Free The Marquis Takes a Bride by M.C. Beaton Page B

energetic as a brisk walk on a cold day. She had a sudden desire to show him what a useless and effete specimen of humanity he was.
    “I love long walks,” she said brightly, “but then I am a country girl. I never get tired so you must tell me when my energy begins to tax your… er… stamina.” The latter was said with a faint tinge of contempt. Jennie glanced up at the blue eyes so far above her own and surprised that strange, slight narrowing of the pupils she thought she had imagined before at Runbury Manor. The next second, however, the eyes were bland and smiling.
    “Thank you for your concern,” he said, imperceptibly quickening his pace as they walked on together in silence.
    Jennie’s toes were beginning to freeze in the thin leather of her boots and her nose was turning an unbecoming pink.
    Her lord strolled along beside her as if he were taking a walk on the finest of summer days. He was still holding her arm in a firm clasp and his nearness made her feel uncomfortable. She had hardly ever been completely alone with her husband. At home, there were always the servants, and at balls and parties there were several hundred people packed around them, elbow to elbow.
    She thought of the beautiful Alice Waring. She was sure Mrs. Waring’s nose never turned red with cold. She felt like a drab and longed for Guy, with his reassuring compliments and kisses.
    “This is a splendid idea of yours, Jennie,” said the Marquis after they had been walking for about an hour. “I feel like a new man. We must do this every morning. Is anything the matter, my heart? I could swear you groaned. No? In that case let us walk some more. I declare, it is beginning to snow. I love snow. It brings out the schoolboy in me. So pretty. But the squirrels will go back to their trees. See that little fellow, Jennie. See how daintily he holds that nut in his little paws.”
    Jennie privately enjoyed some unladylike thoughts about the squirrel and contented herself with murmuring “Yes” through frozen lips.
    They had almost reached the gates when, to Jennie’s horror, her husband blithely swung around and began to march her back into the park at a brisk trot. Feathery snow flakes gathered on her eyelashes. He was taking her down a deserted path under some old trees which moaned and rattled in the wind. Jennie was about to give up and plead that she could not endure the cold one more minute, when she saw to her dismay that two burly men had crept out from behind the trees and were blocking their path.
    The footmen had held off their attack for the last hour. They had recognized their quarry as the Marquis of Charrington and were fearful of being recognized themselves. But the thickening snow had given them courage. A few blows with their cudgels and the Marquis would be down. And then they could collect the other half of their money from Guy.
    Jennie let out a squeak of terror. The Marquis pushed her behind him, never taking his eyes from the two men.
    It was then that Jennie did what she always afterwards considered a most shameful thing. She picked up her skirts and ran. Ran through the now heavily falling snow, gasping and panting with fright, until she reached the edge of the park. There was no sound of pursuit.
    She hung on to a tree trunk for dear life until she had recovered her breath.
    It was then she realized what she had done. She had abandoned her husband to the mercy of two thugs who would no doubt kill him. She, who had always prided herself on her courage, had run away and left Chemmy to die.
    She whirled around and began to run back the way she had come. “Let him only be alive,” she prayed, “and I will never see Guy again.”
    But trees and snow seemed to dance in front of her eyes in a bewildering pattern. She could not find the path where her husband had been attacked.
    A huge figure suddenly loomed up out of the snow in front of her and she threw back her head and screamed.
    “It’s me, dear heart,” said a