Free Elisabeth Fairchild by The Counterfeit Coachman Page B

of his eye socket and onto the rocks.
    Oblivious to the stir, Charley said, “What an unexpected gem!”
    Nell released her aunt and slipped back down into the dark water’s obscurity.
    Beau, who held his breath, let it out in a deep, gusty sigh, and lowered his glass with shaking fingers. He knew that body. His hands held the memory of those curves. “A remarkable young woman, Miss Quinby,” he said reverently, and there was something heartfelt in his tone, that drew his friend’s attention.
    “Quinby? Not the same Quinby your sister was dragging about London?”
    “No,” Beau said absent-mindedly, feeling dazed. “That‘s her sister, Aurora, the beauty of the family.”
    “The beauty! Good God, Beau, she must be something head and shoulders above the ordinary! Perhaps Beatrix is right, and you should allow yourself the pleasure of being introduced.”
    Beau shook his head. “If I’m to further my a-a-acquaintance with any Quinby, ’twill be this one.”
    “What!” Charley sat up abruptly. “Damn it man! What happened on the mail down from Godstone? You must tell me.”
    Beau flicked his friend a sideways glance. “I should think that obvious, Charley. The coachman became in-infatuated with one of his passengers.”
     
    Nell stepped down out of the bathing box, reclothed, refreshed and reminded of a gentleman who occupied her thoughts all too frequently of late, in tying her simple bonnet over damply trailing hair. She really must make an effort to forget Mr. Ferd. Chances were, they would never cross paths again. And, it was probably best that they did not. It would not please her family in the least should she become infatuated with a common coachman, no matter that he was in no way common in her estimation.
    As she sorted through such thoughts, she spotted Boots, the piebald horse she had spent so much time describing to Mr. Ferd. Still the mild, wide-shouldered, broad-backed beast of her memory, with shaggy mane and shaggier tail, Boots had become bony and thin, a horse so aged in the space of so little time, that Nell found it difficult to believe that he was indeed the same beast. The farrier who had purchased their carthorse had assured her that her old friend would go to someone with light labor needs. Nell did not concur with the idea that as sole bearer of a heavy bathing box, which must be dragged out over the rocky shore, time and again throughout the day, Boots had been honestly done by.
    She did not stop to think that she made a spectacle of herself. She just ran, in a rather headlong fashion, considering the rocky condition of the beach, calling, “Boots, Boots old lad. What have they done to you?”
    Behind her, Ursula picked her way more carefully, urging, “Slow down Fanella, or you shall most certainly break your neck.”
    Brown eye milky with cataracts, Boots could not see her well, but recognizing her voice, he veered away from the straight path he had been picking into the shore. His waywardness earned him an oath and a crack of the whip across his haunches.
    “Do not whip him on my account,” Nell cried.
    The driver did not argue, only sat open-mouthed as Nell flung her arms around his horse’s neck, as the old nag came to a decisive stop some ten yards shy of where he was supposed to. The driver may have been unable to think of anything to say or do, not so the dipper, who strode around the side of the wagon, come down from her perch on the steps.
    “What’s the meaning of this?” she demanded, and as she could clearly see for herself why the horse had stopped, she strode up to Fanella just as Ursula Dunn huffed onto the scene.
    “Leave off, girlie.” The dipper said stoutly to Nell, her browned and muscular hands planted on swaddled hips. “I’ve customers waiting."
    “What is the meaning of this, Fanella?" Ursula croaked.
    Nell looked up at the dipper so fiercely that the woman fell back a step. “Only look at this poor animal’s hooves,” she insisted. “They are