Page 4 of A Heart Worth Loving

“You do not listen, Kyla. I said, ‘next time you will not treat me as if I am your child.’”

“Then do not act like a child, Mother. I make you this promise, if you do anything to foul up Margaret’s marriage, I will take her far away from you.”

Her mother drew a sharp breath. “She is my child, not yours.”

“You would do well to remember that,” Kyla shot back.

“I wouldn’t do anything to endanger her happiness.”

Kyla heard fear in her mother’s voice. “You may not mean to, Mother. Just remember, Margaret is about to fulfill your dream of being connected to nobility. Is a pearl necklace worth risking that future?”

A moment of silence passed, then her mother said, “I suppose not.”

A cold drop of rain struck Kyla’s nose. She glanced upward. The darkest of the clouds would be overhead in moments. Tarnation. Could they make the thirty-minute ride home before the heavens opened up? She slapped the reins and the horses broke into a trot.

“I told you we should have gotten a carriage,” her mother groused. “Or, at least, a barouche.”

Kyla held her tongue.

The few raindrops became a drizzle and Kyla urged the horses faster.

Her mother shivered and pulled her wrap more tightly about her. “We’ll catch our deaths,” she wailed.

“Mother, we are hardy—”

Wood cracked, and the curricle jerked sideways. As her mother pitched forward, Kyla grabbed her mother’s flailing arm and yanked her safely back onto the seat as the vehicle ground to a halt. The horses strained in their harnesses and attempted an escape but the curricle refused to budge.

“My goodness, what a fright.” Her mother fanned her face. “Did we break a wheel? Can you repair it?”

Repair a wheel? That wasn’t something her mother would dream of asking Margaret. Not so with Kyla, not with her father in need of someone to run the family business and only two daughters to choose between.

Kyla dismounted from her seat. Her shoes squelched in the mud as she circled the curricle. Her best dress would be ruined by the time they arrived home. When she reached the rear passenger side, her heart fell. Two spokes had broken and the felloes had cracked. The wheel was beyond repair.

“We will have to walk, Moth—”

“Look, look, a carriage.” Her mother pointed down the narrow lane where the hedges grew thick at the bend in the road.

A carriage approached, a custom hooded, Tilbury gig driven by a tall man with a tri-cornered hat drawn low over his face and—her heart began to pound—he wore a kilt. The curricle shifted as her mother jumped down and waved her arms to secure the man’s attention. The carriage slowed and stopped beside her mother. The tall man jumped down and pushed back the brim of his hat to reveal a brooding frown complete with line between his brows and soulful dark eyes.

Her mother greeted him with a laugh of relief. “Bless you for happening upon the road, good sir.”

“Are you stranded?” he asked.

“It’s the wheel.” Kyla’s mother waved at the curricle.

“Please,” the man stood aside, his jacket straining his broad shoulders, and he opened the door to his carriage, “take shelter.”

Her mother hurried to the carriage but paused on the step to ask, “Are you from these parts, sir?”

The man’s brow rose in surprise. He gave a cursory bow. “Aye. Allow me to introduce myself. Ewan Fraser.”

“Of Blackstone Abbey?” Kyla blurted. So, this was the viscount?

His gaze shifted in her direction. He nodded. Once.

Kyla drew a breath. The man certainly looked a beast—in every delightful sense of the word. Her eyes caught and lingered on the corded muscle of his neck.

Overhead, the trees rustled as the rain began to pour.