The Secrets Of Catie Hazard. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ not once had he cried out or complained, his only sign of pain the way his fingers whitened around the tankard of rum.

      “You’re a fortunate man,” she said softly as she wrapped a linen bandage around and around his arm. “Another inch to the side, and the ball would have struck the bone.”

      He sighed—an exhausted, drawn-out exhalation— now that the worst was past. “Another eight inches, and it would have found my heart. I’ll warrant that’s where the bastard was aiming, and lucky I was that my horse shied when he did.”

      Automatically Catie’s glance shifted to the broad expanse of his chest, trying to imagine the heart beneath it stilled forever. For the first time, she noticed the little silver circle, unlike any official medal or badge she’d seen, pinned to the breast of his waistcoat.

      “What is that?” she asked curiously. “I’d say it was perilously close to a stout Yankee eagle, save that it’s worn on a British uniform.”

      “Yankee, yes, but a hawk, not an eagle.” He took another long drink from the tankard, grateful for the way the rum eased the pain. “It’s the Sparhawk mark that my grandfather used on all his dealings with the Indians. He gave the pin to me when I was a boy, and I’ve kept it since as a kind of charm. Not that it brought me much luck this night.”

      “Oh, but it has,” said Catie quickly. “Think of how close this shot came to being mortal!”

      “You believe in degrees of luck, then?” he asked wryly. “Too bad I was shot, but at least I wasn’t killed outright?”

      He looked at her over the rim of the tankard. Now that the task of cleaning the wound was done, she was once again achingly aware of him as the man who had haunted her thoughts and dreams for so many years. But reality was so different from dreams: reality was the curling gold hair on the muscled forearm that rested so close to hers, reality was the stubble of beard above the lips that had once kissed hers, reality was the blood-spattered uniform that made him her enemy.

      “You were riding when you were struck?” she asked, striving to turn her thoughts back to where they belonged. At least this might be something that would interest Jon.

      He sighed ruefully, rubbing his palm across his forehead. “What an easy mark I must have been, too, there in the moonlight with the sea around me. I was south of the town, near a place called Damaris Point. Or so it was called once. Do you know it?”

      She nodded, her throat constricting. Of course she knew it. Damaris Point was Sparhawk land, land that Jon would know even better. Could Jon have done this, then, aimed and shot to kill his own cousin?

       Not his cousin, but a Tory officer. Not another Sparhawk, but the enemy. Remember that, Catie, remember, or else you’ll be lost once again!

      “Ah, forgive me, Mrs. Hazard,” he said softly, misunderstanding her silence. “I forget myself. Of course you’d know Damaris Point. A good tavernkeep knows everything, doesn’t she? All the better to advise her guests, even the ones who don’t wish to be advised.”

      Swiftly she turned away, busying herself with washing her hands. “You’re not forgetting yourself, Major, as much as speaking nonsense.”

      “It wasn’t nonsense when you told me about my uncle,” he said. “I didn’t believe you, perhaps because I didn’t want to. But you were indeed right about his…his allegiances. I wonder, Mrs. Hazard, did you laugh at me behind my back as I left for the general’s headquarters?”

      “Oh, no,” she said, remembering how she’d watched him leave, with Belinda’s picture clasped tight in her fingers. “However could I laugh at such a thing?”

      “No?” He turned his head to look at her, his green eyes searching and his expression quizzical, and she almost gasped aloud. That expression, the angle of his jaw as he leaned his head to one side to study her, even the small hint of a smile that curved the corners of his mouth—all of it was so much like her dear little daughter that she could have wept.

       No, Catie, not your daughter alone. His daughter, too, the daughter you made together…

      “No,” she said, as firmly as she could. She pushed her stool away from him and rose, bundling the soiled linen in her hands. “You need your rest, Major. Shall I fetch Mr. Routt now to help you up the stairs to your room?”

      “Stay a moment,” said Anthony softly, and before she could pull away he had covered her hand with his own. Such a little hand, he thought, for all the work it must do. She didn’t look like the stern tavernkeeper now, not with her pale eyes so full of sadness. What could make her so unhappy? Had she a lover fighting far from home, or was this still grief for her husband? In all the years he was a soldier, he’d never stayed in one place long enough for any woman to mourn his leaving with genuine regret. What would that be like, to have a woman like this one waiting and worrying for him?

      She tugged her hand free, curling it against the other as if to protect it. From him, he thought grimly, from him, and wisely, too. He was here beneath her roof expressly to betray her, and he couldn’t have sworn that she wouldn’t do the same to him.

      “It’s late, Major Sparhawk,” she said, avoiding his gaze as she restlessly fingered the heart-shaped locket. “You should rest.”

      “Am I not permitted, then, to thank you for what you’ve done?”

      She bent to bury the coals in the fireplace for the night, her face in profile against the glow of the dying fire, and once again he tried to think of where he’d known her before.

      “I told you, sir, what I’ve done for you I’ve done for many others, as well. I’ve looked to your wound the best I can, but you must still guard against a fever or putrid discharge.”

      He smiled, as much to himself as to her, as he accepted her rebuff. “You sound more like a surgeon than a tavernkeeper.”

      “A good hostess must be many things to prosper,” she said, her expression carefully composed as she turned toward him again with the black iron shovel still in her hands. “If there’s nothing else you wish from me, sir, I’ll bid you good-night and fetch your Mr. Routt.”

      His smile faded. “No, ma’am, that is all,” he said softly. “That is all.”

       Chapter Four

      Catie pulled her cloak more tightly around her shoulders, the cold air hitting her face as soon as she stepped out the kitchen door. In these short days of December, dawn was still a good two hours away, and the courtyard remained every bit as dark as it had been at midnight. She knelt to set the wooden trencher down, gently rapping it three times on the paving stones, the way she did every morning. But before the second tap the cats had already begun to appear, quick gray and black shadows racing toward the dish of scraps.

      “There now, you greedy kits, there’s enough for everyone,” she scolded fondly as two of the cats tussled over a piece of turkey skin. “Don’t I always see that there’s plenty?”

      She smiled wistfully, imagining how Belinda would have insisted on true justice, swatting the quarreling pair apart with a broom and awarding the turkey to a third, meeker cat instead. Fairness was very important СКАЧАТЬ