The Pretender Read Online Free PDF

lass back in the coach, man. You can wash yourself off in yon burn.”
    As Manfred helped Elizabeth back to the coach, the Scotsman kneeled, untying the leather laces on his peculiar-looking shoes. He removed them along with his tartan hose, then, without another word, proceeded to walk into the mire, sloshing and oozing his way to the coach in his bare feet. In one sudden motion, he swept Elizabeth from the step and into his arms, cradling her effortlessly before him. His eyes, a deep, dark blue, laughed at her above a cocked grin.
    “In need of a lift, lass?”
    Elizabeth frowned. “In England, sir, it is customary for a gentleman to ask a lady’s permission before laying hands upon her person.”
    “ Och, but you’re no’ in England any more, lassie. And I’m sair tainly no gentleman. This is the land o’ the Scotsman, and there isna a thing genteel about a Scot.”
    “Truer words were never said,” she remarked to the mud creeping up his hairy legs.
    The man continued to stare at her. It was disconcerting, those blue eyes looking at her as if he could see straight to the deepest reaches of her mind. His mouthhad settled into a straight line, but somehow she believed he was mocking her.
    “I’ll no’ have it said a Scot, any Scot, ever took a lass who wasna willing.” He grinned again. “Even if it is out of a bog. You want me to put you down then?”
    Elizabeth glanced down to the sludge that surrounded them, from which a sour smell had begun to rise in the summer heat. “No, please, do not.”
    “I didna think so.”
    The man turned and trudged through the bog to drier land, more dropping her than setting her down before him. He didn’t immediately move away, and stood so close she could see the flecks of gray that made his eyes so darkly blue. They were peculiar, those eyes, somehow making it impossible for her to tear her gaze away.
    He said, “I’ll just fetch the other lassie now.”
    Only when he turned to retrieve Isabella did Elizabeth realize her heart was pounding. Putting it off as the result of the mishap in the coach, she took a deep breath and focused on the arrangement of her skirts while he carried her sister from the coach, setting her right beside Elizabeth.
    “Have you ever seen such a man?” Isabella whispered as the stranger set about helping Manfred and Titus to push the coach free of the bog. “He carried me as if I weighed no more than a feather.”
    Elizabeth crossed her arms, rubbing them as if taken by a chill. But was it a chill—or was it him?
    “He is far too forward.”
    “He was just trying to be helpful.”
    “More likely he was just trying to sneak a handagainst your bodice, Bella. If Father were here, he would have—”
    An idea struck Elizabeth— boom! —like a lightning bolt, an idea of such ingenuity, such cleverness, she could scarcely believe how brilliant she was.
    Three quarters of an hour later, when the carriage was free and the wheel had been repaired, Elizabeth walked over to the stranger, a much different Elizabeth than the one she’d been before.
    “I wish to thank you, sir, for your kind assistance.” She offered him her gloved hand. “I shudder to think what we might have done had you not happened by when you did.”
    The Highlander looked at her curiously, as if seeing her for the first time.
    “Pleased to have been of help, my lady.”
    He didn’t move to take her hand. Instead he turned, taking up his shoes and hose as he readied to leave.
    Leave? But he couldn’t leave. Just yet.
    Elizabeth followed him. “I, uh, neglected to ask your name. I should like to know to whom we owe our debt of gratitude.”
    The man looked at her but didn’t stop walking. “Douglas Dubh MacKinnon fro’ the Isle of Skye.”
    Douglas Dubh? What in the world sort of name was that?
    He stopped for a moment at the burn to wash the bog mud from his feet and legs. As he bent to cup the water in his large hands, running his fingers down the length of his