Impostress Read Free Page B

think you best find it and soon."
    "Just listen." Instead of anger, now Elyn seemed scared. She wrapped her fingers around her sister's wrist, touching that very spot that had broken on the night that Elyn had saved her life. A tiny bit of old pain shot up Kiera's arm. "I cannot marry the baron because I can't come to him as a virgin."
    Kiera's skin prickled with dread. She pulled her hand away, didn't want to think of that fateful night and her hasty, though heartfelt, vow to do anything Elyn asked. "Why not?"
    "I've already given myself." Her cheeks, beneath her freckles, reddened.
    "To Brock of Oak Crest?" Kiera demanded, knowing the answer before it passed Elyn's tongue.
    "Aye." Elyn was worrying her hands together, her teeth sinking into her lip. "I love him. I have from the first time I saw him at Tower Fenn. I was but thirteen years, yet smitten upon the sight of him. I have loved him ever since."
    "For the love of St. Jude, Elyn." Kiera thought little of the man who had so completely and stupidly captured her sister's heart. "Is he not betrothed to another?"
    "Wynnifrydd." Elyn's nose wrinkled as if she'd just smelled rotten eggs. "Of Fenn. They are to be married soon." She sighed loudly, her shoulders slumping as if from a great burden. The first drops of rain began to fall and splatter on the ground. "Brock loves me, not that scrawny wench. I know it. He no more wants to wed Wynnifrydd than I do Penbrooke."
    "But you haven't given this a chance. As you said, you've never met Penbrooke. Mayhap you'll find him—"
    "Attractive?" Elyn snorted, shaking her head. "Obviously you've never been in love."
    "You know that Brock's a scoundrel. You've said so yourself."
    "Mayhap, but the heart knows no reason." Elyn stared into the storm as if she was searching for some kind of divine intervention, some kind of insight into her plight.
    "Oh, please, stop it! I've heard you spout this romantic nonsense too often, and look where it's gotten you." Kiera felt a pang of something akin to pity.
    Her strong sister was such a fool when it came to love, but Elyn had always been a bit of a dreamer. "I know you don't want to marry Penbrooke. Have you not said as much every day since Father announced the agreement? But what you're suggesting is mad ... absurd; it will never,
ever
work."
    "It will if you agree to it. Now, you'll not have to give yourself to him, not really." Elyn was blinking against the fat drops of rain falling from the sky. "You can give him a sleeping draft, and he'll fall asleep and I'll make sure there is a vial of blood— pig's blood—that you can spill onto the sheets, so that when he awakens, he'll believe—"
    "And why cannot you do this? Why can you not make sure he falls asleep, then sprinkle the sheets with blood?"
    "Because I am to meet Brock one last time."
    "What?" Kiera cried. This was ludicrous! Insane!
    "Please, Kiera, if I can steal one more night with Brock, I will feel as if I have defied the contract that keeps me from my love. It will make assuming the duties as the Baron of Penbrooke's wife bearable, and no one but us will know."
    " 'Twould only make things worse. Much worse. Nay, Elyn, this is crazy. I will do anything for you, I gave you my word, but this ... I cannot."
    "You will not have to compromise your virginity."
    "So you say, but—"
    "And everyone will think that he was with me. You lose nothing, Kiera.
Nothing.
And I will have one last night with my beloved."
    Kiera was thinking that her virginity wasn't as precious as she'd thought, not if it could be bartered with so easily. Though, of course, Elyn was right. Kiera would never give herself to the man. Yet she could not meet her sister's request despite her promise. Kiera knew the plan could not work. She would not do it. 'Twas a fool's mission.
    "This scheme is impossible," she said, gathering her cowl over her head as the rain peppered the garden. "You must go to Father and talk him out of the marriage."
    "Don't you think I've tried?