by Anne Gracie
"At once, Major Jack!" Carlos said hurriedly. His eyes glinting with private amusement, he turned back to Kate again. "It is certain that Major Jack can bear no more of your treatment today. Perhaps another time in the future. . ."
"Carlos!" There was no mistaking that tone.
"Si, si, Major Jack. Now, senorita, por favor." He ushered Kate rapidly out of the room and shut the door behind them.
Kate stopped on the landing. "I don't understand it at all," she said worriedly. “What I was doing should not have hurt him so much. He's not the sort of man who would complain of a little pain. His leg must be worse than I thought."
Carlos grinned down at her wickedly. “It was not his leg which was troubling him, senorita" he said meaningfully.
"What do you mean?"
Carlos shrugged. The English were so prudish about things such as this. She had brazenly entered Major Jack's bedroom and bared his leg without so much as a blush, so she was no innocent.
"Senorita Kate, it is a long time since the Major has been with a woman, and when you touched him. . ." He shrugged. "Well, he is a man, after all. . ."
Kate stared at him a moment, assimilating what he was telling her. Then a fiery blush surged up over her face and she was flooded with embarrassment. "Oh," she gasped, and fled.
Chapter Nine
For perhaps the twentieth time that evening Carlos glanced towards Kate with foreboding. The little mouse was behaving more like a cat tonight, pacing back and forth, clearly disturbed about something, and from the looks that she was casting towards the ceiling it concerned Major Jack.
Naturally. Carlos sighed gently. If she was touchy and moody, it was nothing to what his master had been. Ever since Major Jack had been unable to disguise his body's response to her.
Carlos shook his head. It was the simplest matter in the world. These English made such a fuss over things. So the Major was attracted to the little mouse. It would be something to be concerned about if he was not, in Carlos's opinion, for she had blossomed lately and was looking very pretty. But instead the Major must go to all lengths to avoid her, even having Carlos sneak around heating oils in secret, in case she found out he was continuing the massage treatment without her. Such foolishness.
Kate kicked one of the logs in the fire angrily, releasing a shower of sparks up into the chimney. How could he give up after only one attempt? she asked herself for the hundredth time. She was utterly convinced that massage would improve his leg, possibly even enable him to ride again.
Obviously he didn't have her faith. But to try it only once and then give up! Merely because he was affected by lust.
That was what was so upsetting. It was partly her fault— men were unable to control their baser natures, she'd been told. They took their lead from women, she'd been told. And she'd behaved so indelicately.
Assuring him she was not embarrassed to see his leg! Telling him she was no innocent! That she was well acquainted with the male form! No wonder he'd reacted as he had.
It was clearly eating away at him, for every evening since he had retired to the upstairs parlour and commenced to drink himself into oblivion. He even seemed to have given up on his morning attempts to ride.
Well, she would not stand for it any longer. There were two faces to guilt, she knew—it could fester inside a person, or it could be got rid of, by turning it outward, by turning it to anger. And a healthy dose of anger, Kate decided, was exactly what Mr Jack Carstairs was going to receive.
Carlos eyed the slender, pacing figure with misgiving. If she had a tail she would be lashing it. A wise man would hide himself discreetly away until the fireworks were over. Stealthily he rose. His movement caught Kate's eye. She stopped and turned towards him, decision and resolution in every inch of her. Carlos's heart sank. Too late, he thought mournfully.
“Carlos, come with me if you please. And bring that large bucket from the scullery." Dolefully he did so and followed her out of the room. She marched upstairs to Jack's private parlour. Carlos felt his hands growing damp. Surely she would know better than to disturb Major Jack at this time of night, when he would be in his blackest, bitterest mood—he would have consumed two bottles, maybe, by now. Ay de mi! It was madness.
* * *
Jack lay sprawled in a chair before the fire, a glass of brandy dangling perilously from his long, strong fingers. He gazed into the dancing flames, his eyes half-closed. Damn her. Damn her. Damn her! It had been so much easier before she had come into his life. So much easier. . .and so much duller. He should have forced her to go off with his grandmother.
