The Winter Wish by Jillian Eaton

Devlin mused. He would like children. At least three, he decided on
the spot. Three bright eyed, laughing girls with their mother’s blond hair and
their father’s love for horses. “Bring them as well. I want to meet them.”
    From
down the hall came the sound of something crashing and a muffled shout. Devlin
spun around. “A necklace, Reynolds!” he called over his shoulder as he raced
back to the master bedroom. “With emeralds. Lots of emeralds!”
    The
butler lingered on the stairs for a moment, watching the Viscount until he
vanished from sight. Stroking his mustache, Reynolds grinned broadly. It was
high time Devlin found love, even though he went about it in the most
unconventional of ways.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER EIGHT

     
     
    “I
want to go home.” Holding the water pitcher above her head in what she hoped
was a threatening gesture, Sarah glared daggers at Devlin. “This is most
inappropriate. You… You have kidnapped me!”
    Devlin
took a step closer. Sarah raised the pitcher higher. Her arms trembled from the
weight, and he instantly retreated. “Put that down. You are going to hurt
yourself.”
    With
a gasp, Sarah released her grip on the pitcher as her elbows gave way. The
pitcher sailed through the air towards Devlin, but he ignored it to grab Sarah
as she crumpled to the floor. Following suit with the plate she had thrown to
get someone’s attention, the pitcher shattered against the wall.
    “I
am sorry,” Sarah moaned as Devlin helped her to her feet and eased her back
into the bed. She let him arrange her limbs and tuck her under the covers as if
she were a doll, too dizzy to complain. “I will replace the pitcher and the
plate.” Closing her eyes, she turned her face into the pillow. She did not want
Devlin to see her like this: weak and cranky as a child.
    Sarah
had not realized her head injury was so severe until she attempted to get out
of the bed and was barely able to make it halfway across the room. Her entire
skull was pounding from the inside out, the pain of it enough to cause her eyes
to tear and her stomach to turn.
    She
could not remember anything between slipping on the ice and Devlin carrying her
up the stairs. How he had been the one to find her was a complete mystery, as
was why he had insisted on bringing her back to his home. It was ironic,
really.
    For
two weeks she had spent every waking moment wondering where he was, and then
suddenly – as if by magic – he had appeared when she needed him most. Except
(quite selfishly) she wished their third meeting had not been under such
unflattering circumstances. Soaked through the skin with an enormous lump on
her head was hardly the way to make a good impression, nor, she admitted
silently, was throwing a plate across the room. Perhaps that had been a bit
extreme, but Sarah had panicked when the realized the implications that would
arise from Devlin bringing her back to his house.
    Surely
someone had seen them, and surely that someone would tell another someone until
it spread like wildfire through the Ton .
    Of
course that had been the original plan: to be caught in a situation that would
force Devlin’s hand in marriage. But now… Now she did not want to force him
into anything. If he loved her she wanted him to love her, and if he did not…
well, then he did not. At least either choice would be of his own volition and
not something falsely created by nefarious means, which made her current
situation quite problematic.
    She
was too weak to leave on her own, but if she called for her parents to come get
her there would surely be questions asked and answers demanded. That left only
one person in the entire world whom Sarah trusted enough to rescue her from her
current predicament; unfortunately that was also the only person in the entire
world who would be happy she was in it.
    No,
for once she could not rely on Lily’s guidance. She would have to sort it
through on her own, and that knowledge alone was enough to have