What a Woman Desires Read Online Free

discovering as much fills me with immeasurable happiness.”
    Stephanie shook her head, her eyes clouded with worry but a smile twitching her lips. “You are wicked to gloat so when the man is where he is.”
    “He’s exactly where he belongs.” Monica snapped the reins in a bid to move Wilson on as fast as she dared to push him.
    Time was passing and it was imperative they reached the little village of Biddestone as close to dusk as possible. That way they would be near Marksville before nightfall and their musings of potential danger would be nothing more than a memory.
     
     
    The hairs on the back of Thomas’s nape prickled. Something was wrong. He stared around the stables at the back of Marksville House and narrowed his eyes as he gauged his surroundings. He moved along the four stalls. Each of his late master’s horses was bedded down for the night, their nets full of hay and their water troughs filled. Yet, still he glanced uneasily toward the open stable door.
    The day’s sun was setting and its weakening rays cut a faint path of light from the door to where he stood. Duly beckoned outside, Thomas strolled through the double wooden doors and pulled them firmly shut behind him. Clenching his jaw, he slid a bar into its iron brackets, securing the horses inside for the night. He stood still and waited for the foreboding stealing up his spine to subside. It only grew stronger.
    He turned around and frowned. Although Jake stood in the same position Thomas had left him over an hour before, he now shook his head and lifted his hooves upon the ground, disturbing and shifting the dirt.
    The way his devoted horse’s flanks tightened and relaxed hitched Thomas’s unease up another notch. He glanced toward the house. Maybe it would best if he checked on Mrs. Danes and Miss Jane one more time before he turned in for the night.
    “Come on, boy. There’s no harm in taking a look.”
    Untying Jake, Thomas walked him from the small courtyard to the back of the house. Just as he’d secured the horse to a branch of the ancient apple tree outside the kitchen windows, Mrs. Seton, the family’s cook, came lumbering through the door, her cheeks aflame and her arms moving like pistons at her sides.
    Thomas inwardly grimaced and halted. When Mrs. Seton wore the kind of anger she had on her face right then, everyone was best prepared to be verbally battered and left out to dry. He pulled back his shoulders and touched a finger to the brim of his hat. “Everything all right, Mrs. Seton?”
    She started and glared. “All right? No, everything is not all right, Thomas Ashby. Miss Jane has just informed me Miss Monica is due any moment. Any moment! Yesterday she said she’d be here tomorrow morning at the earliest.”
    Thomas’s stomach tightened and he glanced past her toward the house. “Is that right?” Trepidation at seeing Monica flowed through his blood, turning it red hot. Whether from anger at her selfish absence or dread at seeing a woman he once thought he might love, he couldn’t be certain. He cleared his throat. “Well, I’m about finished for the day, so I’ll leave—”
    “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Mrs. Seton’s eyes widened. “Well, that’s just wonderful. You go ahead and get your head down for the night while I try to bake up some bread, chop and dice vegetables for the soup Miss Jane has just requested, bring bacon from the larder . . . My God, you all think these things happen on a whim and a wish.”
    “I’m not someone you want in the kitchen, you know that. The only time I should be near food is if I’m eating it. I’ve been told enough times by my ma that I’m more of a hindrance than a help in that department.”
    Mrs. Seton opened her mouth to say more when Jane Danes came through the kitchen door, her skirts clutched in her hand and her cheeks flushed as though she’d run clean through the house. “Thomas, oh thank goodness you haven’t left yet.”
    Thomas strode