Dark Victory by A.W. Hartoin

Author:A.W. Hartoin [Hartoin, A.W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A.W. Hartoin

“Did you enjoy your walk?” asked the doorman.

Stella smiled. “I did. Amsterdam is beautiful all the time, but I think I like it best in the rain. Very mysterious.”

He took the umbrella from her and glanced out at the square. “Mysterious?”

“All those quiet canals and silent boats going by,” she said. “Who knows what secrets they’re hiding.”

“I heard you were writing a book.”

“I’m thinking about it, but I can’t decide. A romantic novel or a tale of intrigue.”

“Intrigue with a beautiful girl in distress.” The doorman smiled and warmed to the subject. “She could be captured, held against her will, and your hero has to find her somewhere in the depths of Amsterdam.”

She laughed and elbowed him. “Maybe you should be writing the book.”

He ducked his head. “I have thought of it.”

“Well, you will have plenty of material if they come,” Stella said. “Lots of distress.”

The doorman opened the door for her. “And villains.”

“No shortage at all.”

The young man was grim, but she could see his mind working and it made her smile as she entered the lobby. Uncle Josiah was off to the left, lounging against a pillar and charming the socks off the feather-headed Marga. She was blushing and twisting her long hair around a finger as she batted her eyes at Stella’s uncle, who was never more endearing to her than he was at that moment. He played his part beautifully, once more enticing a beautiful young woman away from her duties and risking the wrath of Mr. De Jong who was trying and failing to conceal a frown as he looked on from the front desk. Anybody else would be thrown out after the trouble he’d caused and was still trying to cause for no other reason than he could.

Josiah Bled was always one to risk everything for practically nothing at all. He’d been arrested on four continents, thrown out of six countries, including his own, and had done jail time for breaking into Windsor Castle to steal a tea towel on a one quid bet. After drinking himself into a stupor during an economic meeting at the White House and throwing up in a spittoon that belonged to Andrew Jackson, Eleanor Roosevelt famously asked him, “Have you ever controlled yourself?” Uncle Josiah said, “I haven’t ever found a reason to.”

Now he had a reason and her name was Judith Wahle, the twenty-one-year-old daughter of Felix and Klara. He’d met her the first time he went to Hallstatt and had fallen for her “like a ton of bricks” as he put it. She was eighteen at the time and home after being told she couldn’t study at the University of Heidelberg anymore because she was a Jew.

“That’s the one thing I’d thank Hitler for before I shot him in the head,” said Uncle Josiah. “If he wasn’t such a racist bastard I’d never have met her.”

The revelation had stunned Stella into silence, not that Uncle Josiah noticed. He was talking about Judith and the world did not exist.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.