Firelight Read Online Free Page A

pedestrians begin moving on. Unsettled murmurs rippled along the streets before being drowned out by the usual clatter and clang of hacks, omnibuses, and coaches rattling along the cobbled road. Miranda decided she did not want to know what the unfortunate Lord Archer looked like. She had experienced enough horrors in her meager lifetime.
    The slight weight in her pocket felt like a ton as she made her way home. Miranda’s steps stuttered to a stop as she saw the sleek, black double-brougham stretched out like a coffin in the front portico of the house. Thick whorls of yellow-green evening fog rose from the cobbled drive, ghosting over the coach’s large spoke wheels and coiling like snakes round the spindly legs of the matched black Friesians that stood placidly waiting.
    Dread plucked at her insides. Long gone were the days when their drive filled with endless lines of landaus, barouches, and phaetons as nobility and gentry alike called upon father to purchase his wares.
    With a jostle of rigging and the smart clip of hooves, the coach turned, and the crest upon the door flashed in the waning light. A white shield bisected by a heavy black cross bore the words Sola bona quae honesta upon it. Four sharp arrowheads slashed across the white planes of the shield. The hairs along her arm stood at attention, and she knew the source of her disquiet. The Dread Lord Archer .
    The coach drew near, and the form of a figure, no more than a broad black outline of shoulders and the glimpse of an arm, appeared behind the window glass. As the coach pulled away, a finger of ice slid along Miranda’s spine, for someone was staring back.
    “I shall not!”
    Her shout bounded off the bare stone walls of the dark, cramped kitchen. High and rather thready, nothing like Miranda’s normal voice. She struggled to tone it down.
    Her father moved around the battered wooden table that stood between them. His small brown eyes flashed. “You most certainly shall!” He slammed his fist to the table. “My word is law here!”
    “Bosh.” She slammed her wooden spoon down as well, sending a splatter of mutton stew across the pudding. “Your control over me ended the day you sold Daisy off to the highest bidder.”
    The wrinkled mask of his face went pale as Irish linen. “You dare!” His hand rose to strike but held, hovering in the air and shaking, when she did not flinch.
    “Please try it,” she said quietly. Her eyes held his as the air about her began to coalesce, heating and stirring with an almost expectant agitation. “I beg of you.”
    Father’s hand quivered then slowly lowered. “I’m sure you do, daughter.” Spittle slicked the corners of his shaking lips. “See me writhe and burn.”
    Miranda shifted, heat and pain mingling within her belly, a surge that wanted out.
    “Always calling upon the fire to protect you.” He took a step closer, his eyes burning into her. “Never mind the price.”
    Like a flame in a draft, the heat snuffed, and with it, her father’s confidence seemed to swell.
    “The worst of it is that I do this for you,” he coaxed, leaning in. “You’re not a lass anymore. Not for years. Did you think to live here forever with me?”
    “No, I—” Her mouth snapped shut. She had not given the future much thought but simply lived from day to day. Surviving. No point exchanging the hell one knew for the hell one did not.
    “I think you must believe so. You’ve scared off every lad that’s come this way ever since that fool Martin…” He swallowed down his words aware, for once, that even he might have gone too far. But he rallied quickly, and his bushy brows formed a white V. “It cannot have escaped your notice that this is the finest meal we’ve had in months.” His weathered hand swept over the meager meal of mutton stew and simple brown bread pudding that Miranda was preparing. “Who do you think provided the money for this meal?”
    “I thought perhaps you’d sold the wool—”
    His dry