“Has Bellingham lost his mind?” he heard one coach-dweller say.
“Who is Marianne Ellsworth?” he heard another ask.
He galloped farther down the road. “Lady Marianne! Lady Marianne Ellsworth!”
“For heaven’s sake,” he heard a lady’s voice say. “Stop that caterwauling. She and Lady Courtney are in the coach with four grays, a few back.”
Heart in his throat, Beau spurred his mount forward until he found the coach in question. “Lady Marianne?” he called, hoping against hope the woman hadn’t been mistaken.
Bright blue eyes blinked at him from the window of the coach, and a relief unlike any he’d felt before flooded through him. He’d found her. After all these weeks, he’d finally found her.
Lady Courtney’s coach pulled out of the procession and came to a stop a few yards ahead. He jumped from his horse and tied the animal to a nearby post before running across the roadway, dodging carriages and mounts.
The door to Lady Courtney’s carriage opened just as he approached.
“Was that you shouting, Bellingham?” Lady Courtney asked. “We were trying to have a civilized ride in the park. Lady Marianne here doesn’t need any scandal attached to her name. Now look what you’ve done.”
Beau glanced back momentarily to see that the entire early evening’s procession along Rotten Row had stopped, and the coaches’ occupants were staring at them as if they were acting out a play. He was indeed causing a scene, but at the moment he didn’t give a damn.
“My apologies, Lady Courtney,” Beau said, his gaze meeting Marianne’s startled one. “But I couldn’t wait another moment to say what I have to say to Lady Marianne.”
Lady Courtney hid her smile. “Very well, lad. Go ahead and say it.”
“Will you come out and meet me?” Beau asked Marianne, his heart in his throat. “Please.”
Marianne nodded and he helped her to alight.
The moment she’d stepped onto the ground, Beau dropped to one knee. “I know you’re the sister of an earl—I couldn’t care any less. I love you, Marianne. I should have asked you to marry me the night you left me in France, but I was a bloody fool. Please, say you’ll be my wife.”
“Excellent decision,” Lady Courtney snorted from inside the coach.
Marianne’s face filled with worry. “You’re truly not just asking me because of the change in my status?”
“I promise you, darling. I’d ask you if you were a washer woman in the street. I don’t care about the scandal.” He glanced back at the line of stopped carriages. “Does itlooklike I care about scandal?”
Marianne had to laugh at that. “David told me you came looking for me. And so did Julianna and Frances.”
“Yes, and if you ask Kendall and Worth, they’ll tell you I said I wanted to marry you even before Kendall informed me that your brother was an earl.”
“I believe him, Marianne,” Lady Courtney announced from inside the coach.
“Please, Marianne,” he whispered, squeezing her hands. “Say you’ll marry me. I’ve loved you since the moment you found me peering about Lord Copperpot’s bedchamber and told me to stop.”
“What about your position with the Home Office? Will you give that up?” Marianne had lowered her voice to a whisper.
“We can spy together if you like,” he offered, equally quiet, before raising his voice again to say, “Or, I’ll settle down and we’ll have half a score of children.”
“That sounds like an awful lot of children, Marianne,” came Lady Courtney’s muffled interjection.
Marianne laughed. “I quite agree, Lady Courtney,” she replied, raising her voice.
“Fine then. Half a score. Two. Three. However many you want. I’ll give you the world, Marianne, just say you’ll marry me,” Beau pleaded, still on his knee.
“I don’t know how to be a proper marchioness, Beau. What if I embarrass you and your family?”
“We’ll teach you. We’ll all teach you, and you can be any type of marchioness you like. Nothing you do would ever embarrass me. Don’t you see, Marianne? I adore you.”
“This is quite new to me, Lady Courtney,” Marianne called. “Is there anything else I should ask for before I agree?”
