What the Groom Wants Read Free Page B

impossible. She’d run nearly the entire way from Demon Damon’s, so even if her bonnet had kept her hair from the worst of the wind, her skirts were stained with mud, and her chemise was stuck to her skin like a wet rag. She felt completely done in, and it if weren’t for the fury that burned in her blood, she’d collapse right here and now.
    “I don’t know where he is,” her mother said as she put the kettle over the grate. “I sent messages to you at the shop and him at the pub. I hadn’t expected you yet. You must have run like the wind.”
    “I wasn’t at the shop.” And wasn’t that just like her mother to send two neighbors—likely two gossips like Lucy—to find them. It would set the neighborhood to talking for sure. But of course, given what she feared had happened, they would be talking in any event.
    She sighed and folded her hands against her belly. It was the only way she’d learned to hide her fists. “But I’m here now, Mama. Tell me the worst of it.”
    Her mother managed to pull herself together. She dried her tears and spoke in a clear voice. “A man was here. Said he represented Lord Idston, who owns this building, and that he’s turning us out. We have until tomorrow night to be gone.”
    Wendy felt her teeth grind together. So the Demon was right. “Did he say why?”
    “Said we’re terrible tenants. I told him we pay our rent on time, keep everything clean, and that we’ve even helped our neighbors when they couldn’t pay. He should ask people. Everyone knows what good people we are. He didn’t care. Didn’t want to hear any of it. Nine years we’ve lived here. Nine years! And now…” Her voice choked off, and she looked at Wendy with watery eyes. Her next words were half sobbed. “Where will we go?”
    “To my mother’s,” said Mr. Lyncott in a firm voice. “She’s got plenty of room with Caroline living out as a housekeeper. Henry can sleep at his berth, and I will too. You’ll have to bunk tight—the two of you in one room—but my mother will be pleased to have you.”
    Wendy turned to him, relief at war with dislike. She was enormously grateful for the offer, but he’d just returned home. How like a man to assume that his mother would take in guests without even asking.
    “Really?” she asked, trying to keep the anger from her voice. It wasn’t aimed at him, but she had all this fury boiling inside her. She didn’t know what to do with it, so it leaked out in her words. “And have you talked to your mother in the last year? How do you know she has room? How do you know she’ll be pleased to have two strays in her home, and worse, in her son’s room?” What she remembered of Mrs. Lyncott was that Radley’s room was as sacred as a cathedral. No one could stay there but the man himself.
    Radley’s cheeks flushed a ruddy red, but he still held himself as high as Prinny himself. “She’ll greet you with open arms. You can rely on me.”
    She swallowed, nodding in acceptance. He’d said those words once before, and he had done right by them. He’d sworn he’d look after her brother, and Henry was as fine a man as she could have expected. Certainly, her brother had done the maturing himself, but he was healthy, whole, and apparently a fine seaman, if his pay was anything to judge by.
    She had no cause to cast aspersions at Mr. Radley Lyncott now. So she forced herself to nod her thanks. “Just be sure please. Go ask your mother now, and if it’s all right, we’ll come tomorrow. With gratitude.”
    He flashed her an easy smile, deepening the weather lines in his face, and making him all that much more handsome. There was a joy in him when he did that—had been since he was a boy. And not a female around could resist him when he flashed those white teeth with a sparkle in his copper eyes.
    “So I won’t be needed for a murder?” he teased.
    She snorted. “Oh, there may still be one, never you fear.” Then she quieted. She shouldn’t be talking