Texas Viscount Read Online Free Page A

was immense and as cold as those ice caves he'd visited in the New Mexico mountains years ago. But where the Guadalupes were isolated and beautiful, this place was overflowing with men from the gutters of humanity. In all his years, even in the hellish jungles of Cuba, he'd never seen such privation. And this the richest nation on earth! he scoffed.
           Old men with rheumy eyes sat silently in corners, staring at nothing. Boys covered with filthy running sores tried to steal crusts of bread from those too old or infirm to catch them. Scarred bullies knocked smaller men out of their way as they appropriated the most comfortable benches along the wall nearest the small, barred windows. Bad as the air outside was, it had smelled pristine compared to the rot and mold of this hellhole.
           One bully boy with a glass eye and matted shoulder-length hair shambled toward Josh, obviously intending to deprive him of his seat. The Texan stared the man in his good eye and drew back his lips in a cold grin. “It'd be a shame to lose a second eye,” he said conversationally.
           The big fellow decided to remain standing.
           Josh turned his thoughts to the colonel and wondered if his old commander would ever learn of his fate if the British justice system let him die in here. If he did, he vowed to come back and haunt the Republican Party for the next hundred years. Would his great-uncle, whatever his name was, even bother to inquire why he failed to appear? From what TR had said, the old goat had gone to considerable trouble tracking him down. Unless, of course, he found out it had all been a mistake, the real heir turned up and the earl promptly dismissed Cantrell from his thoughts. A right unsettling proposition all the way around, Josh thought ruefully.
           Damn all Republicans and Englishmen to perdition!
           But the immediate cause of this debacle, like most of the woes in his life, wore a skirt. First the poor beaten little whore on the dock, then that fancy piece on the gangplank. Mitz he'd felt obliged to help because she reminded him of girls he'd known during his childhood. But the second female...well, she was another kettle of fish altogether. He'd seen that big brute grab her and watched her struggling as he fought his way across the wharf to her rescue.
           What a marvelous little handful she was, swatting and clawing like a Texas wildcat! If he ever got out of here, he'd love to look her up and see if all that shiny hair felt as silky as it looked. He had gotten close enough to know she smelled sweeter than a spring prairie.
           Suddenly his pleasant reverie was interrupted when a loud screech of rusted metal followed by a resounding clang indicated that the guards had opened the gate. He could hear them ordering the prisoners to stand back. He stood up. Being one of the tallest in the crowd, he looked across the room, wondering what would happen next.
           Then the guard who'd stepped inside called out in a loud voice, “Mr. Joshua Cantrell!”
           “Well, I'll be double sheep dipped,” he muttered, not sparing a moment as he elbowed his way to the front of the crowd. “I'm Josh Cantrell.”
           The guard looked at his bruised face and swollen eye, the torn, filthy remnants of his buckskin jacket and denims. “Yes, I do believe you must be. Follow me, sir.”
           Once he was up the flight of hollowed-out stone stairs and inside the office of the muckety-muck in charge, Josh breathed a sigh of relief. If he'd made it this far, could freedom be completely out of reach? He studied the elderly man seated behind a battered desk piled high with papers collecting dust. “Here's the American, sir,” the guard said with a cursory salute.
           The portly fellow behind the desk rose and crossed his cluttered domain, smiling unctuously as he bowed before Josh. “I'm sorry about the misunderstanding at