Miss Marcie's Mischief (3 page)

"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 marriage—and 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 bore—from 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 neglect—for Saint Valentine's Day, at least—his 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 the 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 Sherringham—known along the road as the famous Cole Coachman—felt 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 boot—for he'd decided to use his bench for the two huge hat boxes he was transporting north to a very special female—shrugged 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 road—what 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.

"G—go 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 and—what was it?—oh, yes, bonbons."

The girl slapped one gloved hand over her mouth. "Oh," she groaned, "did you have to mention b—bonbons?"

"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 true—though, 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 yanks—and several coins paid to the son of the baker who lived next door to the boarding school—Marcie 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!

"I—I 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 shouting—but 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.

"I—I 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.