Secrets to Seducing a Scot Read Online Free PDF

beautiful black carriage rumbled down the lane.
    There had been a time when she had thought she, too, might be riding a carriage like that one. But that
was long before. Before she had married too young a man too old. Before the shine in her copper hair had tarnished to a dull bronze.
    The good Lord had seen fit to deliver her of eight beautiful bairns, but now she wished she’d been barren. The crops hadn’t come in yet, and there wasn’t enough in the house to feed those who lived in it. The sheep had been sold off last year, and that money was long gone. And her a widow with no man in the house to look after them … It was a losing battle each day to keep body and soul together.
    She lifted the lid on the cupboard she used as a larder. She counted its contents out into her apron. One leek, four potatoes, and maybe a pound of liver. She stared at the assortment in dismay. Nine people had to be fed on this.
    Maybe if she had some oatmeal or flour, she could bulk up the meager offering, even make a crude haggis. But grain had become way too dear. The tax on it was beyond her ability to pay.
    If only she had a bit more, her children might not cry in the night again. The old ones were used to the rumblings of their tummies, but the wee ones only knew to wail. To hear them cry was a physical pain for her, and her exhausted embraces were not enough to soothe their emptiness. She swept an alarmed glance down onto the ingredients for their supper, as if somehow wishing would make them multiply. But this was all there was. The liver, the five vegetables … and the apron.
    An idea germinated in her desperate mind. She unfastened the apron from her waist. It might work. After all, the apron was made of soft cotton, loosely woven. If she tore it into strips, and ran it through the meat grinder together with the liver, it just might do. Minced
together with the leeks and potatoes, and browned on the griddle over the fire, she might be able to turn a meal for four into a meal for nine.
    At least she’d be able to fill the little ones enough for tonight.
    But what would she do about tomorrow?

SIX
    Though the long trip from London had been arduous, Serena and Earlington received a warm welcome when they arrived at Copperleaf Manor.
    Their hosts, Lord and Lady Askey, were as pleasant and hospitable as Serena could expect. Though he was English by birth, Lord Askey’s family had held lands in Scotland for generations, and he spent a great deal of his time there. He loved Scotland and its people, but he was a loyalist and he advocated a unified Britain. Politically, he was the perfect man to host Commissioner Marsh, being so well liked among the Scots. And personally, he and his wife made every effort to ensure that Serena and her father felt at home.
    Josiah Askey was a man of fifty whose graying hair seemed to have melted from the top of his head to the sides of his face. He had a jolly air to him, and when he smiled his eyes became little blue crescents. Comfortable living had given him a paunch, but he was yet a man of unbounded energy.
    His first wife had died of the fever, but she had given him two daughters: Lady Georgina, who had married the year before to a young man of means in Dumfries, and Lady Zoe, who was only fourteen. Although Serena was homesick for London, Zoe’s youthful zest and irrepressible friendliness made the separation easier to bear.

    Rachel Askey, his young wife, was only slightly older than Serena, but her May–December marriage seemed to have been made in heaven. Rachel Askey was a Scot from a noble family. She had a creamy complexion and strawberry freckles on her face that matched the rosy tones in her lovely hair. Recently delivered of an infant daughter, she was never seen without her nearby. She was bright in face and mind, and her kindness drew in the young Zoe, who embraced her as an older sister rather than as a stepmother. They were a warm family, and tried very hard to make Serena feel at