Free Miss Marcie's Mischief by Lindsay Randall Page A

question, if you please."
    "And what question was that?"
    Marcie gnashed teeth. "Are you angry with me, or not?"
    "Would it matter if I were?" he asked, still not looking her in the eye.
    "Perhaps," said Marcie. Definitely, she thought.
    He blew out a long sigh, guiding the coach over a frozen bridge and onto a narrowed lane.
    "No, I am not angry," he finally answered. "Though I should warn you to take more care when dealing with ruffians. That highwayman," he muttered, motioning with a nod of his head to the sleeping man behind them, "could have murdered you. I am of the opinion you run pell-mell into every encounter. That is not a very wise thing to do."
    "I have never been one to sit back and allow others to chart my course."
    "Obviously. But you are naught but a schoolgirl, mistress. And a runaway one at that. Someone must take you to task lest you leap out of the frying pan into the fire."
    Marcie felt herself stiffen with anger. "And I suppose you'll next announce that you deem yourself to be that person."
    "Little though I like it, yes. The world can be a dangerous place for a schoolgirl on her own."
    "I might have been a schoolgirl in London, but we are not in London now. I've left that life behind me, sir. I have no need for a champion, nor even a chaperone, and I take offense that you believe otherwise. I am not as addle-brained as you paint me!"
    As she spoke, they turned into the courtyard of a very busy inn. There was much commotion to greet them, with other carriages, carts, barrows, and hackney coaches coming and going, ostlers and porters rushing here and there, and a swarm of sleepy-eyed folk hustling from one conveyance to the next.
    Cole Coachman was forced to keep his eye on the bustle surrounding them, as well as on the narrowed lane where he was being flagged to direct the coach. He hadn't a chance to reply to Marcie's heated words, nor did he have the chance to stop her before she scooped up her owl and jumped down off the bench once they'd come to a stop.
    Marcie was too angry to look back over her shoulder. So the man thought her to be a flighty schoolgirl, did he? Oooh, but he had made her very angry by saying she was too quick to rush into any situation! What did he know of her childhood, of her life? What did he know what it was like to lose one's parents too soon and be compelled to travel to a strange city to find, not a shimmering future, but instead a horrid schoolmistress and a decrepit schoolhouse filled with odious girls, who constantly teased and belittled her?
    Marcie's half-boots clacked atop the ice-encrusted boardwalk as she hastened toward the inn door. She had every intention of staying on at the inn until she could find another coach to transport her to Burford. To the devil with the Cole Coachmans of the world, she heatedly thought.
    "Thirty minutes!" Cole Coachman called after her; though even this was an outrageous amount of time for a Royal Mail coach to linger at an inn. "This coach leaves for Burford in exactly one half hour. If you are not on board, then we shall depart without you."
    Marcie lifted her chin, not looking back.
    Let him leave, she thought. She didn't care. The man was far too arrogant and assuming! She would fare far better by ignoring his demands.
    And so ignore them she did!
    * * *
    Cole watched in dismay as Marcie marched toward the inn door, head held high. She hadn't even so much as nodded at him. She'd just simply strutted away, with that damnable owl perched on her shoulder.
    What an insolent chit she could be.
    Not to mention rude.
    And obstinate!
    And lovely, he thought, watching as she wound her way through the patrons toward the door. The many traveling folk, both young and old, male and female, made way for her, either smiling or tipping their hats. No doubt it was Marcie's ingenuous smile that captured their interests.
    And it was that same smile, so sweet and pure, that had captured Cole's heart as well.
    "I'll be damned," Cole muttered to himself,