I keep walking. Something tells me I should keep walking til I hit China.

"Marianne!", I hear Christopher call from the front door. "Marianne!"

I walk back and wave at him as I approach the door.

"Can we speak in the parlor, please?", he asks. My shoulders droop.

I follow him, and he closes the thick oak door tightly behind us. He doesn't sit, but paces for 30 seconds without saying a word. I'm acutely aware of every breath he takes. He removes his jacket and tosses it on a chair.

"Marianne...Forester tells me he saw something..."

My head crashes into my hands.

"I was hoping he was wrong", he sighs.

"What did he see?", I ask.

"What WAS there to see, Marianne?!", he booms and I feel like I jumped out of my skin. He'd buried his anger until this moment.

I can't speak as tears back up in my throat. When I don't say anything, he does.

"He tells me he saw you having an intimate conversation with a man. Who was it?"

"Willoughby", I whisper.

The Colonel closes his eyes and rubs his temples. "Willoughby."

"He purchased Hattan, just over the hill. It seems his aunt has taken him back. He divorced Isabel Grey", I provide.

"So he came here to reclaim you? My WIFE." The last word is so loud, it ricochets off the beams in the celling. I jump.

"He's been here twice", I confess, "He's been harassing me, I suppose.", I state.

He looks up from the floor, and crashes into his favorite worn leather chair. "He doesn't learn easily, does he?", my husband whispers with a violence I didn't know he possessed.

"What I don't understand is why I had to hear about this from my staff", he continues, "who will always tell me the truth, Marianne, and not from my own wife. Are you sorry you married me? Was he successful in taking you back? Are you leaving me?" His voice cracks on the last question.

"No!", I shout, and burst into tears. "I told him to go away and leave me alone. I told him I'm married, and that I want to be with you. I told him to leave!"

He opens his arms and pulls me onto his lap. He tucks my head under his chin. He kisses the top of my head. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you. But why didn't you tell me?", he asks.

"I didn't want there to be a fight between you. I didn't want you to be even more angry and stressed out than you were. I knew you would be upset. I thought if I told him to leave me alone, he would", I respond.

"Because he's always shown such propriety in the past?", he asks wryly. "Marianne, I'm your husband. You're my wife. Mine to protect, mine to care for. Never put yourself at risk or fail to tell me something because you think you're going to upset me."

He rocks me in his arms. "Please stop crying, my love, I'm sorry. That shout was the sound of terror. I didn't know what you were thinking..."

"I'm so sorry I kept it from you", I answer. But the truth is, I wish the whole thing were still a secret. I know he won't let this rest. He won't let it go. Willoughby came onto his property and tried to take his wife. I can't allow this to go where it's going.

Christopher is getting older. What if he... I can't take the risk. I don't want either of them dead.

"Promise me you'll let it go", I say, quietly.

"Marianne, you know I can't do that. He'll just keep coming back. It's a matter of honor, but it's also a matter of common sense at this point. He can't be trusted. It would be like letting a mad dog run around the countryside", he says.

"No, please, please, please. I need you with me. In my arms, safe and whole..."

"Are you worried about me?", he chuckles. "You know how long I've trained and fought..."

"Terrified!", I gasp. "Please, I'm begging you..."

"Marianne..."

"No, don't put me off. You say you love me so much. Then do as I ask. Please, please, please, let it go, for now anyway, please..." I take his face in my hands.

"As you wish", he whispers. I pull him into a deep kiss. I can tell he doesn't understand.

Worst of all, I can tell he doesn't trust me like he did yesterday.

A few days later, we're at Barton Park enjoying dinner with the Middletons.

The moment I'm through the door, Mrs. Jennings loops her arm through mine. "Sooo...Marianne, you must tell us absolutely everything about your first week of marital bliss."

I wish she could be silent.

"I have to admit I'm mighty jealous. The first time I saw the Colonel, I was in love", she says loudly enough for him to hear and he smiles and thanks her appropriately, but with no more feeling than he used to show before we were together. I feel like broke him in some way.

"It only burns like the dickens the first few times", she whispers into my ear and I wish I could shove her away. I roll my eyes when she isn't watching. "So what's it like...with him? Are you...happy?", she whispers.

"Very", I confirm.

"I knew it!", she proclaims, "I just knew he was the right choice for you. Don't let those lines around his eyes fool you. That one will be vital til the day he dies."

"I happen to love those lines", I say, walking over to put my arm around his waist.

