“Because you were invaluable as always. What’s more, if you intend to stop this line of lark, although I can’t for the life of me figure out why you’d want to stop, then you need to tell our regent yourself.”
“You could tell him for me,” Malcolm suggested, eyeing the door to freedom. “You could say I was incompetent and get me out of the service even more quickly.”
Randall laughed. “That wouldn’t do at all. With the information from those maps, you really did come through, you know. Take credit. Bow out if you must, but go out on top, and for God’s sake, man, get some favors out of the bugger.”
“Favors?” Malcolm frowned, as the double doors finally opened to the Prince Regent’s bedchamber in which His Royal Highness liked to conduct business.
“Such as a special license to marry. I’m sure Prinny would put in a good word with the archbishop. Otherwise, you’ll have to keep that pretty Parisian miss waiting another three weeks.”
They took a few steps in. “She’s English, I keep telling you, not Parisian,” Malcolm reminded Randall.
“Who?” asked Prinny, coming into view. “Tell me all about her, I command it!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Malcolm urged his coachmanto greater speed, then realized the childishness of it. It had been over two months since he’d laid eyes upon Serena. He could wait another couple of hours.
“Like hell!” Rapping his cane on the coach roof, he was satisfied when it drew to a halt.
Putting the furry fiend, as he’d come to think of his traveling companion, onto the seat beside him, he lowered the window.
“Unhitch one of the horses, Malty. I intend to ride the rest of the way.”
“Yes, my lord.”
In a few minutes, having ruined the symmetry of his coachman’s team, much to the man’s annoyance, Malcolm had a saddled horse beneath him and a wriggling furry pup perched in a saddle bag between his legs. He’d fully intended to leave the ridiculous, sentimental, soppy gift behind in the safe interior of his coach, but the fiend put up such a howling fuss as soon as Malcolm closed the door on it, he’d had no choice but to bring it along.
Besides, he had the nasty suspicion the pup would take vengeance upon him by way of soiling his traveling coach and probably chewing the squabs until it was all a disgusting, tattered mess.
They would make good time, and he would be seeing Serena in an hour. Even if his horse went lame, he would run the rest of the way with the fiend under his arm, should the need occur.
***
“ANOTHER GUEST, MY LORD,” Mr. Tewles informed Lord Elmstead late in the afternoon, the butler’s tone one of extreme imposition.
Serena grinned at the way the man said it, as if her grandparents were not merely two but an entire party of twelve who’d been behaving raucously over the past two weeks. True, her grand-père had commandeered the wine cellar, going so far as to suggest tossing out some vintages he considered inferior.
