The Pretender by Jaclyn Reding Page A

the others approaching in the hall. Any moment now, the door would burst open and the particulars of just how Bess had come to be married to that Scottish man with the strange name would be revealed. Caroline couldn’t wait to hear it.
    She bent her knees and wiggled her bottom just right, ducking her head down beneath the rim of the urn just as the door across the room came open and everybody surged inside.
    “Very well. The little ones have been sent to their rooms,” she heard her mother say. “Now we will all take a seat and discuss this situation calmly.”
    If Caro could have seen through the side of the urn, she knew she would have seen the duchess looking at her father when she said this.
    “Calmly? Are you out of your mind, woman? Yourdaughter has just told us she is married! And to a complete stranger! Even worse than that, to a Scot! ”
    “Alaric, keep your voice down. The windows are open. He’ll hear you.”
    “Oh, he’s down in the reception hall, no doubt scrutinizing the china vases with a mind to what he can pilfer. They’re all thieves, you know. Reivers the lot of them!”
    “Father, that’s not true,” Elizabeth said. “He wouldn’t do that. He’s not a reiver. He’s a drover.”
    “Is that supposed to make me feel any better about the fact that he is now my son-in-law? What I want to know, Elizabeth Regina Drayton, is wherever did you get such a dim-witted idea in your head as to wed the man?”
    “She got the idea from me, Father. In fact, I made her do it.”
    Bella?
    “It seemed the best way, the only way to sort out the situation. Elizabeth had . . .” She hesitated. “Elizabeth took ill at the inn last night. Something she’d eaten . . . or rather something she drank.”
    “Elizabeth,” said the duchess, instantly concerned. “Are you feeling unwell?”
    “No, Mother, I’m fine. Well, except for a slight headache . . .”
    The duke interrupted, “What the devil did you drink?”
    “It was something called uisge-beatha. It was a chilly night and the serving girl said it would warm us, but it must have been spoiled. It didn’t taste right, not at all.”
    “ Whisky? You besotted yourself with whisky ?”
    “Apparently so, Father, but you’ll be relieved to know I didn’t like it. Not at all. It made my head feel odd, as if it were no longer attached to my body, and my stomachbecame most upset. Afterward, I went straight to bed and stayed there until morning.”
    “That still doesn’t explain why you have returned here claiming to be married to a Scot when you should be on your way to Lord Purfoyle’s estate.”
    “Because when I awoke in the morning, he was in bed beside me.”
    “He? You mean this Scot? Are you . . .” Her father drew an audible breath. “Are you telling me you slept with the man?”
    The duke broke something then, something that sounded as if it was made of glass and probably cost a lot of money. Inside the vase, Caroline had to cover her mouth with her hand.
    “I was delirious!” Elizabeth shouted. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I don’t even remember asking him to come to my bed.”
    “ What! Dear God, Margaret, take out my dueling pistol and shoot me right now.”
    “Alaric!”
    “Honestly, Father, I don’t think anything happened anyway. We both just fell asleep.”
    “Oh, yes. Right. And I’m the King of England.”
    The duchess broke in. “Alaric, your face is turning as red as a pomegranate. You will sit down now and calm yourself before we hear anything further.”
    “Good God,” the duke croaked, “is there more?”
    Caroline listened as her father took several slow, deep breaths. No one else in the room said a word.
    Finally Isabella spoke. “Father, Elizabeth had no way of knowing that what she was drinking would cause herto lose all sense and reason like that. She had never partaken of such strong spirits before.”
    “And with good reason. How much of this whisky did Elizabeth actually