Not every encounter is deadly serious and not all love is meant to be.  The following scenario is intended as a light-hearted break from a group’s other activities and can be set in almost any major city.
The aroma of baking bread and flowers wafts past you as you stroll through the city streets only a few hours after dusk.  You see couples walking arm in arm past you as the strains of a beautiful singer streams from a tavern a few yards away.  The night’s tranquility is suddenly dashed apart by a gunshot.  It sounds like it came from only a street or two away.  Hurrying to the sound, you discover a four horse carriage overturned while the driver fights off two men while another carriage disappears into the night.  The carriage driver is unarmed and fairing poorly as blood stains his shirt where a bullet has struck him.  The men prove far less of a threat when facing more equitable foes and you make quick work of them.  Turning to their victim, you are shocked to discover that he is far older than you originally thought.  A man of almost fifty years, he is dressed in the black coat and pants of a professional coachman.   His face is handsome, but he bears the lines a man who has seen harsh times.  He shrugs off your hand of assistance, picks up a pistol from the ground and he strides up to the coach.  Lifting the seat of his bench, he pulls out a well worn sabre and quickly unsheathes it.  With one slice, he cuts the horses free and pulls himself up onto the first steed.  Turning to face you, you see renewed strength and vigor in his face.  His bearing now commands respect as he calls out to you.  “My thanks, my friends.  Without your aid, those rogues would have finished me.  I never had much skill with a pistol.  But now that I hold steel in my hand, it is a different matter.  Their companions stole my passenger and I mean to see her freed safely.  Will you aid me?”

The man’s name is Pierre du Paix, a retired cavalry sergeant who now works as an independent coach for hire.  His passenger is Duchess Rosamonde Sices du Sices, the young wife of a powerful nobleman.  All is not as it seems though.  Rosamonde’s husband is a very old man who wanted a trophy and cares nothing for her.  He drags her to party after party to show off the beauty that his wealth could purchase, though she would much prefer to remain home and garden or ride her horse.  When her husband joins his friends in the study to smoke cigars, she often ducks out of parties early and takes a hired carriage home rather than endure hours of pointless gossip.  During one such ride, she met Pierre who openly shared her passion for horses.  A friendship arose and then something more.  The two have been lovers now for over a month.  While she thought she was being discrete, her husband became suspicious when she began always taking the same hired coach home and returning disheveled at that.  He told his aide, Jean-Claude du Paix, to deal with the situation.  Jean-Claude hired some men and ambushed the carriage, planning to scare Rosamonde.  After overturning Pierre’s carriage, he grabbed Rosamonde and is now taking her home, wearing a mask and escorted by a group of his hired thugs.  Pierre doesn’t know that and wants to rescue his lady love.  If asked, Pierre admits that he was shot by his own pistol while struggling with one of the men.

After a short chase, the party should catch up to the other coach and stop it.  The thugs, who are hanging onto the sides of the coach, will split up to engage the entire party while Jean-Claude will leap down from the driver’s seat and focus on the most able fighter.  Pierre will fight with Jean-Claude or the thugs whichever is more convenient.

During the fight, an errant sword slice cuts across the man’s black mask which flutters to the ground.  An elderly woman wearing an elegant gown just stepping down from the coach, will gasp at the sight of him.  “Jean-Claude du Paix!  What are doing here?”

“Protecting the reputation of your husband.  Did you think he wouldn’t notice your indiscretions?  He sent me to bring you home and give this rascal a proper reward for his behavior.”

At those words, Pierre will stop fighting and call out, “Milady?  We are discovered, come with me and be my love instead.”

She will look at him incredulously for a moment.  “Forsake my priveledge and station to live as a peasant’s mistress?  I think not.  I will simply need to be more careful.”  Glancing around at the entire party for a moment, she will nod to them with a rueful grin and declares, “Enough of this foolishness.  Good night to you all.”  Then she will take her seat within the carriage and Jean-Claude will bow respectfully to his opponent and retake the driver’s seat before resuming the ride home.