Free Beloved Imposter by PATRICIA POTTER Page B

be best to give her another day of rest, time to gain her strength.
    It was not because he wanted her to stay another day.
    He carefully opened the door, left the room, and closed the door behind him. He despaired at his reluctance in doing so.
    Chapter 6
    Streams of light woke Felicia. She burrowed deeper into the feather bed and stretched like a lazy cat even as she realized her situation was precarious.
    She knew she should feel urgency. Fear. She should feel terror.
    Yet she should be safe enough today. She would talk to servants. She would explore. She would find a way out.
    She must!
    She touched her cheek. She’d dreamt that someone had touched it last night. Not just any man. Lord Rory Maclean.
    He should be the last man in Scotland to haunt her dreams. Her uncle had proclaimed all Macleans to be devils. But she had not seen that in him. Instead, he appeared a man very much alone, but not unkind. And certainly not a monster.
    Her cheek still felt warm from that brief impression, or dream, or whatever it was. It was far warmer man the hot rocks she’d held against her cheeks. Rocks didn’t convey tenderness, nor did they send rivers of heat throughout her body.
    Had it really happened?
    And if it had? He was the enemy.
    She sank deeper into the bed, trying to avoid the image of the Maclean standing above her, his hand touching her. She should shrink from the thought. Instead, she was drawn to it like a moth to light, and it remained a small treasure stored in her mind.
    Memories. The touch awakened memories. She had known tenderness before, but it had been so long ago …
    She turned over, trying to reject the clanging thoughts and memories. They were too painful. Instead, she concentrated on the warmth and comfort of the bed.
    Another image struck her. A bare cot in a tiny room in a nunnery .
    One of the options she’d considered. Still considered, as a last resort, if she could not find Jamie. Or, if she did, but he could do nothing.
    She had always considered herself devout. Perhaps not as much as she should be, but she tried. A life of prayer and peace had seemed a bearable compromise to marriage.
    But as her body remembered and reacted to that dreamlike sensation, she realized she was probably not very suited for a religious life.
    That frightened her far more than any of her previous thoughts. She had to find a way to leave the walls of this keep for London. And before those beguiling feelings deviling her caused her to make mistakes. She could not be attracted to Rory Maclean.
    The door opened, and Moira entered, carrying a tray. She glowed as she looked at Felicia.
    “My herbs did well. Ye look much better.”
    “I feel much improved,” Felicia said. “Thank you for all your care. I know I am added trouble.”
    “Nay, it is good to have a lass here again. My lord has been—” She suddenly stopped, obviously afraid she was speaking out of turn.
    “My lord has been what?” Felicia asked.
    ” Tis not my place to say,” Moira said. “I will return with yer clothes. They be washed and mended. My lord said ye should also have anything else you need. We still have clothes that belonged to his or Lachlan’s mither.”
    “Lachlan?” She immediately identified the name as the one belonging to the Maclean who had chained his Campbell wife to a rock.
    “He is Lord Rory’s brother.”
    “Tell me more about your lord,” she said. “Does he ever smile?”
    Moira looked wistful. “He once smiled all the time.”
    “But no more?”
    “He ha’ much sorrow.”
    Felicia knew there were three Maclean sons. She also knew each had different mothers and each mother had died young. She knew all that because it was part of the legend and smug gossip among Campbells. Deserving, they all said.
    She also knew that one of the Macleans was said to have destroyed a Campbell village years earlier. It was said that women and children had been killed then. She found it difficult to believe the man responsible for that