where Marianne is?” His heart was thumping so hard it hurt.
“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 entirely your choice,” 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 here at 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 the ton’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.
“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