Page 154 of The Lord Meets His Lady
Thirty-eight
The coach jerked to a halt.
“Ladies, prepare yourself.” Mrs. Trumbull swiped fingerless gloves across fogged glass. “We’re about to be breached by a highwayman.”
The coach lurched sideways from four women pressing the windows for a better look.
Mrs. Featherton’s throaty laugh filled the tight confines. “He can breach my defenses anytime.”
She’d claimed to be a widow, traveling to London for a position as lady’s companion, but a heart-shaped patch on her cheek sent the wrong message. The flame-haired Mrs. Featherton fussed with travel-mashed curls, smiling archly at Mrs. Trumbull.
“Don’t they commit their crimes in packs? This one’s alone.”
“Really, Mrs. Featherton. Some decorum, please.”
“He looks…dangerous with his collar up, but he’s not waving a pistol at Mr. McGreevy. They’re talking. That’s a good sign.” So said Miss Patience Underwood, pushing her spectacles up the bridge of her nose. “And he has a bandage around his head.”
“Could be from a robbery gone awry,” Mrs. Underwood offered. “Sit back, Patience. No need to put yourself on display.”
Squashed in the far corner, Genevieve breathed easier. She had no interest in the goings-on outside. The sooner the coach moved on, the better. Hugging her cloak about her, she closed her eyes, feigning sleep.
The door clicked open. “Miss Turner, there’s a man out here says he’s your husband.”
A gasp followed skirts rustling and shoes scraping the floor. Behind her eyelids, pitch-black privacy lightened to dark umber. Someone thrust a lamp at her face.
“I’m not married.” Eyes opened, she held up her hand to block the glare. “Mr. McGreevy, if you please. The lamp.”
“He looks like the nice gentleman who fixed the coach brace back on Devil’s Causeway not long ago. You were there.” Cottony wisps of hair stuck out from the coachman’s head. “If ye’d be so kind as to speak to him. I’m not given to harboring runaway wives. I’m a God-fearing man, I am, married forty years meself.”
Mrs. Underwood’s cautionary stare swept from her daughter to Genevieve.Learn from that woman’s egregious ways.
Genevieve smiled, a bland effort, but she made the best of it since she was stuck with these ladies all the way to London. “I’ll speak to the manclaimingto be my husband.”
She checked her appearance in the door window and smoothed the odd stray hair back into her hood. The glass reflected her hand’s tremor. Marcus was free. Why drag on their parting? She pushed past the coach door into darkness, her heels sinking in rain-softened earth.
Coach light spilled over familiar boots, stepping into the lamp’s glow. Black cocked hat pulled low, his collar flipped high, Lord Bowles huffed tiny clouds in winter air. Moonlight painted the angles of his face and the gleaming white bandage with its blood spot on his temple.
“Mrs. Trumbull thinks you’re a highwayman.” As greetings go, it lacked artfulness.
His head tipped a degree.
“You’re running away again,” he taunted.
Women whispered behind her. Door hinges creaked. The riders probably fought for the doorway…all the better to eavesdrop. Genevieve tried to speak, but nothing came—nor did he take pity on her mute struggle. No, her husband went for the jugular.
“You left our cottage, you left our horses…you left me.”
Our cottage? Our horses?
Marcus volleyed more shots in his gentle attack. “Humble though it is, it’s our family home. I’m laying my heart and my home at your feet. I don’t have much else to give.”
A tear pricked her eye. Family. Home. His heart. Oh, Marcus knew how to weaken her defenses. She blinked fast and stared at a sturdy stone fence lining the road. One red-gloved finger dabbed her eye, as if no more than one tear threatened to drop, rather than the torrent threatening to flow.
“You have much to give,” she managed. “But, milord…don’t you have another woman to pursue?”
“No,” he announced loud enough to entertain their audience. “Not when I love you.”
She sucked in a sharp breath, and a knot formed in her throat. “Don’t trifle with me.”
