The Secrets Of Catie Hazard. Miranda Jarrett

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СКАЧАТЬ to bob the hint of a curtsy. Her heart was racing, and her mouth was so dry she prayed she’d be able to speak at all.

      And at the last moment, to her horror, she realized she couldn’t. She swallowed convulsively, opened her mouth, and nothing, absolutely nothing, came out.

      “Good day to you, lass,” he said, saving her from herself without a hint of mockery. “Or good evening, considering the hour.”

      “Whichever Your Lordship wishes,” she said, finally finding a reedy, breathless voice to pass as her own. “That is, in truth it’s night, but if it pleases you to call it day, then so it is.”

      She hadn’t thought it possible to blush any deeper, but after that half-witted speech she found she most certainly could, sinking deeper into mortified misery as her whole face burned, clear to the tops of her breasts.

      But still he didn’t tease or ridicule her. Instead he merely nodded, the lazy smile that curved his lips meant for her alone. “What an agreeable creature you are,” he marveled softly, “willing to turn night into day and back again merely because I wish it”

      “Aye, Your Lordship.” She wasn’t sure what else was proper. This close to the firelight, his eyes were greener than she’d realized from across the room, shadowed beneath the sweep of his lashes—green cat’s eyes, and she the little mouse with the racing heart, caught in their spell.

      “Might I bring Your Lordship more rum?” she asked at last, struggling to return the conversation to the more usual topics. Surely she’d convinced Rebeckah by now. The sooner she left this table, the better. “Or is it something finer Your Lordship’s drinking this night?”

      “‘Your Lordship?’” repeated the next man at the table, one of the two younger, black-haired, and quite drunk Sparhawks. “Your ruddy Lordship? Damnation, Anthony, no wonder you’ve been eying this wench all evening!”

      Instinctively Catie moved back. Long ago she’d learned from her stepfather to keep an arm’s distance between herself and men who’d drunk too much, but by edging away from one Sparhawk she’d moved closer to the first, the fair one they were calling Anthony. Before she could protest—before she noticed, really—he’d taken her hand and begun lightly tracing his finger along her bare arm, from her wrist to the inside of her elbow and back.

      “She’s merely displaying inestimable judgment of my true worth, that’s all, cousin,” he said, his lazy, green-eyed gaze never wavering from hers as his touch trailed across her skin. “As well as proving beyond question why the ladies smile more favorably in my direction than in yours. Isn’t that so, pet? Ah, a lass as wise as she is lovely.”

      She knew she should pull her hand free. With any other man, she’d have done so already.

      But not with him. The gentleness of his touch disarmed her, the feather-light caress across her skin leaving her speechless with startled pleasure.

      “Alas, sweet child, I’m not your lordship, or anyone else’s, either,” he continued. “Merely plain Anthony Sparhawk, of Franklin County in Massachusetts Bay, and these two worthless rogues are my cousins Jonathan and Joshua. Your servant, ma’am.”

      “Nay, but I am the one serving you!”

      He chuckled, a rich, deep sound that warmed Catie even over the din of the taproom. “It’s only an expression, sweet. A politely meaningless turn of phrase. Though I’d be most honored to turn the tables—ah, another expression, eh?—for so pretty a serving lass.”

      Confused, Catie looked away, down, as the immaculate linen of Anthony’s ruffled cuff fell across her own red, rough little hand with its bitten nails. It was all nonsense, him calling her pretty and lovely, the sort of claptrap drinking men always said in taverns when the rum was doing the talking. She wasn’t lovely and never would be. But oh, from a man this gentle, this charming, this beautiful, how she wished it were true!

      “’Ere now, Catie, where’s our rum?” demanded an irritated male voice behind her. “Or be you too busy playin’ patty-hand with them fancy cockerels t’ serve us honest laborin’ men?”

      There was nothing gentle about the hand that suddenly snaked around her waist now, yanking her away from Anthony and nearly off her feet. Zeb Harris was a regular customer, a hawser in the shipyard, and he and his four friends all roared with laughter as Catie stumbled, barely catching herself on the edge of their table.

      “Off with you, you little hussy, an’ fetch our rum,” growled Zeb as he smacked her backside. “Else I’ll complain t’ Master Hazard.”

      “Oh, n-no, Zeb, you needn’t do that!” stammered Catie hastily, at once humiliated and contrite and strangely close to tears. “I’ll fetch it right now, I promise. ’Twas wrong to keep you waiting, Zeb, and I vow it won’t happen again!”

      But as she turned to hurry to the bar, she ran instead squarely into the broad chest of Anthony Sparhawk. Lord, she’d no notion he’d stand so tall, nearly a head more than herself.

      “Oh, sir, forgive me, I didn’t mean to—”

      “Hush now, no harm’s done,” he said, smiling as he gently steadied her with his hands on her shoulders. “Far mightier foes than you have tried to do me in, and I always prove remarkably hardy. And mind you, no more apologies, either.”

      Mutely Catie nodded. The light pressure of his palms was as oddly unsettling as his fingertips had been on her wrist, yet once again she felt incapable of pulling free.

      “Enough of your dawdlin’, you lazy little hussy!” roared Zeb impatiently. “Now leave your fancy boy be till later, an’ fetch my rum!”

      Catie felt Anthony tense, though his face didn’t lose its smile as he looked over her head to Zeb. “The lady,” he said pointedly, “doesn’t wish to hear your insults, any more than you deserve her attentions.”

      In an instant the taproom fell silent. Every eye was turned toward Catie and the two men, every ear strained to hear Zeb’s reply.

      Zeb shoved back his chair as he rose to face Anthony. “Catie Willman ain’t no lady,” he said belligerently. “She’s a ha’penny rum-shop wench that’s paid t’ do as I say. An’ you’ll keep your fine nose out o’ my say-so, if you don’t want it broken.”

      “Shall I now?” asked Anthony with a mildness that fooled no one. “And here I was going to offer you the exact same advice.”

      Trapped between them, Catie looked frantically from Zeb to Anthony and back again, her hands twisting in her apron as she felt the hostility flaring on either side of her. The two men were matched in height, but Anthony, in his blue superfine jacket and embroidered waistcoat, was a gentleman, and what could such a gentleman know of tavern brawls? Zeb’s muscular arms were larger from toiling in the shipyards than most men’s thighs, and his strength was combined with both a notoriously short temper and a fearsome long knife that everyone in the Crossed Keys knew well to avoid.

      Everyone, that is, except the Sparhawks. The two dark-haired cousins had come to stand behind Anthony, their good-natured drunkenness vanished as they curled their hands into fists at their sides. The tables around them had emptied with an unimaginable speed, with men clambering over chairs and benches to find a safer place—something Catie wished she could do, as well.

      “You must not do this, Mr. Sparhawk,” СКАЧАТЬ