Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95196 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Heart galloping, I raced into the hall. Oh, thank goodness! No guards.
I retraced Callen’s path, pausing to lean my ear to the wall and listen for voices. There must be other unguarded doors on these lower floors. If I entered a room unnoticed, I had a shot of getting outside. Once there, I could figure out the rest.
To my dismay, a door opened roughly ten feet ahead. I went still, not daring to breathe. But it wasn’t Callen who stepped into the corridor—it was me, Elizabeth Darcy.
“Isobel,” I hissed, my hands balling.
There my body stood. The curves I’d missed. The wavy dark hair I’d debated cutting before making my trip. The round dark eyes and full lips I was no longer used to seeing in the mirror. Shock kept me immobile.
“Hello, Elizabeth.” Clad in my travel clothes, she smiled, radiating glee. My dad’s coin hung from her neck, and I whimpered with longing. “As of this morning, Isobel’s soul is dead. I’m Sorcha.”
My brow furrowed, the announcement echoing in my mind. No. No way she was Mirren’s mother and Callen’s beloved girlfriend, Sorcha. Isobel wasn’t dead. This woman was Isobel, and she was right here, attempting to escape punishment.
“I don’t believe you,” I grated.
“I don’t care,” she retorted, arms spread. “Isobel switched with you. Today, I switched with her. That’s the truth whether you believe it or not.”
Impossible. “Tavish killed Sorcha. Cut her up and mailed Callen the pieces.”
“Nay. While I lived with Callen as myself, one of my maids fed me the potion. I woke up as her, and she woke up in Callen's arms.” Bitterness seeped from her pores. “She’d fallen in love with him, you see. But the joke was on her. Tavish abducted my body with her in it. She died in agony before I could switch back.”
I reeled as I filled in the blanks. “And you kept quiet to avoid execution.” Something I, too, had done. Flattening a hand to my belly, I asked, “If what you’re saying is true, why are you telling me now?”
Her smile made a new appearance. “You aren’t a bad person. I’ve actually enjoyed getting to know you. And I’m appreciative of your kindness to my daughter. I just, I want you to understand why I did what I did. Why I’m doing what I’m doing.”
I gulped. Did she intend to kill me? “Where have you been since it all went down?” I asked, trying to buy time while arranging the jigsaw puzzle of information and events scrambling my brain.
“Here.” She stroked her hand over the hilt of a blade hanging at her side. “At first, I tried to seduce Callen. He fired me. To get back in, I was forced to make an exchange with Mackenzie. She died in the other maid’s body soon after.”
Mackenzie. Of course. So many things became clear. The maid’s concern for her boss’s little girl. Her willingness to speak with me when no one else would. Except, “How did you lure Isobel back to Scotland?” A trip she’d made without telling me.
“Isobel never left Scotland.”
I shook my head. “You’re lying. I saw pictures of her with my mother.”
“Aye, you did.” She gave me a get-with-the-program look. “You saw doctored photos, just as Callen did.”
No. No! “If you were Sorcha, you would’ve switched with Isobel before she switched with me. Or you would have switched with me.” I would’ve become Mackenzie, the trapped servant. She’d had plenty of opportunities to do it, but never had.
“You think I wished to bear his wrath?” Her dark eyes gleamed with a hint of madness. “Nay, I allowed you to burn through the worst of his hatred. And just in case you haven’t put all the pieces of my big reveal together, I’ll be taking over, now that he’s happy with his bride, whether I like you or not.”
How weird it was seeing myself resemble an evil villainess in a cartoon. “I assure you, he’s far from happy at the moment.”
“Oh. That.” She waved a dismissive hand. “His mood is about to take a drastic turn for the better.”
“Why?” I demanded.
She ignored me. “While you were busy wedding Callen, I was busy hiding Isobel. She believed she and Tavish had cooked up a plan to drain Callen of his money. This morning, I took over your body, she got trapped in Mackenzie’s, and Tavish killed her,” she explained, withdrawing a ring from her pocket and slipping the band over her index finger. A thin spike protruded from the center.
That sharp spike would have worried me, if her words hadn’t echoed inside my head. I was the one who’d wed Callen. Me, Elizabeth Darcy. We were married.
Astonishment caught me up in a whirlwind. I should have known. The timing tracked. The dreams. But I’d resisted the truth, not yet ready to face the complications. Now…