Bentley's Miscellany, Volume II

Ecclesiastical Curiosities

Ecclesiastical Curiosities by Various

Le Tour du Monde; d'Alexandrette au coude de l'Euphrate

Le Tour du Monde; d'Alexandrette au coude de l'Euphrate by Various

Yule Logs

It was a grand success. Every one said so; and moreover, every one who witnessed the experiment predicted that the Mermaid would revolutionize naval warfare as completely as did the world-famous Monitor. Professor Rivers, who had devoted the best years of his life to perfecting his wonderful invention, struggling bravely on through innumerable disappointments and failures, undaunted by the sneers of those who scoffed, or the significant pity of his friends, was so overcome by his signal triumph that he fled from the congratulations of those who sought to do him honour, leaving to his young assistants the responsibility of restoring the marvellous craft to her berth in the great ship-house that had witnessed her construction. These assistants were two lads, eighteen and nineteen years of age, who were not only the Professor's most promising pupils, but his firm friends and ardent admirers. The younger, Carlos West Moranza, was the only son of a Cuban sugar-planter, and an American mother who had died while he was still too young to remember her. From earliest childhood he had exhibited so great a taste for machinery that, when he was sixteen, his father had sent him to the United States to be educated as a mechanical engineer in one of the best technical schools of that country. There his dearest chum was his class-mate, Carl Baldwin, son of the famous American shipbuilder, John Baldwin, and heir to the latter's vast fortune. The elder Baldwin had founded the school in which his own son was now being educated, and placed at its head his life-long friend, Professor Alpheus Rivers, who, upon his patron's death, had also become Carl's sole guardian. In appearance and disposition young Baldwin was the exact opposite of Carlos Moranza, and it was this as well as the similarity of their names that had first attracted the lads to each other. While the young Cuban was a handsome fellow, slight of figure, with a clear olive complexion, impulsive and rash almost to recklessness, the other was a typical Anglo-Saxon American, big, fair, and blue-eyed, rugged in feature, and slow to act, but clinging with bulldog tenacity to any idea or plan that met with his favour. He invariably addressed his chum as "West," while the latter generally called him "Carol."

Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12)

Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) by Various

Chicago's Awful Theater Horror

Embracing a Flash-Light Sketch of the Holocaust, Detailed Narratives by Participants in the Horror, Heroic Work of Rescuers, Reports of the Building Experts as to the Responsibility for the Wholesale Slaughter of Women and Children, Memorable Fires of the Past, etc., etc.

Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12)

Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) by Various

My Husband's Brother Owns My Secret

My marriage to Joshua Caldwell was a prison sentence. I was a Hartman trophy, sold to the powerful family who had destroyed mine. Then I discovered he was cheating. His mistress was pregnant with the child he denied me, and he was stealing my secret song lyrics to build her career. When I confronted him, he called me a spineless liability and threatened to destroy what was left of my family. To make matters worse, a one-night stand with a stranger turned out to be with my husband's brother, Anthony Caldwell-the Don of the city. He knew all of Joshua's secrets and used them to trap me in a twisted game, seeing me as nothing more than an asset. They both thought I was a broken doll they could control. I wrote a song for his mistress, a beautiful execution with a single, impossible note I knew would destroy her voice. She sang it, and now her career is over. Now the Don has summoned me to Chicago, not knowing the woman he thinks is his asset is the one who just burned his brother's world to the ground.

The Billionaire's Cold And Bitter Betrayal

I had just survived a private jet crash, my body a map of violet bruises and my lungs still burning from the smoke. I woke up in a sterile hospital room, gasping for my husband's name, only to realize I was completely alone. While I was bleeding in a ditch, my husband, Adam, was on the news smiling at a ribbon-cutting ceremony. When I tracked him down at the hospital's VIP wing, I didn't find a grieving husband. I found him tenderly cradling his ex-girlfriend, Casie, in his arms, his face lit with a protective warmth he had never shown me as he carried her into the maternity ward. The betrayal went deeper than I could have imagined. Adam admitted the affair started on our third anniversary-the night he claimed he was stuck in London for a merger. Back at the manor, his mother had already filled our planned nursery with pink boutique bags for Casie's "little princess." When I demanded a divorce, Adam didn't flinch. He sneered that I was "gutter trash" from a foster home and that I'd be begging on the streets within a week. To trap me, he froze my bank accounts, cancelled my flight, and even called the police to report me for "theft" of company property. I realized then that I wasn't his partner; I was a charity case he had plucked from obscurity to manage his life. To the Hortons, I was just a servant who happened to sleep in the master bedroom, a "resilient" woman meant to endure his abuse in silence while the whole world laughed at the joke that was my marriage. Adam thought stripping me of his money would make me crawl back to him. He was wrong. I walked into his executive suite during his biggest deal of the year and poured a mug of sludge over his original ten-million-dollar contracts. Then, right in front of his board and his mistress, I stripped off every designer thread he had ever paid for until I was standing in nothing but my own silk camisole. "You can keep the clothes, Adam. They're as hollow as you are." I grabbed my passport, turned my back on his billions, and walked out of that glass tower barefoot, bleeding, and finally free.

