A Highland Duchess Read Online Free PDF Page B

approach her.
    He only smiled in response. “Are you hungry?”
    “I’ve already had my supper.”
    “Would you like some wine?”
    “I don’t drink wine,” she said.
    “Something warm, then? Some tea, perhaps.”
    She focused on the oval rug in front of the bed, its pattern of flowers and entwined vines quite lovely. Was it Scottish?
    “You win high marks as a jailer,” she said. “If anyone wants to know if you were kind, then I’ll say you were. If anyone questions me as to your hospitality, I’ll say you were a grand host.”
    “You think me kind?”
    She glanced up at him.
    “I haven’t been appreciably kind, Duchess, since we met. What disturbs me is that you think I have been. It makes me wonder what other treatment you’ve had in comparison.”
    “Must we continue to talk?” she asked. “I find that I am excessively fatigued.”
    “All of a sudden?”
    “It has been building,” she said, biting off the words. “Ever since I was forced from my own home.”
    “I would convey my apologies for that, Duchess,” he said, his tone just as terse, “except for one fact. The house you claim as a home didn’t seem excessively comforting to me. No one will strike you here, Duchess. No one will threaten you.”
    How very strange that it was easy to smile. “You have threatened me from the moment you took me from my home, sir. It does no good to say you have not done so. Actions count louder than words. Anyone can be a brute and say he hasn’t been.”
    “Like your husband, Duchess?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “I shouldn’t have taken you from your home,” he said, surprising her. “Frankly, I didn’t know what to do at the time. But it’s been done, and we must work with the situation as it stands now. Not as we wish it might be.”
    He smiled, and she wished he wouldn’t. The expression rendered him even more handsome, a darkly beautiful creature who confused her.
    He turned and walked toward the door. On the threshold he glanced back at her. “Forgive me, Emma,” he said. And then he was gone.
    Emma stood, walked across the room and pressed her hand against the closed door. A kind manner could hide a perfidious heart; she knew that only too well. She turned and looked around the room, searching for something she might use as a weapon. The poker in the fireplace tools would do nicely.
    She would never again be caught unawares.
    Rain sheeted the glass, creating an intimate and watery prison. The only good thing about this entire situation was that she couldn’t be married as long as she was a prisoner.
    How quickly would her uncle ransom her?
    When a knock sounded a quarter hour later, she stood at the door with the poker in hand, more than willing to defend herself.
    It wasn’t the thief, however, but a young maid holding a tray.
    “Begging your pardon, miss,” she said, bobbing a curtsy, “but I’ve been told to bring you something to eat. I’ve bread and cheese, and some of Cook’s biscuits.”
    Emma wasn’t hungry but didn’t think it necessary to explain to the young girl that the circumstances of her abduction had stripped her of any appetite she might have had.
    “Thank you,” she said, pulling the door open and propping the poker behind it.
    Anthony had admonished her at least once a day not to thank the servants. They are there to do your bidding, Emma. Thanking them undermines your authority.
    She’d never argued with him. Yet to say thank you was a small thing, an inconsequential rebellion, and therefore one she continued.
    The maid disappeared, bobbing yet another curtsy. London servants were more jaded than that young girl, making Emma wonder if she’d come recently from the country. Or from Scotland?
    The maid knocked again. This time when Emma opened the door it was to find herself face-to-face with Ian.
    Since leaving her, he’d changed. He was no longer dressed in solid black. Instead, his shirt was white, his gray trousers dry and pressed. He no longer wore