Marcie frowned. “I don’t suppose you realize I was nearly knocked senseless by that team of horses rigged to this coach, nor that Mistress High-and-Mighty nearly caught me in the act of fleeing.”
“I guess I fell asleep,” said Nan, looking guilty, but only for a moment. “Here,” she said, “have a bonbon. They tumbled out of a poorly-wrapped package during a most dangerous turn a few blocks back.”
“You’re eating someone’s Valentine’s treat!”
“Well, you didn’t expect me to just let them roll around on the floor, now did you?”
No, Marcie thought, of course she didn’t, and she had to smile. Nan Farthington had been the delight of Marcie’s dreary stay in London. She’d met the girl not at the odious school but rather during one of her many larks of slipping away from Miss Cheltenham’s iron-fisted rule, and exploring Town on her own. Marcie and Nan had literally stumbled into one another at one of the many book fairs held within the inner city.
They’d both been dashing for the same book, a collection of romantic poems. It hadn’t taken Marcie but a moment to become friends with the talkative Nan. The two young women decided to pool their coins, purchase the book, and share it. They’d taken turns reading passages to each other, giggling, and then reading some more. Over the next several weeks, they became thick as thieves, sharing secrets, and dreams, and more than a few adventures.
Marcie had been surprised to learn that Nan was an illegitimate daughter of a peer of the realm, a man Nan chose not to name. Marcie might have felt sorry for the young girl for being born out of wedlock, but Nan’s was a lighthearted spirit, one that didn’t encourage sympathy. Indeed, the girl seemed to do quite well for herself, free to dash about Town whenever and wherever she chose. Clearly, someone connected to Nan’s mysterious father saw to it Nan and her mother were comfortably housed and nicely clothed.
Nan obviously wanted for nothing and, in truth, seemed to enjoy her unfettered freedom. She’d brought a ray of bright sunlight into Marcie’s long, dark winter in London. Marcie was glad she’d become such close friends with Nan, and wondered for the hundredth time, at least, how she ever would have endured the past bleak months if not for the chatty and fun-loving Nan Farthington.
Nan popped another confection in her mouth, chewing happily. “You’d best find a place to prop yourself, Marcie. Cole takes every turn as though the hounds of hell are nipping at his heels,” she said, pulling Marcie’s thoughts back to the present.
Just then, Marcie was thrown into a pile of boxes as the coachman, true to Nan’s words, whipped round a comer.
“Heavens!” Marcie cried. “I shouldn’t be fretting about Mistress Cheltenham’s switch but should be worrying whether or not I’ll make it out of the City alive.”
Nan giggled again, obviously enjoying their madcap race through the snowy streets. “I’ve never known you to be such a worrier, Marcie.”
“‘Tis only because I’ve never had the misfortune to ride in a coach driven byâwhat did you say his name is?”
“Along the road, he is known as Cole Coachman.”
“And off the road?” asked Marcie, fearing the answer.
Nan’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, many things, I daresay. But we shall call him Cole Coachman. He is adored along the road. Why, all the ostlers and innkeepers make a race to rush to his bidding.”
“Marvelous,” muttered Marcie, finally finding a place to sit between the bandboxes. “I’ve a demon for a driver who is considered a veritable god along the road. Well, so be it. Just as long as he takes me safely to the inn at Burford.”
“Burford! I thought you were heading for Stow and your godmama’s estate. Didn’t you say your cousins have found you a perfect match in some fine swell?”
“That was the plan, yes. But now that I am free of that horrid boarding school, I’ve decided I am not so inclined to make his lordship’s acquaintance. I rather like my freedom, Nan.”
“Fiddlesticks! What girl doesn’t dream of being married to a marquis?”
“This girl,” said Marcie. She sighed, relaxing at last. “Truly, Nan, I do not fashion being forced into marriageâand certainly not with some boring Marquis of Sherringham.”
“Mayhap he is not as boring as you think,” offered Nan.
Marcie leaned back against a box, sighing again. “Oh, I am certain he is a total boreâfrom the top of his head all the way to the tips of his champagne-polished boots. My father swore that all swells were full of themselves and boring to boot.”
