The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (best novels of all time txt) 📕

I embrace you.” He did so. “No man is a man until he is made weak by a woman.” Arkady pulled back and held Nick by the shoulders, gazing tenderly into his eyes. “Kiss me.”

“I am not made weak by a woman, and I will not kiss you.”

“Bah. You lie.” Arkady smashed his lips against Nick’s unresponding mouth. He pulled back, grinning. “You are a man. We will save her. Why? Because it is beautiful and romantic to do so. We will fight this maniac like the men we are—with our fists. Why? Because it is beautiful and romantic to do so.” Arkady released Nick and turned to face Darchester. “Are you ready? I am about to set him free. Prepare, Nicholas Davenant, to defend yourself!”

Nick couldn’t help but laugh. “You are entirely insane!”

The Russian turned a wild, joyous face back to him, and then the earl was upon them, howling, and slashing with the broken statuette. Arkady and Nick milled in with their fists. Nick saw Darchester’s spittle, mobile again, fly from his lips, and then felt his own coat, shirt, and skin sliced open just above the elbow. “Damn you to hell!” He charged, head bowed like a ram’s, fists pumping. Meanwhile Arkady stepped behind the earl and caught him as Nick knocked him backward. Darchester got one more slash in before Arkady grasped his wrist and squeezed until Darchester squealed like a pig and dropped his weapon. Nick laughed in Darchester’s enraged face, only to have his shin viciously kicked. “You little shit sack!” Nick yelled, and Darchester began laughing in his turn. Hauling his arm back, Nick delivered a perfect right cross to the earl’s jaw. Darchester’s head snapped back and he fell, senseless, to the ground. Nick rubbed his fist. “That felt wonderful,” he said. “I haven’t done that in centuries.”

“Hush.” Arkady prodded the crumpled earl with a boot. “Time has started up again. You are the marquess. You know nothing of centuries.”

And indeed, the room was suddenly full of cheering servants, and then Clare and Julia were there, too. Clare hugged Nick. He looked over her shoulder to find Julia’s dark eyes upon him. He had no idea what it was that he saw in them.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

What do you think of this one?” Arabella Falcott held aloft a wicker hat that managed to be lushly feminine and disturbingly pagan at the same time. Its crown and brim were so sharply curved, and its trimming so abundantly floral, that it looked like a stag’s antlers protruding from a rosebush.

Julia displayed her own choice. This was a parasol of such minuscule proportions that one would have to be a leprechaun to make any real use of it. But ultimately, after much argument, Bella’s wicker hat was acknowledged the winner. The game, which had been going on all morning up and down the stalls of the Western Exchange, was called “find the most ludicrous thing.” With the triumph of the wicker hat, Bella was now ahead by seven points. Julia laid the parasol down with a sigh. “I admit defeat. Your eye for the vulgar is far better developed than my own. Now I must stand you an ice at Gunter’s.”

Bella crowed her triumph, and the young women turned away from the stall, much to the relief of the deeply insulted attendant.

Half an hour later they were seated in Berkeley Square, watching a waiter dodge horses and pedestrians to bring them their ices. After several weeks in town, Bella was an old hand at all things Gunter’s, and she ate her rye-bread ice with a blasé air. But this was all new to Julia, and her first taste of bergamot ice was a revelation. It was cold but creamy, sweet but tart. The exotic flavor and delicate perfume made the perfect complement to this upliftingly glorious day in London.

It had been three weeks since Grandfather’s death, and a week since she had been her cousin’s prisoner. Now here she was in London for the first time in her life. Bella, her oldest and best crony, was beside her, and they were seated at the very center of a world designed to delight the senses, eating the most delectable sweetmeats ever concocted by human hand. Julia was dressed in the highest kick of fashion—albeit all in black. The beautiful mourning clothes were a gift of the dowager marchioness. Upon receiving the news that her son was alive and that he planned to bring Julia to London along with his sister and a Russian nobleman, she had arranged for Julia to have a black walking dress, a black carriage dress, and a black evening gown ready and waiting.

Julia took another spoonful, sat back in her chair, and gave herself over to pleasure. She banished all thought, except appreciation of the moment and relish of this most beautiful of beautiful spring days. The town houses around the square sparkled white in the sun. Brightly painted high-perch phaetons pulled by prime horseflesh dashed by on the way to Hyde Park. They were driven by gentlemen of the first stare and carried ladies dressed in all the colors of a spring garden. The oval park itself was full of mamas and nursemaids and scampering children, a few strolling couples, the dedicated patrons of Gunter’s, and of course, weaving through it all, the ever-nimble waiters, carrying aloft their silver trays of sugary iced confections. Julia sighed and wished it could go on forever—but the dancing shadows cast by the overarching plane trees made the scene feel like a flickering dream, and she had to eat her ice quickly or it would melt.

Bella stuck out her tongue and flicked the last of her ice off her spoon. “What shall we do next?”

“Surely licking your spoon is bad ton, Bella.” Julia eyed her own with temptation but set it back in her empty dish.

“You are still afraid of London. I have learned that rules are made to be broken. Although you must pick and choose