Molly Read online

  Billy quickly recovered from his initial fright at the sight of the gun. “Don’t try to scare me, missy. You don’t know one end o’ that thing from the other.”

  Molly backed against the garden wall, as far away from Billy as she could get. Then she raised the rifle. There was a loud report and the candle went out. Billy realized with horror that she had neatly shot out the flame.

  “Still not convinced?” the dreadful girl went on.

  She saw in the bright moonlight a rusty can on top of a fence post in the adjoining field. Again that wicked-looking gun went up. Bang! And the can spun from the top of the post and fell to the grass. It was the shot of a true marksman.

  Billy was now well and truly frightened. The only things he ever read were penny dreadfuls, which regularly featured stories of the wild West, where people went around shooting their neighbors with simply horrible abandon. He realized with a shock that this girl was American, the spitting image of Deirdre of Dead Man’s Gulch in his latest story.

  “I’ll tell the perleece on you,” he whimpered.

  “Oh, no you won’t,” said Molly. “Or I’ll have you dragged off to court for blackmailing. And don’t dare even poke your ugly nose into that post office to buy a stamp. You’re a farm laborer, aren’t you? Well, just remember, I can pick you off as you work in the fields. Think of that, Master Billy. Think of it every time you bend over.”

  The unnatural girl gave an awful laugh.

  Billy cringed even more. “Look, missy, it was a bit of a joke, like. I never meant to do any harm.”

  “Starving an old lady out of her income is criminal,” said Molly. “Which reminds me. Get up those stairs and bring down any money you have, and if I think it’s not enough, I shall shoot you first in one knee cap and then in the other until you produce the goods.”

  Billy fled and returned, gasping and sweating, with a dirty tin box. There seemed to be quite a lot of money in it.

  “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “If I were you, Master Billy, I would find a job in some other town. You’ll get out of this town if you know what’s good for you. Now, skedaddle!”

  Billy needed no second bidding. That “get out of town” rang in his ears with a familiar sound. That was what Deirdre of Dead Man’s Gulch had said to the rustler. Sweating with fear, he climbed the stairs to his small attic to begin packing up his belongings.

  Mary and Molly walked off, triumphant. Mary was desperately trying to stifle a nervous fit of the giggles without much success. “Oh, did you see his face, Molly, when you shot out the candle? I felt almost sorry for him.”

  “I hate bullies,” said Molly roundly. “This is much more worthwhile than parading around in dresses and learning to speak as if we’ve got mouths full of rocks. And that reminds me—talking of bullies—we must do something about that dreadful nurse of Lord David’s. Soon as we get our allowance tomorrow, we’ll buy us some goodies suitable for an invalid and take them ’round. ’Course we won’t say anything to Lady Fanny. It is not at all the thing for a young lady to approach any gentleman to whom she has not been introduced,’” she mimicked.

  When they reached the post office, Mrs. Pomfret was waiting, trembling, on the kitchen doorstep. She could hardly believe her ears at their news. Billy leaving town! She would have given Molly all the recovered money if she could. But Molly would not hear of it.

  Mrs. Pomfret, she said, had supplied some excitement in this dead-alive hole.

  Molly wondered where she had heard that phrase before and then remembered the male nurse. Now, there was a bully worthy of Molly Maguire’s steel. She could hardly wait for the morrow.

  Lord David Manley was halfway down the brandy decanter and feeling no pain. He had returned that evening from a visit to the hospital in Southampton and his lungs had been pronounced in good shape. With great daring, he lit a forbidden cheroot and settled back in the chair.

  Now that he didn’t have to stay in it any longer, Hadsea didn’t seem such a bad place. Of course he had had to keep the usual matchmaking mamas and their damned invitations at bay. He had had, as usual, to cope with various county maidens whose bicycles, automobiles, or carriages had conveniently broken down outside his door. But that happened with boring regularity in London as well.

  It had been a long time since he had believed that a woman could love him for himself alone and not for his well—known fortune. As far as the fair sex was concerned, he thought cynically, it was easier to pay for one’s pleasures.