She wouldn't have been here long enough to plague him, to provoke him, to insinuate herself into his. . .life.
She had no business being here, scrubbing his floors, cooking his meals, with no one to talk to in the evenings but a foolish old woman, a rascally Spanish groom, two illiterate farm girls and a crippled wreck. She should be in a ballroom, dressed in silk and satin, swirling round the floor as light as thistledown, engaging in light social badinage with a score of men hanging on her every word.
Six months! How would he ever stand it? It was hard enough to keep his hands off her as it was. She was like no woman he'd ever met. She'd been through so much. And yet, to look at her, see that fresh, sweet face, no one could believe she had spent three years at war, seen death, destruction, men at their worst, while in the process losing her entire family.
Curse her father! What the devil did he think he was about, taking a young girl into that hell-hole? Getting himself killed so that she had nobody to look after her, nobody to call her own. Jack lit a cheroot and puffed sullenly, brooding on the iniquities of the Reverend Mr Farleigh. His grandmother had said the damned fool had even refused to let Kate's grandparents settle money on Kate's mother. Stiff-necked bloody idiot. Pride was one thing—but to leave his daughter in such straits! Good thing he was dead, Jack thought, or he'd probably have throttled the man. . .
Dammit, his grandmother had no business leaving her here. She should be in London, finding herself a rich husband, some titled fellow who would pamper her and protect her for the rest of her life, who could give her all the fine things she had been denied. Any man should be grateful to win her. . . His mouth twisted at the unpalatable thought.
She was so damn naive. She had no idea what her touch had done to him that time when she was massaging him. She was so full of unconscious sensuality and unawakened passion. Would probably fall for the first handsome face she saw. The ton was infested with damned blackguards. He would have to speak to his grandmother about it. Make certain she protected her from the wrong type, make sure she chose well for little Kate.
He drained the glass, then carelessly refilled it, slopping brandy on to the fine polish of the table at his elbow. Whatever he did, he was going to have to get her out of his house and up to London soon, for, the Lord knew, he was having the devil's own job keeping away from her. And that simply would not do. She was too fine a person to get herself chained to a poverty-stricken, embittered cripple. Scrubbing his floors the rest of her life. He thought of those small, work-roughened hands. No. If it killed him, he would get her out of here and into a fine London drawing-room.
He drank deeply again, and his mood darkened, recalling each and every time he had touched her. His body responded even at the memory and his mouth curled cynically. He had to stop this, had to get her out of his mind and out of his fife. He was finished with women, finished with ladies anyway—even floor-scrubbing ladies with tender, beguiling eyes who smelt so sweet and fresh. They were a trap. Women thought differently from men.
Even the best of them wanted a man for what they could get.
He thought of Julia and the heavy bitterness rose inside him again. Was Kate any different? What would a penniless, homeless orphan want with him—a crippled wreck—an ugly, crippled wreck. . .? A home, perhaps? Even a run-down one like this might look good to a homeless waif. And, while he might consider himself poor, his
sort of poverty was relative; he would never be in danger of starvation—she had already experienced that, several times. No, he would never be in danger of having nowhere to go, no one to turn to.
He had a home, a family and he was his grandmother's heir. It didn't take a genius to realise that all of that would look good to a girl with nothing. And if the price was having to live with a broken-down ruin of a man, well, Kate was a girl full to overflowing with good Christian virtues—charity, selflessness, pity. . . Yes, it wasn't hard to see what Kate might see in him. A girl could put up with a lot for the sake of a home, security and family. . .
“Senorita,'' Carlos whispered tentatively. “I do not think this is a good idea."
Kate glanced at him scornfully. “No, naturally you would not," she snapped. "You are the one who purchases those bottles of poison he pours down his throat every night."
Carlos shrugged. "He is my master, after all."
“Well, if you had any concern for your master, you would refuse to do his bidding in this. Can you not see, he is destroying himself?" She stamped her foot. "Well, I won't have it! I am employed by his grandmother to see to his welfare and I will put a stop to this right now." She stepped towards the door.
