“Glad I am of that.”
He grinned then; a handsome grin that tugged at the corners of his chiseled mouth and chased away the clouds in those gray eyes she’d heretofore found so stormy.
Perhaps the man wasn’t so beastly as she’d first thought him to be….
Nan came trudging through the snow then, carrying a small square of folded linen. Cole Coachman took the pack from her hands. He made quick work of unfolding the linen and offering to Marcie what looked to be a chip of hard candy.
“It is ginger root,” he assured her. “It will help settle your stomach. Now be a good miss and open your mouth.”
Marcie did as he instructed, all the while keeping her gaze locked with his. She felt the smoothness of his gloved fingers as he placed the chip of ginger root between her lips, then brushed those same fingers across her cheek and down her jawline. All thoughts of ever again being sick quickly fled. Heavens, but she found herself quite mesmerized by the man’s touch, his nearness, his grin.
Ginger root or not, she was feeling much better. Quite alive, in fact. And far too aware of the man’s presence.
“Think you can stand up now?” asked Cole Coachman.
His question forced Marcie out of her trancelike state. Blast! she thought, but she was acting like some moon-eyed schoolgirl. What a ninnyhammer she was being to think that the coachman’s haunting grin might be a prelude to some sort of courtship. As Nan had stated, Cole Coachman had many admirers… and perhaps several lovers as well. As for Marcie, though she was an heiress in her own right, she remained at heart a wild West Country girl, innocent of the ways of roguish coachmen who kept a mistress at every post. For Marcie to fashion any romantic notions out of this bizarre meeting was nothing but pure follyâeven if he was the first gentleman she’d spied on Saint Valentine’s Day.
Marcie chewed on the ginger root even as she pulled away from the man’s heated embrace and got to her feet. “I am quite ready to continue our travels,” she announced, “that is, if you are not averse to my joining you.”
Marcie fully expected the coachman to inform her he would deposit her at the nearest inn, all else be damned.
Thank goodness, he did no such thing.
Instead, he stood up, brushed the snow from his coat, then gave her a grinâone that instantly dazzled her. “My team awaits,” he said, indicating the coach and its horses with one sweep of his right arm.
Marcie couldn’t help but smile. For the first time since her father’s death, all seemed right in the world. She lifted her skirts and headed for the coach, all the while thinking her madcap dash from Mistress Cheltenham’s School for Young Ladies was indeed shaping up to be nothing short of a smashing success. How easy it had been!
Marcie was feeling quite pleased with herself as Cole Coachman moved beside her to help her alight into the carriage.
Of a sudden, though, there came to her ears a terrible screech of fast-moving wheels. She looked up to behold a private carriage rounding the bendâand heading straight for their stilled coach.
“Lord have mercy!” screeched a wide-eyed Nan.
“God save us!” added the guard, Reeve.
“Oh, bother,” muttered Cole Coachman.
He expertly grabbed for Marcie, yanking her out of harm’s way. But Marcie, sensing danger, had already commenced to jump back. The two of them crashed into each other, the combined momentum of their movements throwing them off balance.
Marcie found herself tumbling backward in the snow, Cole Coachman beneath her. There came the horrid sounds of horses nickering in fright and carriage wheels screeching to a halt on the icy roadway as Marcie and Cole Coachman hit solid ground and began to roll.
“Oof!”
Marcie wasn’t certain if that sound came from Cole Coachman’s lips, or her own. No doubt from both of them, she surmised, for they tumbled against a stout tree trunk, Cole hitting first, and Marcie following to land with a thump against his solid form.
“Oh, heavens!” Marcie said, trying to disentangle her limbs from his. “I am sorry. You are not hurt, are you?”
Her skirts were woefully tangled with his legs. And her left hand was pressing against a part of his anatomy no lady would ever in her right mind even think about. Marcie felt her face redden as she struggled frantically to be free.
Cole Coachman swore in exasperation. “Just stay still, will you?” he demanded.
Marcie, however, was far too embarrassed to stay put. She jumped up, backed against the tree, and in doing so managed to jar a clump of snow from the branches above. The clump came down with a kerplop atop Cole Coachman’s head, causing him to look like a half finished snowman.
