Beguiled Read Free Page B

Chinaman’s poison send you to the harpers. This potion make you rest and call up your demons.” She waved the bottle, and with a crooked, loving smile, said, “More better you lose one skinny arm?”
    Perspiration beaded Agnes’s forehead. “Then I couldn’t cover both of my ears against your nattering—in any dialect. I will not drink that mind-stealing concoction.”
    Auntie Loo stared pointedly at Lachlan. Reverting to the King’s English, she said, “Your oft foolish daughter will live to trouble you again, my lord.”
    Wringing his hands, the duke paced. “Nay, she will trouble me no more. Her outlandish behavior is at an end.” He gave her a stern glare. “You’re coming home with us to Tain, and I’ll not let you out of my sight until a husband catches your fancy.”
    She rallied her strength for what Edward suspected was an old argument. “Never,” she swore. “You cannot force me to live with you. You cannot force me to wed.”
    Uncomfortable at witnessing their strife, Edward fished out the bandages and began wrapping the cloth around her shoulder. Too caught up in his anger, the duke did not notice that Edward was again ministering to his patient.
    â€œThat’s where you are wrong,” MacKenzie spat. “I forbid you to put yourself in danger again.”
    â€œThat’s where you are wrong.”
    â€œAgnes,” he said on an expelled breath. “I indulged you when you begged to go to China to learn those foreign fighting skills.”
    Foreign fighting skills? To what was the duke referring?
    She glanced at the woman named Auntie Loo. “Where I saved a member of the royal family.”
    He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I also allowed you to travel with Burgundy.”
    â€œWhere I foiled two attempts on the life of his heir.”
    Edward had heard the tale. According to the French duke, Agnes MacKenzie, with only a knife for weapon, had brought down two would-be assassins. She didn’t appear so formidable now, and if he hadn’t seen her in action, Edward wouldn’t have believed the tale. It baffled him that this beautiful woman was capable of so much daring.
    MacKenzie threw up his hands. “You nearly drowned pulling that gin-soaked beggar from the Thames.”
    That rescue was news to Edward.
    â€œShe was only a babe,” Agnes said. “Her mother fed her the vile drink apurpose. She would have sold her own child to any man with an unholy urge and a copper.”
    MacKenzie paused and pointed a threatening finger at her. “I’ll cease your allowance. You’ll have no funds to continue that futile search. Your sister is dead.”
    Like the shadow of the moon eclipsing the sun, the light faded from her eyes. Tears pooled, but she blinked them back. “Nay. Virginia lives, and I will not forsake her..”
    â€œVirginia is dead, and you must get on with living,”
    She stiffened. “I tell you, I will find her.”
    The duke eyed her with cool regard. “Without money?”
    â€œI’ll earn it myself.”
    MacKenzie chuckled, but the sound held no humor. Edward decided that the duke was goading his daughter into disobedience. A now familiar stubbornness engulfed her, and her expression mirrored her father’s belligerent stare.
    â€œWhy can you not be like your sisters?” said the duke.
    â€œLike Mary? Pregnant without benefit of marriage?”
    â€œWhat?” His face turned crimson.
    â€œYou didn’t know?”
    â€œI know that she loves Wiltshire.”
    â€œThen you’ll have me be like Lottie, who pries into everyone’s business?”
    â€œLottie is a good wife and mother.”
    â€œThen like Sarah, who is not my blood sister.”
    â€œWho told you that?” her father demanded.
    â€œSarah did.”
    â€œWe are not speaking of Sarah, Lottie, or Mary. We are discussing your