The Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig Read Free Book Online Page A

Flinging his reins to a sleepy ostler, Geoff vaulted off his horse, and, without waiting for the postboy to unfold the steps, or even for MacTavish to bring the carriage to a full stop, he wrenched open the door, every nerve fired by clear, pure joy—stronger than brandy in his blood. Every inch of his skin, every bone in his body, felt intensely alive, thrumming with an imperative that went straight back to the Garden of Eden.
    When the door of the coach racketed open beneath his hand and he saw the vague outline of a cloaked figure for him within, Geoff acted on pure instinct.
    He grasped her by the shoulders and scooped her eagerly into his embrace.

Chapter Three
    The moment was everything Geoff had known it would be.
    After an initial startled gasp, his intended bride dissolved into his arms, returning his kiss with more fervor than she had ever shown before. They were on the verge of being married, after all. Amazing what a difference imminent vows could make.
    Her hands, originally poised against his chest as though to push him back, slid slowly up to his shoulders and stayed there, as her head tilted back, her lips matched to his. Warm and soft beneath the voluminous folds of her cloak, she fit perfectly into his arms. The dark interior of the carriage closed around them like the velvet lining of a jewel box, blotting out the inn behind them, the unfortunate scents of the courtyard, and the very passage of time.
    It was quite some time before it began to dawn on Geoff that she might be just a bit too soft. The arms encircling his neck were a little rounder than he remembered them, and her shoulder blades seemed to have receded. Geoff's hand made another tentative pass up and down her back, without breaking the kiss. Yes, definitely smoother. It might just be the added padding of the cloak, but other discordant details were beginning to intrude upon Geoff's clouded senses. Her fragrance was all wrong, not Mary's treasured French perfume, but something fainter, lighter, that made him think without quite knowing why of the park at Sibley Court in summer. It was a perfectly pleasant scent, but it wasn't Mary's.
    He was kissing the wrong woman.
    In the sudden rush of clarity, Geoff arrived at another painful realization. The roaring noise he had been hearing, which he had cheerfully ascribed to the pounding of his blood in the heat of the moment, wasn't coming from within at all. Someone was actually roaring, and not far away. The roar had a decidedly jeering quality to it, and it was coming from right behind him. Whoever it might be was clearly having a rousing, roistering good time—at Geoff's expense.
    Stiff with horror, Geoff pulled away, breaking the kiss with an audible pop. He could hear the woman in his arms, the woman who wasn't Mary, draw in a ragged breath, as if she were just as shocked as he.
    Devil take it, whom had he been kissing?
    "Nice work, Pinchingdale!" called a voice behind him, and Geoff swung around, still poised on the brink of the carriage, to see Martin Frobisher saluting him in a gesture of exaggerated approbation. "I give that at least three minutes without coming up for air, don't you, Ponsonby?"
    As inebriated as his companion and slower on the uptake under any circumstances, Percy Ponsonby stumbled into the small circle of light cast by the carriage lamps and peered owlishly at the woman behind Geoff. "I say, Pinchingdale, what's all this?"
    All this was very clearly not Mary Alsworthy.
    The woman so recently entangled with Geoff yanked back with enough force that her hood slipped back, revealing a confusion of ginger-colored hair that glinted like a fuzzy halo where the light struck the individual strands. It could not have been farther from Mary's sleek fall of black hair, which ran silver and blue in the candlelight like a midnight stream. Mary's eyes were delicately tilted at the corners; this woman's were perfect rounds of shock, primrose to Mary's sapphire. The only similarity lay in