Read The Thorndykes 1: Dispossessed for Free Online

necklace? My lord, I value myself more than that.” She didn’t attempt an English accent, figuring there had to have been some Americans in London in the period.
    His slow smile warmed her from the inside out, and thank the saints she’d ignored the advice in her research and kept her panties on. Apparently in those times women didn’t wear them. Well, she did, and she was glad of it now because her pussy dampened to the point of overflow.
    “You like this.” He made it a statement rather than a question. “ Another time, sweeting.” A pause. He left her mind completely. Nobody there, not Drew, not her parents, nobody. Panic rose in her throat, choking her, and then he was back. “What is it, what’s wrong?”
    “Nothing.” She swallowed the unreasoning fear. “I’m not used to this.”
    “So let’s get out of here. We’re done, they’re gone.” He didn’t have to say whom. The fugitives.
    With a sneer, a sexy curl of his lip in total character with the dastardly Lord Trevithick, Jay spun her around, making her breasts bounce. Several men in the audience licked their lips although they were fondling other women or women were fondling them. Jay manacled her wrists in one hand. She thought that was it, he’d march her off somewhere. However, crisp linen rasped against her skin. When she craned her neck to discover what he was doing, she saw he’d ripped off the carefully fastened neckcloth. The long diamond pin glistened on his coat, shoved in with no heed to its arrangement, and he’d revealed his throat and the top of his chest.
    So why did that appear so desirable when she must have seen the same expanse of flesh, if not more, that evening?
    Because he was tying his neckcloth around her wrists, binding them in a figure eight. “I shall let you go,” he said in a lethal purr, “when I have my money’s worth. If you think that necklace is glass, then I’ll take it back.”
    “No!” she gasped, every inch the venal courtesan. This acting was catching. She felt the need of a lone woman making her money on her wits alone with no safety net, no husband, family, or welfare system. Although he didn’t consider those considerations important, she had to. Couldn’t afford not to. “I will keep it and have it assessed.”
    He bent low to her neck. “Then I will have your value. How much do you think you’re worth?”
    “Half an hour,” she said boldly. “I can earn that in thirty minutes. If you prove amusing, I might give you an hour.”
    His breath puffed against her throat. “Let’s get out of here.”
    When he touched her wrists, they burned. Agony arcing up her arms, invading her body as if every nerve had caught fire.
    He sensed it almost as soon as she did. Scorching heat, getting worse by the second. “Shit!”
    Heedless of their game, he snapped the fabric around her wrists, using vampire strength to rip the fabric apart. His eyes wholly on her, he took her out of the room to the sound of light applause and even a few sighs, but neither of them paid much notice.
    Trembling shivers racked her, and she clutched him, the nearest solid object, pinching his skin, letting her claws mark him. He grunted, the only response she received.
    The air turned cool, and she gazed up into stars, watching them pass in a kind of half-waking, half-sleeping state. All that mattered for her now was the pain, though she fought hard not to release any screams. His arms rubbed against the tender skin of her back, and she closed her eyes, refusing to allow the tears to fall.
    “They won’t follow us,” he said. “Keep up your mental barriers.”
    Although he said no more, the gentleness in his tone, far more than he’d allowed before, told her of his changed mood. “Are you allergic to silver?”
    “Yes.” That was it, what it felt like, but when had she come into contact with silver? Her hands had swollen, together with her wrists, and the reaction was spreading. Blood seeped from wounds that