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fumbling fingers found the overturned satin box housing her jewelry collection, which she had not allowed Jem to pack atop the coach with the other baggage. The silken cord tying the box shut had broken loose, and Merry saw the glitter of semiprecious stones and gold strands flung about the coach from the corner of her eye. Mayhap the baubles could buy her and Jem a precious moment more of life, if not spare them altogether. Or … did she not have a brooch or two among the hoards? A brooch with a sharp pin …
    “Christ’s wounds!”
    Someone swore roundly, the voice very near, and Merry’s heart quickened its pace. She was afraid to move, lest the coach rock and betray the fact she was alive and relatively unhurt.
    The male voice continued, sounding young, agitated. “I never expected the idiot to drive off the main road, Hugo.”
    Merry heard a rather distant grunt in response, and surmised it must be the blond giant whose evil delight in their mischief-making pursuit had been apparent.
    “By all the bloody hounds of hell, what do we do now?”
    Merry might have laughed had her stays not dug painfully in her ribs with each breath and was she not so outraged and pensive. The uncertainty in the youth’s voice gave her pause, however, and faint cause for hope.
    She thought she heard a nearby splash of horses’ hooves through the thick mud. She heard a panicked shout as a pair of horses galloped off. She heard the younger man groan with what seemed either dread or resignation. For some reason she imagined him sitting forlornly on a tree stump, face buried in his hands.
    “Of all the cutty luck!”
    “Yet you do not seem surprised, Gil.”
    The second voice that spoke was deeper, and resonated with authority and a faint trace of wry humor. “Did you suppose I could not follow the wide swath of destruction and rampant rumor you and stout Hugo left throughout hill and dale?”
    “Nay.” Merry pictured the youth’s head hanging low. Certainly he sounded humble and contrite enough in the presence of … could it be his overlord?
    “Fortunately your ill-chosen friends decided not to toy with my temper today. We’ll talk later.” The one in charge switched to a brusque tone that suggested he was not used to being gainsaid. Immediately orders were given. “Hugo, see to the driver. Check for broken bones before you move him, and for God’s sake don’t forget your own brutish strength.”
    Expecting a bellow or sneer of rage at the crisply worded command, Merry was surprised to hear a respectful chorus of mutters instead from the two remaining men.
    “Aye, milord.”
    So a peer had come to her rescue. How apt. She relaxed, until she realized this man knew these fiends. If he associated with such lowlifes himself, perhaps he was of equally notorious character.
    She heard a sudden thump-thump, like a man stepping across the body of the upturned coach. Someone jiggled at the coach door directly above her, and she gasped. She prayed the lack of light might obscure her prone form, but she saw a hand reach through the window as the would-be intruder brushed the dangling curtains aside.
    At the same moment, Merry’s groping fingers encountered a smooth, cool, round object. The brooch. She closed her hand around it just as the door creaked open, then was flung wide.
    Light filtered down through the coach, pinning her as mercilessly as the pair of eyes she sensed above her.
    “Ochone!”
    The passionate exclamation surprised Merry. It was tinged with a Scottish burr, like the ones she had heard at Court.
    But the surprised remark did not take her off guard as much as the large hand suddenly thrust down at her. “Are you all right, milady?”
    Merry gazed up into a pair of dark eyes, the rich brown of newly turned earth and just as heady to her senses. Her throat felt suddenly tight as she looked at the man regarding her with equal scrutiny.
    He was dark as the youth, and quite as handsome, though in a much more rugged way.