To Wed a Wild Lord by Sabrina Jeffries Read Free Book Online Page B

at one-thirty. Just make sure you’re there.”
    Pierce could squawk all he wanted. She would race Lord Gabriel, and she would win—first at Ealing, then at Turnham Green. Then she would put him and his fine looks and wild reputation out of her mind for good.

Chapter Three
    H etty Plumtree had been sitting in the library of Halstead Hall for at least an hour. Her youngest grandson should have been home by now. The rest of the family had returned from the ball at Marsbury House some time ago. And given what they had told her, she did not know what to think of Gabe’s continued absence.
    But then, he never behaved as expected. The rapscallion had a rebellious streak that ran all the way to his toes. She remembered one time when he—
    “You didn’t need to wait up,” said a voice practically at her elbow.
    She jumped, then swatted at him with her cane. “Are you trying to give me heart failure, sneaking up on me like that? Where did you come from anyway, you little devil?”
    Her six-foot-two grandson laughed and pointed to the open window behind her. He bent to kiss her cheek, and she smelled the musky scent of horses on him. He must have lingered in the stables to groom his own mount, which alarmed her. He only did that when something had disturbed him.
    “Where have you been?” she snapped. “Everyone else has been home for hours.”
    “Last I checked,” he drawled as he dropped into the chair opposite her, “I wasn’t required to report on my comings and goings.”
    “Do not be impertinent,” she grumbled.
    He just laughed again. It was Gabe’s way of thumbing his nose at the world. He pretended that his heart hadn’t been sliced open twice already in his young life; first on his parents’ deaths and again on the day Roger Waverly died.
    Gabe plastered over the wounds with a few jokes and a reckless smile, but over the past six weeks, the plaster seemed to be cracking. He couldn’t see it, but she could. And when those wounds began to bleed again, all the jokes in the world were not going to stanch the blood.
    “So how was the ball?” she asked, wondering how to broach the subject she really wanted to discuss.
    His smile faded. “You know perfectly well how it was. I’m sure the others told you all about it.”
    If he could lay his cards on the table . . . “They said you danced with Miss Waverly. Twice.”
    “I did.”
    “You are not thinking of taking her up on her challenge, are you?”
    “Actually, I’m thinking of marrying her.”
    Hetty gaped at him. “Even though she hates you?” Was he serious?
    He scowled. “Why does everybody keep saying that?”
    “Because it is true.”
    “She can’t possibly hate me—she doesn’t know me. She hates that her brother died racing me, but that doesn’t mean she hates me. ” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I got her to dance with me, didn’t I?”
    “What did you do—hint that you would agree to race her if she would dance with you?” When he shrugged, she snorted. “What you lads do not know about women could fill up an ocean. Manipulating a woman gets you nowhere with her in the long run.”
    “Yet you continue to try manipulating us,” he said dryly.
    “That’s different. What are grandparents for if not to plague their grandchildren?”
    Staring at his set jaw and haunted eyes, she felt a sudden clutch in her chest. She had always had a soft spot for Gabe, with his easygoing nature, lack of fear, and death-defying grin. But she had always felt helpless to reach him.
    “This is not what I wanted for you,” she said softly. “I wanted love and life and happiness. Not some woman who will make your life hell.”
    The blunt words seemed to upset him, for he went perfectly rigid. “Then you shouldn’t have laid down your ultimatum.”
    “You do not have to choose the one woman who has every reason to hate you.”
    “Thanks to me, she’ll be destitute when her grand father dies. I figured marrying her was the least I could