  But it was about time he set up his nursery. Lady Cynthia Whitworth would fill the bill admirably. She came from good old stock, was highly decorative, and acidulous and witty enough to retain a good deal of his tepid interest.

  She had sensibly pointed out to him that there was no point in getting wed if he had tuberculosis. This might have seemed cold-hearted to a less cynical man but the jaundiced Lord David found it an eminently practical point of view. He would write to her on the morrow and tell her his good news.

  In a fit of remorse for his previous ill-temper, he had given his servants the evening off and a small bonus each to go and drink to his restored health. Now he was simply enjoying the rare pleasure of getting comfortably drunk.

  A soft English twilight was visible through the open windows. The air was heavy with the scent of leaves and grass and flowers. Somewhere in the garden a nightingale sang and the leaves of the old trees on the dew-laden lawns rustled and whispered in the lightest of evening breezes. And he was a whole man again. His constant companion, the specter of death and disease, had fled.

  He stretched out his long, muscular legs, encased in an old pair of flannels, and breathed a sigh of pure contentment.

  The clanging of the doorbell jarred through the evening air like the obscenity that rose to Lord David’s lips. He waited for his butler to answer it and get rid of whoever it was and then realized that he had given the servants the night off. With another curse he got somewhat unsteadily to his feet and walked through the hall and jerked open the door.

  Two schoolgirls dressed in shabby plaid dresses and dowdy dark-brown felt hats stood looking at him in the failing light. One was holding a basket with a checkered cloth over it.

  They must be collecting for some local charity, he decided.

  “Come into the study,” he said abruptly and turned and walked away without looking to see if they were following him.

  He sat down at his desk and drew out his checkbook. He looked up. Both girls were standing in front of him, looking at him with unnerving wide-eyed stares.

  “How much?” said Lord David, his head bent over his checkbook, his pen poised.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” said the taller of the girls. Her voice had a transatlantic twang and Lord David looked up in surprise.

  “Haven’t you come to ask for a donation to something?” His light, pleasant voice was only slightly slurred.

  “We’ve come to see Lord David,” said the elder firmly. “We have brought him a basket of nourishing food because we heard he was ill. So if you will just announce us, my good man…”

  Lord David got to his feet, his face set in an unpleasant sneer.

  He realized that the girls were slightly older than he had first thought… about seventeen and eighteen, he judged. It seemed that not only was his privacy to be broken by the local debutantes but by the village maidens as well!

  “Very clever,” he said. “Very, very clever. Are you sure you haven’t sprained your ankles or something? The intrigues you young girls get up to in the hope of marrying a fortune amazes me. You will find the door still open. Close it behind you when you get out and take that basket of… of… codswallop with you.”

  “We demand to see Lord David,” said Molly haughtily. “I did not come here to bandy words with his male nurse.”

  “Male nurse!? You impertinent baggage!” said Lord David wrathfully. “Male nurse!? If you mean that mentally muscle-bound idiot my parents sent me, I sacked him weeks ago. I, dear girl,
am Lord David!”

  For one long minute the elder girl looked at him with those astonishing blue eyes.

  “Bully,” said Miss Molly Maguire, “for you. Because of your nasty common behavior, we thought you were the nurse. You, Lord David! You’re nothing but a nasty old cheese. I wouldn’t cross the street to help you if you were dying. If you’re an example of an English aristocrat—one of those yobs we’re supposed to marry—we’d be a damn sight better off with the boys in Brooklyn.”

  “Molly!” pleaded Mary, tugging at her arm, her large eyes filled with tears. But the sight of her little sister’s distress fanned the flames of Molly’s wrath.

  “As for money,” she went on, “we’re both stinking rich. If you’ve got girls running after you for your money, then take my advice and marry one of them. No girl is going to marry an ugly-looking cuss like you for any other reason.”

  “How dare you!” yelled Lord David.

  Picking up her basket and taking her young sister by the arm, Molly marched to the threshold and then turned and looked back to where Lord David stood smoldering behind his desk.

  “I shall find out where your parentslive,” grated Lord David, “and make sure that for your impertinence you both get the spanking you richly deserve.”

