A Lady's Wish Read Online Free PDF Page B

enough to merit praise or even much attention other than censure. He was nothing more than a careless wastrel. That she had laughed and smiled and allowed him to kiss her had not changed that, no matter how he wished otherwise. By the end of that golden day he had determined that in order to win her he would make something of himself. It would be that simple.
    But she had not met him the following morning as planned, and she could not be found. So he had gone to war to make something else entirely of himself.
    He spurred his mount onward. The carriage appeared in the gray ahead, the horses sodden in their traces. After a full day in the saddle, Nik was tired and sore. But if Jag’s instructions and his own memory were correct, the route offered an inn not five miles distant. With the wagon, it might be reached before nightfall.
    She came out of the carriage and peered down the road behind him.
    “Ah. What good fortune.” She clasped gloved hands before her. She was still slender, the curve of her shoulders and rise of her breasts barely discernable beneath her cloak. “Thank you, sir.”
    “A wagon?” A young lady poked her bright head through the doorway. “How singular!”
    He bowed. “I fear the options were limited, ma’am. It was either this or the donkey cart. I dared to decide for you.”
    The girl giggled, dimpling up in a manner so familiar—so gut grabbingly familiar, so emblazoned in his memory—he knew she must be a relation. He shifted his gaze to the lady he had not been able to forget in nine years, then wished he had not.
    Her blue eyes—eyes he had lost himself in once before—were trained upon him, thick-lashed and wide, cornflowers set in a face too lovely to be real. Lovely, not because he remembered it glowing with youthful innocence and desire. Not because that face had not changed, for it had. But because now, as then when he had first seen her in the crowd at the festival and lost his breath, she was to him the most beautiful thing he had ever beheld.
    He could not deny it to himself. He did not even wish to.
    “It will do splendidly, of course,” she only said. “Carr, it will be dark within an hour. Will you be comfortable remaining here with the carriage and horses until help can be sent back?”
    “ ’Course, mum. Don’t you be worrying on me.” He nodded her along then began unstrapping the luggage from the top of the vehicle.
    Nik extended his hand for the girl inside and she jumped down lightly.
    “This is a most provident adventure!”
    “Mishaps upon highways in the rain and mud cannot be considered anything but, ma’am.”
    “You are quizzing and we are hardly known to one another!” Her eyes twinkled. “Oh, Tricky, I am quite glad he was not a highwayman after all. You are not, are you, sir?”
    “Not for years now.”
    “Then I am terribly disappointed we did not encounter you earlier in life.” She giggled, all silly girlish glee. Not like that other girl he remembered as though it were yesterday. That girl had laughed freely, but with quiet grace. Her eyes had sparkled but her lashes allowed only a glimmer of that joy to shine forth. She had been fervent yet modest, and she had not directly told him her feelings that day, an omission which he noted far too late.
    She stood now silent, watching them.
    An elderly lady appeared in the door and he assisted her down.
    “Young man, you must see to that scar now or it will pain you in old age.” She patted his shoulder, released him, and wobbled toward the wagon.
    The girl’s eyes danced. Nik lifted a brow. She stifled another giggle. The farmer tugged his cap and Nik assisted the elderly lady onto the seat. With a wide grin the girl climbed over the low rear slat into the back of the cart.
    “I have not ridden in the back of a wagon for years,” she exclaimed in pleasure, arranging her skirts across the sodden hay.
    He turned his attention to the lady at his side. “I regret that you must ride in one now.”
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