Miss Marcie's Mischief (18 page)

Also, there was the matter of a certain heiress whom he was destined to become acquainted with at the home of Penelope Barrington. His sisters-in-law, surprisingly enough, were in unanimous agreement that Cole should meet this heiress and eventually marry her. The fact that they were suddenly pushing him toward marriage was quite puzzling to Cole; in the event he didn't marry, their children would each stand to inherit staggering sums. But suddenly, his sisters-in-law were preoccupied with the fact that Cole had not taken a fancy to the pretty ladies of the ton. That they'd come to agree on a wealthy Cit's daughter as his chosen intended was more than a little suspect.

What possible motive had they for doing such a thing? He knew not. Unless, of course, his sisters-in-law were truly concerned with his happiness. Could it be possible their matchmaking attempt was a generous and purely unselfish act? The more Cole thought about it, the more he knew it to be true.

Cole knew now he must at least make an appearance at Penelope's party. Though he vowed to be rid of the Cit heiress as soon as possible—since all the heiresses he'd met thus far had been unutterably hen-witted and spoilt and no one would be able to hold a candle to Marcie—he would at least show his sisters-in-law his respect by attending Penelope's Saint Valentine's Day ball.

With all this in mind, Cole reluctantly owned up to the fact that a future with his Mistress Mischief was not to be. She was enjoying her first taste of freedom. No doubt she would be fast and far away by the time he made his required appearance at Penelope's estate.

Cole sighed.

"I suppose I should lead you back inside," he said. "You'll want to warm yourself by the hearth before we again begin our journey. And I must help the others free my coach."

"Yes," she said.

Was that sadness he perceived in those bewitching eyes of hers? Surely it couldn't be. What had she to be forlorn about? She was almost to Burford, her grand escape from boarding school nearly a success. No doubt she was just tired. They'd traveled many miles in a very short time. Yes, she was tired. That was all.

Cole tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and led her back up the path to the vicarage. It was a walk he wished would have no end.

But end it did, and far too soon for Cole. They'd no sooner stepped inside the entrance than little Freddie, having come inside with the others, came racing down the hall, crying with delight and throwing herself into Marcie's arms. Marcie barely had time enough to shed her cloak—with Cole's assistance—than the girl was pulling Marcie along, begging her to share some of the fossils in her portmanteau.

Marcie laughed, and the light trill of her laughter near took Cole's breath away. Ah, but she was a delight to see, and to hear... and to kiss.

Cole stepped forward, ever concerned about Marcie's welfare. He got down on bent knees before little Freddie.

With a soft voice meant only for the child's ears, he said, "I hope you will not overly tire Miss Marcie. I know you are fond of her, and she of you, but she is tired from her journey. I am worried about her. May I rely upon you to see that she rests while I and the others head out into the cold to free my coach? Will you do this for me, Freddie?"

That he'd gotten down on bent knees to speak to this tiny slip of a girl astonished Cole, and the fact that he was speaking to her so frankly was quite beyond his own belief. He had never, ever spoken to any of his nieces with such candor, and yet he felt very much at ease speaking thus to this little orphan. It was the magic of one Marcelon Victoria Darlington, to be sure, that made his hard heart thaw and open up to this smiling, beautiful girl.

Freddie beamed with delight. She grasped his face in her chubby little hands, drew her face close to his right ear, and whispered, "Oooh, I just knew you loved her. I knew it by the way you kissed her down at the bridge. Cupid has made you fall in love with Miss Marcie!"

Cole felt himself blush for the first time in his entire life. "Ahem," he muttered, quite taken by surprise. "Well now, that shall be our own secret, shall it not?"

"Oh, yes," she whispered.

Cole chucked her under the chin. His entire being was engulfed with a warm sensation as he got to his feet. He watched as Freddie commenced to drag Marcie down the hall, toward the portmanteau and the promised fossils. A part of him wished to join them while his saner half knew that he must cut all ties with Marcie, and the sooner the better. He had no place in her carefree world.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning, he found Miss Deirdre, looking resplendent in a fresh gown, her hair combed to a high sheen and pulled back into a comely cascade, leaning against him.

