Читать онлайн «A Fashionable Indulgence»
Автор К. Дж. Чарльз
A Loveswept eBook Original
Copyright © 2015 by K. J. Charles
Excerpt from
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book
eBook ISBN 9781101886021
Cover design: Caroline Teagle
Cover photograph: © Period Images
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Prologue
THE ENGLISH CHANNEL, APRIL 1808
Harry Gordon was a wanted man at twelve years old.
He stared over the side of the boat at the dark water as they lurched toward France.
This wasn’t his first Channel crossing; it wasn’t even the first time he’d been hurried onto a ship in the night, his ears straining for shouts of pursuit or rapid footsteps. But it was the first time he’d understood what happened to the men they left behind when they fled, and the thought made him feel even more nauseated than the heaving motion under his feet.Father was next to him, leaning on the rail, head down. Even stooped like that he was a foot taller than his wife. Mother was very short, plump, and round-faced too, but she reminded Harry of the Roman matrons Father had taught him about, the heroic kind who sent legions of men to war because death was less frightening than having to explain why you hadn’t done as she told you. She glared at the starry night above them as though she wanted to outstare God.
It was cold, the wind whipping and tangling Harry’s sweaty-damp hair, adding a chill to the salt spray on his skin.
Three days ago, Father—the radical demagogue Alexander Gordon—had ranted to angry London crowds about the collapse of the government. He had demanded a new rule of the people, for the people. An end to injustice and mismanagement. Peace with Bonaparte. A revolution.
They hadn’t started a revolution; they never did. They had managed to incite a riot, though. It was a patchwork in Harry’s memory, vivid images stitched together with panic. Red-coated soldiers and blue-coated policemen firing muskets into the air, roaring for order but drowned out by the howling crowd. Mud and blood and screaming. The arrest warrants had been issued that day for all three of them.
