Read Online Nicole Jordan by Lord of Seduction - Free Book Online Page A

entered the stableyard, he immediately saw his fellow Guardian, Alex Ryder.
    Tall and hard, dark haired and dark eyed, Ryder was one of the most dangerous of all their members. He’d once hired out his services as a mercenary and had since developed an unmatched expertise with weapons and explosives. Unlike Thorne, though, Ryder had grown up on Cyrene.
    “So what is this about Nate leaving you a letter outlining his suspicions of a conspiracy?” Ryder asked as Thorne dismounted.
    “It’s true,” Thorne replied. “He wrote his message more than a year ago, just before his death, but his sister failed to deliver it to me. That task fell to her cousin, Diana Sheridan.”
    “The two of them just arrived today?”
    “Yes—quite unexpectedly.”
    Ryder sent him an ironic grin. “You do always seem to have a surfeit of females after you, old sport. It’s as if your charm is a magnet for anything in skirts.”
    Thorne winced. “I would happily exchange my success for a little respite.”
    Turning his horse over to a groom, he made his way with Ryder through the bailey to the huge wooden entrance doors of the great hall.
    Olwen Castle had been in Sir Gawain’s family for centuries. Standing at the southern end of the island, where the hills were the lowest and most vulnerable to attack, the impressive stronghold was defended by massive walls and battlements bristling with cannon.
    The interior was less warlike, with fine tapestries and carpets and gleaming furnishings gracing the great hall, tempering the cold stone. Numerous artifacts of a bygone era were scattered about, however—armor and weapons, swords and maces and shields, many belonging to the knights who had first settled the island more than a millennium ago.
    Thorne and Ryder strode swiftly through the great hall and along a stone corridor to a large, comfortable chamber that served as the baronet’s study, where an elderly gentleman sat behind his desk.
    Sir Gawain rose at their entrance. Tall and lean and gravely serious, he had shrewd, light blue eyes that seemed to miss nothing. His lined face appeared strained, as if the great responsibility of leading the Guardians for two decades had taken a toll. He also limped slightly—the result of an injury during a mission long ago, Thorne knew.
    “Good, you are here,” Sir Gawain said, tugging the bellpull behind his desk. “Permit me to summon Yates.”
    They settled in comfortable chairs while they waited. Barely a moment later, a young man hobbled in on a wooden leg. John Yates was a former cavalry lieutenant who had lost a leg in the Peninsular War and who now worked as Sir Gawain’s secretary and chief assistant.
    Two years before, Yates had nearly died from his septic wound. Now, beneath his shock of pale blond hair, Yates’s face glowed with good health. Yet his brown eyes were serious as he greeted Thorne and Ryder and seated himself.
    It took Thorne only a short while to tell them how Diana Sheridan had found the letter in Amy’s belongings, and then to recount the major revelations in Nathaniel’s message: that Nate had come to suspect a traitor of attempting to expose the Guardians’ identities to the French. And his fear that the lovely brothel madam, Venus, was involved in spying for the enemy.
    To protect Nathaniel’s memory, Thorne had decided to keep private Nate’s confession about being duped by the beautiful Venus and his shame at revealing confidential information.
    At the conclusion, Alex Ryder was the first to speak. “It seems our unfortunate Nathaniel might indeed have stumbled onto a plot to destroy our order. The French would have been keenly interested in putting an end to our existence then.”
    Thorne nodded. Before Napoleon’s hard-won defeat last spring, the French would have been eager to stop the secret society that had played such havoc with their attempts to rule the world.
    Yates’s face held a reflective scowl. “That was not the only instance of someone