Passion Read Online Free Page A

wounded in the
papers, and the men in hospital had read with great jesting the
long lines of my ancestry, of the Duke and Earl, and how I’d added
to the rich history of my noble family—(someone having dug up a
moldy old story of the Lombardi Duchess having a dead war hero in
the ranks) as if I’d joined and fought for that.
    I made it to the bed and sat on the edge,
removed all but my trousers and drank the laudanum. Lying back on
the coverlet, I could hear my heartbeat, feel it in my eyes, like
spikes tapping the back of the socket.
    When the drug went through my blood, I had
visions of myself dressed in formal clothing, all my medals pinned
obscenely on my lapels, being led around ballrooms by the Duke and
Jules, with my shaved head, wearing a bloody dressing. They were
saying repeatedly, my blind son, my blind brother. I was then
outside myself, watching as they led me to a nude beauty on a couch
and then they took away my clothing. There were hundreds of people
around as I crawled between her thighs…she was laughing.
Everyone... was laughing.
    I was sick, appalled at my dream self, which
kept thrusting unresponsive flesh toward the woman. The laughter
grew to a roar. I could see my father and Jules dragging me off and
dressing me again, and they walked me out—every face wore
expressions of embarrassed pity. Poor blind man, they whispered,
poor impotent creature.
    I awoke sweating. My heart was beating
louder, faster. I sat up, fumbled for the water left in the glass,
and drank it. Lying back, I wanted to rip the bandages off my eyes
and open them, but the salve had them shut.
    My hands fisted. Suddenly, I surged up right
and reached for the bottle of laudanum.
    A hand clamped on my wrist. I knew it was my
cousin and I roared every foul curse I could summon at him.
    In the struggle, he took my hand and lifted
it then forced it to up to his face. I could feel him peeling
something back and then I knew I was touching a mass of scars.
    When he dropped my hand, I sat on the side of
the bed, my hands over the bandages, head pounding with lust for
escape, for an end.
    It was the beginning of a long night.
    Among the demons and wraiths of the present
and the mocking, unknown future, was a strangely familiar and
wounding memory of boyhood needs—unspoken, unmet. I was aware in
the same distant way that Ry sat in the room and drank. The scent
of whiskey mingled with the scent of my sweat and the pungent smell
of the dressing over my eyes as it dampened with tears of
self-derision. I do not weep. I have never wept in my life.
    Captain Blaise LeClair. Retired, Royal
Navy.
    * * * *
    I noticed Jules LeClair seemed—different—the
last I saw him. Sometimes I cannot take my eyes off him. He is
quite stunning for a male, that aristocratic face, long silken
black mane and ice-green eyes. Everything, his form, his height,
his movements, is perfection. Other times, I cannot quite decide if
I loathe him instead. I have known, the way one of high birth
always knows, that he observes me without seeming to.
    I have likewise been aware of the
requirements, on the surface at least, to reach the status of
having the most powerful men of all ages want you for a wife. Many
things I learned as a child, but more after my father began taking
me out in society, short stints to show off my grace, charm, and
pretty manners. I was aware that my mother, Clara, loathed society,
and spent more time before her death at her seaside retreat with
her friends, than was ever spent under the roof with us.
    I have strawberry blond hair, too curly for
my liking, although the maid does it up beautifully, and aqua blue
eyes—which I got from my father. I am barely five feet tall and
have an average figure, with a face some call appealing, although
it is a constant battle to keep freckles at bay. It is not my looks
though that attracts men like the, Earl of Stoneleigh, it is my
bloodlines and fortune—the fact that we have a few drops of royal
blood on my