  The elder girl’s eyes raked over him with contempt, from his shabby flannels to his venerable blazer and open-necked shirt.

  “Aw! Stuff it, your lordship,” said Miss Molly Maguire.

  The door banged behind her with such force that the whole house shook.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Maguire sisters sat bolt upright in Lady Fanny’s open brougham. They could not in fact do anything else, since their new corsets had them strapped into a rigid position. Both were dressed in blonde lace tea gowns, Molly’s threaded with scarlet ribbon and Mary’s with blue. Both wore large picture hats embellished with fruit and roses. Their glossy hair had been put up for the first time.

  The girls had just completed their first social engagement, a garden party at the rectory, which Lady Fanny had felt would not be too demanding for their first occasion. Lady Fanny had developed a headache at the last moment so the girls had been sent on their own with a list of instructions. They were to confine their conversation to yes and no. Mary was not to slurp her tea or get crumbs on her dress. If pressed, they might converse about the weather. On no account must they ever mention that dreadful Maguire’s Leprechaun Dew. Let people assume their family fortune came from some respectable American business like railroads, or “Daddy made a killing on Wall Street.”

  The girls had followed her instructions to the letter. Both were feeling exhausted after the stifling discomfort of new clothes and new corsets. It had been pleasant, however, to receive the attentions of various young men. But now both longed to get home and change into something more comfortable.

  With their parasols held at exactly the correct angle, they clopped through the streets of Hadsea, pleasurably aware of the admiring attention of the townspeople.

  They were just on the outskirts of the town, when Molly’s sharp ears picked up the sounds of children crying. She called to the driver to stop. The sounds were coming from a small alley. At the far end a thick-set youth was twisting the arms of two smaller boys—twins, by the look of them—and to Molly’s horror, the tearful smaller children put their hands in their pockets and handed over a penny each to the older boy.

  “This place is crawling with bullies,” cried Molly. “Coachman. Go and punch that older boy’s head and give those little children their money back!”

  “It’s not my place to interfere, miss,” said the coachman, turning around with an impertinent grin on his face. “Boys will be boys, I allus say.”

  “Ooooh!” cried Molly in a rage. She jumped down from the carriage and marched up the alley.

  “Here, you,” she cried to the older boy. “What do you mean by taking money from these children?”

  The older boy looked at her, found he was the same size, and remarked in a cheeky whine, “Mind yer own business.”

  Molly looked down at the twins, who were regarding her with admiration. “What are your names, my dears?”

  “Please miss, I’m Bobby and that there’s me brother, Jim, and that big bully is Harry Petts. He’s always a-takin’ our pocket money, miss, and ’e says ’e’ll beat us if we tell Mum.”

  Molly turned and faced Harry Petts. “Give them their money back,” she ordered.

  The youth grinned, looked down the alley and noticed that the coachman was going to do nothing about it, and said, “And who’s going to make me?”

  “I am,” said Molly simply. “Put up your dukes.”

  Harry looked at her clenched fists and let out a guffaw. This was great sport. “Come on then,” he laughed, licking his thumb.

  Now, Molly had learned to fight the hard way in the playgrounds of Brooklyn, but for a moment she had forgotten the art, and a well-aimed punch from Harry landed right in her eye. Molly drew back and Harry laughed with glee, thinking she was going to turn and run.

  Memory flooded back. Molly’s hands were still hard and callused from housekeeping and shop work.

  Miss Molly Maguire brought a haymaker up from the ground and Harry Petts collapsed on the cobbles.

  “Good-oh!” cheered Mary, who had rushed up to help. “That showed him. Ain’t you the greatest, Molly.” Molly raised her arms in a triumphant boxer’s salute and then froze. Standing at the end of the alley and staring at her with amused interest was none other than Lord David Manley.

  Molly was suddenly aware that her hair was coming down at the back, that her hat was askew, and that, from the throbbing in her right eye, she was about to develop the shiner of all time.

  Lord David strode forward to meet her. Molly blinked slightly at the impact of his charming smile. His hand was outstretched.

