Passion Read Online Free

a
linen shirt. I refuse a dressing gown.
    Telling the lad to set me by the window, I
dismiss him after Ry brings me a brandy. I vaguely recall him now,
some summer he had visited and we had fished. I drink the brandy,
thinking of the Laudanum I will consume to sleep later. I am
listening to the street sounds, glad my cousin does not ask me
about the war, the wound, if I will ever see again. I figure he’s
father’s spy, but I do not really give a damn.
    I can tell he is leaning against the
casement, listening to the sounds and watching the lamp lit street.
I think of the months I have been in hospital, probed, and prodded,
admonished by my superiors for refusing to resign the last time I
was wounded—knowing I should have. However, this has been my life
since I was old enough to know what I wanted to do.
    I was not father. I sure as bloody hell was
not Jules. I did not much resemble my elegant, lean muscled
brother. Jules looked the Earl to his fingertips. He had that
aristocratic, high cheek boned face, the ice green eyes—the
personality to match them. I was six foot tall, too bloody
competitive in school and often in trouble for it. A scrapper, the
tutor called me. However, the head masters had not been so
indulgent. I was so used to being punished, deserving it. I did not
bother with an explanation.
    The only time I had defied authority however,
was when a riding crop was employed to my back by a riding master.
I was sent down for it, but even that did not get the Duke’s
attention. The Duchess…Ah, yes, mother sent me to the vicar for an
additional beating, two nights of reciting scripture in the church,
and to my rooms without supper for three days. I did my penances
and went back to school. Age eventually took care of the
discipline, and a conversation with a history professor stirred my
interest in the military, and gave me direction.
    I had light brown eyes and wavy dark brown
hair, and some of the most grueling work my first officers could
invent built my body from the bone out. They had mocked me, shunned
me the first year, and bloody dubbed me “lady LeClair” because of
my powerful father and lofty brother. I earned every drop of
respect I had gotten— and every promotion afterwards.
    Finished with the drink, my cousin asked if I
wanted anything else. It was on the tip of my tongue to say yes. I
wanted a woman. I wanted to crawl between a set of warm thighs and
sink deep into a juicy sex, to purge my frustrations.
    I was not ready for pity though. Not even
from a whore. I was not ready to find out if my cock would even
stand at attention. Trauma…that is what the surgeon said when I had
been caught cursing my flaccid flesh when one of the nurses had ran
her hand under my blankets.
    I was not considered a lover beforehand. I
stuck to the whores, because the one woman I had had who was not,
called me a detached and cold bastard.
    I was.
    No, I said to cousin’s question. He started
to leave, but I heard him turning down the bed. He or the valet had
unpacked my bag. He cautioned me about the laudanum. I said
something but could hear him mixing it with water in the right
dose. He left.
    I stood, fumbled around for my bag, managed
to get a cheroot lit, and seat myself again, without falling out of
the window. I smoked and mentally cursed. I had invented a few
since I discovered I could not see. I invented more after all the
well wishes, and pats on the back, from my superiors. I had a great
list of them now, knowing I would have Jules and the Duke on my
doorstep eventually. I did not dwell often on our years before
school took us away from Eastland Hall. When the Duchess died, I
was away from England, and left father and Jules to do what they
did best—pretend, for the ton.
    I had not planned to ever leave the Navy. I
had not planned for this….the blindness, the end of my career, the
bloody likelihood that the Duke would now want to make a pretense
of fatherly affection. After all, I’d been listed as