"Senorita, I beg you, it is not a good time." Carlos grabbed her sleeve in desperation. "Please, wait until morning."
"By morning, he will have consumed a great deal more of that filthy stuff," she responded briskly. "Now, let go of me, Carlos." She flung open the door.
“Senorita, it is too dangerous to cross him when he is like this," Carlos hissed urgently.
"Coward!" Kate flung off his hand and strode boldly into the room. She lit a brace of candles from the flickering fire and, placing them on the carved wooden mantelpiece, turned to face Jack. He remained silent and motionless, the glittering eyes regarding her broodingly from under heavy dark brows. She noted the glass balanced carelessly between long, elegant fingers, the half-empty decanters on the low mahogany table by his chair, the splatters where he had spilled the liquor while pouring it with unsteady hands, the mess of half-smoked cheroots where he had stubbed them out in a particularly beautiful china bowl.
"Carlos," she said. "Bring the bucket here at once if you please."
Reluctantly, Carlos shuffled forward, irritating Kate by throwing a sheepish grimace of apology towards Jack as he did so.
"Hold it up," she ordered, and before Carlos or Jack had any idea of what she was planning she hurled the decanters and bottles into the bucket. The sound of smashing crystal echoed shockingly in the silence. With a sweeping movement she tossed in the cheroot stubs and ash and finally nipped the glass from out of Jack's hand and tossed it into the mess in the bucket.
"There, that's better," she said, brushing her hands together. "That will be all, Carlos."
"Madre de Dios! It will indeed," he mumbled, and fled the battlefield.
Kate took two steps back. Jack was beginning to recover from his astonishment, exhibiting all the signs of a man in the beginnings of the black throes of rage. Kate hid her satisfaction.
"What the devil do you think you're doing, woman?" he roared, rising from his chair and moving purposefully towards her.
"What I should have done a long time ago," she answered composedly, and skipped behind a chaise longue. Her heart was beating fast, but although she was a little nervous of what he might do to her in his drunken state she didn't think he would actually kill her, despite the fury in his eyes. And besides, there was something exhilarating about confronting him like this, just the two of them in the darkened room.
"You must know it is very bad for you to be up here like this, night after night, brooding and being miserable and drinking yourself into a stupor." She moved from behind the chaise longue to a small refectory table. "So I decided it was time you stopped drinking."
"Oh, did you, indeed?" he growled, and made a swipe to grab her. She darted from the shelter of the refectory table to that of a wing chair. “And just what the hell business is it of yours what I do, madam?"
She watched him warily. "Your grandmother employed me to look after you—''
"The meddlesome old harpy foisted you upon me to drive me insane!" he roared, and made another grab in her direction. She eluded him just in time. "And, by God, she has succeeded beyond her wildest expectations!"
"Oh, nonsense!" responded Kate sensibly. "If you feel a trifle put out just now, I can understand that, but you are undoubtedly finding the effect worse because of all that brandy or port or whatever the horrid stuff is you've been drinking!"
He stopped and stared at her in stupefied fury. "A trifle put out? A trifle put out? I'll show you a trifle put out! I'm going to teach you a lesson, my girl, a lesson that damned father of yours should have taught you a long, long time ago, about not interfering with a gentleman's pleasures!" He lunged clumsily forward again.
"Don't be rude about my father," snapped Kate.
"I'll do whatever I please in my own damned house, my girl, and that includes giving you that beating that your father should have given you the first time you treated him to the first taste of your damned impudence!"
"I was never impudent to my father in my life!" Kate lied indignantly, resolutely ignoring the dozens of birchings she had received for impudence and worse. "And how dare you threaten me, you big bully? If you dare to lay one finger on me, I. . .I'll scream."
"And who will rescue you, pray tell?" He grinned evilly. "If I know Carlos, he'll be as far away as possible from this little fracas, Millie and Florence will be home by now, and as for Martha—'' he grinned even wider ''—well, you know as well as I do that I can do no wrong in Martha's eyes. She will probably egg me on."