Nan grinned mischievously. “Ah, well, we’ve miles to go before you meet your Marquis of Sherringham. Did I happen to mention I am heading to my mother’s uncle’s house in Stow to spend Saint Valentine’s Day in the country?”
“No,” said Marcie, wondering exactly when Nan had decided to make the trip. No doubt when Marcie had begged her friend to help devise an escape route from Mistress Cheltenham’s school. How like Nan to want to be in the thick of things. In any event, Marcie was relieved to hear her friend would be joining her on her way to the Cotswolds.
“We’ll have a grand time, Marcie. Trust me,” said Nan with a wink. “Now, I want you to relax. Let us enjoy our adventure, shall we? Cole Coachman always has the best of fun on his madcap coach ride. I am certain you will find his presence anything but boring.”
Marcie had her reservations as she thought of Cole Coachman, bundled in his huge winter coats, with a lone hothouse rose adorning one buttonhole and that low-crowned hat slanted over one gray eye. He’d seemed to her impatient and haughty.
But as Cole Coachman directed his finely trained team through the narrow city streets with frightening precision, Marcie couldn’t help but feel a sense of safety.
Too, she was feeling a smug satisfaction at having outwitted the switch-wielding Betina Cheltenham. Her night’s escapade had been a success after all. Things were indeed looking up.
“Pass the bonbons, will you, Nan?” Marcie said.
Nan didn’t have to be asked twice.
Chapter 2
The Marquis of Sherringham found himself quite exhilarated by the blinding snowstorm he met just two miles north of London Town. Nothing like a strapping ride aboard a Mail coach, he told himself, highly pleased with his decision to neglectâfor Saint Valentine’s Day, at leastâhis many duties in pursuit of grand adventure. His two sisters-in-law and their demanding brood of girl-children were forever in need of something from him.
Even now their voices echoed in his ears: “Sherry, can you not spare a few more pounds for a new gown for Penny? She has naught but rags to wear this Season! I swear she’ll swoon should she be forced to wear such threads!” This after Cole had seen to it the gawky Penny had been swathed in the blush of fashion by none other than the finest modiste of London. And then there was always the chatter of his nieces with which to contend. “Uncle Sherry!” they’d carol in unison upon sight of him, “Mama promised you’d take me out and buy me some lemon ice. Well, yes, today! When else?” And, “Of course a ride along Pall Mall! You didn’t think Mama would have me be seen riding anywhere but, did you? Oh, but we’ll surely expire if you don’t fashion to take us for a ride this very minute!”
Always Cole had given into the many demands. He’d found his coffers heavily depleted and his patience sorely tested by his family. It took every ounce of the gentleman within him not to toss the lot of them out of his home.
Now, though, with a bitter wind slicing through his teeth and catching at the long red woolen scarf he’d bundled about his neck, he blessedly felt a world away from his London home and all the matters his title heaped upon his heart.
What a veritable pleasure it was to utilize all of his strength in keeping the spanking team in line and guide them on a sure path through the heavily falling snow. Gad, but he loved the excitement of it all! Nothing but the wind and the snow and his own wits in dealing with the fine horseflesh before him.
Cole released a satisfied sigh, squinting his gray eyes against th
e slanting snow and watching as his breath made perfect spirals in the cold air. For the first time in a very long time, the Marquis of Sherringhamâknown along the road as the famous Cole Coachmanâfelt as though he and he alone was master of his fate. Heady stuff, to be sure.
He was in the midst of guiding his hearty team round a very tricky bend in the road when there suddenly came the shattering of icicles and the sound of the coach window being lowered.
Cole chanced a quick glance over one shoulder, seeing the poke of Nan’s ridiculous bonnet and then the full of her cherub’s face. As always, her mouth was opened.
Nan was screaming like a banshee, but the wind blasted her words away. Cole could make out nothing more than something about bonbons, Betina, Burford… and dying.
Dying?
“Say what?” Cole shot back, quite unsettled.
The Mail guard, John Reeve, clinging for dear life to a strap at the hind bootâfor he’d decided to use his bench for the two huge hat boxes he was transporting north to a very special femaleâshrugged his shoulders, looking as perplexed as Cole felt.
