Free The Marriage Act by Alyssa Everett Page A

husband said.
    Ronnie was about to replace the cap, but the valet threw him a look of mute appeal. Ronnie passed him the flask, and Leitner took a quick swig before returning it with his thanks.
    Ronnie tucked it back in his coat pocket. “I’m not sorry to be out of the saddle. Argos is a prime goer, but enough is enough.”
    “Perhaps a change will be as good as a rest,” Caro said. “Though I’ll be happy enough myself when I don’t have to sit in this carriage anymore. Some people can carry on through almost any amount of discomfort—”
    “Like John,” Ronnie put in.
    “—but I’ve never had that talent.”
    “It’s hardly a talent,” John said. “It’s more a matter of stubborn determination.”
    “You, stubborn?” Caro said with a lift of one eyebrow. “Surely you jest.” But despite her attempt at raillery, the notion that Welford was stubborn—that they
both
were—sent a cold current of melancholy through her. It reminded her of lying on the floor at the inn the night before, and the terrible sense that any hope of happiness was rapidly slipping away.
    “I don’t envy our coachman, out there in this weather,” Ronnie remarked as the four of them sat listening to the drumming of rain on the roof.
    “I hope this lets up soon,” Welford said. “We still have miles before we reach Market Harborough, and if the road—”
    A brilliant flash of lightning lit the coach, and in the same instant a deafening crack rent the air, the loudest and nearest thunderclap Caro had ever heard.
    Chaos broke loose.
    The carriage lurched into motion—not the familiar speed of a measured trot over good roads, but a wild, headlong rush. The horses were bolting.
    Caro clutched the edge of her seat. She let out a cry as a sudden jolt threw her to the right. Outside, tree branches thumped and scraped against the coach, the horses’ hooves thundering as they hurtled forward at breakneck speed. The carriage jounced and careened to one side. Caro struck her head against the window glass.
    Then strong arms seized her, holding her down against the velvet squabs, and a much larger body half covered hers, shielding her from harm as the carriage veered and bumped erratically. Pinned beneath Welford, she was too frightened to scream.
    The coach took a violent bounce, and for a moment Caro hung suspended in midair as the world tilted around her.
    With a thud that knocked the wind from her lungs, she landed in a heap, half on her husband’s solid chest and half on the carriage window—only now, somehow the window was beneath them. She couldn’t tell who was where, only that there were grunts from the others as they all slammed to the bottom together, and outside the scream of a horse.
    The carriage slid a little way farther before everything went still.
    Except for the clatter of the rain, silence fell.
    “Are you all right?” two voices demanded at once—Ronnie and Welford.
    She wasn’t sure whom they were asking, but she immediately answered, “I’m all right.”
    “I’m all right too,” Ronnie said.
    “Leitner?” Welford asked.
    From the other side of Ronnie, her husband’s valet answered, “I am uninjured, my lord.”
    Caro sat up and looked around her, the men doing likewise. The carriage had tipped over, resting now on its right side, but they were all in one piece. She drew a deep, shaking breath and straightened her bonnet.
    “You’re sure you’re all right?” Welford asked, tipping her head back with a finger crooked under her chin. His eyes searched her face.
    She nodded mutely.
    “Thank God,” he muttered, the fervency of the words surprising her. He climbed to his feet and reached up to unlatch the door, now overhead. He threw it open and rain came pelting in from above. “Barnes?” he called out to the coachman.
    There was no answer.
    “Stay here while I have a look at the damage,” Welford told the three of them. He hoisted himself up and out of the doorway. Caro watched as his long