He smiles sincerely. "My hero. He's all of England's hero."

"Yes, he is", Sir John adds.

"Stop", the Colonel flushes.

Mrs. Middleton sits as she always does, young, beautiful, but stone cold, stoically perched in the middle of the room, with her children and the staff about her. At first, I thought her haughty, but now I think she is dead in both mind and soul. I've never seen her speak to her husband or mother even once. Sir John paid handsomely for more children and a wife half his age. It's hard to be married to an object. Did Christopher fear this about me?

"What a change is here in a few days! From "too old" to "in love" in a week, Sir John!", Mrs. Jennings insists. "I bet you can't remember Willoughby's name!", she howls.

It was the wrong thing to say. The Colonel walks away from me and pours himself a glass of brandy.

"It does seem somewhat odd to change so completely so quickly", Christopher adds in his menacing baritone, silencing the room.

"Will you play for us?", Sir John asks me, cutting the tension.

"Of course", I answer, going around to the piano. Strangely, my husband is on the other side of the room.

"Darling, will you turn my pages?", I ask.

"Of course", he answers, joining me. I've never had to ask him before.

I've finished two songs and he's finished three brandies and we're still far enough from home.

"I think we should get going home", I say.

"Let's go shooting tomorrow", Sir John says quietly to Christopher.

"Agreed", he says quietly, knocking back the rest of the glass.

We sit in silence as the carriage takes us back to Delaford.

I have to ask the question I've been avoiding. He hasn't touched me in bed since our first night together.

"Christopher, what's wrong? Please tell me."

"Nothing..."

"Stop. I'm your wife, please..."

"I just don't understand why you didn't tell me", he says softly. "Or why you would be speaking intimately with him when he returned."

"I didn't want to upset you", I insist. He waves me off.

"And I didn't want you to call him out! Has it not occurred to you that I love you and that if you died, my life as I know it, would be over forever", I yell. "You protect me because you love me. Why is it so hard to believe that may have been my motivation as well?"

He finally looks me in the eye. "I'm so sorry, Marianne. To a man...to a soldier, it seems...odd that my beautiful little wife wants to protect me. But you're right. I'm acting like a bore. I've been no gentleman." He pulls me close to him.

"Thank you for your inclination to protect me. There is real love in that", he says. "It feels so strange to me—the sudden turnabout in your affection. I never thought you would truly love me, not for a very long time. If you like me and trust me, that would have been enough for now. You saying that you love me, it felt...almost dishonest."

I can't hold back the tears. "All I know is that you said you wanted me desperately. You got what you wanted, and now you don't want what you've got. If you don't believe I love you, I don't know what to say."

"Oh my Mari, you think I don't want you?!"

"You haven't touched me since our wedding night!", I shout.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry", he pleads.

I kiss his lips, those lines around his eyes, and he smiles. It goes all the way to his baby blues. I reach out as I wanted to before and smooth his brow, pushing away the stress and tension.

"I love you, Colonel Brandon, like it or not", I whisper. He stares into my eyes and what he sees there does something to him. He pulls off his jacket and vest and opens his pants.

"This will be a bit deeper", he says, but there is no more warning than that as he lifts me up and I come down on the hard staff of his cock. "You still think I don't want you?"

I scream out, hoping the driver can't hear us. The gentle rocking of the carriage matches our motion.

"I love you, I love you, I love you", he growls in his deep voice, moving against me. "You're mine, do you understand? MINE."

"MINE!", he growls again, rocking his hips against mine. He grips my hair and pulls my mouth to his. "Say it!"

"Yours", I repeat.

The fine gentleman has been replaced with someone else I'm not familiar with, but only for a few moments.

"I will kill him, Marianne. I will kill him if he ever returns, and do not ask me not to. He's trying to take what I love most in the world", he insists.

"He has no chance", I tell him. "He'll never take me away from you."

"Never", he growls, and cums hard, gasping. He catches his breath.

"You make me insane", he spits like an accusation. "I forget who I am."

I kiss his lips, and he rests his forehead against mine. I'm still straddling him on the coach seat.

"You're so brooding", I chuckle, "I have no idea why I didn't see right away that you're quite as romantic as Lord Byron. More so."

"I don't think any of my men would have described me that way", he jokes.

"They don't know you like I do."

"Assuredly not", he jokes back.

As we approach Delaford, I make myself presentable. It's over. It's over, right? Willoughby will stay away, Christopher is happy again, and he won't challenge him. Everything is fine and no one got hurt. No one.