Read My Surrender for Free Online Page A

1806
    T HE EARLY EVENING AIR WAS STILL, warm, and heavy. The man standing in the shadows of St. James’ churchyard’s ancient trees loosened the stock about his throat, his gaze riveted on the discreet but elegant door of the town house across the street. He’d wasted enough time waiting for the courtesan within to place herself in a vulnerable situation. Time was running out. He would have to act soon. Force the issue.
    He forced a deep breath into his lungs, releasing it slowly as his active imagination picked through a score of possibilities, searching for the best solution to his quandary. Who should he be when he set his plan in motion? A constable? An old woman? A ragman? A soldier?
    The faces of all those he had pretended to be tumbled like patterns in a kaleidoscope through his imagination, swirling and blurring until he could no longer see his own features superimposed upon the masks and caricatures he’d created over the years. Knowing who he was, who he really was, was the only thing that mattered.
    A little frisson of panic danced along his nerve endings. His hands fisted into balls, the nails digging into his flesh. With an effort he forced himself to relax.
    There was only one way to make sure he remembered who he was. He must go back to the beginning and retrieve the identity he’d misplaced along the way.
    And she would help him.
    A thin smile flashed across his shadowed features. How ironic that Charlotte Nash should be the key to his redemption, his return from the dead, his phoenix-like rise from the ashes. How ironic and yet how perfectly fitting. Sometimes, when he saw her, spoke to her, he lost himself in her odd, lovely eyes, forgot what it was he sought. She was really most unique. Most fascinating. A man, a normal decent man, might fall in love with a woman like her.
    But he wasn’t that man.
     
    The evening shadows had deepened, softening the first fine lines appearing at the corners of Ginny Mulgrew’s magnificent eyes. She tilted her head, closely examining her image in the mirror, wondering if now was the time to have her staff replace the expensive candelabras and chandeliers in her house with new ones, ones that held fewer candles and thus would shed less light. She made this assessment without sentiment or regret, evaluating the situation with the cold practicality of a general devising a military campaign.
    A courtesan is ever conscious of such details.
    Tonight it was especially important that she be in rare fine looks. At this evening’s opera, she would accept the Comte St. Lyon’s invitation to join him for his “house party” at his estate in Scotland.
    She tilted her chin, searching for signs of sagging. If she found any, she would forthwith adopt necklaces and chokers though, until now, her flawless décolletage had needed no ornamentation. But at thirty-six years of age, such bold confidence might not be warranted.
    She pulled a long, artfully curled tress of hair free of its equally artfully unwinding coiffure and fingered it thoughtfully. Still glossy and plentiful, still owning that rich and distinct auburn hue to which so many toasts had been drunk in so many gentlemen’s clubs. Her skin was still clear and fine grained. Only her hands betrayed the advent of middle years, a little thin now that they had lost some of the youthful padding that once covered the slender bones and sinews. She would wear gloves from now on. Lace or doeskin.
    Ginny Mulgrew was a most practical woman. She understood to a nicety that her beauty paid the rent as well as gained her entrée into the fringes of the society from which her husband had attempted to exclude her.
    Her husband. The thought of the odious creature brought a bitter twist to her lips. He would not divorce her no matter how many times she pleaded with him to do so, no matter how she behaved, no matter how many men, some of whom even belonged to his own club, had enjoyed her favors. Knowing how much she desired to be free of