Free Regency Romance: A Duchess in Disguise (Historical 19th Century Victorian Romance) (Duke Fantasy Billionaire Romance) by Sarah Thorn Page B

good thing to have a relationship with your father like that. Respect is very important.”
    “I agree.”
    “Did your father approve of your decision to answer my ad?”
    “Yes, he did. He was encouraging from the beginning.”
    “I’m glad to hear it.” Mark was very happy to hear it. He knew that a woman who had respect for her father would have respect for her husband, too. When he’d placed the ad, he’d only done so because he had been through all the women in the city and he hadn’t found a decent one in the bunch. He decided to roll the dice on a stranger, at the behest of one of his buddies at the stables. It had been all somebody else’s idea and he’d lucked out. He’d won that bet. He smiled. “So if you don’t mind, I’m just gonna take you on to the courthouse and get the papers signed.”
    Margaret nodded. She didn’t know how it was supposed to go anyway. If he wanted it quick and immediate, she didn’t have an objection.
    “I am fine with that.”
    “Then after it’s done, you can come with me to the stables where I keep my horses. Some of them are for breeding. I also race.”
    She looked up at him with wide eyes. “You ride a horse in a race?”
    He laughed and shook his head. “I used to be a jockey, yeah, but it was a while ago. Now I just watch the races and train the jockeys and horses and breed. I’d like it if you would be there, meet everybody, maybe help out sometimes.”
    Margaret jostled in the seat when the tires bumped over rocks and debris. She grabbed Mark’s arm instinctively and he smiled at her.
    “You’ll have to get used to that. These roads can be pretty rough. You can’t really even call most of them roads. They’re just paths. The tires have made them in the ground where people keep going.”
    “How long have you been here?” Margaret asked, looking at the dismal scene as it passed her by. There was not much of anything there. The people didn’t look very happy and the dust was constantly being kicked up by one horse or another.
    “I was born and raised in the area but I’ve been here in this part of Nevada for four years. That’s when it got the postmaster, back in ’84. I arrived just days before they made it part of this state instead of Arizona.”
    “That’s very interesting.” Margaret nodded, politely. She had no knowledge of either Arizona or Nevada and hadn’t been interested in reading the news when she and her father had a business to run. She scanned the landscape again, looking at the heavily male occupied area that seemed like a blight in the middle of plush green all around them. There was almost a line differentiating between where man dominated and land dominated. “I must say it seems quite amazing that you would race horses here. I didn’t know such a thing existed in these small places out here in the West.”
    “Well, we have to do something to entertain ourselves, don’t we? Especially us men who don’t frequent the saloon until all hours of the morning. I don’t care for the taste of that beer they serve, and liquor gives me a blasting headache. So no worries in that department. Saves me a pretty penny, I’d say, not drinking like my buddies do.”
    They pulled up in front of a small official looking building and she knew it was the local courthouse.
    “They got what we need in here. Let’s go on in, sign the papers and be done with that, how does that sound? Oh, and if you want to wait a short time to get in to the marital bed, should I say, that sits fine with me, too. I’d like to get to know what kind of woman you are, if that’s okay with you.”
    “That’s a good idea, Mark. I appreciate that.” She did feel a sense of relief. She had been a bit worried about it.
    Margaret followed Mark into the building and went through the motions of getting married. The clerks in the courthouse were not congratulatory, nor were they interested in the event whatsoever. They signed as witnesses to the union and the two of