The Stolen Bride Read Free

compartment.
    “I don’t care much for closed carriages,” he said drily as the coach rolled out of the inn yard. “I always feel as if I’m going to put an elbow through the wall.”
    She remembered Jane had found this man rather forbidding when they had first met, then had come to call him a friend. Beth could certainly understand the first part. Harsh was the word which came to mind. Like granite. The bones of his jaw and skull were solid beneath the flesh.
    She realized she had been staring. “It must certainly be a problem at times, being so large,” she said hastily.
    “No more of a problem than being so tiny, ma’am,” he drawled.
    Beth sat up straighter. “Well, really, Sir Marius. There is no call for personal remarks.”
    There was a teasing twinkle in his eyes. “It was no more personal than the remark you made about me, dear lady.”
    “It was you, as I recall, who began the topic with talk of elbows ...” Beth trailed off as she realized she was arguing, in a rather childish way, with a virtual stranger. “I ... I do beg your pardon,” she stammered, knowing she was turning a fiery red. She was a redhead with very indiscreet skin.
    “Now don’t spoil it,” he said with a grin. “I was looking forward to sparring all the way to Stenby.”
    “Well, I could not contemplate such a thing, Sir Marius,” Beth said stiffly, regretting her charitable impulse. She didn’t even feel able to remove her bonnet and be comfortable.
    He looked at her consideringly and then smiled in a more natural way. “I apologize. It is not good of me to be teasing you when we’re in such a situation.”
    For some reason these words only made Beth feel more flustered. “What do you mean, ‘such a situation’?”
    He leaned back at his ease. “Why, in a closed carriage, Mrs. Hawley. You can hardly escape me short of risking life and limb by leaping into the road. We’re going a fair speed too. Kinnock must be keen to be home.”
    Grasping a safe topic with relief, Beth said, “You must know Stenby well, Sir Marius.”
    “Very well. David and I have been friends since we were boys. I’ve spent many a happy summer at the Castle. Is this your first visit there?”
    “Yes. Jane invited me during the summer but I felt she and her husband should have time together. Now she has asked me to come and help with Lady Sophie’s wedding.”
    “Well, if you were giving them peace and quiet,” said Sir Marius, “you should have taken that minx Sophie out of their orbit. She has a natural antipathy to tranquillity.”
    Beth was beginning to understand the large gentleman and did not miss the fondness behind the comment. “Lady Sophie is lively,” she responded, “but she has a kind heart. I’m sure she has done her best not to be a bother to her brother and Jane.”
    He raised a quizzical brow. “It’s certain she hasn’t sought their company if Randal’s been available.”
    Beth smiled. She remembered Lady Sophie Kyle and Lord Randal Ashby at Jane’s wedding, always together, always smiling, always in some way connected. Even though their betrothal had not been officially announced until recently, no one who saw them could be in any doubt as to the state of affairs. “It is only natural for young people in love to want to be together, Sir Marius. And Lady Sophie and Lord Randal are very much in love.”
    “Sickening, ain’t it?”
    Beth chuckled. “I can quite see you are not of a romantical disposition, Sir Marius, but you should not begrudge your friends their happiness.”
    “Why not?” he replied, but with a twinkle in his eye. “It’s spoiled a perfectly good summer. My two closest friends have wasted it on mere women.”
    Beth shook her head. “I fear you are a cynic, Sir Marius. One day you too might come to that dreadful fate.”
    “Marriage—maybe. Love, never. It ain’t in my disposition.”
    Beth felt the conversation was becoming a little too intimate, and in a way she found strangely