To Wed His Christmas Lady (The Heart of a Duke Book 7) by Christi Caldwell Read Free Book Online Page B

p-possessions. Brat, you’ll call me.” Cara shifted and turned deeper into the blanket, futilely seeking warmth. “But you are w-wearing your w-warm garments and drinking your ale in front of the fire.” And she would have traded all that material comfort as the lout had called it for that cherished gift left by her mother.
    A knock sounded at the door and she surged to her feet. For a brief instant, she hung onto the hope the earl’s driver had braved the beast’s command and the winter storm to retrieve her trunk.
    “My lady, I’ve brought you some things.”
    Her heart fell. Cara quickly dashed her hands over her eyes and then pinched her cheeks.
    “My lady?”
    She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and settled her feet on the floor. Then, hurrying across the room, she reached the wood panel and pulled it open just as the woman would have knocked again.
    The white-haired woman froze with her hand poised to rap. A hesitant smile formed on her lips. “Oh, hello.” She shifted the burden in her arms.
    Cara’s gaze went to the neatly folded garments held close to the innkeeper’s chest. Though not the satins and silks her father insisted she be adorned in, the vibrancy of the emerald green fabric momentarily stole her thoughts from her misery.
    Without asking to be admitted, the woman entered. “It is not the gowns you are surely accustomed to wearing, but still pretty nonetheless,” she said with the same sunny disposition demonstrated by Alison.
    She caught her lower lip as the woman laid the shift and undergarments upon the bed. As she prattled on, she snapped the dress open. The wrinkled muslin bore the evidence of its age in the pattern alone, and yet… “It is lovely,” she said grudgingly.
    The other woman widened her smile. A twinkle lit her eyes. “May I help you change?”
    “My maid—”
    “Is quite ill.” She made a tsking sound. “The young girl has a fever and is quite chilled.”
    And now Alison was ill, which left Cara absolutely and totally alone in this dratted situation. Letting loose another sigh, she presented her back and allowed the woman to assist her with the bothersome row of buttons down the length of her white satin dress. The garment sailed down to her feet. She stepped out of it.
    “I have prepared a holiday meal,” the woman chatted happily as she drew Cara’s shift overhead and reached for another aged, but blessedly dry, one.
    What precisely was a holiday meal? She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from freeing that curious inquiry and stuck her arms into the presented arm holes.
    “And now the dress.” The woman pulled the muslin piece over Cara’s head and set to work on the row of buttons along the back. “There.” She eyed her handiwork a moment.
    A cold drop fell on her hand and she followed it up to a new patch of dampened ceiling.
    “Oh, dear,” the woman murmured wringing her hands. “I daresay this storm has not proven helpful to the ceiling.”
    And Cara would wager the current snow had little to do with the condition of her rooms and everything to do with years of neglect. She opened her mouth to say as much when that brutish stranger’s earlier charges came rushing to the surface. By God she’d not feed that ill-opinion he’d drawn of her. She promptly pressed her lips into a tight line.
    “Perhaps you might prefer to take your meal downstairs.”
    “Splendid idea,” Cara muttered.
    And preferring the beast downstairs to the cold, wet conditions of her dreary rented rooms, she followed after the woman who led her to a table already set with a plate. The innkeeper had been optimistic. She wrinkled her nose. Then, considering the rapid drip above that lumpy bed, she’d likely wagered no person, lord, lady, or lad on the streets would want to remain in those chambers.
    “Here we are,” the woman said. Her husband rushed over and pulled out the wooden chair. It wobbled on uneven legs. Cara hesitated beside the table and warily eyed the