Gallant Waif (34 page)

He had come awake almost instantly, as soon as he had felt her stir, but had not moved, allowing her to escape from their embarrassingly intimate position if she wished to. He had waited for her to move away from him, feeling the cold rush of air as she lifted her body away from his, feigning sleep to make it easier for her to leave him.

He’d been unprepared for the shock of the first feathery caress on his skin. So light, he had almost not believed it was happening, but it had been followed by another and then another, and it had taken all his will-power just to lie there instead of gathering her hard against him in a passionate embrace. Such a thing had never happened to Jack Carstairs before. To lie still, and to all intents placid and unaware, while the little creature that had wound herself around his heart planted the tiniest, most delicately moist kisses all over him.

His pulse pounded with the effort of remaining relaxed under her innocently questing sensual onslaught. He had no choice. He had to lie here in tormented bliss, treasuring each tentative, seductive caress, as if he had no more feeling than a block of wood. It was that or lose the precious moment to sordid reality. No choice at all.

God, but she was sweet. Oh, Lord, she was kissing him on the mouth again. He braced himself for the ravaging temptation as her small pink tongue reached in and delicately touched his. The jolt of sensation swamped him, and with silent anguish he felt his tongue responding, curling around hers. He felt her alarmed withdrawal but he could not help himself and his tongue followed hers. She jerked away in panic. Gently but firmly his hand cupped the back of her head and, blue eyes blazing into hers, he pulled her mouth back to his.

The kiss was long, sweet and intensely passionate.

Outside the cottage, Jack could hear Francis getting the horses ready. He released Kate and after a moment she drew back, a dazed, bemused expression on her face. Jack yearned to pull her back into his arms and kiss her arousal into passion. Instead he smiled, an odd, twisted, tender smile.

“Morning, sweetheart,” he whispered. “That’s the nicest awakening I think I’ve ever had.”

Kate blinked, then blushed rosily. Good God, she was lying full length on top of Jack Carstairs in the most immodest position, legs entwined, her breasts resting on his naked chest and his…his manhood pressing into her. And he was awake!

Hurriedly she scrambled off Jack and stood, tugging frantically at her clothes, desperately attempting to achieve some semblance of decency and composure. Heavens! How long had Jack been awake? Had he known all that she had done?

Deeply embarrassed, she busied herself with tidying her clothes and her hair, unable even to look in his direction, let alone meet his gaze. She wanted to break the fraught silence with words, but could think of nothing to say. Behind her she could hear Jack moving; presumably he was closing his shirt, buttoning his waistcoat, shrugging himself back into the coat she had found herself wrapped in…

“Morning, all. Sleep well?” Francis entered the cottage with a stamping of boots. “Brrr, it’s cold out there. I think we should try to get moving as soon as possible. Kate, how are you, m’dear?”

Kate murmured something unintelligible and slipped outside the cottage, her face flaming. Francis here as well? Who else knew of her shame? Bad enough that she had allowed herself to be kidnapped by her cousin, but to have two witnesses to it—and then to have behaved in that manner with Jack! What must he think of her, to have touched him that way…with Francis somewhere about too? It was all too mortifying.

She went in search of water in which to wash. She could find no well, nor any pump or stream. The night had been a bitter one and the small pond beside the cottage was frozen over. Kate tried to smash through the ice with a rock, but it would not break. She rubbed some icicles over her skin until they melted and dried her tingling face on her petticoat. She tore a ribbon of lace off her petticoat and tied her hair back as neatly as she could. Then she returned to the cottage, shivering in the morning chill.

By the time she returned, both Francis and Jack looked presentable, if not their usual immaculate selves. She avoided Jack’s eyes and knew her face was flaming, but hoped it would be put down, by Francis at least, to the nip of the frigid air outside.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said brightly, smiling impartially at a space somewhere between the two of them. “Anything to eat? I’m utterly ravenous.”

Francis chuckled. “The lady is hungry, old man. We can’t have that. Shall we adjourn to the nearest hostelry and obtain some breakfast? I fancy there is an inn in the next village which can accommodate our needs tolerably well.”

“Oh, yes, let’s,” said Kate immediately, beaming at him. She still could not look at Jack.

“In that case, ma’am, I shall fetch your carriage at once!” said Francis, bowing like a flunkey. Kate giggled as he left the cottage, bowing repeatedly like a Cit facing royalty.

She turned to find Jack leaning against the wall, glowering at her. “Must you flirt with him so early in the morning?”

Kate flushed and looked away. She felt his gaze scorching her.

“I wasn’t flirting.” Her heart plummeted. Jack grunted disbelievingly.

Kate turned her back on him and walked to the open door and looked out. There was nothing she could do. He would think whatever he wished to. She could not change his mind. She shivered in the bitter cold and folded her arms against her chest then jumped as a heavy coat was dropped over her shoulders from behind.

“Here,” he said curtly. “Wrap this around you.”

The coat was still warm and smelled faintly of him. Kate didn’t move. She felt his hands coming over her shoulders, tugging the coat more firmly around her. She tried to shrug it off. “No, no. I don’t need—”

“Don’t be so stupid,” he growled. Strong hands came down on her shoulders and turned her around. She looked up at him, but he concentrated on buttoning the coat firmly over her.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

He glanced at her briefly, a hard, unreadable look, muttered something under his breath, then pushed past her and went to help Francis with the horses.

