Kasey Michaels - [Redgraves 02] (14 page)

“It’s that good?” Kate asked eagerly, leaning toward him.

The cork slipped from the bottle, and Simon took an appreciative sniff of its contents. “Let’s just say, here’s to sheep. You brought glasses, of course.”

Kate’s eyes shifted to the basket. “Uh, I brought bread and cheese. And ham. And apples.”

“But no glasses, correct? In that case, kindly close your eyes, Kate. I’m about to commit an unforgivable sacrilege.” With that, he raised the bottle clearly marked with the year 1720 to his lips and took three healthy swallows of double-aged Madeira.

“Your smile looks positively evil. Here, let me taste it.” Kate grabbed the bottle from him, and before he could warn her, she’d taken more than a sip.

“Now that’s just a bleeding pity,” Simon lamented as Kate almost immediately spit out the Madeira in a spray of what some would call liquid gold. The expression on her beautiful face was priceless, and he wondered what she’d do if he were to offer to lick her mouth clear of any remaining wine. She’d probably clunk him on the head with the bottle and, worse, spill the contents; no, he should probably resist. “Then again, it leaves more for me. I believe I can already feel my aches and pains flying to the four winds.”

“I’m delighted for you,” Kate answered meanly, pulling out her handkerchief and blotting at the droplets of Madeira glistening like raindrops on the fall of lace she had pinned around her throat. “How can you drink anything so vile?”

“Madeira can be an acquired taste. Happily for me, during my travels with the Royal Navy, I acquired it. Have an apple. Clearly something that’s only recently left the tree is more suited to your uneducated palate.”

“I’d need a palate accustomed to pig swill, so I’m happy to leave it uneducated, thank you.” But she did as he suggested, probably only because she really needed something to take the taste of Madeira from her tongue, and spoke next around a healthy bite of apple as she pointed toward Hythe. “Which of those churches are you going to pick, Simon?”

She was at it again, like a filly with the bit firmly in her teeth. “For our wedding? I’ve thought more about the chapel at the Manor, frankly. It will, after all, most likely be a case of marry in haste.”

The half-eaten apple winged past his head and he neatly snagged it out of the air.

“I meant for your rendition of ‘God Save The King,’ you numbskull. There’s never been a wager whose outcome is so assured. Or haven’t you yet realized how unremittingly
annoying
you are?”

He was feeling better and better. So thinking, he committed a second sacrilege, and took another long drink of the Madeira. “Actually, I’m rather counting on that. Do you dream about me, Kate? I know you
annoy
my dreams.”

She closed the basket with a slam of the lid and got to her feet. “We’re done here,” she announced, and then began tugging at one corner of the checkered cloth, as if she could roll him off it. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on, Simon. You’d already promised Valentine you’d be my chaperone, or keeper, or whatever you two conspirators decided before you came to the greenhouse yesterday. That’s why you made the wager, so I’d stay clear of you and you could keep your promise to Val. Admit it, Simon. I could all but throw myself at you, begging you to ravish me, and you wouldn’t do it.”

He got to his feet. “I don’t know if I’d go quite that far with that sort of reasoning were I you,” he said, grinning at her before lifting the bottle to his mouth once more.

Up went her chin. He loved when she did that. “Ah, a warning. Then perhaps that’s just what I’ll do. Because I won’t marry you, Simon, for more reasons than I can count, although one of them has to be that you don’t want to marry me, you only wish to...um...to
annoy
me. Besides, I already wagered five pounds with Mrs. Justis that his lordship the Marquis will be singing from a church steeple within a week. So you have to lose.”

He helped her fold the cloth. It was amazing how well they worked together, how splendidly they got along—as long as they were sparring with each other, that is. “Much as I hesitate to point this out, our wager included a limit. If neither of us loses within a week, the wager in null and void and you lose five pounds to your housekeeper, anyway. Only five pounds? That’s almost insulting, now that I think of it. And all, I hesitate to remind you, supposing you can hold out that long, which I don’t think you can.”

“Oh, but you can, is that right? You’re wrong, Simon, you did hit your head in that pit, if you believe you’re so irresistible. I wouldn’t have you served up on a silver platter!”

“Not even with an apple in my mouth?” he asked her, and then promptly produced the apple she’d tossed at him and clamped it between his teeth.

“You’re impossible. You’re the most impossible man I’ve ever—” She very nearly smiled. “Oh, give me that, you fool, you look ridiculous. And don’t drink any more of that horrid wine. You’re already too silly by half.”