Nan, meanwhile, forced her plump body halfway out the window.
“Stop!” she shouted into the spitting snow.
Cole pulled too hard on the reins, making the lead horse rear against his suddenly harsh hand and causing the others to shy to the side. He muttered a curse as he finally got the beasts under control and managed to lead them to the side of the roadâwhat he imagined was the side of the road, anyway. The snow was dangerously deep.
The coach no sooner came to a stop than the door banged open and the red-haired chit he’d saved from the snowy mews came bounding out. She didn’t even need a step to help her alight. She executed a perfect jump down into the snow as though she’d spent a lifetime climbing in and out of trees. She ran a few paces into the deep snow, then stopped, swaying ominously.
“Oh!” exclaimed the plump Nan, now at the door of the coach. “She’s going to faint, I swear. Do something, Cole!”
Cole had no choice but to leave the box. Within a moment, he was at the girl’s side, the snow covering the tops of his boots, filtering down into his hose. He studiously ignored the chilling wetness and forced himself to forget that he was losing precious time on his Mail run.
“Gâgo away,” the girl gasped.
“I can hardly do such a thing. Looks to me as if you could use a helping hand. Besides, Nan’s been muttering some such thing about Burford, Betina andâwhat was it?âoh, yes, bonbons.”
The girl slapped one gloved hand over her mouth. “Oh,” she groaned, “did you have to mention bâbonbons?”
“What about bonbons?”
Cole had his answer just as the red-haired minx turned away and deposited the contents of her stomach atop the pristine snow. That done, she neatly collapsed at his feet.
*
Marcie awoke to the sounds of Nan’s clucking and Cole Coachman’s curses. Both were hovering over her. Since the man’s voice sounded so dreadfully angry, Marcie decided it best to pretend to be unconscious.
“Poor thing,” Nan fussed, “she’s been locked into an attic and given nothing but bread and water for weeks!”
“And why was that? Is she a thief, Nan?”
“La, no! Least I don’t think so. No, I’m certain she isn’t,” added Nan a second later. “She would have told me if she were. We’ve shared all kinds of secrets. I can tell you she’s spirited, though.”
“And long overdue for a proper meal,” observed Cole.
His statement made Marcie inwardly wince. She hadn’t thought she’d become that thin. As for Nan’s theatrical cry of Marcie’s having naught to eat but bread and water for weeks, well that just wasn’t trueâthough, of course, Mistress Cheltenham had tried banishing Marcie to her room with only bread and water. But Marcie, inventive as she was mischievous, consistently outwitted the old hen. Indeed, she’d made handy use of a rope pulley the maids often used for the hanging of laundry. With just a few hearty yanksâand several coins paid to the son of the baker who lived next door to the boarding schoolâMarcie had enjoyed a veritable feast in her drafty attic room each night, until Mistress Cheltenham had discovered what was afoot. She’d cut down the rope only a week ago, and since then Marcie had been forced to dine on whatever she could pilfer from the kitchens when Betina Cheltenham wasn’t looking.
Nan sighed dramatically. “I should have known better than to share a box of confections with her. Whatever shall we do, Cole? Take her back to London? I fear she might never come round! Do you think she’ll live?”
Marcie took that moment to flutter her eyelashes. She caught sight of the man named Cole. He was peering straight at her. His eyes were the color of London at dawn, all misty and gray and quite ominous. Oh dear, thought Marcie, clearly seeing the man would like nothing better than to yank her to her feet and rattle her soundly.
Marcie quickly pressed her eyes shut tight.
“I think she’ll survive,” said Cole, obviously wise to her feigned state of unconsciousness. He got to his feet.
Nan continued to pat Marcie’s wrists. “Still,” she lamented, “you should take more care when charging along the road, Cole! Not everyone is accustomed to your fast pace.”
“Then not everyone should so eagerly climb aboard my coach. Especially not runaway thieves.”
At that, Marcie snapped her eyes open. “I am no thief!” she sputtered.
The coachman turned a sharp eye toward her. “I thought that might rouse you.”
