Gallant Waif (7 page)

Kate dimpled. “Then please be seated, sir, and I will fetch you a cup directly.” She went to fetch the coffee pot.

The two men began to converse in Spanish. Kate slowly stiffened. Three years in Spain and Portugal had resulted in a certain amount of fluency in both languages. She could understand every word the men said. And she was not impressed.

“So, Major Jack, who is the little brown mouse with the pretty eyes, the terrible clothes and the dirty face?”

Kate peered at her reflection in a spoon,
then
scrubbed at her face with a clean dishcloth.

“Damned if I know, Carlos.
Some servant of my grandmother’s.”
His tone was indifferent, bored.

A chair scraped on the floor and footsteps came towards her. Kate bent over the pots,
then
jumped nervously as a warm hand touched her lightly on the shoulder. She turned quickly and found a pair of dark blue eyes regarding her from a great height, a glimmer of amusement in their depths. Did he find it amusing to give her a fright? Or had he noticed the clean face? She blushed.

“If you would be so good…” He waved her aside, bent, took a burning twig from the fire, lit a cheroot and returned to the table, limping heavily.

“Jumpy, isn’t she, the little mouse?” said Carlos in Spanish.

Kate could almost feel the shrug of the broad shoulders.
“Skinny too.”

“Probably hasn’t had a square meal in a good few weeks,” the deep voice agreed. “I don’t know what my grandmother could want with such a little waif.”

Kate flushed in mortification. Was it that obvious?

Carlos continued, “Pretty, though. Those eyes are beautiful.
Needs some meat on her bones yet.
Me, I like a woman to feel like a woman.”

Jack Carstairs grunted. “You think too much about women.”

“Ah, Major Jack, do not say so, you, with your fine handsome face and wicked blue eyes that all the ladies sigh over.”

Jack’s hand went unconsciously to the shattered cheek.

“Ah, Major Jack, that little scratch will never make you safe from the ladies’ attentions. It will only—”

“Hold your tongue, Carlos,” Jack snapped brusquely.

There was a short silence. Kate pushed some more sticks into the fire, her face rosy.

“Yes,” Carlos continued, “that little bird is as flat as a board at the moment, but with some of your good solid English beef in her the curves will grow—oh, yes, they will grow most deliciously.”

His soft laughter washed over Kate’s rigid body. How dared they discuss her like that? She was no innocent, not any longer, but they did not know it.

No one who had travelled with an army could retain the total innocence of men that was so necessary for an unmarried English lady. Still, for most of that time she’d had the protection of her father and brothers and the broader protection of the soldiers who knew them. Kate had walked freely among the troops, tending wounds, writing letters to loved ones and doling out soup and cheerful greetings, secure in the knowledge that not one of them would offer her the sort of insult that she was now having to endure in the home of a so-called English gentleman!
Even if it was in a foreign tongue.

Of course, given how she had left the Peninsula, she should be inured to this sort of insult by now—but these men knew nothing of that. And she was
not
inured to insult and never would be!

Carlos’s voice penetrated her consciousness again. “And when those curves do grow, Major Jack, I will be there to worship them.
I, Carlos Miguel Riviera.”

“That’s enough!” Jack’s voice was suddenly harsh. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Ah, Major Jack…” the other smiled with dawning comprehension “. .
.you
fancy the little mouse yourself, do you?”

“Not at all,” snapped Jack furiously. “I have no interest in tumbling scrawny kitchen maids. But I won’t have you sniffing around her.
She’s.
. .she’s my grandmother’s servant and you’re not to go near her, understand?”

The men of the Coldstream Guards all knew that particular tone and not one of them would have dreamed of answering back or disobeying. Carlos’s hands rose in a placatory fashion. “No, no, of course not, Major Jack. I will have nothing to do with the girl, nothing, I promise you.” His voice was soothing, conciliatory, then his evil genius prompted him to add, “She is all yours, Major Jack, all yours.”

Jack sat up and glared at Carlos, but a clatter from the other end of the kitchen distracted him. Both men turned to look at Kate.

The small body was rigid with fury, the grey-green eyes blazing tempestuously.
“Your coffee,
gentlemen.”
She emphasised the last word sarcastically, then, to both men’s utter amazement, she lifted the coffee pot and hurled it straight at them.

Chapter Three

Reactions honed by years of fighting sent both men instantly diving out of the way, but nothing could save them from being splattered with hot coffee as the earthenware pot shattered against the wall behind them. They cursed and swore in a fluent mixture of Spanish, Portuguese and English and turned to face the source of their anger. But there was no one to be seen. Kate had not waited to see the results of her action, but had stormed out of the kitchen while they were still ducking for cover.

“Blast the wench!” Jack growled. “What the hell’s the matter with her?
Damned coffee all over me.”
He pulled off his shirt, now sodden with brown coffee, and used it to mop down his dripping face and chest.

Carlos, similarly engaged with the aid of a drying cloth, looked across at him. “You think, Major Jack, that maybe she understand what we were saying?”

Jack stared at him. “
An English kitchen maid, in the middle of Leicestershire, understand
Spanish?” His tone was incredulous. “Impossible!
Though she did clean that soot off her face.”

He absent-mindedly rubbed the shirt over his arms and chest,
then
shook his head. “No.
Ridiculous.
She’s English.”

