A Bewitching Bride by Elizabeth Thornton Read Free Book Online Page A

returned, she shuddered. “He howled,” she said. “I’ve never heard anything like it. It didn’t sound, well, earthly. I thought, in my dazed state, that he was a banshee.” She could have bitten her tongue off. Now she’d made herself sound like a hysterical, scatterbrained idiot.
    He nodded. “Sometimes I wonder about that myself. I heard that howl and knew that something was far wrong. Macduff doesn’t make that sound unless he is in mortal danger.”
    “He wakened you?”
    She noted a slight hesitation before he answered. “I was sleeping fitfully.” The hesitation was short-lived and he went on with relentless deliberation, “Now it’s your turn. What made you leave the safety of the hotel, on such a night, without a wrap to keep you warm?”
    “I had a wrap,” she answered quickly. “My tartan shawl. I must have lost it in the struggle. And I had no intention of leaving the hotel.”
    “Was there a struggle?”
    She was taken aback. “How do you think I got that cut on my shoulder? Do you think I did it to myself? And what would be the point?”
    “Calm yourself,” he said. “I believe you.” He patted the waistband of his trousers. “See? I don’t usually go to sleep with my revolver ready to hand.”
    He had to move his arm before she could see the butt of his revolver protruding out of his waistband. Did that mean that he suspected that the person who had attacked her was still out there, waiting for the right moment to finish her off? At least he was taking her seriously.
    “No,” he said, as though he could read her mind. “Whoever attacked you will be long gone, or he has turned into a block of ice. No one can survive in the open in this kind of weather.”
    She felt dizzy with relief.
    “Now,” he said, “begin at the beginning, and tell me exactly what brought you out in such a night.”
    She nodded, but that did not mean that he had persuaded her to tell him the whole story. Some things, such as the contents of the note, were too personal to share. “I received a threatening note,” she began, and went on to tell him how Dr. Rankin had seemed agitated when she told him about it. “He wanted to talk to me about it, so we arranged to meet in the conservatory when everyone had gone to bed.”
    “What did the note say?”
    She shook her head. “It’s not my place to say. You’ll have to ask Dr. Rankin about that.”
    “Where is the note now?”
    She couldn’t hide her dismay. Until he’d mentioned the note, she’d never given it another thought. “I don’t know. I think I dropped it in the chase.”
    He regarded her coolly.
    “I had it in my hand,” she protested, “but when I picked up my skirts to make a run for it, I must have dropped it.”
    “I see.”
    There was an interval of silence before he continued. “You say you agreed to meet in the conservatory? Do you mean the hothouse just off the dining room?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why not meet in your bedchamber or his? That would have been more convenient, wouldn’t it?”
    “Oh, much more convenient but far more perilous. You may have noticed that at night porters patrol the corridors? The scandal of being discovered in compromising circumstances may do nothing more serious than raise an eyebrow in your circles, but in mine, the wrath of my Fraser cousins would be implacable. In short, they’d beat the man to within an inch of his life.”
    He arched a brow. “Then lead him to the altar? Isn’t that a bit extreme?”
    She gave a drowsy smile. “You don’t know my family.”
    And she was very happy to leave it that way. A man like Gavin Hepburn would only judge them and find them wanting. They were unconventional, quarrelsome, and slightly fey, but they had the money to command the respect of their neighbors, and that made all the difference in the world.
    “What about your maid? Didn’t she try to stop you?”
    “Elsie wasn’t there. She shares a room with Sally Anderson’s maid.” She put her hand to