Too Wicked to Love by Debra Mullins Read Free Book Online Page B

me.”
    “That should not be too hard, seeing as she is your wife.”
    Sam chuckled. “You’d be surprised. You coming?”
    “No, thank you. I am not hungry.” Melody nudged him again, and he dug a chunk of carrot out of his coat pocket. “Here you go, Greedy.”
    Sam laughed as the horse lapped the carrot from John’s hand. “Females. Always want what’s in your pockets.”
    John grinned. “I will be certain to tell Mrs. Webb you said that.”
    “Only if you promise to say my eulogy after she kills me.” Sam gave the mare one last rub on her neck. “You’ll douse the lamps?”
    “I will.”
    “Fair enough. Good night, John.”
    “Good night, Sam.”
    Sam’s footsteps echoed through the empty stables, followed by the creak of the door as he left the building. John lingered with Melody a few moments longer, then stepped away and began to go through the building, extinguishing the lamps. The music of the stables followed him: the swish of tails, the shuffle of large bodies, the occasional equine whuff. And the smells: sweet hay, the musk of horses, leather. By the time he had put out the last lamp, emotion clogged his throat.
    Bittersweet memories flooded into his mind, flashes of a life that no longer existed. He gripped the door of a stall for a moment, trying to forget the feel of fine horseflesh beneath him, the power of the animal surging forward as the landscape swept past him in a blur, the stinging wind whipping at his face . . . There was a time when he’d had his own stables of pedigreed horseflesh and a small estate where he’d trained some of them. He’d had dreams of breeding champions.
    But everything had changed after Elizabeth.
    The recollections haunted him, as alive now as the events that had created them. And as painful. After Elizabeth’s death, he had left England, intending never to return. Yet now he was back, and he could not help but remember with longing a different time, a different life.
    A life he wished he could get back.
    But there was no sense in wishing for what could not be. His old life was gone, and so was the man he used to be. He was already risking a lot by staying in England this long. It was only pure luck that someone had not recognized him before now. Or perhaps the passage of years had changed his appearance enough that no one would see his former self in the guise of the humble coachman, John Ready.
    No one except Genny Wallington-Willis, that is.
    What had she called him? A man who apes the manners and style of his betters . . . so he could improve his own social standing . Ah, if she only knew. He would have to keep a sharp eye on that perceptive young lady. Smart, beautiful—she was exactly the kind of woman he liked, even with her prickly exterior. But if she got it into her head to ask questions, she could ruin everything.
    Most people did not look past the picture he presented to the world. Here, in England, he was a humble coachman. At home in America, he was simply one more crewman, one more pair of hands on board ship.
    Once they returned to America, with his half of Samuel’s treasure in his pockets, he would finally make a home of his own even though that home would not be the one he had always dreamed about in his youth. No, that life would be far from England and the past that sought to trap him. But it would be his. And that would have to be enough.
    Genny escaped after dinner as soon as she was able. Claiming a headache, she excused herself from the company, who had returned to the drawing room and were even now eagerly discussing Sir Harry’s play. She trudged up the stairs, grateful to leave the aspiring thespians to their fervent discussions. After all, none of them were playing the villain.
    What had possessed Sir Harry? An evil fairy who was jealous of Annabelle? And for that matter, a stiff-rumped spinster who would dandle her sister’s children on her knee? A dull ache tightened in her chest. Was she really so terrible a person? Had