He stood up and roughly towelled the remains of the coffee from his unruly black hair.

“Unless she has Spanish blood in her.”
He considered her clear, pale skin, the grey-green eyes and the curly, nut-brown hair,
then
he shook his head again.
“Hasn’t got the colouring for it.”

Carlos shrugged. “Then why?” His hands spread out eloquently, indicating the devastated coffee pot.

“How the hell should I know why?” Jack growled. “The chit ought to be in Bedlam for all I know. Damn her, but she’ll not get away with it this time!”

“This time?” queried Carlos, the beginnings of a grin appearing on his broad face. “Do you say, Major
Jack, that
the little mouse has crossed you before?”

A pair of icy-blue eyes turned on him. “Clean up this mess at once,” snapped the crisp voice so familiar to the men of the Coldstreams.

“Si, si.
At once, Major Jack, at once.”
Carlos bent to the task instantly as Jack strode from the room with a frown like a black thundercloud on his face.

“Oho, little mouse, you’ve roused the lion in him, to be sure,” Carlos muttered. “I hope you’ve hidden yourself safe away, for Major Jack is greatly to be feared when he has the devil in him.”

Jack entered the hallway and glanced swiftly around. No sign of the chit. His hands clenched into fists. He’d give the little hussy a good shaking before he sent her packing! The chill morning air quivered against his bare skin, and with a muttered curse he moved quickly up the stairs towards his room, favouring his stiff leg quite heavily. Turning the corner on the landing, he ran smack into Kate storming along the corridor. They collided with such force he had to grab her to steady
himself
.

Kate, too, reached out instinctively and found herself clasped against a broad, strong, very naked male torso. His chest was deep and lightly sprinkled with dark hair, his shoulders broad and powerfully muscled. His skin was warm and smooth and his scent, the scent of a powerful male, surrounded her, filling her awareness.

“Oh!” she gasped, and tried to pull away.

“Not so fast, my girl!” he grated. “How dare you toss that thing at us? You could have caused a serious injury.”

“Nonsense,” she scoffed, tugging at his grip, “I’ve played cricket for years—I’m an excellent shot and I aimed to miss.”

“Cricket?
Rubbish! Girls don’t play cricket. You need a lesson in behaviour, young woman!”

“Let go of me,” she spat, struggling in his arms. “How dare you?” She wriggled and writhed, but he held her effortlessly. It was no use trying to fight him, she realised; the big brute was far too strong. He chuckled, a low rumbling from deep inside his chest.

“If you keep wriggling against me like that, little spitfire, I just might begin to enjoy this,” he murmured into her ear.

Kate froze. The wretch was seeking to put her to the blush—she would have to use other tactics.

“Ohh, ohh, you’re hurting
me.
. .ohh…” She sighed dramatically and sagged abruptly in his arms.

“Bloody hell!” he muttered.

Kate felt the hard grip on her arms instantly gentle.

“Hell and damnation,” he muttered again. The girl was so small and frail. And he had caused her to faint. A wave of remorse passed over him. He felt a brute, a savage. He’d known she was half starved. There was no need to frighten her to death, even if she had hurled a pot of hot coffee at his head. He’d have to carry her to her room, he supposed. His grip shifted and he bent to swing her into his arms.

Instantly Kate moved. In a flash she escaped his arms and dealt him a smart slap across the face. “Brains before brute force every time!” she flashed, and took to her heels down the corridor.

As she reached her room, she turned. “And girls do play cricket!” She slammed the door behind her, turned the key and leant against it panting, laughing, oddly exhilarated.

He stared after her, frustrated, cursing her in English and Spanish. Then he turned and limped as quickly as he could towards his grandmother’s room, his face black as thunder.

“Grandmama!”
He burst into her room. “Who the devil is
that.
. .that little hell-cat?”

The beady blue eyes examined her grandson’s face closely. He was in a fierce temper—it was positively blazing from his eyes. Splendid! Lady Cahill thought. No sign of the lacklustre absence of spirit that Amelia spoke of. Something, or rather someone, by the sounds of it, had stirred him up beautifully. And his loving grandmother would continue the process.

She glared at him. “What the devil do
you
mean, sir, to come storming into my boudoir at this time of day, cursing and swearing and raising your voice?” The blue eyes were frosty with displeasure. “In
my
day, no gentleman would dream of entering a lady’s presence in such indecent attire, or should I say lack of it? Be off with you, boy, and don’t return until you are properly clothed! I am shocked and appalled, Jack, shocked and appalled!” She turned her head from his naked chest in a pained, offended manner.

Jack opened his mouth,
then
shut it with a snap. Blast
it,
he could hardly give her a piece of his mind. She was his grandmother, dammit. He glared at her, fully aware of her game. She was the most outrageous old lady he knew—he would bet his last guinea that she was no more shocked at seeing a man without a shirt than he was. And as for his
swearing.
. .the old hypocrite, peppering almost every phrase she uttered with oaths, then pretending to blush at his! He was damned if he’d stay and let his grandmother rake him over the coals for the entertainment of herself and her dresser! Jack bowed ironically and left the room.

He slammed the door and Lady Cahill relaxed back against the pillows, grinning in a most unladylike way.

“Oh, how shocking, milady,” said the hovering woman dressed severely in grey.