by Mary Nichols
John took a deep breath. ‘Indeed it is.’
Richard sat up; now he would hear the truth. ‘You? And Felicity?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry.’ He could not understand why Richard was grinning from ear to ear.
‘Why be sorry? I am delighted. My felicitations. You have saved my life.’ He looked out of the window, suddenly impatient with their progress; he longed to go to Rowan Park and tell Georgie, to take her in his arms again... The pleasure of anticipation filled him. ‘Where are we?’
‘I believe the Melton Mowbray turn is just coming up.’
‘Then that’s where we’ll go.’ He put his head out of the window and shouted instructions to the driver. Then, withdrawing his head, he added, ‘My father has a shooting box not five miles from here. There are bound to be horses there.’
The driver checked the horses and the carriage began to turn, but it never completed the manoeuvre. The driver shouted, the horses shrieked and the coach rolled over with an ear-splitting rending sound. ‘Damnation!’ Richard said, extricating himself from the wreckage. ‘Are you all right, John?’
‘Yes.’
Richard hauled himself out of the door, which was above his head, and pushed it open. Their horses were lying in a heap, neighing and struggling to free themselves. The driver had been thrown clear and was sitting in the ditch, shaking his head in a daze, but apparently unhurt. The two men scrambled out and it was then that they discovered the curricle. They had collided with it on the corner and it now lay in a mangled heap of splintered wood and broken wheels. Its horse had broken free and was cantering back the way it had come, reins trailing.
‘The driver!’ Richard said, and began pulling at the wrecked curricle. ‘He’s here. My God, it’s Barbour!’
They hauled him out, but without the protection of a hood his skull had taken the full force of the crash. There was no doubt he was dead.
‘Now what?’ John said.
It was while they were laying the body on the grass verge that they heard the sound of horses and looked up to see a dilapidated old coach bearing down on them. It drew to a stop as it reached them and Richard was astonished to see Bert Dawson sitting on the box. Before he could ask him what he was doing there, the carriage door opened and Georgie jumped down and flung herself into his arms. He was vaguely aware that there were other people getting out of the coach, but he took no notice as he held her close and kissed her tenderly.
At last, realising they had an audience, they drew apart. ‘I was afraid,’ she said. ‘Lord Barbour meant to kill you.’
‘He’s dead,’ he told her, jerking his head at the body.
She shivered at the sight of it. ‘Mr Baverstock would not let us come after him; he was in the plot, you know, but Lord Dullingham has said he will give no more trouble because his bank won’t stand the scandal. He didn’t mean to let us go until Lord Barbour had got clean away, but Dawson thought there was something amiss when we didn’t go back to the coach and he rushed in to rescue us and what with his lordship telling Mr Baverstock just what he thought of him and Dawson getting his gun...’
Richard laughed, though he still held her very tightly, as if afraid to let her go. ‘Hold on, you’re going too fast.’ Then he caught sight of his father and Mrs Bertram and Felicity, who was standing with John’s arm about her, which didn’t seem to surprise him at all. ‘My goodness, is the whole family here?’
‘Yes, and such a long story it is.’
‘I think we had better return to Missen House,’ said his lordship, eyes twinkling. ‘We shall all be more comfortable going over what has happened there. And we can decide what explanation we are going to give to the world about how we all came to be here.’ He turned to speak to Dawson, who was helping Richard’s driver to extricate the horses. ‘Any damage there?’
‘Nothing serious, my lord.’ He led one of them on to the road, while the driver brought the other. ‘We’ll walk them back.’
‘Good.’ His lordship decided to take control because his son and the young captain both seemed reluctant to let go of the Misses Paget. He ordered Lord Barbour’s body to be put over one of loose horses and everyone else into the coach. ‘I’ll drive,’ he said, making Richard smile, but he did not argue.
It was a dreadful squeeze and the two loving couples were constrained by the presence of Mrs Bertram, though that dear lady seemed to be in a daze. She kept shaking her head from side to side and saying, ‘Oh, dear, oh, dear. Whoever would have thought it?’
Georgie was quiet; there would be time for explanations later, but now it was enough that she had Richard beside her and he would be beside her for the rest of her life. She reached for his hand and smiled up at him. He bent his head and whispered in her ear, ‘I love you, Georgie Paget. Will you marry me?’
‘Shh...’ She indicated the other occupants of the coach but John and Felicity were whispering with their heads together and her aunt was nodding off again. She smiled. ‘Yes, Oh, yes, please.’ Her beloved Rowan Park was safe, her horses were safe and, best of all, she was safe and Richard loved her. What more could a girl ask?