Read My Surrender for Free Online Page B

him, he refused.
    It was his punishment to her for not being able to bear him children.
    Well, at least she had the pleasure of knowing they both suffered.
    She hadn’t set out to be a courtesan. It had taken five years of banishment to an impecunious existence in a derelict castle in Ireland to help make that decision. No, she hadn’t set out to be a whore, any more than she had set out to be a spy.
    But when one of her early lovers, a man highly placed in those little known offices that manage such things, suggested she might be of service to her king—and make a tidy sum of money in doing so—she had willingly agreed. She hadn’t done it for the money. She had done so, she supposed with that clear self-scrutiny that was characteristic of her, as a means of assuaging her distaste for what and who she had become.
    A soft knock at the door preceded the entrance of the tall, blond footman, Finn. “Pardon, ma’am, but there’s a gentleman downstairs requesting a moment of your time.”
    This was hardly new. Gentlemen were always requesting a moment of Ginny’s time…and a great deal more. But the absence of a calling card and something in the footman’s disapproving expression piqued her curiosity as well as aroused some slight alarm. The feeling that a malevolent gaze studied her from hidden places, that her movements were being carefully observed, had grown over the last few days.
    Of course, a spy always thought such things.
    “Who is it, Finn?”
    “He would not say.”
    One of those. Some aristocrat with an overblown sense of his own importance who would not be caught dead visiting her home without hiding under a cloak of anonymity. She was well past the stage where she needed to pander to such vanity. She had a bit of her own left to tend. “Tell him I’m not at home.”
    “I did,” Finn replied, startling Ginny. If Finn had tried to send him off without even informing her of his presence, he must be scurrilous indeed. Scurrilous sorts interested Ginny. As well, if he was her hidden watcher, it would be best if she knew his face.
    “Show him in,” she said. She rose, looking over the room for a more flattering setting, ever awake to the possibility that the gentleman—scurrilous or not—might be worth the trouble. She chose the rose-colored chaise, reclining on her side, her naked feet curled beneath her. Gentlemen thought naked feet extremely naughty.
    A tap on the door, a throaty bid of “come,” and Finn reappeared, announcing, “Mr. Ross, ma’am.”
    Ginny’s first thought was that the man was scurrilous, dressed roughly, his boots scarred and his disheveled hair framing a face darkened by a beard. Her second thought was that Finn, if he discarded this man as unworthy of her attention, had no taste.
    The man was tall, broad-shouldered and lean, almost rangy, moving with careless fluidity as he entered. His expression was neutral, his mouth firm and mobile, but the lamplight exposed a sardonic glint in his tawny brown eyes and a scar lurking beneath the beard. She judged him to be somewhere in his late twenties. A very nice age for a man.
    “That will be all, Finn,” she nodded to the footman.
    “Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Mulgrew.” A faint accent. Scottish?
    “You’re welcome, Mr. Ross,” she said. “Won’t you be seated?”
    “Thank you.” He sank carelessly down in a chair set at right angles to the chaise. The loose-fitting trousers stretched over his thighs, revealing hard, well-muscled legs. His strong-looking hands curled lightly over the carved ends of the arm. The tanned skin bore a fretwork of little pale scars. They’d been roughly used at one time.
    The smile fell from Ginny’s lips. “Who are you?”
    His smile disappeared, too. The impression of carelessness, as she’d suspected, was a lie. “I am a friend of Miss Charlotte Nash.”
    “A friend,” she repeated flatly, allowing no hint of her sudden apprehension to show in her face. Instead, she let her gaze