“Too late,” he told her, holding up the empty bottle. He wouldn’t admit she was right, but he probably should have broken his fast with some bread and cheese; at least the bread may have sopped up some of the surprisingly potent wine. He was feeling decidedly happy with himself at the moment, not at all marquislike, if that was an expression. He felt much more like the man he’d been before Holbrook died; young, even carefree. Not bosky; it would take more than one bottle of vintage Madeira to drop him entirely into his cups, but he would have to say he felt fairly well-to-go, especially with his aches and pains at least temporarily a memory.

And then there was Kate. He always felt better, more relaxed and natural, when he was around her. Even when she was tossing verbal darts at him. They simply couldn’t seem to hide their real selves from each other, and he knew that ease and freedom amazed him, and just might amaze her, as well. “Do you think we should dispose of the evidence in the Channel?”

Kate had led Daisy to a nearby tree stump and was already up in the saddle. “I can think of something else I might want to dispose of in the Channel, if you’d be so kind as to load your pockets with rocks,” she said. She then turned Daisy in the direction of the staggered line of cottages below them, leaving Simon where he stood, but not before he heard her mutter, “And they say we Redgraves are unromantic. Ha!”

So he’d been correct. This supposed early morning picnic was the opening salvo in her war to entice him to kiss her, and thus lose their wager. God only knew what she’d think up next.

Six more days and the wager would be null and void. Only six more days, or even less, and at least one of the Redgraves would have shown up at the Manor to save him. All he had to do was keep Kate busy and resist her charms—not to mention her plans and her wiles—for six more days.

How did that third verse go? Because he’d never make it.

CHAPTER TEN

O
NCE
THEY
’
D
REACHED
the half-moon-shaped shoreline, rather as if they’d arrived at the smaller end of a large, downhill funnel, Kate allowed Simon to help her from the saddle once more. This time she didn’t bother with any pretense at innocently rubbing their bodies together. She’d been clumsy, amateurish; Trixie would have rolled her eyes at such a lamentably blatant effort at seduction.

That it hadn’t worked was rather a letdown, though. Was she really that resistible? He hadn’t seemed to think so the other day.

Not that she wished to seduce Simon. Far from it! Just a kiss. That’s all she needed, and he’d be warbling from Saint Leonard’s bell tower come Sunday. Which would serve to pay him back very nicely for all the trouble he was causing her; she could barely boost thoughts of him out of her head for more than a few minutes at a time. But clearly she needed a change in tactics, especially now she’d allowed him to see through her to the point where he knew what she was doing.

Brothers were easier to hoodwink, they really were. Of course, she’d never practiced her seduction techniques on them. For one thing, she guessed she really didn’t possess any; she could shoot a pistol with much more finesse than she could flutter a fan beneath come-hither eyes (or would want to!). And for another— Well, who’d ever want to seduce one of her brothers? Jessica seemed happy enough with Gideon, but Kate figured she’d have to wait a long time before Valentine did more than flirt with any available woman under the age of forty who still possessed all her teeth. And Max? He didn’t seem to much care for the species at all.

She did feel with Simon rather as she did with her brothers, though. She felt she could say anything to him. He seemed to laugh at the same things she laughed at...even if he occasionally laughed at her. She didn’t have to sit ramrod straight, or always be in some frilly gown, pretending she was fragile. He loved adventure as much as she did, and didn’t cavil at letting her come along with him as he went seeking it.

Yes, he could be one of her brothers. Except that he wasn’t, and she was much too aware of that. Because Gideon and Val and Max were, well, they were Gideon and Val and Max. Simon? Simon was a whole new world to her. Dare she say a world of sensation? No, she shouldn’t! But he was. Like when she was tempted to push his thick blond hair back from his forehead, and stare into his clear eyes, see herself reflected there....

Kate shook away her thoughts, knowing they were dangerous, and concentrated on her surroundings. They’d been wasting valuable time. It was more than time to get back to work!

The breeze coming in off the water, combined with the glitter of sunlight bouncing back at them from the many-paned windows of the cottages, made it difficult for Kate to believe anything nefarious ever went on along this wide stretch of peaceful, fairly isolated shingle-and-sand beach. Of course, Gideon had warned her never to ride down here, but Simon didn’t have to know that, now did he?

There were boats pulled up onto the shingle, but they were loaded with fishing nets; clearly nothing out of the ordinary. The tenant cottages, she’d counted seven in all, were spaced widely apart, with small vegetable gardens surrounding them, some of those gardens in better condition than the others. There was a woman standing in the middle of one of the low-fenced plots, nearly bent in half as she weeded, or thinned, or pinched beetles, or whatever it was old women did in gardens.

“Tell me something isn’t odd here,” Simon said quietly, probably because who could know where the breeze could take his words.

She looked at him, puzzled by his remark, and then surveyed the scene in front of her once more. “I don’t see anything odd. What do you see?”

