Read Online Running into Temptation (Bancrofts of Barton Park) by AMANDA MCCABE - Free Book Online Page B

had known there were such beauties to be seen. May I beg to know your name?”
    After so long spent in the arid loneliness of no society, she was dizzy with his compliments. She laughed. “I am Miss Melanie Harding, sir.”
    “And I am Mr. Philip Carrington, very pleased indeed to make your acquaintance,” he said. He lifted her muddied glove to his lips for a gallant kiss. “Please, let me see you home to begin to make amends for my terrible behavior.”
    “Thank you, Mr. Carrington,” she answered. The name was vaguely familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite fathom why amid the delightful feeling of Philip Carrington’s touch as he led her by the arm to his horse. She hadn’t felt that way for a long time, not since Captain Whitney first appeared in her life.
    He lifted her up into his saddle, his hands strong and steady on her waist. Then he swung up behind her, holding her close to him as he urged the steed into a gallop. The wind rustling past her seemed exhilarating now where before she had hated it.
    Suddenly the world seemed fun again.
    * * *
    Suddenly Philip Carrington’s unpleasant errand seemed a lot more—interesting.
    The fear and remorse of nearly running a helpless lady down in the lane faded as the lady in question looked up at him from beneath the dirt-spattered brim of her bonnet. He saw that not only was she unhurt, but she was remarkably pretty. Tousled bright curls tumbled around an elfin, heart-shaped face and her upturned nose was topped with a spray of pale golden freckles.
    She gave a tremulous smile as she looked up at him with those large, cornflower-blue eyes.
    “Are you injured?” he said, his voice rough with concern.
    “N—no,” she gasped. “I do not think so.”
    Her voice was as pretty as her face, delicate as a silver bell. She looked like a fairy princess dropped onto a dull, muddy country lane. He smiled back at her, wondering why he had ever resisted coming to the country in the first place. He had obviously underestimated the charms of rusticating.
    Then, in a painful flash, he remembered all too well why he was there in the dismal, muddy countryside. He was there, away from the pleasures of his city life, because he could no longer afford those pleasures. Because he had to find his cousin Henry’s widow, Emma Carrington, and get her to pay him what Henry had owed him before he died. Without those funds, he would be forced to desperate measures.
    He would even be forced to go to his nasty old uncle, Sir Angus Macintosh, in Scotland to ask for an advance on his inheritance. And that he did not want to do, even though Macintosh undoubtedly owed Philip for what he had done so long ago, sending Philip’s mother away because she had dared to marry—only to be widowed by—an irresponsible rake. When she had died while Philip was at school, he had vowed to get what she was owed, somehow.
    He had also thought to woo Emma while he was here in the country, for she had been a pretty lass and a good friend to him in those heady days on the Continent. Henry had been a great fool not to see what he had in his pretty wife. Emma could give Philip the security he hadn’t known for a long time, thanks to his incompetent family.
    But surely there was more to life than security. There was excitement, fun. Danger.
    All the things he could see now in the sparkling depths of this lady’s blue eyes. “Please,” he said, “let me see you home to begin to make amends for my terrible behavior.”
    She nodded, and let him lift her up in his arms to carry her to the waiting horse. She was as light as a thistle in his embrace, and she wrapped her arms around his neck with another laugh. There were no missish airs with her, no simpering. Just laughter and shimmering eyes.
    The ride to the village went much too quickly for Philip’s taste. It had been many days since he had been so close to such a pretty woman, and Melanie Harding was easy to be with indeed. She asked him a few light,