Free Stealing the Bride by Mary Wine

demure for how well the pair of them were dissecting her every motion.
    “Yes, love. Yer eyes are shimmering when ye think of him. What else except love?”
    “Does it matter?”
    Daracha was intent on pushing the stocking up her leg but Elspeth grabbed it and performed the task herself.
    Both Daracha and Tavia smiled, the smallest curving of their lips. Elspeth felt their gazes ten times more than any Father Simon Peter had aimed at her.
    “I don’t know what I feel, only that I detest yer brother for taking me away from Hayden.”
    Both sisters seemed to hang on her words, absorbing them as if they were savoring the idea, because they were starving for affection. Considering how their brother treated them, maybe they were. She suddenly felt remorse for being so cross with them.
    “I was wondering if Hayden would like me in this chemise, but I don’t even know if he still desires me. Considering that yer brother wants a ransom for me, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he’s returned to Monroe land and washed his hands of the matter.”
    “Ye doubt he will come to ransom ye?” Tavia sounded shocked. “If he fails to come after ye, he does not love ye, that is for certain.”
    Elspeth tried to keep the despair from her voice. “He has no contract to bind him to me.” She looked around the room again, noting the fine things in it. “And it does not look as though yer brother will be content with any small amount.” There were many trunks in the room, over a dozen, telling her that Pherson liked to collect everything he could from his victims.
    “Ye are correct. Pherson never wants anything less than the best.”
    There was a note of annoyance in Tavia’s voice. Elspeth considered the girl for a moment.
    “Unless ye would care to help me out with yer brother … for the sake of proving that a woman can outthink a man.”
    Daracha looked up from where she had been studying what was inside a trunk. She lifted a pair of dainty shoes with dancing heels on them.
    “Outwit Pherson? Now that is something we are always interested in viewing, but it does not happen very often.”
    Daracha brought the shoes to her and lifted a finger to her lips in caution.
    “Keep yer voice low if yer intention is to scheme.” She lifted the shoe up so that the light shone off the polished leather. “Do ye like these? I believe they will fit ye.”
    Now Daracha spoke in a normal tone but Elspeth was distracted by the shoes. They had heels on them and were a deep scarlet color. There was nothing practical at all about them but she adored them on sight.
    Daracha smiled a wicked, knowing smile. “I hear Queen Catherine Howard had many pairs just like this.”
    Elspeth felt her eyes widen. “And she also lost her head.”
    Tavia waved a hand in the air. “She drew men’s attention everywhere she went. Her failing was that she was too foolish to understand the difference between love and lust. Try them on.”
    They were a French fashion, something Anne Boleyn adored too. Yet another woman who had lost her head over being too free with her affections.
    But it was only a pair of shoes and she didn’t have a husband to make jealous.
    Elspeth slid her feet into the shoes and Daracha tied them closed.
    “Now walk in them. They say the heels push yer bottom up, making it more attractive to the male eye. The English Queen Mary has forbidden them.”
    The heels felt decadent. Coupled with the silk chemise, she felt more alluring than she ever had. The silk flowed over her breasts, teasing her nipples until they drew into hard points that poked through the delicate fabric. Tavia laughed in a low, sultry tone.
    “I believe ye need just the correct set of stays to go with those heels.” Tavia opened another trunk and pulled something from it. Elspeth gasped when she saw it.
    “Lovely, aren’t they? My brother brought this back from a countess who clearly doesn’t share the strict piety that her queen does.”
    The stays were made of