Free A Scandalous Lady by Rachelle Morgan Page B

doors on either side. Which were occupied? Which were empty? Damn this house! Damn herself for not mapping out the place earlier—not that she’d had time; everything had happened so fast that she’d not had a chance. She was paying for that now.
    Footsteps approached the stairs. Faith flipped herself around a corner, opened the closest door, and found herself in a cavernous room. A huge four-poster bed dominated the floor. A quilt-covered chest acted as a footboard. A scroll-topped secretary and one overstuffed chair commanded a corner. There was not a single place to hide.
    The rhythmic beat of heavy heels in the hallway grew louder. She raced to the window beside the secretary and twisted the clasp. After several seconds of struggling, the pane finally slid up. The footsteps stopped outside the door. Glancing first left, then right, Faith saw what she was looking for and threw her left leg over the sill at the same moment she heard the door latch click.
    She hadn’t thought there could be any worse humiliation than when the baron had caught her eating off the floor like a stray cur.
    She’d been wrong.

Chapter 4
    A dark and handsome prince should find a lady stitching delicate samplers on a drawing room divan. He should find her seated primly at a gleaming pianoforte or strumming the strings of a lute. He should find her gliding gracefully across a ballroom floor.
    He should not find her hanging upside down from a rose trellis two floors off the ground.
    â€œMy, my, Your Majesty, you are quite full of surprises,” came his mirth-filled observation from the window directly above her where he leaned over the sill.
    Fighting against gravity, Faith tried to curl upward in an attempt to salvage a measure of dignity and felt the trellis give another inch under her ankle. Falling back in defeat, she almost wished it would fall. Better to be buried in thorns than face another mortifying episode before the baron.
    Unfortunately, she would not be spared.
    â€œYou wouldn’t by chance be trying to run away, would you, Highness?”
    â€œDo I look like I’m running?” She sneezed, then cursed the reaction to the roses that had first caused her ungainly slip, then no doubt given her away. So much for her clever escape.
    â€œActually, you look like you’re about to break your crown. Come down from there, Faith.”
    â€œI can’t,” she almost whimpered. “Me foot ’as gotten stuck b’tween the slats.”
    She couldn’t be sure if he chuckled or sighed. Maybe both. The first touch of his hand around her ankle sent a shock of lightning coursing down her leg. Faith jerked; the trellis quivered.
    The baron muttered a mild curse that echoed across the lawn. “I can’t seem to get a secure grasp to pull you up, so I’ll have to come down. Stay put, I’ll have you untangled in a jiffy.”
    Stay put? Crikey, where did he expect her to go? She’d already discovered that she wasn’t strong enough to pull herself up and untangle herself, else she would have done so long before he’d discovered her hanging like a sea monkey from the fragile wooden ladder.
    Several minutes later, she felt his presence below and sought out his lean figure. Little more than shadow seemed to appear at the base of the trellis. Then a dim curl of moonlight brought him into mellow focus. She watched him bend down and pluck her stocking cap from the ground, where it had dropped beside her pack. “Why, I believe you’ve lost your tiara!” Even in the tip-turned darkness she could see his eyes twinkling as he swung her limp wool cap back and forth from his forefinger by the brim.
    She clenched her teeth together. “Just help me down.”
    â€œPlease?”
    She glared into the laughing gray eyes and ground out, “ Please. ”
    He chuckled, then grabbed hold of the braces of the trellis, and after giving it a shake to test its sturdiness,