A Shocking Proposition Read Free

stared as her cousin, his eyes hard, turned
on his heel and stalked out of the yard.
    One of the lingering stablemen muttered, “An’ a good riddance,
too.”
    * * *
    Five minutes later Maddy was ensconced in a private
parlor with pen and paper provided by a very curious landlord. Her stomach still
churned at what she was doing, not to mention the confrontation with Edward, and
she fought to keep her hand steady enough to produce the perfect copperplate her
governess had drilled into her.
    It took her half an hour and several sheets of paper to say
what she needed to say. Resisting the urge to read it over yet again, Maddy
folded up her letter, wrote the direction upon it and affixed the wafer. She had
made it as businesslike as she could.
    Nothing venture, nothing win. And she had absolutely nothing to
lose. She sent word for her horse to be put to, and sallied back out to the
yard.
    To find that Lord Ashton was waiting for her by the gig, his
horse saddled.
    * * *
    “You’re escorting me home?”
    Maddy Kirkby stared at him, her face crimson.
    Ash resisted the temptation to touch a finger lightly to her
cheek and find out if the blush really was scorching. Or if her skin was as
silken as it looked. Instead, he held out his hand to assist her up into the
gig. “Yes.” Her hand was gloved. That ought to be safe enough, even if the shock
of seeing her again in Blakiston’s office had reduced him to inanities.
    If anything her blush deepened. “There’s no need for that!”
    He said nothing, just raised one eyebrow. Judging by her
expression, that still annoyed her as much as ever.
    “You’re going to insist, aren’t you?” she said, sounding as
though her back teeth were clenched together.
    He nodded. “I am.”
    Silence sizzled between them for a moment. There was something
about her. About the tilt of her chin and the narrowing of her green eyes that
told him she was as stubborn a woman as she had been a child. He’d never
realized how attractive stubborn could be.
    With a snort, she accepted his hand and stepped into the gig.
“Thank you,” she said. “Even though it isn’t necessary!”
    “Thank you ,” he said, fighting a
wholly unexpected urge to grin. Stubborn, but definitely not stupid.
    “For what?” she asked in a suspicious voice.
    “For not wasting time and breath with an argument you weren’t
going to win,” he said, watching as she tucked a fur rug about her legs. He’d be
damned if he’d let her drive home alone. He swung into the saddle and followed
her out of the yard.
    There was too much traffic in the town to ride beside the gig,
let alone converse, but once they were clear and out on the Corbridge road, he
brought his mare up alongside. By then he’d noted that she was an excellent
whip. Sure and steady, keeping the little mare well up to her bit. He wouldn’t
have minded being driven by her. He also knew that his decision to escort Maddy
home had been well-founded.
    “Look, for what it’s worth, Maddy—Miss Kirkby, I mean—I have no
doubt that you are perfectly capable of looking after yourself.”
    She let out a breath. “You always used to call me Maddy. When
you weren’t calling me a nuisancy brat.”
    “You aren’t a brat anymore,” he pointed out. God help him, she
was a woman. He knew that happened, of course he did, but—he swallowed, trying
not to think about the stray, tawny curl that flirted beside her temple. “Are
you saying I may still call you Maddy?” Something in him tensed. Maddy. It sounded so damn intimate. Last time he’d
seen her she’d been about fifteen with a mass of springy, curly hair tied back
in a ponytail he’d occasionally pulled. Now he ached to twist that stray curl
around his finger, brush it back.
    “Yes. If you wish.”
    She was an old friend, he reminded himself. That was all.
    “Then you had better drop the Lord Ashton rubbish,” he said.
“It’s still Ash.” That was how it should be between friends.
    “You thought