Kate gritted her teeth. Within minutes of stepping over the threshold of Jack Carstairs's house, Martha had conceived the absurdest tendre for him. And he dared to make mention of it! Boast of it, even! Kate glared at him across a bowl of greenery that she'd placed there only that morning.
"I don't need to scream," she panted, "I can protect myself." She picked up the bowl and flung it. It missed him, smashing on the wall behind, but the foliage and water hit their target most satisfactorily. Kate grinned triumphantly.
Jack plucked greenery from his hair and dashed the water from his face. "Ha! Missed, little vixen! So much for cricket."
"That was deliberate," she said airily, "but I promise you, I won't miss next time."
He leaned over the table. "You certainly enjoy throwing things, don't you? I suppose I ought to be grateful that there is not a pot of boiling oil to hand, or no doubt you would fling that at me, wouldn't you?"
"Probably."
"Well, just for that, I'm going to give you the biggest beating you've ever had in your life."
There was amusement in his eyes, despite his anger. Kate resolved to remove it—she was certainly not going to let this deteriorate into a game.
"Well, at least now you've got an ambition in life! And about time too."
Jack stiffened. "And just what do you mean by that?"
Kate's chin lifted defiantly. She hadn't meant to be quite so blunt—it had just slipped out—but she couldn't back down and ruin the effect she had worked so hard to achieve.
"I said, at least you have an ambition in life now," she enunciated, quailing inwardly as she did so. "I mean, of course, apart from that of drinking yourself to death! Not that threatening to beat a woman is exactly an ambition to be proud of. . ."
Jack's face whitened with rage and shock. "How dare you? I've never beaten a woman in my life!" he grated. "Now, get out of my house now—before I break your neck and throw you down the stairs," he added, sublimely unaware of his inconsistency. His long fingers dug into the back of the Queen Anne chair between them. Kate could hear the fine old brocade shredding under the pressure.
Kate was shaking, her pulse was pounding with excitement, unsure whether she was thrilled or terrified. It looked as if he really did want to kill her, now. But somethin
g deep inside her told her that, no matter how he was behaving and what he threatened, he would not actually harm her. Not really.
"Oh, yes, that would suit you very well, wouldn't it?" she taunted, dancing from behind one piece of furniture to the next. "Get rid of me and there would be no one to prod you out of your shell again. Well, if you want me out of here, you will have to throw me out, Mr Carstairs, for I will not leave here unless of my own free will and I do not choose to go just yet."
He made a lunge for her and as Kate skipped out of his way her foot caught on a loose rug. Without hesitation his arm shot out, preventing her from falling.
"I have you now, little vixen," he growled, drawing her closer. Kate struggled against the unbreakable grip and he stared down at her, his eyes blazing. Effortlessly he pressed her back against a nearby table, imprisoning her legs with one muscular thigh and enclosing her narrow wrists in one large hand. Ignoring her struggles, he pulled her hard against him, chest to chest, breathing heavily, causing a light, tantalising friction. Silence fell, except for the sounds of their breathing and the crackling fire.
"I really ought to beat you, you know," he murmured at last, his eyes darkening.
Kate knew she was in no such danger. His hold on her might be unbreakable, but it was also quite gentle. Almost possessive. It was another kind of danger altogether she was in. She gazed up at him for a long moment, her eyes clinging to his, then dropping to his mouth. She should not encourage this, should not allow it. She might want it with all her heart, but it was not proper to want it. "Please. . ." she gasped, and wriggled, meaning him to release her.
He looked down at her enigmatically and groaned. “If you must look at me like that with those eyes. . ." he muttered, and lowered his mouth to hers.
It was no gentle embrace and Kate had never experienced anything like it. She struggled half-heartedly against the invasion of her self-possession, but his lips, at first hard and demanding, softened and were tenderly teasing and coaxing hers until, without conscious volition, she responded to their demands and her lips parted.