Gallant Waif (22 page)

“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 something 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.

Fire shot through her with such force that she let out a small whimper. His grip instantly gentled and he lifted his face and stared into hers. Kate was helpless—his muscular arms were all that kept her from sliding to the floor, her head was thrown back and her damp lips remained parted.

“What did you mean about my eyes?” she finally said.

“Only that every time I look into them I want to do this—”

He lowered his mouth to hers again in a long, passionate kiss.

Kate’s senses were reeling but, more, she could not believe what he had said—her eyes made him want to kiss her?
Her eyes?

He lifted his head back and smiled into her dazed face. She knew she should do something, say something, but she could not. Her eyes clung to his and he seemed to see the silent message in them for he murmured, “See—you’re doing it again,” and lowered his mouth, with agonising tenderness, to hers.

Without warning, he brushed his fingers across her breasts. Kate gasped and arched her back in response. Her nipples were unbearably tender as his hands rubbed the material of her frock and chemise across them. Her body was racked with wave after wave of the most exquisite shudders, and she could not help but push herself against him. At the same time, his mouth, lips and tongue were creating the most amazing
sensations,
intensifying the feeling she had of needing to get closer to him, to feel him against, around, inside her.

She could taste the brandy he had been consuming, the tobacco he had smoked, but also, something indefinable, the maleness and uniqueness of Jack. She wanted to touch him, taste him,
feel
him. One of her hands embedded itself in his thick, crisp dark hair, while the other cupped his jaw, rubbing tenderly back and forth, revelling in the texture of his unshaven chin. His mouth moved away from hers for a moment and she whimpered softly in protest at the deprivation and followed it.

His body was pressing against hers, moving in a slow, rhythmical motion, male to female, holding, tasting, wanting. His arms moved around to her back, and Kate thrust forward into the circle of his body, rubbing her breasts against the hardness of his chest. She felt him withdraw from her in some indefinable way,
then
gradually became aware of a growing draught at her back.

Abruptly she realised that Jack was unfastening her dress, trying to slip it from her shoulders. She pulled back, uttering a small exclamation of surprise, and found herself clutching her dress to her and staring him wordlessly in the face.

“Jack…” she whispered, an unanswerable question in her eyes.

His gaze fixed on her face for a moment. He swore and thrust her away. Running a hand through his hair, he turned and headed for the table where he habitually kept the brandy. He pulled up short and swore again, recalling its recent fate. He dug his hands into his pockets and stared moodily into the fire. He kicked it once with his bad leg and sparks flew and danced like whirling dervishes up the chimney, while the pain brought him to his senses.

Kate hurriedly fastened up her dress as best she could, then
waited
for Jack to turn around. They stood there for long, silent minutes, Jack staring into the fire, his chest heaving,
an
unreadable look on his face, Kate, her face delicately flushed in the candlelight, wide-eyed and nervous.

Jack clenched his jaw. One tender word from him now and she would be in his arms again. And this time there would be no stopping him. He was poised on a knife-edge as it was. He’d never wanted any woman in his life as much as he wanted her.

But Kate was a lady, and if he touched her now they would be calling the banns next Sunday in church, and he couldn’t do that to her: tie her for life to a miserable wreck when, with his grandmother’s help, she could have almost anyone, and a life of ease and pleasure. No, he wasn’t much of a gentleman, but he had enough pride not to speak that tender word and snare her with her own kindness.