The Pretender by Jaclyn Reding Read Free Book Online Page A

morrow.”
    Douglas had no other choice but to pick her up. He couldn’t believe what she’d drunk. Stubborn little idiot.
    “Why isn’t she moving, then?”
    “She’s sleeping is all, miss. And will likely have no memory of any of this in the morn. Just lead the way, and I’ll help you get her to her room so she can sleep the drink off.”
    Thankfully, their table was near the stairs leading up to the inn’s bedchambers. While most everyone else’s attention was taken up elsewhere in the taproom, Douglas quickly lugged Elizabeth up the narrow flight of stairs, pitying her the headache she was certain to wake to even as he thought it would serve her right. After all, he had tried to warn her.
    She mumbled something when he laid her upon the bed, something that sounded like “smug Scot,” then flopped onto her back with her arms flung outward. In moments, she was softly snoring.
    “She’ll be fine come the morn,” Douglas said to a clearly distressed Isabella, who was wringing her hands beside him. “You’d best leave her till then.”
    The lady nodded. “Thank you, Mr. MacKinnon. It looks as if we owe you another debt of gratitude. It seems you’ve come to our rescue not once, but twice today.”
    Douglas smiled at her, genuinely sorry for the distress her sister was causing her, then bowed his head before leaving the room. Rather than retire to his own bed, he decided to return to the taproom first to settle his bill with Turnbull. If there were patrols in the area, as theinnkeeper had said, it would be best for him to be off before the dawn.
    He met with the innkeeper, then exchanged a quarter hour’s conversation with a couple of the other patrons before heading for his room. He was on the second stair when he spotted the small lady’s shoe lying abandoned where it must have fallen from her foot when he’d carried her upstairs. The same dark wine color as her gown, the glass beads sewn upon it glimmered in the low light from the fire. It was a pretty thing with a high heel and pointed toes—brazen, just like its mistress.
    Douglas stopped outside the closed door to her chamber and knocked softly. There came no answer. He was just about to leave the shoe sitting on the floor outside the door when he heard a muffled voice beckoning from inside.
    Quietly, Douglas turned the knob. “Excuse me, Miss Isabella, but I found—”
    “Isabella isn’t here.”
    In the light from the sconce in the hallway behind him, Douglas could see Elizabeth sitting on the edge of the bed, clearly fully awake. In fact, her gown was gone, abandoned to a pool of rumpled wine silk on the floor, and her hair was unbound, hanging around her shoulders.
    She wore a chemise—and nothing else.
    Douglas was stunned, both by the vision of her and by the mere fact that she wasn’t still lying unconscious on the bed. He’d seen fully grown men who wouldn’t have awakened that quickly after the sousing she’d taken, let alone have the faculties to undress without doing themselves a serious harm.
    “I . . . Your shoe must have fallen off on your way up the stairs. I was just returning it.”
    The lass stared at him in the candlelight. She cocked her head to one side and said, “Indeed? Just like the prince come to find the fair Cinderella?”
    She laughed at her jest, a sulky sound. Douglas simply stared at her, trying to ignore the fact that the room had just grown several degrees warmer despite the fact that there was no fire in the hearth to have made it so.
    But there was a fire in her eyes as she continued to stare at him, the sort of fire that made his belly instinctively tighten.
    He said the only thing that sprang to mind. “In Scotland we call that fairytale Rashin-Coatie. ”
    She said nothing, just continued to stare at him.
    Douglas took two steps into the room, placing the shoe upon the foot of the bed. “I’ll just be on my way then. . . .”
    “A moment, if you please, Mr. MacKinnon.”
    Douglas eyed her,