The Deception of the Emerald Ring Read Online Free PDF

voice that even through the folds of cloth savored of John Knox and Robert Burns. "What do I want, she asks me?"
    Letty hadn't thought it that unreasonable a question.
    "Get along inside. Orders are I'm to take ye to the inn."
    "Orders from whom?" asked Letty suspiciously, even though she had a fairly good idea.
    The coachman muttered something generally uncomplimentary about the mental capacities of the other half of the species. "Who d'ye think? Lord Pinchingdale, that's who. Come along now. Himself'll be waiting for ye, and we dinna have all night."
    And before Letty had the chance to explain that she wasn't at all the "ye" in question, a pair of large hands closed around her waist and boosted her high into the air.
    "Up ye get."
    "Put me down!" she hissed, wriggling in his grasp. "You've made a mistake!"
    "No mistake," rasped her captor, grappling with her as though she were a particularly slippery fish just off the hook. Sounding aggrieved, he demanded, "Would ye hold still? I'm just tryin' to help ye into the carriage."
    Since her arms were pinned uncomfortably to her sides, Letty did the only thing she could. She lashed out with one small, slippered foot, catching her captor squarely in the shin. Unfortunately, it was the same foot she had stubbed earlier. Pain shot up her leg, but it was almost worth it for the resulting grunt of pain from the coachman. But he didn't let go.
    "What part of 'put me down' don't you understand?" Letty whispered fiercely, dealing him an elbow to the ribs.
    "Women!" grunted the coachman in tones of intense disgust.
    With no further ado, he tossed her unceremoniously into the carriage. Letty landed on her backside. Hard. Above the sound of the door slamming shut, she heard the coachman declare, in a voice that packed as much "I told you so" as one could muster through a scarf, "Orders are ye're to go to the inn, and it's to the inn you'll go." He didn't say, "So there," but the words were firmly implied.
    Scrambling to her knees, Letty crawled toward the door, hindered by her cloak, which twisted around her legs as she went, pulling her back. "For heaven's sake!" she breathed, yanking her cloak out of the way. Something ripped. Letty didn't care. If she could just get out before the coach began moving there were so many things she wanted to do that she didn't know where to begin. Lock Mary in an armoire. Give Lord Pinchingdale a piece of her mind about his staff and his morals.
    Propping an elbow up on one of the seats, Letty made a grab for the door handle. With a crack like a gunshot, the coachman snapped his whip. Four horses burst into concerted motion, propelling the coach forward. Letty's hand swiped uselessly through empty air as she lurched sideways, banging into the bench. She couldn't scream. Any loud noise would alert the neighbors, bringing down on her head exactly the sort of attention she hadn't wanted. The coach swerved again, sending Letty jolting sideways—right into the other shoulder.
    Clutching her wounded arm, Letty glowered helplessly in the direction of the box as the carriage carried her inexorably away toward her sister's assignation.
    She knew she should have stayed in bed.

Chapter Two
    Geoffrey, Second Viscount Pinchingdale, Eighth Baron Snipe, and impatient bridegroom-to-be stood in the foyer of his family's London mansion and slapped his gloves against his knee in an uncharacteristic gesture of impatience.
    "Is there any reason," he asked, deliberately using short and simple words, "that this cannot wait until tomorrow morning?"
    The courier from the War Office looked at him, then at the folded piece of paper he held in his hand, and shrugged. "I don't know. I haven't opened it, have I?"
    "Let's try this again, shall we?" suggested Geoff, with a quick sideways glance at the clock that hung between two red-veined marble pillars.
    Ten minutes till midnight. If he left immediately, he might still make it to the Alsworthys' rented residence before the clock struck