Tempting Mr. Weatherstone: A Wallflower Wedding Novella (Originally Appeared in the E-Book Anthology FIVE GOLDEN RINGS) Read Online Free PDF

handkerchiefs.
    For him, it was probably simpler this way.
    Yet for her and her foolish heart, it made her think of him each time she held her needle and thread. With each stitch, she knew she was holding his gift in her hands. His thoughtfulness. His generosity. Perhaps even his regard for her, little though it might be.
    They left the shop and strolled together down the damp walk. The air was misty and cold, but not so much that it would force them to take his carriage. He told his driver to go on ahead and wait for them at the jeweler’s a few doors down.
    Outside the shop ahead of them, stood a mother with her two children, and another woman a step apart, who Penelope surmised was the nurse. The two little boys in their caps and coats beamed up at their mother with cherubic grins as they each twisted a peppermint stick in their mouths.
    “A treat, indeed,” Ethan murmured quietly, bending his head so that his comment was only heard by her. “No wonder they’re behaving.”
    She looked up at him from under the brim of her hat, a smile tugging at her lips. “Is that all it took for you when you were young?”
    “Sometimes, but not as often as mother would have liked, I’m sure.” He chuckled and touched her elbow, guiding her steps around a puddle. “Unfortunately, Edmund and I were very good at discovering trouble. I’d even go so far as to say we were scholars of mischief.”
    As much as she liked the thought of his younger self, she laughed and shook her head. “You? Abandoning yourself to chaos? I can hardly believe that.”
    His grin faded, and his eyes were suddenly cast in a far-off look. “Yes, well, those were the follies of youth.”
    He said it in such a resolved way that it caused her to understand immediately. He’d been a hellion, but only before his father had died. After that, and since she’d known him, he’d left behind his scholarly endeavors.
    Penelope had gone through a similar transformation, choosing to leave behind her childhood rather abruptly when her mother had died. This was why she understood Ethan. She knew he liked order and structure because he could count on it. He liked the control it gave him.
    Until recently, she’d looked to Ethan for her structure. He was so regimented that it was comforting for her to know that she could count on him always staying the same.
    Only now . . . she’d changed.
    It wasn’t his fault. It was hers. She didn’t want same any longer. She wanted more.
    “We are fortunate in that regard,” he said, breaking into her thoughts. After a curious glance from her, he continued with an absent gesture to the children as they passed. “We don’t have to worry about mischievous children, tears, or sticky hands. We can spoil our nieces and nephews with peppermint sticks to curb errant behavior, then hand them over to their parents.”
    She nodded thoughtfully, realizing that a few years ago she would have agreed with him without question. However, since her sister’s last visit, she wasn’t entirely sure.
    In fact, she believed that her uncertainty was one of the reasons behind her restlessness and her need to get away. She was sure that if she had a moment to look at these feelings, from a distance, she could begin to understand and overcome this terrible disquiet.
    “Yes, in a few years, when my sister’s children are older, I may offer them a sweet to earn a plump-cheeked grin,” she said, as they neared the jeweler’s shop window. “However, I can tell you this with certainty, when my nephew scraped his knee last week and ran crying into the room, it wasn’t into my arms but into his mother’s. There is a profound difference in that, I’m afraid.”
    Ethan opened the door for her but stared at her quizzically as if her response was something he’d never considered. In a sense, she’d just spooned cream into his marmalade again.
    However, their conversation ended abruptly as they entered the jeweler’s. Wearing an apron over his