He was limping heavily, she realised with dismay—his leg must be paining him dreadfully. White lines of pain were back around his mouth, deeper than they had been for months—he had hurt himself rescuing her. She wanted to run after him, do something, but she knew she could not. Hadn’t she done enough? He was clearly embarrassed by that morning kiss, and angry with her because of it, or why would he be so cross with her for responding to Francis’s nonsense? Although pain did nothing for anyone’s temper.

The carriage arrived. Francis acted as driver, and the two horses he and Jack had ridden were tied behind. Kate got in and waited while Jack and Francis had a brief altercation about who was to drive. Eventually Jack conceded, but said in a surly manner that he would sit up with Francis.

“Don’t be ridiculous, man,” said Francis acerbically. “Your leg is in no condition to be climbing up here and, in any case, you haven’t got a coat and you’ll freeze in this weather. Now shut up and get into the carriage before Kate thinks you have conceived a distaste for her company.”

Kate swallowed. Francis had been joking, but he had inadvertently hit the nail on the head. Jack didn’t want to be in the carriage with her. It was obvious.

Jack climbed into the carriage. Kate gazed out of the window.

Wordlessly he seated himself and stared moodily out of the opposite one.

They travelled the short distance to the next village in silence and pulled up before a small, neat inn. The innkeeper looked them over with a practised eye, taking in their crumpled clothing, the men’s unshaven chins, Kate’s loosely tied-back hair, and a knowing look crept over his ruddy features.

“Two chambers, landlord, if you would be so good,” drawled Francis. “One for myself and my friend and the other for…my sister.”

Kate flushed at the landlord’s glance. He clearly disbelieved the tale and took her for quite another sort of female. She put her chin up proudly, defying him to judge her.

Jack had noted the exchange. “My
wife
will want hot water and a maid to assist her,” he snapped. “Her maid and our coachman were injured in the accident we had last night. We have no time to delay, landlord. Shall we say breakfast in forty minutes? Oh, and hot water for my friend and myself as well and shaving implements.”

The landlord responded to the haughty tone of command and leapt to obey, calling his wife to come and help the young lady, a look of deepest obsequiousness replacing the sleazy gleam.

Kate blinked.
His wife?
She sighed. Sister, wife—it was all the same—a tale fabricated to protect her non-existent reputation. She followed the landlord’s wife upstairs in silence.

After a hearty, though not exactly jolly breakfast, during which Francis and Kate chatted while Jack ate in morose silence, they set off again. Mile after mile passed in uncomfortable silence, both passengers brooding and thoughtful. The impasse continued until the countryside began to look familiar.

Kate finally spoke. “You didn’t need to tell that man that I was your wife, you know. Francis’s sister would have been quite sufficient.”

“That’s all you know,” snapped Jack. So she would rather appear as Francis’s sister than as Jack’s wife, would she? Had this morning meant nothing, then? Women! He would never understand them.

“What do you mean?” asked Kate.

“Well, after last night, you’ll have to marry one of us, and as you slept in my arms the whole night it might as well be me,” he snarled ungraciously. Oh, God, he thought. I’ve botched it. I hadn’t meant to put it like that. Oh, you fool, fool, fool!

Kate went white. So that was why he was in such a furious temper. It wasn’t his leg or her so-called flirting with Francis at all. He thought she had trapped him into marriage.

“I don’t see that there is any need to marry you at all,” she said. “After all, nothing happened.”

A blazing blue glare forced her to drop her eyes. What did he mean by that look? He had kissed her before and not felt compelled to offer marriage.

Jack’s fingers itched to grab the little hussy and shake her until her teeth rattled. So nothing had happened, had it? How dare she he to him like that? He could still feel the tiny moist kisses travelling slowly and delicately over his naked skin, leaving behind them a trail of fire.

 
“The fact remains that you were known to have been abducted by one man, and then spent the night in the company of two others, neither of whom was related to you. You have no choice. If you can’t stomach the thought of marrying me, then Francis will oblige, as I am sure you are well aware. He is a much better catch—we both know that.” His bitter sarcasm flayed her.

“There is no need to be so horrid,” she said with quiet dignity. “And there is no need to marry either of you. I have no intention of wedding anyone, as I have told you before, only you are so stupid you refuse to believe me,” she concluded, her temper getting the better of her. How dared he speak to her like that? As if she would care two hoots whether or not a man was a good “catch’, as long as she loved him! Stupid, stupid man! Did he know her so little?

“Your so-called intentions have no relevance any longer, my dear,” Jack said in a withering voice. Call him stupid, would she? “The fact remains that your reputation is now in shreds, and you have no choice but to marry one of us. I, at least, know the ways of the world, even if you do not.”

“Well, you know nothing at all!” she flashed. “My reputation cannot be destroyed by the events of last night.”

He snorted in mocking disbelief.

“You cannot destroy something that was in shreds months ago!” she snapped. “And believe me, Mr Carstairs, my reputation was utterly destroyed long before last night.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You had my grandmother’s maid and then Martha with you the whole time. It may have been a trifle unorthodox, but you were well and truly chaperoned the entire time—my grandmother made sure of that!”

Kate gestured impatiently. “The damage was done long before I even met your grandmother.” Her voice broke.

She felt sick to her stomach. She had hoped never to have to tell this story ever again in her life, and now here she was, obliged to tell the one man in all the world she wished not to tell.

But he could not be allowed to sacrifice himself for the sake of her non-existent reputation. He needed to marry well, she knew. Some girl with no dark shadows in her past, who would bring her innocence to her marriage. Innocence, an untainted name, and wealth—wealth so that he could rebuild his shattered life. Kate had none of these to offer him, nothing but herself and her heart—small, pathetic offerings at best.