My Runaway Heart by Miriam Minger Read Free Book Online Page B

stopped her, his hand at her arm.
    "Why? I've always admired anyone who can survive
by his wits. Let them be."
    The singsong abruptly ending couldn't have been more
jarring to Lindsay than the harshness in Jared's voice, his expression grown
hard, too. As different as night and day from the charming gentleman at the
Oglethorpe ball. She stared at him, stunned. But in the next instant he was
smiling at her, wry amusement in his deep blue eyes, leaving Lindsay to wonder
if perhaps the ale was tampering with her perception.
    "It's all part of an evening's entertainment,
wouldn't you say? Look over there."
    Lindsay did, following Jared's gaze to an opposite box
where a noisy group of four gentlemen appeared to be poking fun at a fifth
companion, a sullen old fellow who sat slumped against the wall with a mug
balanced upon his prodigious belly.
    "By Jove, have you ever seen such a sour face?"
exclaimed one of the men, mimicking a dour expression. "If I was a new
babe born into the honorable Dr. Foote's hands, I'd take one look at that frightful
puss and turn 'round to climb right back into my mother's womb!"
    Uproarious laughter erupted, although the old doctor
appeared unconcerned that he was the butt of the joke, his expression not
lightening a whit. He yawned and closed his eyes, in fact, as if to take a
short snooze right there in the box, and therein lay his mistake. Lindsay
watched fascinated as the doctor's comrades appeared to conspire among
themselves in whispers and choked glee; then one of the men rose and
disappeared into the crowd.
    "Jared, what—"
    She was silenced as Jared raised a finger to his lips
and inclined his head toward the opposite box. The men there were elbowing one
another and grinning as they saw their companion returning. And with the fellow
was as robust a woman as any Lindsay had seen, a grin on her plain face, too,
until she stopped at the table and gave the smirking gentlemen a broad wink.
Then she spread her feet wide and propped her big fists on her hips, her
indignant voice filling the cellar.
    "Well, well, Arthur Foote, did you think you could
hide from me forever? Spread me legs and left me nine months later with a bawlin ' babe, you did, and now I've bloody well found you!"
    "A babe? Me? What?" blustered the hapless
doctor, fully awake and struggling to his feet while his companions could
barely contain their mirth around him. "I say,
young woman, you've got the wrong—"
    "Don't be speakin ' to me
like a child, you rummy bastard! Deny it if you will, but you're the father
sure as I'm standin ' here! The poor thing even looks
like you!"
    "But that cannot be, dear lady. I've never seen
you before!"
    " Wot , now? You're
calling me a liar?"
    Lindsay gasped, the woman's outraged shriek hanging in
the air.
    "No, no—well, yes, yes, I am—God in heaven! Fend
her off me! Fend her off!"
    Lindsay watched the wild melee in amazement. The woman
shook her fists and tried to reach the doctor cowering across the table, and
the poor man's friends appeared to be doing their best to hold her back.
Finally a cry went up from one of the gentlemen for the doctor to give the
woman a half guinea to appease her, which the stricken fellow did at once,
although he dared only to flip the coin onto the floor. The woman swept up the
silver with a triumphant laugh, and again perched her hands on her broad hips.
    "Aye, well, mayhap 'twas a mistake and you're not
the man I'm seekin '. Here, I'll give you a kiss and
be gone."
    Under much protestation the doctor was made to come
forward, the woman catching him by his protruding ears and planting her lips
upon his cheek in a noisy smack that sent everyone near into howls of laughter.
But another howl joined theirs, the doctor's eyes grown wide with horror.
    "She bit me! The wench bit me! Good God, what
shall I do? She's mad, surely, like a rabid beast! I'm going to die! I'm going
to sicken and die!"
    "I say, Foote, a red-hot poker could be used to
cleanse the wound," cried