The Fleeing Heiress: A funny flight into love. Read Free

quiet, if you know what is good for you, Thea! As for you, whoever you are, get out! This matter does not concern you!”
    “On the contrary. I have made it my concern,” said Lord Cardiff suavely. The trace of a smile touched his lips as he regarded the antagonistic gentleman. He was tautly coiled, adrenaline racing through him with a heightened heartbeat. It was the familiar feeling he had always had before a battle.
    Still belligerent, Mr. Quarles nevertheless regarded the intruder uncertainly. There was something about the shorter man that made him hesitate to bully forward as he was in clined to do.
    With the slightest of smiles, Lord Cardiff held out his hand towards the lady. “If you wish, ma’am, I shall consti tute myself your protector and endeavor to restore you safely to your family.”
    “With my good will, sir,” said the lady promptly, step ping swiftly to his side. Her hand found his and Lord Cardiff warmly clasped her gloved fingers in reassurance. He was still smiling down at her when Mr. Quarles bellowed and charged.
    Dropping the lady’s hand, Lord Cardiff swiftly pivoted, blocking the man’s wild blow with his forearm, and smashed a hard fist into his opponent’s flaccid midsection. Mr. Quarles staggered, the wind rushing out of him. A sickly, shocked expression came to his face. Lord Cardiff followed up quickly with a bruising uppercut to the angle of the jaw. Mr. Quarles’s eyes rolled back in his head as he stood up on his toes, before he dropped heavily to the floor. He lay sprawled in an awkward heap.
    “Oh, well done, sir! I have wanted to do that for hours!” exclaimed the lady. The dark clouds had disappeared from her eyes, leaving them shining with admiration.
    Lord Cardiff gave a laugh, his breath coming slightly faster from the few seconds of exertion. Unobtrusively he rotated his right shoulder. The blows he had thrown had been hard ones and inevitably he had felt it. Without show ing any sign of the dull ache settled into his shoulder, Lord Cardiff twitched his coat sleeve cuffs into place. “Perhaps it would be wise to collect whatever belongings you have with you and remove to my private parlor across the hall. I shall call for the innkeeper and see that this gentleman is taken care of properly.” He moved to the bell rope and gave the cord a vigorous tug.
    The lady readily agreed and quickly picked up a cloak and beaded reticule from a wing chair. The cloak folded over her arm and the reticule dangling from her wrist, she turned. “I am ready, sir.”
    Lord Cardiff raised a brow, showing his surprise. “Is that all you have, ma’am? Have you not a portmanteau or trunk or a bandbox, at least?”
    The lady shook her head. “It is as I told you, sir. I was ab ducted—and straight off the village street, at that! I haven’t even a hairbrush with me.” She seemed to find the lack of such a mundane article to be particularly repugnant.
    “It would seem Mr. Quarles was a very poor planner,” said Lord Cardiff with a glint of humor.
    The lady looked at him quickly, and the barest quiver of a smile touched her lips. “Yes, I fear that he was,” she agreed.
    The innkeeper himself answered the vigorous summons, not best pleased to receive such from this particular parlor. He had drawn his own conclusions about the party that had taken it. The innkeeper’s eyes widened with dismay at the sight of the large gentleman sprawled senseless on the plank floor. He looked swiftly to Lord Cardiff for an explanation. “M’lord! What is this?”
    At Lord Cardiff’s brief explanation, the innkeeper shook his head. “Terrible doings, m’lord! A scandal is what it is. I suspicioned something of the like when I was told of the gentleman’s insistence that his horses be readied at break of day and how he spurned the offer of breakfast. The lack of proper baggage set me to wondering, too.”
    “You are to be commended for your sagacity, mine host. I would take it most kindly if you