Max gave up trying to solve the conundrum of how he was going to find a suitable bride he could tolerate, marry and produce an heir with when he was, when he came right down to it, not certain he was in a position to make anyone an offer. He gave his cousin his attention, focusing on the youth’s eager face. He could just give up on the problem and accept Nevill as his heir, he supposed. Or was that the coward’s way out?
Nevill Harlow was just eighteen and appeared still to be growing into his hands and feet. He was also by far the youngest member of the Nonesuch Whips, gathered for their monthly meeting in their usual room at the Nonesuch Club on the corner of Ryder Street and St James’s. Young he might be, but even the highest stickler amongst the members accepted him for his growing skill with the ribbons and his relationship to Max Dysart, Earl of Penrith, acknowledged nonpareil amongst drivers.
Acknowledged by everyone except, inevitably, Brice Latymer. Latymer was sitting beside the betting book, tapping his teeth with the tip of a quill pen and regarding the cousins sardonically.
Max let the cool regard slide over him without giving any sign he had noticed it. Sometimes he thought Latymer lived to antagonise him. The man’s scarcely veiled pleasure whenever he bested Max, whether in a race, at cards or by cutting him out for a dance, mystified him.
‘What should I have been listening to?’
‘I’ve had a bet with Latymer.’ Nevill was grinning with excitement. ‘But you’ll need to lend me your bays.’
‘My what?’ Max swung his feet down off the fender.
‘Your bays. And the new drag. I’ve bet I can beat him and Lansdowne to the Bell at Hounslow.’
‘In my new drag, driving my bays? My four expensive, perfectly matched, Hanoverian bays?’ Max enquired ominously.
‘Yes.’ Nevill was not known for the strength of his intellect, more for his abounding good nature, but it was obviously beginning to dawn on him that his magnificent cousin was not delighted by the challenge he had accepted. ‘They’re more than able to beat Latymer and his greys.’
‘They are. Are you? Are you aware what I will do to you if you sprain so much as a fetlock?’
‘Er … no.’ Out of the corner of his eye Max could see the rest of the Nonesuch Whips watching them, most with good-natured grins on their faces. They all knew Max’s feelings about his precious bays, and they all liked young Nevill, but the rare opportunity to view Max Dysart, Earl of Penrith, losing his fabled self-control was eagerly anticipated.
‘I will tear your head off your shoulders,’ Max promised softly, dropping his arm over Nevill’s shoulders and smiling a crocodile’s smile. The younger man flinched, his nervous grin wavering. ‘I will knot your arms behind your neck and I will use your guts for garters.’
‘Right.’ It was a strangled squeak.
‘And do you know what I will do if you lose to our friend Mr Latymer?’
‘No.’ That was a gulp.
‘Never let you drive one of my horses again, as long as you live.’ Max imbued his smile with all the menace he could muster and felt the bony shoulders under his arm quiver. ‘Are you allowed passengers?’
‘No. Just a guard to carry the yard of tin.’
‘Right. I’ll do that.’ He felt the relief run through the young man. ‘When is it for?’
‘Midnight, tonight. Leaving from here. I wanted to send round to your mews and get them harnessed up.…’ Nevill’s voice began to trail away.
‘Just ask next time before you lay the bet,’ Max said mildly, creating major disappointment amongst the audience as they realised the anticipated explosion was not going to happen.
But, damn it, he had taught the boy to drive, starting with a pony cart, graduating through curricle and phaeton until he could manage a drag, the heavy private coach drawn by four horses, and a match in size, weight and speed for the Mail or the stagecoaches. If he could not trust Nevill with his team now, it was to mistrust his own teaching.
‘Send to the mews. And, Nevill,’ he added as his cousin made for the door, enduring amiable joshing as he went. ‘Bespeak dinner—I’m damned if I’m waiting until we get to the Bell!’
‘Have you had any dinner yet?’
Bree Mallory pushed back her chair and saw Piers standing in the doorway, a pint tankard in his hand. ‘No. What time is it?’
Her brother shrugged. ‘Nearly eleven. I had the ordinary in the snug an hour past.’
Bree got to her feet, stretched and glanced out of the window overlooking the main yard of the Mermaid Inn. The scene outside in the glare of torches and lanterns would have struck most people as chaos. To Bree’s experienced eye it was running like clockwork and the whole complex business of the headquarters of a busy coaching company was just as it should be.
Pot boys were pushing through the crowd with tankards and coffee pots; at least three women appeared to have lost either children or husbands, and in one case, a goose, and through the whole turmoil the grooms leading horses to coaches or to stables wove the intricate pattern that sent out a dozen coaches in the course of the night, and received as many in.
A coach, the Portsmouth Challenge, was standing ready, the porters tossing up the last of the luggage and a reluctant woman being urged on to a roof seat by her husband. Over her head Bree could hear the grinding of the clock gears as it made ready to strike the three-quarter, and she glanced towards the door of the tap room in anticipation. A massive figure in a many-caped greatcoat strode out, whip in hand, jamming his low-crowned hat down as he went. It was Jim Taylor, the oldest and most cantankerous of all the Challenge Coaching Company’s drivers.
As the clock struck Jim swung up ponderously on to the box, arranged the fistful of reins in his left hand without glancing at them and shouted, ‘Let them go!’
‘You could set your watch by him,’ Piers commented, strolling across to join his sister at the window.
‘You can by all of them,’ she riposted, ‘or we wouldn’t employ them.’
‘You’re a hard woman, Bree Mallory.’ He gave her a one-armed hug round the shoulders in passing, grinning to show he was only teasing.
Bree smiled back. ‘I have to be. This is a hard business. And why haven’t you gone home to bed?’ He might look like a man, her tall, handsome, baby brother, but he was only seventeen and, if he hadn’t been recovering from a nasty bout of pneumonia, he would have been at school at Harrow. ‘And my excuse, before you ask, is that the corn chandler’s bill is completely at odds with the fodder records again and either he is cheating us, or someone is stealing the feed.’
‘I was finishing my Latin text.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s enough to put me into a decline, the amount of work the beaks have sent me home with.’
‘If you hadn’t spent most of the day hanging round the yard, you’d have been done hours ago,’ Bree chided mildly. Piers was itching to finish at school and come to start working at the company. It was his, after all. Or at least, he owned half of it, with George Mallory, their father’s elder brother, retaining his original share.
Bree had a burning desire to protect the company for Piers. Uncle George, with no children of his own, would leave his half to his nephew eventually and then there would be no stopping her brother.
He already knew as much as Bree about the business, and rather more about the technical aspects of coach design and the latest trends in springing than she ever wanted to know. ‘Where are my journals?’ he wheedled now. ‘I have finished my Latin, honestly.’
‘They