up to some of her old tricks to make Tyler resort to spirits so early in the morning, Sirena mused. Tyler was no sot; at least he had never been one before. On the other hand, being married to Camilla should be reason enough to turn to drink. Hadn’t Regan tipped the bottle more than usual during his short-lived marriage to that fair petal of flowerhood? A wide smile broke across Sirena’s face as she patted a perspiring Tyler on his head. “I can forgive you anything, Tyler, since you’ve been so generous to give our Wren a home and take care of her.”
    Tyler extended a shaking hand to grasp Regan’s and finally conceded failure when he couldn’t establish contact.
    â€œYou resemble a fish out of water, Sinclair,” Regan said, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. No self-respecting man drank at dawn, or what passed for dawn in this damnable country. Camilla was undoubtedly leading Tyler a merry chase. Suddenly Regan grinned as the thought struck him that, but for the grace of God, he could be walking in Sinclair’s boots. Mercifully there was a God, and every day he thanked Him for his good fortune.
    Tyler thought the van der Rhyses a striking pair. Regan looked as fit and agile as a man twenty years his junior. Only a slight salting of gray at the temples hinted that it was almost nine years since Tyler had last seen him. He noted happily that Sirena had been treated well by the passage of time. A vague aura of maturity about her belied the sparkle in her extraordinary green eyes, and she wore her hair in a more sedate style, rather than loose and flowing. But her figure was still trim and girlish. Tyler had a vision of Sirena as she had looked aboard her ship, her long, tawny legs revealed by tatter-edged breeches cut up to her curvaceous hips, the salt spray glistening on her skin, her dark hair free to blow in the wind. He knew that beneath her wide skirts and decorous manner still lived the beautiful Sea Siren.
    â€œTell me, Tyler, how is your business thriving?” Sirena asked.
    Tyler flinched. Damn her, she knew something was troubling him, and she hadn’t changed a bit. She knew it had something to do with Wren; he could feel it in his bones and see it in her sea-green eyes. There was nothing for him to do but tell both of them the straight of it. With any luck, they would listen with open minds and hear him through. Mentally he squared his shoulders and stood up, his back to the seated couple. He fixed his gaze out the window, on a tree swaying in the early-morning breeze, and watched a sparrow take wing.
    Sirena and Regan exchanged glances and waited patiently for him to speak.
    â€œYou were never one of my favorite people, van der Rhys,” Tyler began, “but you, Sirena, were always like a sister to me. I agreed to look out for Wren and act as her guardian while she was here at the academy. I’ve done the best I could, but you, Sirena, filled her head with so many tales of the Sea Siren and all that rubbish that there was little I could do when it came to things of that nature. She’s devious,