Read In Pursuit of Eliza Cynster for Free Online

tantalizingly elusive, to many hostesses his very reclusiveness made him a major prize; the machinations to which some had gone to attempt to socially ensnare him and keep him a permanent captive had amazed even him.
    None had succeeded, and none would; he liked his quiet life.
    Although consulting for wider society was lucrative and often satisfying, by choice he spent most of his time buried in his library translating, studying, and publishing on works that either found their way into his hands or were brought to him, as a renowned scholar and collector, by the various august public institutions presently engaged in the serious research of ancient civilizations.
    Such academic studies and contributions would form the bulk, the meat, of his scholar’s legacy; that sphere would always remain his principal interest.
    In that, he and Humphrey were two peas in a pod, both perfectly content to sit in the massive twin libraries — one each — in the home they shared in Montrose Place in London and pore over one or another ancient tome. The only lure guaranteed to tease either of them out of their scholarly seclusion was the prospect of discovering some unknown treasure.
    Scholars such as they lived for such moments. The thrill of identifying some ancient, long-lost text was a drug like no other, one to which they were, as a species, addicted beyond recall.
    It was just such a lure that had drawn him all the way into the far reaches of Northumberland to Wolverstone Castle, the home of Royce Varisey, Duke of Wolverstone, and his duchess, Minerva. Royce and Minerva were close friends of Leonora and her husband, Tristan Wemyss, Viscount Trentham; over the years, Jeremy had come to know the ducal couple quite well. Consequently, when Royce had been cataloguing his late father’s massive library and had discovered an ancient book of hieroglyphics, it had been to Jeremy he’d turned for an opinion.
    Grinning to himself, Jeremy flicked the reins and sent Jasper the Black pacing on. His luck had been in; Royce’s book had been a fantastic find, a long-thought-to-be-lost Sumerian text. Jeremy couldn’t wait to tell Humphrey about it, and he was equally keen to get started on compiling a lecture for The Royal Society from the copious notes he’d made. His conclusions would cause quite a stir.
    Expectant pleasure a warmth in his veins, his thoughts focused ahead, throwing up a mental picture of his library, of his home.
    The peace of it, the comfort and quiet of it.
    The emptiness.
    Sobering, he was tempted to push the thought aside, to bury it as he usually did, but … he was in the middle of nowhere with nothing else vying for his mind. Perhaps it was time he dealt with the problem.
    He wasn’t sure when or why the restless undercurrent of dissatisfaction had started. It had nothing to do with his work — the outlook there was positively glowing. He still felt riveted by his chosen profession, still as absorbed as ever by his longtime interest, his chosen field.
    The restlessness had nothing to do with hieroglyphics.
    The unwanted uneasiness came from inside him, a burgeoning, welling, unsettling feeling that he’d missed something vital, that he’d somehow failed.
    Not in work, but in life.
    Over the two weeks he’d spent at Wolverstone, the feeling had only intensified; indeed, in one way, it had come to a head.
    Unexpectedly, it had been Minerva, Wolverstone’s ever-gracious wife, who had forced him to see the truth of it. Who, with her parting words, had forced him to face what he had, for quite some time, been avoiding focusing on.
    Family. Children. His future.
    While at Wolverstone, he’d seen and observed what could be along those lines, had been surrounded by the reality.
    Growing up without his parents, with only Humphrey — already a reclusive widower — and Leonora around him through his formative years, he’d never been exposed to a large, boisterous brood, to the warmth, the charm, and that other level of