Free Mad About the Major by Elizabeth Boyle

together and quickly launched into a discussion of all that was wrong with Sir Hubert’s hubris and architecture and art, and the miles fell away as Kingsley related some of the fantastic and wild structures he had seen in his travels. Paris. The Alps. Venice. Rome.
    â€œI would love to see the sun rise over the mountains, like you described,” Birdie said, a wistful note to her words.
    â€œDon’t think to add that to your list,” he teased. Yet despite his own warning, his imagination conjured up an image of her standing there atop a ridge, smiling coyly over her shoulder as the first rays of morning light burst over the ragged horizon. Kingsley tamped such a tempting vision down. “We haven’t time today.”
    â€œNo, I suppose not,” she agreed, slanting an equally wistful glance up at him as if she had been pondering just that notion.
    Take her to the Alps, indeed. “Not even to Paris,” he added.
    And that time it was more for himself.

 
    C HAPTER 5
    A s they pulled into the field where the boxing match was to be held, Arabella rose up in her seat and surveyed the grand sight before her, images of Paris and the Alps fading from her thoughts.
    For here it was, her first adventure. And such a sight it was.
    The wide downs were filled with carriages and men, along with an array of canopies that had been thrown up here and there. It was like a large country fair, and her heart hammered with excitement.
    And something else. She couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder at the road that had brought them here—­the one that led back to London. Where her family was most likely sick with worry over her disappearance. She bit her lips together and suppressed a sharp feeling of guilt.
    Then again, how many times had Great-­Aunt Josephine disappeared on her own and everyone always assumed she’d find her way home. Had for decades.
    Yes, that was it, she told herself. She was merely following in her scandalous relation’s footsteps.
    Still, looking around the vast crowds, Arabella felt a frisson of something else.
    A shiver of fear.
    She’d never been anywhere where she wasn’t surrounded by family or servants or close friends. And now all she had with her was this man. This stranger. This Kingsley.
    She supposed this would be nothing to her independent milkmaid, but to her—­the daughter of a duke, sheltered and kept well away from anything that could be called common—­well, Arabella suspected she might be in over her head.
    Oh, not in the same way she’d been at the bakeshop, but . . .
    â€œI cannot wait to see Wilson’s uppercut,” she told Kingsley, tamping aside her fears and regrets. “It is said he learned it from Dutch Sam. Well, he experienced it at the hands of Dutch Sam. That wily fellow planted a most excellent facer on Wilson last year that left him down after forty-­seven rounds.”
    â€œTruly?” Kingsley remarked absently, for he was, as she had been, surveying the scene, and from the way his brow was drawn together, it was obvious he was not as pleased by the sight before them as she was.
    â€œNo, I won’t,” he said, adjusting the reins in his grasp. “I cannot.”
    She caught hold of his sleeve. “Whatever do you mean, ‘I cannot’? Why, I hardly think a single afternoon of boxing will be my undoing—­” Then she glanced down at her own hand atop his sleeve and pulled it back.
    â€œIt isn’t the match,” he told her sharply, “but the company.” He waved his hand out over the crowd before them
    â€œWhat? A bunch of London toffs?” Arabella sniffed.
    â€œThose toffs are going to take one look at you and decide you are a much more interesting sight than the one in the ring.”
    â€œBah!” she scoffed. “In your company, no one will dare bother me.” She nodded toward an opening in the line of waiting