The Soldier's Poisoned Heart (True Love and Deception) (Victorian Historical Romance Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

question?”
    “Uh,” the kid said, looking confused. “Yeah, sure. I don’t see why you wouldn’t be able to, right?”
    “There’s a young woman who was in your storefront the other day…”
    The kid’s eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh, you mean Lydia!”
    “I suppose? Young woman, dark hair…”
    “Sounds like her. What was the question?”
    “That’s all I needed to know. Thank you. Enjoy your…” He gestured at the pipe.
    The kid smiled again and pulled it out of his mouth, raising it a little in a gesture of salute. And then John Paul was gone, off down the alley he’d come from. Lydia, was it? He sighed happily. A pretty name for a prettier young lady.
    He floated back to the carriage and sat on the seat, waiting for Henry to return, thinking how well things had gone. Easy, no need to explain much of anything to anyone. It was almost too easy, but then he remembered his fear that he wouldn’t find out at all.
    Perhaps he should be happy with the result after all. He smiled, letting his thoughts drift, until he heard a familiar voice calling him from below. He climbed back down and smiled amiably at his nephew.
    “I trust you’ve worked yourself up an appetite?”

Chapter 3
    John Paul and his nephew returned home after perhaps an hour. The sun was sitting low on the horizon by the time they had returned the horses to the stables and walked through the door. Henry took the bed once more, and John Paul laid down on one of the old, foul-smelling beds.
    They stank of dampness; John Paul wondered to himself what sort of rot must be, but dropped into an easy sleep. There was a woman in his dreams. She was the most beautiful woman he could have imagined, with hair like velvet, skin like milk, and a voice like honey. He thought there was something familiar about her, though he couldn't place it.
    He awoke with a start, the moon high in the sky. He couldn’t remember exactly what his dream had been about, but he guessed it well enough. He remembered the woman he had met earlier. It hadn’t even occurred to him that he might look for a wife.
    After all, he was far past the romance of youth. Love was a young man’s game, and he was on the other side of what seemed like an entire lifetime. Twenty years in the service, all of them on the opposite side of Her Majesty’s empire.
    He was still not entirely comfortable here. Even in the outback, he had known who he could trust, known every one of them and what they were made of. His only companion now was a young man who knew nothing about himself or the world.
    It was easy to like him; he had a youthful exuberance and desire to please. Yet at the same time, it was hard to trust him. A man who’d never had his mettle tested may as well have none at all.
    All these thoughts plagued John Paul as he tried to drift back into sleep and the embrace of the beautiful goddess of his dreams. But sleep wouldn’t come, he realized. There was no helping it, he would simply need to do what he could to spend the time. He pulled his boots on, slipped his arms through the loops of the coat he’d been lying on, and set off into the night.
    It was still cold in the night, even as the days were beginning to warm up. During the day, his jacket was hot, and he preferred not to wear it. He hadn’t expected England to feel hot after years in Australia, yet here he was acclimating quite well to the local opinion.
    When they said it was hot, he agreed it was hot. But perhaps his tolerance for cold was not what the city folk had. He quickened his pace, walking down the empty street. He saw, finally, his nearest neighbor’s house, and realized he had be walking for nearly two miles.
    There was forest all around, he thought, and in them could be all sorts of animals. He could be attacked by some dingoes—no, he corrected himself. They didn’t have dingoes in Britain. They had dogs, certainly. Wolves, maybe, in some parts. He wondered if they had wolves here before deciding that