Memoirs of a Hoyden Read Free Page A

with the pointed roofs.”
    I had noticed this feature during the latter part of the afternoon. “We’ll go to one of the farms if the gentlemen can’t recover the team.”
    “They’ll not catch Maggie and Belle. Them mares like their freedom too well. Pity it’s raining so hard.”
    Mr. Wideman and Reverend Cooke joined us, and the discussion turned on their loss. Mr. Wideman figured he had lost five guineas worth of toys, and the reverend lamented the loss of his book (i.e., pictures). In actual cash, he had lost only a couple of guineas.
    “How much did you lose, ma’am?” Cooke asked me.
    “I lost nothing,” I announced, and retrieved my reticule from behind the groom, where it had gotten wedged in below the squabs.
    “You’re lucky you had on your gloves, or they’d have pulled off that dandy ruby ring,” Wideman mentioned.
    “I have twenty-five guineas in my reticule, too,” I said, congratulating myself on its deliverance.
    “It’s strange they didn’t demand our watches,” Wideman said, massaging his generous chin. “I’ve lost two watches to the scamps.”
    “They didn’t seem to notice my reticule was missing either, but it’s my ruby ring, a present from Emir Beshyr, chief of the Druses, that I’m especially glad to have safe.”
    “Would it be amiss if I asked what a Christian lady was doing amidst such foreigners?” Wideman asked.
    I mentioned a few of my milder exploits, and at length Ronald and Lord Kestrel returned, empty-handed. “I knew how it would be,” the groom said, shaking his head. “They’ve bolted to Chatham on me.”
    “You might have told us, my good man, and saved us a highly uncomfortable slog through the mud,” Kestrel suggested, still bored.
    The rain hadn’t let up. As the carriage was full, the new arrivals stood at the door, with their heads in out of the wet. We discussed for a moment what was best to be done. Ronald spoke of walking to the closest farm and trying to borrow a team. The groom thought the closest place likely to have horses was three miles ahead.
    “It would take hours!” I pointed out. “The rest of you may do as you please, but I intend to walk to the closest house and seek refuge.”
    Without further ado, I had Ronald unfasten my small case from the top of the rig, put my pelisse over my head like a blanket to protect my bonnet, and was ready to go. The others grumbled themselves into agreement with my idea, and together the six of us lit out into the teaming rain, peering into the shadows for a sign of more attackers.
     

Chapter Two
     
    There are many sorts of people in the world, and the sort with whom Ronald and I had fallen into company were the sort who hug their misery to their breasts in silence. In vain did I urge our companions to sing, and alleviate the discomfort of plodding through the dark, wet night.
    “There is a season for all things, Miss Mathieson,” Reverend Cooke said, in a damping way.
    “And this is not the season for merry song,” Lord Kestrel added, rather conclusively.
    After an hour Mr. Wideman finally opened his lips. “I’m starved,” he muttered.
    “You can afford to lose a few pounds,” I told him. The man could drop two stone and be the better for it.
    “It’s perishing cold,” Reverend Cooke added half a mile later.
    “I’m soaked through” was Kestrel’s addition to the lament. “I fear Weston’s jacket is beyond repair.”
    Even Ronald turned pessimist on me. “I haven’t been this wet since we were shipwrecked off Rhodes,” he said.
    I said nothing, but as with our shipwreck, which endured eight hours, my own major concern was food. In a last effort to brighten the journey, I turned to the groom. “You must be our saice, our guide, sir. How much further do you figure we must go?”
    “A long ways yet” was his uninformative reply.
    The rain was so heavy that I felt it seeping through my pelisse to dampen my shoulders. The last thing I wanted was a feverish infection, with