"You must help me, Cole Coachman," she said in a fast whisper. "I do believe I am in quite a fix!"

"Whatever is the matter?" asked Cole.

"I cannot possibly share my tale with you here. Come, we must find someplace private. The library will suffice."

And with that, Cole found himself bodily dragged into the library by the passionate Miss Deirdre.

* * *

Marcie, tripping down the hall behind little Freddie, glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Miss Deirdre, who looked too gorgeous for words, pressing her comely shape against Cole's side. The woman whispered something into the man's ear, and then, quite brazenly, thought Marcie, led him into a room just off the hall. The latch of the door fell firmly into place behind them.

Marcie's heart fell to the pit of her stomach with the sound. So, Cole had just been toying with her when he'd kissed her. What a fool she'd been to allow him such liberties! Oh, but surely he must have inwardly laughed at her unskilled and awkward attempt at returning his kiss!

Marcie's face burned with shame.

What a stupid, idiotic chit she'd been. The Cole Coachmans of the world would never find someone as green as her intriguing. They would toy with her, certainly, but they would never take her seriously... not when the likes of the worldly Miss Deirdre offered all a man could desire.

As Marcie and Freddie reached her portmanteau and began sorting through the fossils, searching for some that caught Freddie's fancy, Marcie felt the sting of bitter tears burn her eyes.

"Miss Marcie?" Little Freddie suddenly forgot the fossils. "You are crying. Why? Have I made you angry? Do you not wish to share your fossils with me?"

Marcie dashed the wetness from her eyes. "Oh, no, sweetheart, that is not it. Not at all."

"Then why are you crying?"

"I—I am just tired, I think. I'm so very tired." And cold, she thought. Her heart had frozen at the sight of Cole so easily trailing after the comely Miss Deirdre.

"Come," said little Freddie softly. "I know a very special place where you can rest."

Marcie, her thoughts with Cole and Miss Deirdre, blindly followed little Freddie along a maze of hallways and then up a steep set of back stairs that wound round and round. She felt as though she were climbing up into a dark, solitary place. Marcie didn't care. She only wanted to get far away from the place where Cole and Miss Deirdre were no doubt locked in each other's embrace.

* * *

Cole stumbled into an unlit room.

"Such a web I've made for myself!" Miss Deirdre wailed once she latched the door behind him. "You must help me, Cole!"

"Oh, bother," muttered Cole, having slammed his left knee into something hard and ungiving. "Why the devil did you have to lead us into the darkest room of this monstrous place? Light a light, I beg you!"

Miss Deirdre clicked her tongue in exasperation, moving away from him even as she did so. Cole heard the swish of heavy drapes. He winced as daylight streamed inside the frosted windows.

"Much better," he muttered, looking down to see the object he'd smashed into was a wing-backed chair.

Miss Deirdre whirled away from the windows, facing him with all the calm of a coming hurricane.

"I have quite fallen in love with the wrong man!" she cried.

Cole blinked. Could she mean him? He hoped not.

Feeling guilty for having been so attentive to her during his run, he said: "There is something you should know about me, Miss Deirdre—"

"Please," she interrupted hastily, "but I haven't the wherewithal to deal with your confessions of undying love. I tell you, man, I am in a fix!
I am quite head over heels in love with your highwayman!"

Stunned, Cole could do nothing more than gape at her. "Wh—what did you say?" he asked, not able to believe the words she'd just uttered.

"I know, I know," Miss Deirdre said, pacing the floor. "You thought me to be quite enamored of you... and I
was,
to a point. But then I met Jack."

"Jack?"

"Yes. Jack. Do keep your voice down! I shouldn't want word of this getting around. Not, that is, until I wish it to be known. Oh, Cole, whatever shall I
do?"

