Gail Eastwood Read Online Free

had created this problem, men were complicating the problem, and if she herself could have been a man, none of it would ever have come up in the first place.
    “Fine! Sit there chewing.” She made a face at her twin from the unthreatening distance of the fireplace. “You are lucky I don’t grab that carving knife and run you through with it, I’m that angry! A fine protector you turned out to be!”
    Gilbey was stung into replying. “All I have done is get us a warm, dry place to spend the night against impossible odds. If you prefer to sleep in the gutter, next time perhaps I should let you!”
    Gillian crossed back to her brother, bracing her hands on the table and peering intently into his face. “I would rather be hungry and wet and cold than be hauled back to Devonshire,” she pronounced with dramatic emphasis. “At least in that hallway, or even in the street, no one would have noticed us—especially if you had not raised such a fuss.”
    Instead, she thought, she was sharing a room with a strange man whose attention seemed never to leave her. She had felt Brinton watching her from the moment they had started up the stairs. Every time she risked a glance at him, she met his deep-set eyes. They were a warm, distinct hazel.
    She thought she detected a hint of amusement in them that was not revealed in his other carefully controlled features. Had his inspection penetrated her disguise? If so, what was he planning to do? She found his ceaseless scrutiny unnerving. She was almost equally discomposed by her own compulsion to look at him.
    “We ought to leave now, Gilbey, while they’re not here.”
    Her brother stopped sawing on the mutton to wave the knife toward their belongings by the door. “What we ought to do is change into dry clothes. The last thing either of us needs is to take a chill. And there’s no sense in making an awkward situation worse.”
    “Awkward! Of all the rattle-brained schemes! This is a worse scrape than anything I ever got us into at home.” Gillian went grudgingly to the portmanteau and began rummaging in it. The muslin she had bound around her breasts so tightly that morning now felt like a cold, soggy bandage that was loosening with every breath. Her head ached and her limbs were still shaking, but she knew the food and dry clothes would help.
    “If I were you, I wouldn’t start a debate over who got us into this coil,” Gilbey said with an edge of irritation in his voice. “Whose idea was it to run off to Scotland?”
    “I didn’t invite you to come along,” Gillian replied. She had prepared to leave without even confiding in her twin. Gilbey had argued with her when he had discovered her intentions, deciding to go with her when he could not dissuade her.
    “I hate to think where you might be already if I hadn’t. How had you planned to manage? Did you really think you could pass for a male all the way to Scotland—alone?”
    Gillian pulled out a shirt that was obviously too large for her and, scrunching it into a ball, threw it at her brother. Breeches and stockings followed. Finally, she gathered up the smaller-size castoffs that made up her current wardrobe and moved to the fire.
    “I wouldn’t be sharing a room with two strangers who I don’t doubt have designs on our purse, if not our persons! Those two have probably gone to summon their accomplices and will pretend to be robbed along with us when they come back, figuring that we are no match for their men.” She pulled off one boot and held it up, letting a stream of water pour out onto the floor.
    “Why are you so convinced they want to rob us?” Gilbey’s voice was muffled as he pulled his wet shirt off over his head.
    “I don’t know another reason for them to get involved with two waifs as wretched as we must appear,” Gillian said. She and Gilbey had turned their backs to allow each other some privacy. “Did you not wonder why this so-called ‘Lord Brinton’ stepped in so quickly to take charge