Venus Read Online Free Page B

you can take us to Charing Cross, man.”
    “Ah’m for me bed,” the coachman protested in spite of the promised largess. “Wrong direction.”
    Nicholas put his foot on the step to the box and sprang nimbly up. “Either you drive us, or
I
do!” The menace was so clear in both voice and stance that the jarvey, muttering ferociously, turned his horses.
    Polly sat in the pitch darkness of the frowsty interior, where the smell of onions and unwashed bodies mingled in a noxious bouquet with stale beer and fusty leather. She chafed her sore, frozen feet as the carriage swayed and jolted over the cobbles under the direction of its inebriated driver. There was a time when the vehicle lurched violently, and she fell onto the floor. An enraged yell came from the box, followed by a significant thump. She struggled back onto the seat, pulling aside the scrap of leather curtain that shielded the unglazed aperture serving as window.
    “Sir?” Her voice quavered as she craned her neck to peer up at the box. “Is everything all right?”
    “That rather depends upon how you define all right.” His voice drifted down through the darkness. “Our friend here has finally succumbed to persuasion to yield up the reins.”
    There was something infinitely reassuring about the dry tone, and Polly withdrew her head, wondering what form the persuasion had taken. At least the motion was rather less erratic now, but the pain in her feet, as sensation returned, brought tears to her eyes. Secure in her isolated darkness, she made no attempt to stop them, and they rolled down her cheeks as the events of the evening took their inevitable toll.
    Nicholas accorded the motionless figure of the jarvey, slumped on the box beside him, a brief glance now and again as he turned the horses from Fleet Street onto the Strand. It had required little more than a tap to render him unconscious, and he would be well paid for the indignity once Lord Kincaid had attained the comfort and security of home.
    Home was a large house in a quiet street off Charing Cross. Like its fellows on the street, the windows were in darkness at this hour of the night, although a lantern burned,hanging from an iron hook set into the stone pillar beside the door. Margaret would have been abed these past two hours, Nicholas knew, which, perhaps in the circumstances, was all to the good. He did not feel like explaining his unorthodox companion to his straight-laced sister-in-law, or indeed, to anyone at this juncture. Springing off the box, he opened the carriage door.
    “Are you still in there?”
    “I cannot imagine where else I would be.” It was a brave attempt at a light response, but tears were heavy in her voice. “Where are we?”
    “At my house,” he replied, holding the door. “Come.”
    Polly stepped out of the carriage, forgetting her sore feet for the moment in her fascinated contemplation of her surroundings. This was not the London she knew, which was a city of plaster and lath buildings on narrow, crooked streets, the gables protruding so far over the lower floors that they formed a roof across the lanes. Here, the light from the lantern showed her a broad, paved thoroughfare and a mansion of warm brick and white stone. Polly did not think she had ever seen so many windows in one building. The gentleman must be a very important man, as well as a rich one, to have a house with so many glazed windows. Her luck had certainly turned. On one thing she was resolved—this opportunity was not going to slip through her fingers. She was going to stick closer than his shadow to this influential gentleman until he had helped her to achieve her goal.
    Nicholas missed the speculative, determined look she gave him; he was too occupied with the insensible jarvey, who seemed to have lapsed into stertorous sleep and was like to freeze if left to sleep off his intoxication. A night standing still on the street would not do the horses much good, either. At last he managed to get