Unfortunately for Marcie, she found she had a hysterical desire to giggle.
Cole Coachman said nothing for a full minute; time enough for Marcie to discern the stormy orbs of his eyes amidst all that wet, clinging snow.
Oh, my, she thought, but she’d be fortunate if the man didn’t see her strung by her toes before the night was finished!
Marcie, her urge to giggle sufficiently suppressed, immediately dropped to her knees and tried to brush the snow from him.
“Really, sir,” she said in a most serious tone, “but you should have known better than to roll us into this tree.”
He glared at her through a fringe of snow. “I can only pray you will forgive me,” he managed through gritted teeth.
“Well of course I shall, butâ”
Marcie’s words stuck in her throat as she glanced up to spy a carriage listing dangerously to the opposite side of the roadway and implanted firmly in a snow bank there. The driver, obviously uninjured, was hopping mad and spouting a stream of expletives. He demanded to know what caused a Mail coach to be stopped in the middle of such an oft-used roadway, then yelled for a meeting with the coachman of the carriage.
“Oh, dear,” whispered Marcie to Cole Coachman. “I fear the man wants your head upon a platter.”
“My head?” sputtered Cole Coachman. “My head?”
Marcie blinked and sat back on her heels.
“Well, yes, yours,” she said, quite perplexed at his quicksilver moods. “You did, after all, leave your carriage in a most inconvenient spot.”
Why the man let forth a clearly long-held breath of frustration, Marcie could not fathom. Cole Coachman, she surmised, could be deuced temperamental!
Chapter 3
Cole Coachman righted himself, then peered at Marcie intently. “You are all right, aren’t you?” he all but barked at her. “No broken bones? No scraped knees?”
“Only my pride has been wounded,” Marcie answered, noting the anger in his wintry gaze.
In truth, his knee had slammed against her ankle during their tumble and Marcie feared she would have quite a goose egg on it before too long. But she would rather walk barefoot on a bed of nails than admit this to the angry Cole Coachman. She’d done quite enough damage for one night.
In any event, he was turning away from her and heading for the livid driver. The two met in the middle of the road, whereupon they engaged in a heated conversation for several minutes.
Marcie moved toward Nan and John Reeve.
“This is all my fault,” she said.
No one bothered to argue that point.
Marcie swallowed her embarrassment, then continued, “I see no reason why Cole Coachman should be forced to have his ears bent by the driver when, in fact, it was my stupidity that brought us to this unfortunate incident.”
“Don’t you worry about Cole Coachman, mistress,” said John Reeve. “He can hold his own, he can, with any driver along these roads.”
Nan nodded in agreement.
“Still,” Marcie replied, “he should not be expected to take a scolding on my account.”
With that, Marcie headed for Cole Coachman and the sputtering driver. The expletives that streamed from the portly man’s mouth were enough to make Marcie’s ears burn.
“How very rude!” Marcie admonishe
d.
Both Cole Coachman and the driver turned to gape at her; the pot-bellied driver with a look of murderous intent, Cole Coachman with barely concealed agitation.
“I have things well in hand,” said Cole Coachman.
Marcie chose to ignore his warning, instead fixing her sights on the disheveled driver who could doubtless turn the air blue with his broad knowledge of gutter talk.
“You sir,” she said, “have no right whatsoever to speak to this fine coachman in such a crude fashion. I take total responsibility for this most unfortunate accident. I am the reason Cole Coachman stopped his coach so suddenly. And it is because of me that he ignored his precious cargo and tarried too long near this dangerous turn.”
The gap-toothed driver tipped back his broad-brimmed hat even as he spat a stream of tobacco juice down onto the snowy road. He eyed her but good.
“So she be the one, eh, mate?” he demanded.
“The one and only,” said Cole Coachman.
Cole Coachman spoke the words through gritted teeth, Marcie noted, but why he should do so was quite beyond her. She’d only come to his aid, after all. There was no need for him to be so stiff-lipped, nor for him to peer at her as though he wished she were in any other country but the one in which he stood. Heavens, but the man was temperamental; fussing over her welfare one minute, then chilling her with his gray and piercing gaze the next. There was no accounting for some people’s moods! she thought.
