Page 147 of The Lord Meets His Lady

Thirty-six

“Do you know what the face of a coward is?” Marcus asked, stroking Khan’s neck. “It’s his ass on the run…as yours will be soon.”

The Prussian stared intently at the meadow, hands clamped behind his back. “Idle boasts,Englisch.” His gaze raked Khan. “Despite your fine horse, you’ll not win.”

Goading the beast was foolish, like scratching an itch better left untouched. The man’s smugness stuck in Marcus’s craw. Herr Wolf needed a good tossing out. The Prussian stood ramrod straight as if he was prepared to inspect unworthy recruits. Sunlight glinted off his flat, round silver hatpin. Not a hair was out of place or a wrinkle on his clothes. A black ribbon wrapped the length of his queue, the favored style for men of action.

They stood in the open, away from the party gathered near a copse of trees. Footmen pounded wooden posts in the meadow. The finish line. Khan’s ears twitched. His nostrils flared. The gray knew something was afoot.

“You’re certain I’ll lose.”

“It is the way of men lacking discipline.” Herr Wolf stepped on a small chunk of wood, grinding it to pieces. “They fall in line, or they fall apart.”

Force or be forced: this was his creed. The oaf dismissed Marcus as a man of no substance. Until coming north, he would’ve agreed. Life here, the horses, and Genevieve changed him.

Marcus smiled thinly. “I take it you have a similar philosophy with women.”

“I treated Genevieve well. I saved her from squalor.”

“Ah, there’s the rub. Wehelpothers, but for someone’s life to truly change, they must save themselves. You didn’t save her; you stole her. In doing that, you took her right to make a choice for herself.”

Today, he would do everything in his power to give it back.

Light flickered in the beast’s pale eyes before he faced the road. “Lord Barnard explained the circumstances already. I leave England with Genevieve in tow.”

“In tow? Like baggage strapped to your carriage?” Marcus smirked. “Or will you tie her up and make her trot behind? Five, ten paces for good measure…just to keep her in line.”

Herr Wolf shook his head. “A man should know when he has lost.”

Dishes clinked, melding with genteel laughter. No one knew a woman’s life hung in the balance. Footmen set white-and-blue-painted Wedgwood on pure white tablecloths. The white hems snapped and fluttered around spindled table legs. To the baron’s guests, this was yet another entertainment…like so many Marcus had partaken of over the years.

Pounding hooves and rolling wheels sounded from the east. A carriage crested the road with baggage strapped to the top.

Marcus tightened his grip on the reins. “You’re right, of course. That night at cards, you exploited my weakness. I should admit you defeated me. Soundly, in fact.”

Black ravens landed in the trees above the gathering. Mrs. Grey laughed, the sound like tinkling crystal.

“Do not think to flatter me,Englisch. You’re finished.” The Prussian stretched one leg in front of the other, his boots crushing dormant grass.

He headed for the carriage where Lord Barnard’s conveyance waited on the knoll. Two large men dressed in livery idled by the carriage, their beefy arms straining their sleeves, but they wore no periwigs. They were the types found on docks…rufflers with hairy knuckles and brutish jowls, men hired for brutish business.

“How about one more wager? Something to put me in my place.”

“You’ve nothing I want.” The Wolf kept going.

“There is this,” Marcus shouted, digging a thrice-folded paper from his pocket.

Gossipy onlookers turned their way. Lord Stoneleigh whispered behind his hand to Halliburton. Mrs. Grey looked up from fussing with her silk panniers. Genevieve stood with her, one hand shading her eyes.

The Prussian’s retreat slowed, and if Marcus read him right, his head cocked a few degrees sideways. He swung around. “What is it?”

Marcus held up the paper. “Something to smooth your journey home.”

A lanky stableboy opened a gate and led Atal’s black horse into the meadow. Fine-tuned muscles rippled under the steed’s sleek coat. The guests applauded, erupting with chatter. Sweat pricked Marcus’s forehead. The baron’s bay danced skittishly through the gate behind the black filly, an older stable master holding her lead.

“This will hound you, but if you don’t want it…” Marcus stuffed the paper in his pocket.

A footman opened Barnard’s carriage door. Lord Barnard stepped gingerly onto the road, followed by a wiry man in a gray suit and black boots like Herr Wolf’s. Herr Avo Thade. Marcus eyed Samuel under the brim of his hat. His friend nodded grim-faced, patting the pistol tied to his thigh.