Marcie felt her pale face grow hot. Blast him, she thought, he’d tricked her!
“IâI am no thief,” she said again. “As for being a runaway, I am barely that. I have every right to travel where I wish, when I wish.”
“And your wish, I take it, was to steal a ride on my coach.”
“Nan told me you are headed for the inn at Burford. So, too, am I. Trust me when I say I intend to pay you for your trouble, sir.”
The man cocked one dark brow at her. “I’ll be taking no stolen coin, and certainly none from any runaway.”
“Now see here,” Marcie cried. She brushed away Nan’s assistance and got to her feet, squarely facing the broad-shouldered coachman. “I tell you once and for all that I am no thief! As for that prison of a boarding school from which I dashed, I had every right to come and go as I pleased. Do you hear? Every right indeed.”
“I hear you quite clearly,” replied the tall coachman, “as must all of God’s earth. Really, miss, but must you shout so?”
Marcie hadn’t thought she was shoutingâbut then again, the ringing in her ears near drowned out everything but her own queerly beating heart.
“Oh, no,” she muttered.
She was going to faint again. She’d been so caught up in indignation that she’d given not a whit of thought to her earlier queasiness. Of a sudden, she saw the telltale pinpoints of light flashing at the back of her eyelids. The ringing in her ears grew louder. She felt her body grow hot. In another moment, she’d doubtless find herself face first in the snow.
“IâI fear I am going to be sick again,” she whispered.
Nan gasped, jumping out of Marcie’s way.
Cole Coachman, however, neatly stepped behind Marcie, took a gentle but firm grip on her shoulders, and then eased himself and Marcie down onto a snow-covered bank. His muscled legs straddled her while the ends of his greatcoat made a blanket beneath her.
“Lower your head,” he instructed into the shell of her right ear. “That’s it. Now breathe. No, not like that,” he whispered when Marcie breathed too fast and too shallowly “Like this.”
Marcie listened to the even, deep sounds of his breath swooshing into her ear. She followed his lead, doing exactly as he instructed.
“Ah, you are a quick learner. Very good. Now, I want you to close your eyes,” he said, his voice husky and reassuring. “Close your eyes and think of the crisp, country air filling your senses….”
The ringing in Marcie’s ears ceased. By degrees, she felt herself calming. Gone was the queasiness that had so quickly surfaced.
Cole Coachman obviously sensed her ease. To Nan, he said, “Go to the coach and get my pack from the box. There’s some ginger root there. Fetch it for me, will you, Nan?” As Nan hurried away to do Cole’s bidding, he returned his attention to Marcie.
“Feeling better?” he asked. “No, don’t get up, and don’t open your eyes. Not yet. Just nod if you’re feeling better.”
Marcie stayed where she was. She nodded.
The clean scent of the man enveloped her in a warm and wondrous cocoon. She found herself resting ever so gently against the lean length of him. Feeling no need to be on her manners lest the man move away and she become violently sick again, Marcie allowed herself a moment of pure pleasure in just remaining within his sturdy embrace, no matter how indecent it might be to do so.
Said the handsome coachman, “I fear someone should have warned you about Nan and her penchant for devouring an unholy amount of sweets. She seems to have a stomach made of stone in that respect.”
Marcie shook her head. “I fear I am the one to blame. I should have known better than to eat so many confections.”
“And I,” said Cole Coachman, “should have taken more care when rounding the bends along this winding road. Though it is my duty to deliver the parcels of this coach, I should have given more thought to you and Nan.”
Marcie thought him sweet to say such a thing, but his words also reminded her that she was hindering his Mail run.
“I dareswear I’ve quite made a mess of your schedule,” she said.
“I won’t argue that point.”
Marcie lifted her lashes, turning her face to meet his look. “Do you think you will be able to make up the time I’ve caused you to lose?”
“Rest assured, I will certainly try. Barring, of course, any quick turns along the road that might cause you to be ill again.”
“Please,” said Marcie, chagrined. “I am quite over being sick for the night. I feel right as rain. Truly, I do.”
Miss Marcie's Mischief (To Woo an Heiress, Book 2) Page 2