“Then this marquess is the fifth, correct?” Gwendolyn asked.
“Do not forget the fourth, and his marchioness had a son. He hadn’t been born more than a month when his father died. He was the fifth marquess. The current one is the sixth.” She lifted Magpie to clutch against her as if needing the solace of her pet. Magpie growled a response. She lowered the dog to her lap.
Gwendolyn remembered. “The motherandthe son died, correct? How did it happen?”
“I can’t remember the details. Franny doesnot like to talk about it.” Lady Orpington ran a gloved hand along Magpie’s thick fur. “She and Middlebury used to be quite social before the tragedies. Afterward they were in mourning for several years. And then they started their house party,” she finished on a brighter note.
Beck wondered if grief could be a reason his father kept his distance from London. Could grief have caused him to disavow Beck instead of shame, as he’d believed?
“The family’s tragedies are all quite sobering,” Lady Orpington said. She slipped her fingers under Magpie’s onyx-covered collar and gave her a scratch. “None of us knows how many hours we have on this earth. I never expected Charles to die, and yet he did.” Tears filled her eyes. Gwendolyn leaned forward to touch her hand, her features softening.
Beck frowned. Much more of this and he’d have a coach of weepy women. Well, save for Mrs. Newsome. She was dry-eyed.
And then Lady Orpington brightened. “Although matters did work out well for Franny,” she said. “She’d married a second son, but now her husband is the sixth marquess. Her rank is well above mine and almost everyone else we knew back in those days. She also hastwosons, and so the inheritance in her line is ensured.”
Gwendolyn spoke up. “Lord Ellisfield. He is the heir.”
“Have you met him?” Mrs. Newsome asked. Beck wanted to know the answer, too.
“No, I have not,” Gwendolyn answered. “However, my sister claims, as she does for severalgentlemen, that he is the most eligible bachelor in London.”
“Just like his late uncle,” Lady Orpington agreed.
“Although he didn’t make an appearance over the Season at any of the affairs my sisters and I attended,” Gwendolyn said. “At least, I was never introduced to him.”
“And you may not meet him here. He often doesn’t attend.” Lady Orpington scratched Magpie’s ear while the dog opened his mouth for a yawn and then a sneeze. “Oh goodness,” her ladyship said in a squealy voice as if the dog had done something brilliant.
Beck liked dogs. He wasn’t certain he liked Magpie. The dog had tried to chew on his boot when he’d visited with Lady Orpington the other day, and she’d used the same squealy voice to chastise him. It hadn’t deterred Magpie’s behavior. Instead, Beck had waited until her ladyship was looking away and given the dog a good shake of his boot. Magpie had retreated.
Lady Orpington smiled out the window up at Beck. “We are coming to the crook in the drive. It won’t be long now—oh, wait,what?” She was looking beyond him.
Immediately Beck turned in that direction to see what had upset her. A group of riders had burst from the woods and were riding at a tear directly for the coach. They showed no signs of reining in even as they closed in on Lady Orpington’s team. Instead they seemed to charge harder.
The coach horses immediately sensed a threat.
They tried to turn to confront the other horses. When they couldn’t, when the driver stood to hold them, one began bucking in his traces.
Beck expected the riders to come to a halt. They didn’t. When he realized what was about to happen, he jumped from his saddle, dropping his reins, and ran to the lead horses just as an oncoming rider sent his horse, a powerful chestnut, up in the air to jump over the team.
The other riders had pulled up. They now cheered as the chestnut seemed to fly through the air, man and beast as one.
Of course, the action sent Lady Orpington’s team into a panic.
Beck had grabbed the lead horses’ cheek straps and, using the weight of his body and the command of his presence, pulled their heads down to prevent them from shying or bolting.
The jumper landed heavily on the other side of the road. His friends began shouting and clapping.
And Beck vowed that once he had this team under control, he would pull the heads off of every fool who had thought this was a great idea.
Lady Orpington’s team wanted to bolt. They didn’t because Beck and the driver wouldn’t let them. One stamped on Beck’s foot, but he kept his hold.
And then it was quiet.
“Good horses,” Beck said in a low voice as the footman in the driver’s box leaped down to help him. Together, along with the driver, they managed to settle the team.
Gwendolyn opened the coach door and hopped out. She ran to the back of the vehicle. Concernedfor the women, Beck gave over the handling of the team to the servants and went after her.
She was bent over a footman who had fallen off the coach. The moaning man held his arm. She looked up at Beck. “I think it is broken.”
