Howard Haskell Takes A Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch Book 0) Read Online Free PDF Page B

face.
    “Elizabeth!” His answer to her call could only be described as booming. And just like a cannon, he shot out into the street, avoiding a carriage that momentarily hid him from Elizabeth’s sight, and bounded up onto the sidewalk beside her. “My dearest Elizabeth. How blessed I am to see you, just as my heart was aching for want of you.”
    Elizabeth’s cheeks flushed red. The heat that kissed them swirled through her, settling in a particularly sensitive spot. Any man who could make her long so desperately for him when they had known each other less than a day was a man worth spending all the rest of her days getting to know.
    “What brings you here to…” She glanced around, gauging where she was. “…to Second Street?” Had they really wandered so far up from the riverfront? How close were they to her father’s office?
    Behind her, Madeline, Henrietta, and Isobel backed up, whispering amongst themselves.
    “I had business dealings, my love.” Howard inched forward, reaching for her hand. She gave it freely, and Howard raised it to his lips. He did not release it once her knuckles had been kissed.
    “Are you in business?” Elizabeth gasped as soon as the question was asked. “Good heavens. I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
    “Worship you, my darling,” Howard replied, stepping closer.
    They were too close, really, but the safety of her three friends behind her and Howard’s friend hopping up to the curb to shadow him would have to do for the time being.
    Elizabeth pulled herself together and laughed at his response. “Surely, you must do more than worship me, a woman you hardly know.”
    “Shouldn’t every man worship his wife?” He squeezed her hand, gazed deeply into her eyes.
    The sensation of falling came over Elizabeth, delicious and unsettling all mixed together. “I am not your wife,” she admitted, eyes fluttering down in disappointment. “And I’m afraid I never will be.”
    “Do not fear, my love.” Howard laughed—actually laughed—in the face of her fear.
    Frustrated that he would take her feelings so lightly, she snapped her gaze up to meet his. “It is impossible. My parents will never allow it. As my mother said to me last night, once you’d returned to your friend—” She nodded over Howard’s shoulder to the man with him. “—my marriage to Jonas Armstrong is already set, and a great many people are relying on the match.”
    “The only person who should rely on any match is the lovers involved.”
    His use of the word ‘lovers’ had her blushing and tingling down to her toes.
    “Would that it were that simple,” she sighed.
    Howard shrugged, letting go of her hand at last. “But it is that simple.”
    With Howard, she believed it certainly could be. Her heart wanted to laugh, but her mind knew better.
    “If you believe that, you do not know my parents.”
    “And if you believe that , then you do not know me.” The smile Howard tacked to the end of his pronouncement was nearly enough for Elizabeth to take him at his word.
    Nearly enough.
    “But that is the point.” She stepped boldly closer to him. “I don’t know you. At least not as well as I’d like to.”
    “There is only one way to remedy that.” Howard winked.
    Elizabeth caught herself laughing. No, she couldn’t afford to be distracted. “There is only one way, and that is for us to spend time together. But how will my parents possibly allow that? I have already been chastised for not spending enough time with my intended fiancé.”
    “Do you love him?” Howard’s question was so serious and so important that a ripple of anxiety raced down Elizabeth’s spine.
    “No,” she whispered. “Not at all. Jonas is well-placed in society and industrious, but…but he is boring.” She took a breath, the freedom of finally being able to say as much making her dizzy. “He doesn’t care for me at all. The only thing he cares about is money. I am considerably less valuable to