“Yes,” Frances said with a nod and a laugh.
“She wants to see me?” Beau nearly shouted.
“We never said that. But she agreed to allow us to inform you of where she is. If you want to take that news and pay her a visit, that is entirelyyourchoice,” Frances replied with a wink.
Beau nearly leaped across the desk. “Where is she?”
The ladies exchanged another glance.
“She’s staying at Lady Courtney’s house in Hanover Square.”
“The devil she is. God, why didn’t I think of that? I’m obviously a rubbish spy.”
“No. You’re not a rubbish spy. You’re a man in love and you’re not thinking clearly,” Julianna replied.
“There is that, too,” Beau replied with a laugh. “But I must ask, how did you find out so quickly?”
Julianna and Frances exchanged a third glance.
“If you want to learn something from gossip, you don’t ask men,” Julianna replied, a sweet smile on her face.
“Fair enough.” Beau shook his head, but he was already making his way toward the door. “You’ll excuse me if I tell you I must go now.”
The two ladies laughed.
“We rather expected you’d cut our visit short,” Frances replied.
He grinned at them. “Thank you for telling me, ladies. I consider you both friends.”
“As we do you, Lord Bellingham,” Frances said. “As we do you.”
* * *
Not half an hour later,Beau was rapping steadily on the door to Lady Courtney’s town house. A cold November wind had whipped up, but he barely noticed the temperature.
A confused-looking butler opened the door to see what all the commotion was about.
“I’m Lord Bellingham, here to visit Lady Marianne Ellsworth,” he said in a rush.
“She’s not here, my lord,” the butler informed him.
“The devil she’s not,” Beau began, quite ready to knock down the bloody door if he had to. “I have it on good authority that she’s staying here.”
“No. I mean she’s not hereat the moment. She and Lady Courtney went for a ride in the park.”
“Rotten Row?” Beau asked the man.
“Indeed,” the butler replied.
Beau didn’t waste another moment. He swiveled on his heel, ran down the steps, jumped on his horse, and took off hell-for-leather toward Hyde Park.
He made it to the park in minutes, and began racing up and down the crowded Rotten Row, that fashionable stretch of road where theton’s best displayed themselves each evening.
Blast. Blast. Blast. How would he ever find her in such a throng? Coach after coach was filled with occupants bundled up in blankets and coats. He could hardly tell who anyone was.
Finally, he stopped in the middle of the roadway. “Lady Marianne!” he called in the loudest voice he could muster. “Lady Marianne Ellsworth!”
The occupants of the nearby coaches began leaning out to stare at him.
