Read One Night of Passion for Free Online Page B

use the time well enough to see to other matters.”
    Temple eyed him. “Other matters, eh? And so soon. Could you by chance mean a new ship?”
    Glancing out the window, Colin did his best to ignore his cousin’s perceptive inquiries.
    His cousin continued unabashedly “My, how interesting that you’ve secured a position so quickly. Now who on earth would hire you to captain a ship?”
    “Easy there,” Colin warned. “Just leave off on your speculations. ’Tis better for all concerned.”
    “Must be something rather urgent,” Temple mused, a grin pulling at his lips, “if you are fleeing town so soon. And probably on the morning tide, if I were to guess. And mind you, I’m only guessing.”
    Colin shot him an irritated glance. He actually planned to sail in two days—on the morning tide—but he wasn’t going to tell his cousin that.
    “You can’t turn down the offer of just one drink,” Temple said, applying the same wheedling tone he’d used when they’d been school lads together and Temple had devised some novel sort of mischief. “Besides, you’ll never make a proper bastard if you continue to live by duty and honor alone. And you do want the world to think you are one, don’t you?”
    Colin shook his head. “You aren’t going to let me be, are you?”
    His cousin grinned. “No, I consider it my sacred duty to be the one who introduces you to your new existence. Come now, I’m just proposing one small drink. A toast, let’s say, to your unnamed ventures.”
    Colin knew well enough that one drink with Temple was asking for trouble. But then again, he’d spent most of the day up to his neck in problems, so what was one more in a long list?
    Besides, Temple might be right, he didn’t know much about living outside Society. The ordered regulations of naval life that had guided him since he’d set sail as a midshipman at the age of thirteen no longer applied.
    If he was to do what needed to be done, he’d have to convince the world he was the traitor and scoundrel the Admiralty had declared him to be.
    He held up a single finger. “Just one drink.”
    “That’s the spirit,” his cousin declared.
    “I’ve a grand evening in mind.”
    Colin wanted to groan. This was how it always started with Temple—and quickly got out of hand. He’d probably wake up in a fortnight only to find himself in Ireland, without his wallet and any recollection how he had spent the last fourteen days other than the evidence his pounding headache would provide.
    Still, he had one advantage that might hinder Temple’s enthusiasm and plans.
    “Considering the greeting I just received at Lamden’s,” he told him, “I doubt I’ll have much of a reception at your club.”
    Temple’s grin spread across his face. “As if I ever do! But forget White’s. I have a better place in mind. Have you ever heard of the Cyprian’s Ball?” When Colin shook his head, his cousin’s smile widened even further. “I thought not. Too much time at sea and not enough living the good life here in town. The Cyprian’s Ball is just the place to mend a broken heart.”
    Colin wasn’t about to comment on the state of his heart. Especially since he could hardly describe it as “broken.”
    In truth, Lady Diana had done him a favor by jilting him. She’d set him free. As free as Nelson had by casting him out of the navy.
    So instead, he said, “A ball, you say? I’m hardly in the mood for dancing and debutantes.”
    “Who said anything about dancing?” Temple replied with a hearty laugh.
    Colin should have known that any assembly highly recommended by his rakish cousin would be anything but respectable.
    The Cyprian’s Ball was no exception.
    The great room overflowed with the city’s highest-paid mistresses, courtesans, and ladies of questionable repute—and milling merrily through this ignoble milieu were the crème de la crème of the ton’s randiest males—all eagerly seeking a new conquest.
    If there was ever a place