“Let’s walk,” he said, turning in the general direction of Hythe. “I see seven cottages. I see four with nicely tended gardens and three nearly going to seed. This makes me believe there are women in four of the cottages.”

“Because women tend gardens,” Kate said, nodding. “Go on.”

“Women also plant posies. They can’t seem to help themselves. Those same four cottages have flowers growing in between the cabbages.”

Kate sneaked a look back at the cottages. “All right. So you’re wondering who, if anyone, lives in the other three cottages?”

“Not yet, no. I’m wondering where the other women are, although I know the one in the second cottage from the left dared push back the curtains to peek at us. I’m also wondering why the one woman who was already out in her garden has not so much as glanced in our direction. Think about it for a moment, Kate. How often could something like this possibly happen here? Two strangers, showing up on their doorsteps as if out of the blue. Riding fine mounts, dressed in finer clothes, the young woman beautiful—”

Kate dropped an insouciant curtsy. “Thank you, kind sir.”

“You’re welcome. The gentleman devilishly handsome, stylishly groomed and obviously of impeccable breeding—”

“You can never leave well enough alone, can you?” Kate said, giving him a quick jab in the side. “But you’ve made your point, Simon. We’re being watched, but ignored at the same time. Well, I can certainly fix that.”

“Kate, wait— Oh, hell.”

With Simon quickly catching up to her, Kate headed directly for the woman just now straightening up, one hand pressed to the small of her back to ease the strain caused by her work...which was interesting, for there was not sprig nor turnip in the basket hanging from her arm.

“Good morning, madam,” Kate called out cheerfully, stopping just outside the low, weathered fence. “I’m Lady Katherine Redgrave, sister of the earl, and this—as he has just assured me—impeccably bred gentleman with me is the Marquis of Singleton. And who might you be?”

The woman nervously shifted her eyes from side to side, as if attempting to locate that information. “Um, I be Maude, my lady,” she offered even as she bobbed a curtsy, turned to Simon and bobbed another.

“Well, then, Maude,” Kate persisted cheerily, “now that we all know each other, do you think you could find it in your heart to offer his lordship and me something to drink and a bit of shade inside your cottage on such a warm day?”

“Yer wants to go inside?” Maude asked this in approximately the same terrified tone she might have employed if Kate had asked her to kindly deposit her graying head in the basket hanging from her arm. “Ah, yer ladyship, yer lordship, it’s an embarrassment ta tell yer this, but m’man’s that poorly, and layin’ straight in the middle of the place on a cot, seeking warmth from the fire, yer understands.”

Kate glanced up to the stone chimney; there was no smoke. “Oh, the poor man. Perhaps I should send someone from the Manor to fetch a doctor for him? My brother is adamant that we Redgraves take care of our tenants.”

The woman looked about to cry.

The front door of the cottage opened at that point, and the hulking body of a very large man filled the entry. “Ben’s asking for you, Sissy. You haul yourself inside now.”

Maude, or Sissy, bobbed another duet of curtsies and all but ran up the few flat stones to the cottage door, disappearing inside as the man stepped out, moving halfway down the path in a sort of rolling gait before coming to a halt. He was dressed plainly but well, his brown jacket reaching to his knees, bone buttons the size of small dinner plates marching down the front of the garment in two straight lines.

“Good day to you, my fine lady and gentleman,” he said, his grin wide in his large head, his smiling eyes as open and guileless as a child’s. “Or should I say, my lady, my lord. I was doing a bit of overhearing, I admit, seeing as how Sissy’s dumb as a stump, sister or not. Never learned her way around a proper fib, though Lord knows she keeps trying. There’s no fire in the grate, and no man anywhere but in her dreams. It’s a poor housekeeper she is, but she wouldn’t admit that to you, now would she? My name’s Jacko. How might I help you?”

The man sounded polite enough, but he didn’t bow, didn’t touch his forelock like some of the tenants still did. His words and actions seemed to say
I’m not your equal, perhaps, but you’re standing in my territory, and I’ll behave as I behave.
He was a living wall. If he didn’t want them inside the cottage, Kate decided, then they would not cross the threshold without a battalion of troops and a battering ram.

“Her ladyship was hoping for the courtesy of some refreshment,” Simon said as Kate fought the urge to take a few precautionary steps backward...and then position herself behind him. She really needed to consider the possible consequences of her actions
before
she acted.

“Well, now,” Jacko said, his jovial face belying the sorrow in his voice, “that’s a sad thing, my lord, seeing as how Sissy isn’t much one for tea and dainty cakes, her having fallen off the water wagon again, and with a mighty thump. But if it’s a nip of spirits you’re after...?”

“No!” Kate said, quickly amending that to, “no, thank you, anyway. Perhaps we can knock on another door.”

