Heart of Courage Read Online Free Page B

man who is guilty of the crime.”
    He nodded, hoping she was right. She might annoy him but he wouldn’t want to see her hurt, and it was clear how much she cared about her brother.
    â€œHe is a good sort,” she said. “Lately Rudy has lost his way, but in time, he will find the right path.”
    â€œIt is good he has you to worry about him.”
    She managed a smile. “Thank you.”
    The gratitude in her eyes made his chest feel tight. He had the strangest urge to reach out and touch her, erase the worry lines from her forehead. It was madness. As the lady had said, he didn’t even truly like her.
    At least he didn’t like the sort of woman she was, the kind who worked in an office instead of staying home to tend a husband and family. The kind who believed she was equal to a man. Leif had married a woman like that, and though Thor had grown to care for Krista greatly, still, she was too independent, too outspoken in her views, not the sort he would want to take to wife.
    Where he came from, women worked as hard as men, but they always knew their place, knew they were put on earth to serve a man. A lesson Lindsey Graham would never learn.
    Unless, of course, some man was fool enough to try to bring her in hand.
    He ignored the little thread of interest that stirred, as well as the surge of lust he felt at the notion of her serving his needs. He scoffed. One kiss and she would likely run off screaming. Passion was probably as foreign to her as the notion that a man should be master of his house.
    Shaking his head, Thor left Lindsey to mull over her problems and returned to his duties in the back room of the office. The rest of the week, he would be working for his brother down at the dock, unloading the cargo that had just come in, reloading the ships that would sail off to British island ports.
    Mayhap tomorrow night, he would pay a call on the ladies at the Red Door, a house of pleasure he visited on occasion.
    Across the office, he caught sight of Lindsey. As she bent her head to study the paper on her desk, her honey hair parted, exposing the soft white skin at the nape of her neck.
    Thor’s groin tightened. For reasons he was at a loss to explain, whenever she was near, the girl left him craving a woman. He thought of the Red Door again and vowed it was time to make a stop.
    Â 
    Leif Draugr stood on the quay above the dock, watching his brother’s crew unloading and reloading the ships that had just come into port. A stiff wind whipped the Union Jack flying atop the masts, and seagulls swooped down, screeching as they soared toward the choppy blue water.
    Leif loved the sight, loved the feeling of accomplishment whenever he gazed out over his growing fleet of ships. Since his arrival in England, he had built Valhalla Shipping into an extremely successful enterprise, and though his brother refused to take any of the credit, Leif knew Thor had had a great deal to do with the company’s success.
    He watched his brother laughing with a couple of the men as they strained to the task of hoisting a cargo net loaded with household supplies for delivery to the northern islands off the Scottish coast.
    His brother was amazingly good at handling the men. He had a way of earning their trust and admiration, a way of making them want to do a good job for him. Perhaps it was because he often pitched in to help, no matter that he was the boss, no matter how dirty the job was.
    Though Leif and his brother both believed in hard work and accomplishment and both loved the sea, in a number of ways they were as different as their coloring, Leif fair-skinned and blond, Thor swarthy and dark-haired. While Leif had done everything in his power to learn what was necessary to fit into British society, Thor had learned little more than the basics.
    He could read and write, of course, and he could speak the language with even less accent than Leif, but he refused to wear anything but the simplest