  “By Jove, ma’am,” he cried. “That was a great hit!”

  To his surprise, the strange girl ignored his outstretched hand. “Did you just stand there watching like a great palooka?” she said scornfully. “Seems to me you Englishmen are a spineless lot. Here, boys!” The twins came running up like eager puppies and stared at their rescuer with worshipful admiration. Molly pulled out her purse and selected a few pennies. “Go buy yourselves some candy.”

  “Candy, miss?”

  “Allow me to translate,” said Lord David in a cold voice. He had recognized in the smartly dressed young lady the schoolgirl who had so freely insulted him in his own study. “The lady means sweeties.”

  “Oh, miss,” said Bobby. “Thanks ever so. If ’n ever you need help, miss, you just call on us.

  “I will, indeed,” laughed Molly, still ignoring Lord David. “Come, Mary.”

  Mary climbed into the carriage after her sister, her face averted from Lord David.

  Miss Molly Maguire leaned back in the carriage and unfurled her lacy parasol. Lord David was tall and, even though she was seated in the high-sprung open carriage, Molly saw through the lace of her parasol that Lord David’s tanned face was on a level with her own. She thought privately that he was looking very handsome indeed. His gray suit had been tailored by the hand of a master and his tall silk hat accentuated his height. She felt irrationally angry at the little twinge of attraction she suddenly experienced for this man. She lowered her parasol. She smiled sweetly at his lordship. In impeccable upper-class English accents Miss Molly Maguire said, “So long… buster!”

  The carriage bowled off, leaving Lord David staring after it.

  The twins took one look at his angry face and then down the alley to where Harry Petts was struggling to his feet and took to their heels.

  Harry Petts stumbled toward Lord David. “If I get me ’ands on ’er, I’ll wring ’er neck, that I will,” he was muttering. Lord David barred his way.

  “You obviously have not learned your lesson, laddie,” he said in his light, pleasant voice. “If I catch you bullying again, then you will have me to deal with.”


  Harry stared in awe at Lord David, from his polished boots to the top of his silk hat, and cringed back against the wall of the alley. Keeping his eyes fixed on his new adversary, he edged his shoulders around the corner, and then turned and ran as hard as he could.

  Lord David began to walk toward his home, following the direction that Molly’s carriage had taken. He was furious with that cheeky girl. How dare she! Who was this little upstart American who looked at London’s biggest marriage prize as if he were something lying in the gutter?

  It was just as well that he was shaking the dust of Hadsea from his polished heels. He need never see her again. Now… just why was that thought so depressing? Why should he calmly walk off and leave that cheeky girl to have the last word? He was well aware of his powers of attraction. Then he should have his revenge. He would have that little American trembling breathlessly in his arms before the month was out. But how to break down her guard? He needed an ally. Then he remembered Roderick, Marquess of Leamouth. Roddy, with his engaging ways, his mop of golden curls, and his Greek profile. Roddy, who could charm the heart of the most bitter dowager. That was it! Roddy would court the young one and he the older. And what girls in the whole of the British Empire could stand an onslaught like that?

  Several days of elocution lessons, dancing lessons, deportment lessons, and dress fittings had passed. The glorious sunset that was Molly’s eye was fading nicely.

  The next event on the girls’ social calendar seemed a simple one. They were to stand behind Lady Fanny on a makeshift platform in Hadsea High Street and watch her take the salute as the local Boy Scout troop marched past. Then when she handed prizes for merit to deserving boys, they were to hand her the appropriate books. Nothing could be simpler.

  The girls looked as cool and pretty as salads in organza dresses of palest green and large, shady straw hats bound with wide silk ribbons of the same color.

  Lady Fanny looked impressive in an afternoon suit of white raw silk that she had had designed especially for the occasion. It had military epaulets in gold and scarlet silk and the bosom of her long, straight jacket was embellished by crossed gold cords. Her long skirt, hobbled in the latest fashion, had seemed so divine on the models in the showroom but now seemed to be in danger of bursting at the seams under the pressure of Lady Fanny’s mannish strides.