“Perhaps that wouldn’t be a good idea, little girl, seeing as how you’re neither of you none too bright being here at all, if you take my meaning,” Jacko said, hitching up his trousers, although there was little fat to shift; he appeared to be hard from large bearded head to top boots, except for that too-friendly smile. “Ah, now that was rude, wasn’t it? It’s only I’m that ashamed, you understand, and wish myself home so that I didn’t have to apologize for Sissy. She’s a good woman, but not without her vices. Why, she wouldn’t hardly eat at all, if it weren’t for me bringing her food. Demon gin,” he ended, shaking his head. “Good-day to you now, begging your indulgence yet again.”

“Never quite lose the walk, Jacko, do we? You’re a seaman. And one without much use for landlubbers.”

Kate looked at Simon, wishing he could read her mind. For if he could, he would hear her screaming:
Let’s go! He’s only being nice because it’s less trouble to him than finding a place to hide our bodies!

“I was,” Jacko responded, looking Simon up and down. “You’ve got the look of a man who’s felt a quarterdeck rolling beneath his boots yourself. There’s that squint we all sport, spending our days and nights searching the horizon. Here now, does that make us mates?”

“I don’t know, Jacko, but I’m certain I’ll find out, one way or another. Where’s home to you, if it’s not here with your
sister?
”

The large man walked straight up to the fence, his voice dropped to a rough whisper that was no less menacing than his joviality. “And what’s that to you, my lord?”

Simon spread his long legs just a bit more, and locked his hands together behind his back. “Why, sailor, I imagine it’s whatever I want it to be,” he responded coolly, and equally as quietly. “At the moment, it’s a friendly question, with Lady Katherine here. But it doesn’t have to remain that. Would you care to meet again later, once I’ve escorted her home?”

“No need. I see where you’re heading.” The man smiled again, shrugging his immense shoulders. “You’d whisper in the earl’s ear and have my sister tossed from the cottage. Just like the rich, striking at those who can’t help themselves.”

“Said like a man who’d look to someone like Bonaparte with admiration.”

Jacko stepped over the low fence, and Kate nearly yelped. “Said like a man looking to wear his nose on the back of his head. But very well, your lordship, sir, now that we understand each other. I’m from down Romney Marsh way, and more than that you need not know. I earn my keep working for a loyal Englishman who’d eat your namby-pamby sort for breakfast, a man happy to be left in peace, but not blind to what goes on around him, if you take my meaning again. Don’t ask me anything else,
mate,
because I won’t answer.”

“I think you’ve answered sufficiently. But do remember the name, if you please. Simon Ravenbill, marquis of Singleton, formerly commander in his majesty’s Royal Navy. Currently I’m the guest of the Earl of Saltwood, all of us loyal, peace-loving Englishmen set on protecting these shores, all of us also not blind to what goes on around us. Can you retain all of that long enough to repeat it to your employer, Jacko, hmm? You know, the man who put Sissy here, the man who sends you to
visit?
Because we will meet again, you and I. I can feel it in my bones. Am I right to be hopeful about which side of the fence you’ll be standing on when the moon dies?”

Show-off, show-off, show-off! You’re worse than me! And I don’t even know what the devil you’re talking about!
Kate tugged at Simon’s sleeve. “If you two gentlemen are done crowing and scratching like cocks in the barnyard, I’d like to go home now, please.”

“Of course,” Simon said, holding out his arm to Kate. Raising his voice, probably for the benefit of anyone in the cottages who wouldn’t otherwise hear him, he said, “Good-day to you, Jacko, and your lovely sister. Thank you so much for the directions. We were quite lost.” Together, he and Kate walked back to where they’d tied their mounts’ reins to a bramble bush.

But Jacko had followed after them.

“You beat the Dutch for brass, don’t you, Commander? But I’m no fool, I see where you’re sailing to, and at just the wrong time. I’ll tell him,” Jacko told him grudgingly. “Watch the moon, Simon Ravenbill, if you must, but then stay out of our way. We wouldn’t want to hurt a hair on that clever head of yours by mistake, now would we?”

Only then did he finally bow—just a slight inclination of his head—and walk away.

Kate’s hands were shaking as Simon lifted her up onto the saddle in one efficient move, and then lightly seated himself on Hector’s back.

“Slowly, Kate. We’ll leave the beach slowly. We were very lucky, it could have gone either way back there. The man could have broken me in two without any real effort, not that I could let him know I knew that, although I’m guessing he favors the sticker he has tucked in the sash beneath his coat.”

“He had a knife? I didn’t see a knife.”

“You weren’t supposed to, Kate. I was. The walk, the sash, the sticker, they told me all I needed to know. That said, the next time I’m so dimwitted as to ride out without a pistol in my possession, you may feel free to kick my shins purple.”