Marcie straightened her shoulders, focusing her attention on the problem at hand, and on the ugly-voiced driver standing before her.
“Do rest assured that I have every intention of compensating you for any and all repairs to your carriage,” she announced.
“Is that right,” said the driver, his eyes narrowing.
“That is exactly right,” replied Marcie, clicking off the name and address of her sterling solicitor in London.
The driver guffawed.
Cole Coachman muttered something Marcie couldn’t quite make out.
“What!” she hotly demanded, even as Cole Coachman took her by the arm and led her a step or two away from the driver. “I see nothing humorous in my solicitor’s name and address. What is all this fuss about?”
“Pipe down, will you?” Cole Coachman demanded. “And for once and for all, cease prattling on as though you are some miss of means with more gold than you know what to do with.”
“But I am!” sputtered Marcie.
“Ha,” rejoined the driver, obviously listening in on their private chat. “And I be the next King of England.” He laughed at his own joke.
Marcie glared around Cole Coachman’s muscled bulk, staring daggers at the rotund and very obnoxious driver.
“What an impertinent little man he is,” she said.
“And what a spinner of tales you are,” Cole Coachman muttered. “Are you mad to make such promises? Why, he’ll hunt you downâand the next generation of your family as wellâif indeed you do not make good on your ridiculous promise of compensation.”
“But I shall repay him,” Marcie insisted. “And rest assured I have the means to do so. I am the daughter ofâ”
Marcie never got a chance to finish her sentence.
Suddenly, the door of the toppled coach banged open and a woman, garbed in watered silks and bundled against the cold in a stunning, fox fur carriage rug she’d wrapped about her shoulders, stood framed in the portal of the oddly pitched coach. Her hair was golden-hued and tumbled down in comely ringlets to rest in a tousled mass against the folds of her velvet pelisse. Her eyes were cobalt blue, her pouty lips red as sun-kissed cherries.
“Harry!” screeched she. “Have you left me for dead, you dim-witted fool?”
The fat little driver stiffened in obvious fear. “Good golly,” he squeaked, eyes round and filled with dread. “I done forgot Miss Deirdre!”
He jammed a finger between his lips, digging out an alarming amount of tobacco, flicked the wad to the ground, then spun round to face his beautiful but very indignant mistress.
Marcie might have laughed at the comical sight but for the fact that Cole Coachman was staring with rapt attention at the stunning lady perched precariously in the doorway of the near-overturned coach.
“You might close your mouth,” Marcie suggested to Cole Coachman.
He obviously hadn’t heard a word she’d said. Indeed, he seemed to have forgotten her presence entirely.
Marcie frowned.
There came a flurry of excitement from the portly driver as he bustled toward the lady, took great pains to help her alight, then even stooped to brush the clinging snow from her hems. Marcie wondered why the man didn’t also drop to his knees and pay homage to his golden goddess.
“Harry, you little idiot,” chided the woman. “Why ever did you leave me to bump my head and then wonder if indeed I’d died and gone to hâ”
The woman stopped sputtering the moment she laid eyes on the form of Cole Coachman. Suddenly, her screeching turned to a purr.
“Why, Harry, my good driver, how very remiss of you not to inform me we’ve tumbled across such a handsome gentleman.”
Harry tugged at the collar of his too-tight coat. “He ain’t no gentleman,” Harry spat. “He be the driver of that there Mail coach. And his missus be the reason I ran yer coach into the bank, Miss Deirdre.”
Marcie fully expected Miss Deirdre to turn on both Cole Coachman and herself with talons bared. But the wily lady did no such thing. Instead, she gave Cole Coachman a melting smile, all the while ignoring Marcie.
“My good man,” purred Miss Deirdre, moving toward Cole Coachman with an obviously affected gait filled with feminine wiles. “You must forgive my driver for his slow reactions. We did not startle you, I hope. And I can only pray we did not do you, nor your horses or cargo, any harm.”
