The Marriage Act by Alyssa Everett

going?” she asked as he led her to the exit, tucking her hand under his arm.
    “Outside,” he said with a careless grin. “To enjoy a few moments of privacy.”
    She should have dug in her heels and refused to go with him, but her heart raced with anticipation. Once outside, he drew her around the Shire Hall to the back of the building, to where her father’s cathedral stood directly across from them, watching over their encounter like a slumbering chaperone. For the next quarter of an hour, Lieutenant Howe whispered endearments and pressed heated kisses on her. From that night on, she was head over heels for him, and she was sure he felt the same way about her.
    It was supposed to be the beginning of a lifelong passion, that first evening with Lawrence, but she saw him only twice more after that. At their third meeting he not only kissed her behind the Shire Hall but also slipped his hand inside the neckline of her gown as he ground his lean hips against hers. She thought she would die from excitement and happiness. As soon as she arrived home, she dashed off a letter and sent it to him by linkboy, impulsively suggesting they elope to Gretna Green. It was a foolish letter, and monstrously indiscreet, but it was no more unsuitable than the things he’d whispered to her as he’d groped her in the darkness.
    She received his frosty dismissal the next morning—the very day Welford proposed. The humiliation of Lawrence’s rejection had driven reason from her head. And now she was Welford’s wife, until death did them part, with no one to blame but herself.
    It was pitch-black outside, and the rough voices of ostlers called back and forth from the inn yard. Returning from the necessary, Caro quickened her steps on the narrow path that ran between the stables and the door to the inn.
    She was nearly to the entrance when a man appeared before her, directly in her way. It was the blond gentleman from the taproom, the one who’d made no secret of staring at her.
    “Excuse me.” Nervous, she tried to brush past him.
    He blocked her with an arm across her path. “What’s your hurry, sweeting? I’d like to talk with you.”
    “I don’t know you, sir.” She tried his other side, intending to go around him, but he sidestepped along with her. “Let me pass.”
    “I told you, I want to talk to you.” He moved in closer—improperly close. “You’re a fetching little thing.”
    His breath reeked of ale and cheap tobacco. She lowered her eyes but stood her ground. “I’m expected back. Let me by.”
    He seized hold of her arm—not roughly, but that he would dare to touch her at all alarmed her. “Why so hoity-toity, pretty lady? The looks you were giving me inside weren’t half so cold.”
    Caro regretted the childish impulse that had made her want to provoke Welford. “I wasn’t giving you any looks.”
    “Playing hard to get now, are we? You were eyeing me right enough, and when I smiled at you, you smiled back.”
    “You’ve made a mistake. I’m married.”
    He laughed and leaned in knowingly. “As if married women never smile when they see something they like.”
    “I didn’t smile at you.” Her heart hammered. “Let me go.”
    “Don’t tell me—”
    He gave a strangled yelp. One moment he was leering down at her, his hand heavy on her arm, and the next he seemed to launch backward, his feet flying off the flagstones.
    She gasped. It was Welford. He’d slammed the blond gentleman against the brick wall of the inn and held him pinned there by the throat. “I believe the lady said you were mistaken,” her husband growled in a voice so low it made her shiver.
    Caro gaped at them.
    “Let me go,” the man choked, his face pale with fear. If he was trying to appear insulted and in control, he’d failed miserably. He sounded more like a defiant schoolboy.
    “The only reason I haven’t snapped your miserable neck,” Welford said, every word deliberate and menacing, “is because you’re not