Page 40 of The Boxing Baroness

It was Andy who broke the shocked silence. “And Cecile will shoot an apple off your ‘ead,” he said, pulling off the second of Marianne’s mufflers. “Just about soiled myself the first time she did it,” Andy muttered under his breath.

“She’ll also shoot the pips out of playing cards while you hold them,” Jack chipped in, clearly enjoying the men’s startled expressions.

“Between your teeth,” Andy clarified.

Staunton and Elliot slowly turned away from Jo to Marianne.

Marianne met their outraged glares with wide-eyed surprise. “Did I neglect to mention that?”

“You did,” the duke said in a voice that was all silky menace. “Is there anything else we should be aware of? Do we have to swing from a trapeze? Juggle flaming torches?”

“Oh, nothing like that.” She found that she could no longer hold back her laughter. “Although you might need to step in for the clowns, on occasion.”

Chapter 10

Marianne tossed the jarvey a coin and rubbed her hands together as she headed toward the footpath that ran along the river. It was cold—freezing, even. Her uncle was a bit mad to plan this tour so early in the year, but he was right about his two chief competitors getting the jump on him. John Dornan’s all-female circus had already left for Paris in December, and Melvin Pickle’s far smaller circus was leaving just a week after Farnham’s.

Everyone—not only circuses and businessmen, but aristocrats by the drove—was headed to Europe now that the war was over. Of course, the performers who worked for Farnham’s would hardly be rubbing shoulders with the crème de la crème who were reported to have gathered in cities like Paris and Brussels.

Marianne chafed her upper arms through her worn woolen coat and glanced around, looking for the duke as she jogged in place on the hard-packed soil.

How disappointing that she’d broken his resolve so quickly.

The last time she’d seen him had been at four o’clock yesterday when she’d passed through the theater looking for Cecile. She’d seen the duke loading up the dirty linen that Jack had allowed to build up.

She’d lingered long enough to hear Jack send him to the laundry and remind him to come back at eight to observe Nora’s fight that evening.

Marianne chuckled at the memory of the high-and-mighty Duke of Staunton reduced to toting dirty laundry.

Well, she didn’t need him in order to run; that was just a precaution Jack insisted on—

The clop of hooves came from behind her, and Marianne turned.

And immediately laughed. “Where did you get that nag?” she asked once she’d stopped chuckling at the sight of the imposing, dignified Duke of Staunton seated on the sway-backed, spavined old horse.

“I believe you commanded me to avoid notice,” he reminded her icily.

“That’s even worse than the horse Andy usually rides.” Andy was the one who accompanied her on most of her runs. “If you got him from the livery Jack told you about, I think they might be having a laugh at your expense.”

“As much as I hate to disappoint you, I didn’t rent the animal.”

“You own a horse like that?”

“I do now. As I didn’t care to be lingering around a livery before dawn five days a week, I purchased Dobbin.”

“Where? From a glue factory?”

“Very droll.”

“Your stable master must think you’ve run mad to bring back such an animal.”

“Of course I do not keep him at Berkeley Square.”

“Of course not,” she said in a soothing voice, grinning broadly as her gaze moved over Staunton and his steed. The duke was dressed in rugged clothing like that he’d worn yesterday. His hair was hidden under a battered tweed flat cap and his face even scruffier. In fact, he looked rumpled, as if he’d barely had time to wake up. His overcoat was a nondescript brown homespun that had been liberally patched and his heavy hobnail boots barely fit in the stirrups.

“You sound a bit crabby this morning, Your Grace. Is this earlier than you usually are up and about? Or was it the long day you had yesterday? I hope your new job isn’t interfering with your busy, ducal schedule?”

The duke just stared, rather than responding. She noticed that he did that quite a lot. No doubt he was accustomed to his lofty position, imposing stature, and hawkish glare intimidating all his underlings.