To Wed a Wild Lord by Sabrina Jeffries Page B

down,” she said firmly as she came to his side and took his arm. “You know the doctor says you must avoid upset.”
    “Then stop upsetting me!” He batted her hand away. “Pierce tells me you actually challenged the man to thread the needle—what were you thinking?”
    A hot flush rose in her cheeks. “I thought that I would beat him and he would finally stop strutting around town, showing off his prowess at getting people killed.”
    That reined in Isaac’s temper right quick. Roger’s death had hit them both hard, but it had been harder on her. She’d idolized her brother, and his death had put a fine patina on the giant monument she’d been building in his honor ever since she was a girl. She couldn’t see straight when it came to Roger.
    “Oh, lambkin,” he said. “You have to stop fretting over Sharpe. I hate the fellow as much as you do, but—”
    “If you had only seen him last month at the race, bragging about how he’d beaten Lieutenant Chetwin.” She balled her hands into fists. “He didn’t give a fig for the fact that Roger died running that course! Someone needs to put Lord Gabriel in his place, to teach him some humility, some . . . some sense of decency!”
    “And you think it should be you?”
    “Why not?” Her voice turned pleading. “You know I can do it. You said yourself that I can tool a curricle better than any man you’ve ever seen.”
    “I’m not going to watch you risk your life—and your future, I might add—trying to race that man, of all men. Get your bonnet. We’re paying a visit to Lord Gabriel Sharpe. You, my dear, are going to tell him that you’ve seen the error of your ways and you refuse to race him.”
    “I’m not doing any such thing!” she sputtered. “I refuse to let him think I’m a coward.”
    “And I refuse to lose another grandchild to that arse!”
    She paled. “You won’t lose me, I swear.” “You’re damned right, I won’t,” he said, feeling a clutch of fear in his heart. “I couldn’t bear it.”
    After his wife had died of pleurisy while accompanying him and the cavalry on the Peninsula, he’d had a rough time. Then his son and daughter-in-law had died, and he’d come home to run the stud farm, bitter over his losses, wanting nothing more than to crawl into a hole and grieve alone.
    He’d planned on finding a relative to take in Virginia and Roger, until he’d seen the girl—three years old and inconsolable. She’d gazed up at him with trembling lips and said, “Papa gone?”
    A lump had stuck in his throat as he’d answered, “Papa is gone, lambkin. But Poppy is here.”
    Staring at him with huge, tear-filled eyes, she’d thrown her chubby little arms around his leg and said, “Poppy stay.”
    In that moment, she’d clutched his heart in her tiny fists. He’d become her “Poppy,” and she’d become his “lambkin.”
    And he was never going to lose her. “We’re getting you out of this race with Sharpe, or I swear to God, I’ll lock you up in your room and never let you out again.”
    The girl argued with him every step of the way. She protested while they waited for the carriage to be brought. She pleaded as they set off for Ealing. But as her efforts yielded nothing during the hour’s drive to Halstead Hall, she lapsed into a brooding silence. He didn’t know which was worse.
    By the time they neared Halstead Hall he’d worked himself into a fine temper, further fueled by the sight of the large, impressive manor house. He’d always known that Sharpe was brother to a marquess, from a family as old as England itself. Indeed, that was one reason he hated the fellow.
    If Sharpe hadn’t lured Roger into a life of wild and reckless living, the lad would surely be alive today. Roger had worshipped the young lord, willing to do damned near anything to impress his friend.
    While they’d been at school, Isaac hadn’t worried about their friendship. Exposing Roger to a higher class could help the lad in the long