Wicked Promise Read Online Free PDF Page B

gambling, even in sports, and she certainly didn't approve of a man who was half-foxed in the middle of the day.
    And yet as she watched him pause in front of his carriage and speak softly to his magnificent black horses, a little thrill shot through her. With his wavy jet-black hair and silvery blue-gray eyes, his dark olive skin and flashing white teeth, he was a sight even more stirring than his magnificent horses.
    "I wish we could wager," her aunt said. "I would stake my last shilling his lordship will win."
    “Then 'tis probably a good thing there is no one here with whom you might bet."
    "Except for you," Aunt Sophie corrected with a rise in her wobbly double chins and an arch of her thin gray brows.
    Elizabeth gave up a reluctant smile. "Yes, but I also believe the earl will win, and it would be disloyal to wager against him." She watched him climb into his fancy black phaeton, his breeches tightening over his rounded buttocks. He was broad shouldered and lean hipped, and where he had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, she could see the long, thick muscles in his forearms.
    Leaning back against the seat, he clamped a thin cigar between those straight white teeth, laced the reins between his fingers, and grinned at the man who held a pistol in the air at the starting line.
    He made such a rakish picture, Elizabeth found herself staring, unable to look away. The starting weapon sounded with a loud report and her heart leapt inside her. The carriages lurched off the mark, their wheels spinning, Ravenworth leaning forward, his legs braced apart on the footrest. Harding matched his aggressive drive off the mark, cracking his whip over the heads of the bays, urging them into a flat-out run. He was a big man, tall and lithe, with sandy-brown hair and hazel eyes. He was perhaps two and thirty, and according to Mercy Brown had a wicked reputation with the ladies.
    He was not unpleasant to look at, Elizabeth admitted, her excitement mounting as she watched the phaetons streak down the track, but he didn't have the dark, hard-edged, masculine beauty of Nicholas Warring.
    "Lord Harding just might win," Aunt Sophie pointed out. "Perhaps you should have wagered after all."
    Elizabeth said nothing. Her palms were damp and she nervously chewed on a finger of her white cotton glove. The first turn loomed ahead. The horses rounded the mark, straining forward, almost neck and neck. Harding on the inside drew ahead, but Ravenworth's team caught up with him on the straightaway and pulled into the lead. The second turn put Harding back out front and Elizabeth bit down on her bottom lip. He stayed there through the, straightaway but his horses were beginning to tire, sweat and lather erupting on their neck and withers.
    By the time they approached the third turn, slinging mud and dirt up beneath their wheels, Eliza-beth's heart was roaring in her ears. Harding was still out in front, but the earl was closing fast and it looked like the viscount's bays were slowing.
    "Come on," she whispered beneath her breath. "You can do it."
    They passed the fourth turn, Harding ahead again. The earl was half standing, his cigar long gone, his fingers handling the reins with a skill she hadn't expected. For an instant he turned in her direction and their eyes met across the distance. She wondered what he had seen in hers for he slapped the reins down sharply on the horses' rumps, shouted something she couldn't hear, and just as the animals reached the finish, Ravenworth's blacks surged across in the lead.
    Shouts went up all round. Elizabeth was grinning, laughing out loud.
    Aunt Sophie clapped her hands. "I told you he would win."
    She started to wave, but her smile slipped a little and her hand stilled midway there as she watched the dark-haired earl being engulfed by his cloying group of admirers.
    "Yes..." she said, "so you did." For a moment, she wished she could join them, wish him congratulations and share in his moment of triumph. She couldn't,