Marcie found herself becoming physically ill again as Cole Coachman nearly turned to so much mash in his fine boots. The woman was obviously nothing more than a skilled strumpet. Why in the blazes didn’t Cole Coachman recognize that fact?
Marcie fumed as she watched Cole Coachman bend over the woman’s outstretched hand, then place a beseeching kiss atop her fine-gloved fingers. A lock of his dark hair tumbled down across his handsome brow as he righted himself and gave the woman a heartfelt smile.
The woman blushed.
Cole Coachman preened.
Marcie wanted to gag.
The next few moments were near impossible for Marcie to bear as Cole Coachman made a complete cake of himself, profusely apologizing to the lady, offering her any assistance he could, and even going so far as to stating he would whisk her not to the nearest inn, but to her appointed destination.
Too bad for Marcie that the lady’s destination was none other than the inn at Burford.
Marcie found herself left forlornly alone in the middle of the road as Miss Deirdre tucked her gloved hand into the crook of Cole Coachman’s arm and allowed him to lead her to his Mail coach. The lady then ordered her portly driver to remain with her “beloved horses” while she, in Cole Coachman’s very capable hands, traveled onward to the nearest inn, at which point help would be alerted and sent to the driver’s aid. There remained only the monumental task of transferring the lady’s needed luggage onto the coach.
And what a mountain of luggage it proved to be! Even John Reeve was pressed into service by the suddenly moon-eyed Cole Coachman.
Marcie felt a moment’s pique, watching as the two men restrapped wine barrels, rearranged game and bandboxes in order to make way for the lady’s excessive need for space. They certainly hadn’t gone to such fuss when confronted earlier with Marcie’s single portmanteau!
To Marcie’s further dismay, Miss Deirdre took up an entire seat within the coach for herself, leaving Nan crowded against the opposite squabs, and leaving Marcie with no seat at all.
Marcie gnashed her teeth, deciding she’d rather walk to Burford than be forced to inquire if Miss Deirdre would deign to scoot
over an inch or two to make room for her.
Nan, comfortably squashed between hat boxes and having, to her obvious glee, found a box of sweetmeats with which to content her ravenous appetite, frowned when she spied Marcie peering into the coach.
“Oh, Marcie, I dareswear there is not a bit of extra room in here,” she said between mouthfuls. “Mayhap you could ride on the hind boot with Reeve. Or better still, on the bench with Cole. You always told me how you adored riding into the wind while in the West Country. Just think, you could have your fill of wind this night!”
Miss Deirdre, lounging against the squabs in all her silks and furs, cast a cursory glance in Marcie’s direction.
“You are a West Country girl?” asked she. “How quaint. And how marvelous that you will find the snow and wind to your liking. I, for one, would near perish should I be forced to endure this foul weather for overly long.”
Marcie deduced the overly scented she-wolf would no doubt perish should she get so much as a toe chilled.
Nan passed the lady some sweetmeats. “I’ve some bonbons, too, if you like.”
“Bonbons? Oh, how I adore bonbons!”
Marcie felt her stomach turn topsy-turvy. There was absolutely no way she would climb into the coach and suffer the sightâor smellâof sweetmeats, let alone bonbons.
“I shall ride on the hind boot,” Marcie announced, willing to brave the elements. Anything would be preferable to spending time in a confined space with bonbons and the too-pampered Miss Deirdre.
Marcie closed the door of the coach. With her head held high, she headed for the hind boot.
“What the deuce are you doing now?” demanded Cole Coachman.
Marcie spun round, quite surprised to find the man trailing her. She had assumed he’d forgotten her presence in all the activity.
“I am merely finding a place to roost on this stuffed coach of yours,” she told him.
“Then why the devil don’t you climb inside and find a seat?”
Marcie blinked at his harsh tone.
“I’ll thank you not to speak to me in such a fashion,” she snapped back.
“And I,” ground out Cole Coachman, clearly itching to be on his way, “would thank you to get to the point.”
Miss Marcie's Mischief (To Woo an Heiress, Book 2) Page 3