The Pretender by Jaclyn Reding Read Free Book Online

thank you, Bess,” Isabella cut in, “I think I shall prefer the tea instead.”
    Elizabeth looked at her sister. “I wasn’t ordering for you, Bella.”
    “Oh.” And then she repeated a moment later on a nod of realization, “Oooh . . .”
    The trio sat in silence around the small table and waited for Effie to return. When she did, it was with three wooden bowls of steaming stew, a pot of tea for Isabella, and two of the tiniest glasses Elizabeth had ever before seen. Effie uncorked a bottle and set it on the table between Douglas and Elizabeth, giving them each a glass.
    “Goodness, this will hardly hold more than a splash,” Elizabeth said as she watched MacKinnon carefully pour them each their allotted thimbleful of the brownish-looking water. Elizabeth took up her glass and gave it a quick sniff, saying, “You needn’t put down that bottleyet, MacKinnon. This will need refilling in but a moment.”
    And with that, she took up the glass, tipped it to her lips, and swallowed down the whole of it.
    A moment later, she thought sure she had just swallowed a poison worthy of Lucretia Borgia or something the head housekeeper at Drayton Hall, Mrs. Burnaby, would only use to clean the worst of the chamber pots. Her eyes watered, her throat burned, and her stomach felt as if it had been shot through with a flaming arrow. And one look across the table at the Scotsman told Elizabeth he knew exactly what she was experiencing. In fact, from that crooked smirk and those laughing blue eyes, she could see he was fully enjoying her efforts to suppress the almost overpowering urge to cough.
    In the back of her head, a tiny voice whispered, Well, after all, he did say it was potent. . . .
    Blackguard.
    Elizabeth blinked back her watering eyes, swallowed against the scorching in her throat, put on a pleasant face, and even managed to pull a smile.
    The Scotsman only grinned the wider, damn him. “Are you ready for your other dram now, my lady?”
    “Oh, indeed, sir.” Elizabeth wasn’t about to concede to the smug Scotsman.
    There came no cataclysm with the second dram. In fact, Elizabeth no longer felt or tasted much of anything at all. Her insides had taken on a comfortable warmth, as if the fire from the hearth had alighted in her belly, so much so that she loosened the fichu from around her neck and tossed it heedlessly upon the table. Her cheeksfelt marvelously hot. Her head felt as if it had ascended to the clouds.
    It wasn’t until after the third dram, however, that the room began to spin.
    Some time later, after a sparse few bites of stew and another dram or two of the drink, Isabella’s usually soft voice suddenly hissed and echoed to Elizabeth’s drumming ears.
    “Bess, I think I should like to retire . . . now. ”
    “Be my guest.” Elizabeth hiccuped. She blinked, wondering when Isabella had managed to acquire a twin.
    “Don’t you think you should retire, too, Elizabeth? Remember Lord Purf—” She stopped herself, then said, “We’ve a long ride north tomorrow, and it would be best to get an early start.”
    Elizabeth grimaced at the reminder of where her father was sending her. Lord Purfoyle. It was like a sudden dousing in ice water, that name. “Pah! All the more reason I shouldn’t retire all night. Will you deny me this last little bit of freedom, Bella? After all, it was you who didn’t tell me the truth of our little journey to the north until it was too late . . .”
    The sisters exchanged a private look and then Elizabeth waved her hand as if shooing away a nonexistent fly. “Go off with you, Isabella Anne Drayton. Mr. MacKinnon and I will finish off our last drams of uisge-beatha. Then I promise you I’ll hie right off to bed like the dutiful little—”
    Thankfully, Douglas saw it coming. He caught her before her head hit the table.
    “Oh, my God!” Isabella cried. “Is she d-dead?”
    “Nae, lass, but she’ll likely wish she was when she awakes on the