Page 41 of The Boxing Baroness

But Marianne wasn’t his underling, so he could stare until his eyes fell out.

Which he appeared more than willing to do.

“Let’s see if you can get that beast up to a trot.” She started down the path at an easy lope. “Try to keep up,” she called over her shoulder.

A moment later his horse clattered up beside her.

Marianne put him out of her mind and fell into a rhythm.

The first ten minutes of every run were always miserable, but by the time she neared the end, usually around three-quarters of an hour, she would wonder why she’d made such a fuss.

“How long will you go?” the duke asked, his deep voice startling her from a pleasing fugue.

“What time is it?”

He took out a battered tin watch. “Half-past six.”

“Until a little after seven.”

“Jack said you do this five days every week?”

“Jack would like me to run five days every week, but I generally don’t do more than four.”

“If I’m your new trainer, then I say you will do five days a week—I shall meet you here tomorrow at the same time.”

Marianne laughed. Let him try to make her do anything. “The same time tomorrow,” she said, agreeably.

She’d be in Hyde Park.

His eyes widened at her easy acceptance and he looked quite proud of himself for having cracked the whip.

“Jack has his own boxing parlor, does he not?” the duke asked, more agreeable than she’d heard him sound before.

“Yes. And a wife and five children, with another on the way. He likes to schedule my time before he opens.”

“Why don’t you train at his place of business?”

“We tried that—at first. But—”

“You garnered too much attention?” he guessed.

“Something like that.” Marianne glanced up at him. He wasn’t frowning at her—as he usually seemed to do. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but at least he wasn’t looking at her as if she were something stuck to the bottom of his boot.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the run, which was just as well as she was too winded to talk.

“This is it,” she said in a breathy voice as they approached Temple Gardens. She slowed to a walk, taking a few minutes to cool down. Once she’d caught her breath, she walked back to where he waited, surprised when he pulled a wine bottle from a saddlebag, pulled out the bung, and held it toward her.

She drank a quarter of the bottle before handing it back. “Thank you.”

“Shall I hail you a hackney?”

“No, that’s not necessary. I’m going to walk over to Water Street. You can go.”

“I’ll accompany you.”

Marianne frowned. While she wanted to pull him out of his warm bed and servant-filled house at the crack of dawn, she didn’t want to share her breakfast with him.

“I’m just going to get something to eat,” she said. “No training involved. Consider it a reprieve—a chance to go back to your warm bed.”