A Highland Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page A

given to self-indulgence and easy cruelty.
    “Where is the mirror now?”
    “At Chavensworth, I believe.” She glanced at him and then away. “My husband’s family home.”
    “How far is Chavensworth from London?”
    “An hour or two.”
    He looked up at the grill separating him from the coachman and considered changing destinations.
    “You cannot think to travel there at night,” she said.
    He glanced over at her.
    “You would’ve made this entire situation a great deal easier if you had remembered it earlier, Duchess,” he said.
    “I cannot command my memory,” she said. “I put the mirror away the moment it was given to me.”
    “It belongs in Scotland.”
    “So you’ve said.” Her remark was accompanied by a frown, quite an imperious expression.
    Ian reached for the length of taffeta and then changed seats to sit beside her. He could smell her scent again, the same one he’d experienced in the wardrobe. He wanted to ask her what she wore, if the perfume was something developed especially for her, or if the origin of the scent was something else. Powder? A sachet? The questions, however, were intrusive, and too personal.
    Without a word, he placed the taffeta over her eyes and then wound the cloth around her head twice, tying it in a knot at the back. Not only would she be unable to see but she would be difficult to recognize.
    Abruptly she held her hands out, wrists together.
    “What are you doing that for?”
    “Do you not wish to bind me? I am your prisoner, am I not?”
    “I don’t think that’s necessary, do you?”
    She dropped her hands, bowed her head.
    “If you’re disappointed, perhaps I could engage in some very small acts of torture,” he said.
    “I do not believe you have any experience at torture at all,” she said.
    “Why would you say that?”
    “People who are very good at torture rarely talk about it beforehand. They seem to derive great pleasure in surprising you with it.”
    Now that was a revelation. He didn’t know what to say to that comment. Besides, she was right in one aspect. He’d no experience in torture at all.
    At that moment he felt a surge of pity for her. No, something more than that. Compassion, certainly, but something else, an emotion he couldn’t readily identify.
    “I am doing this for your protection as well, Emma.”
    “I have not given you leave to use my Christian name,” she said stiffly, straightening her shoulders.
    How very proper she appeared, and annoyed.
    He moved to sit opposite her again. When the carriage slowed and came to a stop, he opened the door before a footman could do so, assisting Emma down the three steps.
    “There are stairs here,” he cautioned her, guiding her hand to the iron banister.
    The door opened above him, and his majordomo stood there, a look of surprise replacing Patterson’s usual impassive expression.
    Ian waved his hand in the air as if to caution the other man not to speak. Patterson nodded in response, thrusting an arm out to hold back the footman when he would have crossed over the threshold.
    Ian took Emma’s free hand, entering his house with her.
    In the next moment he would have to explain to his majordomo and at least one footman why he was standing in the foyer with a woman wearing his jacket. A woman who was also blindfolded with a length of taffeta petticoat.
    He would somehow have to do this without revealing his own identity or hers, and in such a way that would not send one of his servants running to the authorities.
    “We are playing a game,” he said, winking at Patterson. “Beyond that, it would be ungentlemanly of me to explain.”
    Emma thought him a torturer and murderer, and now Patterson and a footman thought him a satyr.
    Would this night never end?
    Not before he figured out how to obtain the Tulloch Sgàthán and how to return the duchess to her home with no damage to her reputation. His impulsive gesture for his friends was demanding a very high price indeed.
    “Brigand,”