Free Twice Upon a Time (A Danby Family Novella) by Samantha Grace Page B

corner again and folded her hands in her lap, warily looking between the two of them. “Y-you plan to release me?”  
    “Yes,” Pen said, “although I will require an apology first for bloodying my nose.” He pulled his hands away from his face. A dark stain marred his once pristine cravat.  
    “Oh, dear,” she said. “Would you like me to check if it’s broken?” When she reached a hand toward Pen, he recoiled.  
    “Don’t touch me, you harridan.”
    Julian eased himself onto the opposite bench, tempted to ask if she wished to examine his stones. “You had best not have broken me .”
    She lowered her head. It was too dim in the carriage to determine the color of her skin, but he suspected she was blushing. Perhaps he hadn’t been wrong to select her on Pen’s behalf. She played the role of innocent maiden well enough now.
    Pen issued an exaggerated huff of annoyance. “Shall we try this again? Please allow me to make introductions. I am Leander Thornhill, Baron Penlow, and this is my cousin, Julian Beckford. And you, my dear, are to be my wife.”

~2~

    WIFE! Felicity Halliday nearly fell off the carriage bench. “You want to marry me?”
    Lord Penlow sniffed and closed the window. “You needn’t sound so appalled. My offer is better than any other you are likely to receive.”
    The gentleman had a sound argument. A physician’s daughter with no dowry would receive no offers of marriage from anyone, much less a nobleman. Still, the man had stolen her from the streets. He probably hadn’t even gotten a good look at her yet. What in the world made him think he wished to marry her, or that she would consent, for that matter?
    Mr. Beckford gingerly adjusted his position. A soft groan accompanied his movement. She looked away, focusing on the dark street beyond the window, as a fresh wave of heat swept over her. Mr. Beckford’s testicles had felt like smashed apricots under her knee. His pain must have been horrendous.
    “You should request ice for your injury as soon as you arrive home,” she said.
    “Nothing is going anywhere near my injury , thank you very much.”
    “And don’t think he is pleased about it either,” Lord Penlow said, scolding her like he’d been a cantankerous grandmamma in a former life. “I’m certain Julian had other plans for the evening.”
    She aimed a glare at the obnoxious popinjay. “As did I, and they did not include an abduction by a madman or a ridiculous proposal of marriage.”
    “Abduction was not part of my plan. I simply wished an audience.”
    Mr. Beckford sighed. “Correct her misunderstanding, Pen. You have caused enough distress for the woman already.”  
    “The wench hasn’t suffered near the distress she has doled out,” Penlow argued.
    “An unpleasant experience, to say the least,” Mr. Beckford agreed, “but not unprovoked.”
    Felicity sent a fleeting smile of gratitude across the carriage for him. The gentleman obviously didn’t remember her, or perhaps the circumstances of their reunion negated his memory. She, however, had never forgotten Julian Beckford, smitten as she had been at the age of seventeen.  
    She hadn’t been foolish enough to believe she could ever make a match with a viscount’s son. But Mr. Beckford, through his loving attentions to his aunt during her illness, had set the standard for the type of husband Felicity would someday marry. She hadn’t realized at the time someday would never arrive.
    “What do you really want with me?” she asked. “Do you require a doctor?”  
    Lord Penlow looked down his nose at her. “Not prior to our unfortunate meeting, Miss…?”
    She hesitated to reveal her true name. The last thing she needed was rumors of her abduction and subsequent ruin destroying Meredith’s chances of making a match.
    “I was under the impression I would soon be Baroness Penlow.”
    Mr. Beckford laughed. “Grandfather will have met his match with this one.”
    The baron swiveled toward her,