If the Slipper Fits Read Online Free PDF Page B

after the lady departed, the headmistress had vented her spleen, accusing Annabelle of being everything from a conniving usurper to a disobedient hussy who would come to a bad end.
    Annabelle had been too pleased with her good fortune to pay much heed. She felt no regret at leaving her old life behind—except for her students, who had given her a fine gray silk shawl as a farewell gift. Although the school was the only home she’d ever known, and she’d miss the girls and her few friends among the staff, it was all a part of her past now. The future lay before her, filled with glorious possibilities.
    As if to refute her, the wind tossed a fistful of raindrops ahead of the storm. The afternoon grew steadily darker as the black clouds scudded closer to blot out the sun. Brambles tugged at the hem of her gown, but she pulled herself free and forged onward. This vast acreage had to be the ducal lands. Crofters and tenant farmers would be needed to work the squares of cultivated fields. Yet she saw no one on her trek. Maybe they were all tucked inside their cottages to wait out the tempest.
    Nearing the final ascent, she noticed a muted rhythmic noise and realized it was the crashing of the waves on the shore. The battlements loomed high above her on the cliff. To reach there, she must ascend a steep path that vanished into a thick patch of forest.
    The dense canopy of trees created an eerie twilight. Other than the sea, the only sounds were the scuffing of her shoes and the occasional growl of thunder. Even the birds had taken refuge ahead of the squall. The preternatural hush made it seem as if a wicked spell had been cast over the castle and its surrounding lands.
    Come the gloaming, mind the piskies.
    The fine hairs prickled at the back of her neck. Annabelle shook off a vague uneasiness. How ridiculous to feel as if she were being watched. Holding up her skirts, she concentrated on navigating the rocky trail. She was stepping over a fallen tree limb when something moved out of the corner of her eye.
    Annabelle pivoted sharply. Bracing her hand on the rough bark of a tree trunk, she scanned the area. Her gaze locked on one spot where something stirred in the bushes. The leaves quivered low to the ground. Her heart pounding, she waited to see an elfin figure step out …
    A fat hedgehog waddled into view. Oblivious to Annabelle’s presence, the little animal vanished again into the underbrush.
    She laughed out loud. Pixies and faerie folk, indeed! Such mythical creatures roamed only in the pages of storybooks. She mustn’t succumb to flights of fancy or she’d scare herself silly.
    A bolt of lightning lit the sky and thunder crashed. Annabelle needed no further incentive to resume her climb. Urgency dogged her steps, and she kept her gaze on the path to keep from stumbling. At last she neared the top of the hill. Ahead loomed a grassy sward and then the castle wall, although she could not yet see the entry gate—
    A man stepped out from behind a huge granite boulder. Tall and menacing, he blocked her path. “What are you doing here?”
    “Sir!” She stopped dead to avoid bumping into him. “You frightened me.”
    Swift as lightning, he clamped his fingers around her upper arm. “I’ll do more than that if you don’t answer me.”
    Annabelle yelped, the sound lost to a crack of thunder. She yanked in vain against his iron grip. “Stop! Let me go!”
    “Not until you tell me why you’re here.”
    His aggressive stance intimidated her. He was strongly muscled, a man in his prime. Was he a castle guard? Surely not, for he wore the rough homespun shirt and breeches of a common worker.
    Though her heart pounded, Annabelle fixed him with the cold stare she used on disobedient students. “I shall answer nothing when treated so roughly. Remove your hand from me at once.”
    He glowered down at her. His eyes were a metallic gray against the browned skin of a man accustomed to laboring outdoors. The wind whipped his