Miss Marcie's Mischief Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 admonished.
    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,"