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die. Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice. "Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up." He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake. I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city. Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them. With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece. "Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."

Mated to My Fiancé's Rival Alpha

Silvia lost everything in one night-her parents,her trust,and her mate. Coming home from their funeral,she found her "fated"partner,Zack,tangled with another she-wolf. "You'll always be my Luna... even if I need variety,"he said,smirking. Heartbroken but fierce,she rejected him-and turned to someone far more dangerous. "I need help,"she whispered. Sherman leaned closer,his voice like silk over steel. "I offer more than help,little wolf. I offer everything he couldn't give you." Now married to Zack's powerful half-brother,Silvia plays a deadly game of loyalty,vengeance,and survival. But Sherman Carter doesn't help for free-and as their bond deepens,truths unravel. Is Silvia just a pawn in Sherman's war? Or is she becoming the Queen who'll burn the whole pack down? When love,betrayal,and bloodlines collide,how far will one omega go to save her family-and destroy the mate who broke her soul?

One Night With The Wrong Brother

I thought I was waking up in the arms of Arthur, the man I loved. But as the morning light hit the Hamptons estate, the man buttoning his cuffs by the window turned around with eyes like chips of ice. It was Augustus Riddle, Arthur’s cruel younger brother, and I had just spent the night whispering confessions of love into the wrong man's ear. The night I thought was a beautiful beginning turned into a devastating nightmare. Instead of comfort, Gus treated me like a stain on his expensive carpet, scribbling a check for "services rendered" before shoving me into a dark service corridor to hide my existence from his brother. "How much does it cost to buy your silence?" He sneered, before leaving me barefoot in a torrential downpour while he drove away in a luxury Cadillac. Four years later, I am a struggling actress in Los Angeles, working double shifts as a barista just to keep the lights on. My life was finally stable until my roommate dragged me to a high-end dinner to meet her new "influential" boyfriend. The man sitting at the table, looking more arrogant and lethal than ever, was Augustus. He spent the entire night humiliating me, calling me a pathetic amateur and a social climber in front of my only friends. When I fled into the rain and collapsed on the sidewalk, skinning my knee until I bled, he watched from his car. He saw me clutching a plastic baggie containing the taped-together pieces of that four-year-old check—the only proof of my shame. He looked at me like roadkill, rolled up his window, and drove off into the dark. I couldn't understand why he was doing this. Why did he hate me enough to crush me, yet remember that I couldn't handle the smell of cigarette smoke? Why did he leave me bleeding in the street, only to send expensive medical supplies and coffee to my door the very next morning? "I'm moving out." I told my roommates, realizing that Gus Riddle didn't just want to destroy me; he wanted to haunt me. I grabbed my suitcase and walked out with eighty dollars to my name, finally ready to disappear into the city before he could burn the rest of my life to the ground.

Abandoned Luna: Now Untouchable

For eight years, Cecilia Moore was the perfect Luna, loyal, and unmarked. Until the day she found her Alpha mate with a younger, purebred she-wolf in his bed. In a world ruled by bloodlines and mating bonds, Cecilia was always the outsider. But now, she's done playing by wolf rules. She smiles as she hands Xavier the quarterly financials-divorce papers clipped neatly beneath the final page. "You're angry?" he growls. "Angry enough to commit murder," she replies, voice cold as frost. A silent war brews under the roof they once called home. Xavier thinks he still holds the power-but Cecilia has already begun her quiet rebellion. With every cold glance and calculated step, she's preparing to disappear from his world-as the mate he never deserved. And when he finally understands the strength of the heart he broke... It may be far too late to win it back.