An Improper Wife by Tarah Scott and KyAnn Waters Read Free Book Online Page A

instead of staying with Taran… Caroline grimaced. Had she not attended the masque at all, she wouldn’t be in this mess. She stopped, an awful truth hitting her like a hammer. She couldn’t possibly be in love with her future husband, not the man she had wantonly given herself to the night before she was to marry him. In the space of an hour, she had completely lost her mind.
    With a steadying breath, Caroline faced the house and hurried up the walkway and the four steps to the door. She grasped the latch and gently pushed. Her heart jolted. Locked. She spun, yanking up her skirt as she flew down the stairs and around the house with a silent prayer that Mabel hadn’t woken the maids. Caroline didn’t relish facing the housekeeper—the old woman had been with her since the nursery—but better her recriminations than the maids’ wagging tongues.
    At the end of the house, Caroline halted and peered around the corner into the small garden. Faint light from behind curtained windows illuminated the steps leading to the door that opened into a pantry. She cursed. Her luck hadn’t held true. Fortune—good fortune—had departed with her future husband. A flush rippled through her at memory of his warm hands on her breasts. She cursed her body’s treacherous tightening and crept to the door, then up the steps. Aromas of pastries and yeast breads hung in the air. Things were worse than she feared. Mabel must have risen by midnight—if she’d slept at all.
    Keep your nerve , Caroline ordered . If they had discovered her absence, the house would be ablaze with light and servants would be swarming the house.
    No movement shown behind the curtains. She paused, hand on the latch, the roar of blood in her ears so loud she grimaced, and placed her ear against the wood. She detected no sounds beyond the door and inched it open. Silence followed, and she slipped into the empty pantry.
    Pies, three baskets of rolls, apples, pears, plums, carrots, potatoes, and two platters of meats filled the counter to the left. She’d been right. Mabel hadn’t slept, but had toiled through the night so that her wedding day would be an event talked about from Newcastle to London.
    The shuffling of feet sounded to the left. Someone ascended the servant’s stairway from the kitchen below. She was an imbecile as well as a fool. Caroline flew up the three steps to the stairs, glanced to the right where the stairs descended into the kitchen, saw no one, and raced up to the first floor. At the top, she hurried across the foyer to the main stairs. She seized the newel post and swung herself around and onto the second step. Her foot caught on her hem and she grabbed the railing just in time to save herself from hitting the carpeted stair, face first. Yanking her skirt to calf level, she propelled herself upward.
    At the top of the stairs, she paused. She had come too far to be nabbed by a maid who chose this morning to use the main stairs instead of the servants’ or rear stairs. She peeked around the wall to the right and scanned the hallway. Empty. Relief flooded her, then evaporated at a faint scratching sound from the second floor.
    Caroline darted forward. A moment later, she reached her room and slipped inside. Facing the room, she cautiously closed the door and slumped against the wood. She rested a hand on her heart and slowed her breathing.
    Embers glowed in the fireplace. No one had entered her room. Fate had seen her this far. Now to face the day. Never mind the day . How was she to face the night when her husband bedded her? Would he plunge into her as he had in the carriage, or would he be quick, as predicted? The absurdity of his instructions struck her. He had coached her on how to deceive him . If another man had taught her such things, Lord Blackhall would call him out for the dawn appointment the kilted god spoke of. That was a duel she would pay to see.
    All amusement vanished. She would heed his advice and get him drunk. Perhaps,