Cole plunked himself down into the wing-backed chair, getting a nose full of dust for his troubles. He began to laugh.

"I find nothing amusing in all of this!" Miss Deirdre cried. "How dare you laugh at me! I'll have you know I have been mistress to the Regent himself! Indeed Prinny is expecting me to grace his bed again very soon! But the fact is, I find him quite dull—heaven help me for admitting this—in comparison to our wonderfully unkempt but manly highwayman!"

Laughing all the more, Cole threw back his head.

Miss Deirdre stamped one foot on the floor. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "What would a lowly coachman know of such things! I don't know why I ever bothered to let you in on my secret."

Cole sobered somewhat. "Perhaps," he said, "it is because I am not a lowly coachman but rather the Marquis of Sherringham. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Cole Charles Edward Sherringham, known to the ton as Sherry... and known along the road as simply Cole Coachman."

"Say it isn't so!" exclaimed Miss Deirdre.

"Ah, but it is," he said. He lifted one eyebrow toward her. "I, too, am in a fix, Miss Deirdre."

"You? How so? Obviously, you've coin and prestige enough to dig yourself out of any coil."

"Not by far, for, you see, this coil has to do with a woman... and my heart."

"Ah," whispered Miss Deirdre, enlightened. "You mean Marcie."

"Yes. Marcie."

"You have taken a fancy to her?"

"It goes deeper than that, I am afraid."

"You are in love with her."

"I wouldn't know, exactly. I have never been in love with a woman before."

"I find that difficult to believe. I have heard of you, Sherry... er, Cole... er, my lord—"

"Let us keep things simple, shall we? Call me Cole and be done with it."

She nodded. "You are considered quite a catch among the ladies of the ton, Cole. Surely, you have fallen in love a time or two."

"'Twas only lust I'd fallen into in the past. But with Marcie, everything is different. All things are new and fresh and exciting, and—bother it all, but I cannot articulate all she makes me feel."

"I think you just have."

Cole blew out an exasperated sigh. "It matters not a whit," he said. "The miss has her sights set on reaching Burford, at which point she fully intends to embark on a life of unfettered freedom. No doubt she would balk at becoming my wife and forced to endure the insufferable hectic social whirl I took to the roads to escape."

"Yes," sighed Miss Deirdre, staring off into a dark corner of the room. "My Jack seems to like his freedom as well."

The two of them fell silent, stewing in their own miserable thoughts. Miss Deirdre commenced pacing back and forth in front of the windows, while Cole stared at his booted toes as though the answer to his predicament might suddenly appear there.

"I have it!" exclaimed Miss Deirdre suddenly.

"Have what?" Cole demanded, startled by her loud exclamation.

"A plan, of course!"

"Of course. Do tell," he said. "I am all ears." Fact was, he hadn't any plans of his own short of tearing through the vicarage in search of Marcie and then throwing himself—and his undying love—at her pretty feet. Not a very imaginative plot, to be sure. And one, certainly, that would leave him to lick his wounds in private once his mischievous miss learned of his title and that he wasn't a true monarch of the road.

Miss Deirdre tapped one long-nailed finger against her lovely chin. "All our troubles would be solved if only we had a Cupid in our midst," she said thoughtfully. "The only question remains, whom shall we choose to play Cupid?"

"I haven't a clue," said Cole, though thoughts of little Freddie, who believed in Cupids and arrows of love, tripped through his brain. But no. He'd not stoop to using a young orphan to do his bidding.

"The answer is simple," said Miss Deirdre. "I shall be your Cupid, and you, Cole, shall be mine!"

"What the devil are you proposing?"

"A very simple thing, actually. You need only become a tick in Jack's ear. Sway him in my direction. That is all I need; I assure you I can handle things from that point on. As for your Marcie, I shall sing your praises to her. I'll have her realizing that any day not spent with you would be an utter bore. Oh! Do you not think it a wonderful idea?"