“He saved my life, Kat. Several times, actually, but the first time, he didn’t even know me. I wasn’t even under his direct command.” He sighed, the memories still vivid in his mind.
“The fact is, I was being ordered aroundbyan idiot, and I hadn’t learned to hide what I thought. He didn’t like me. I just had to look at him wrong, or fail to look at him, or breathe in a way he decided was insubordinate. I’d been punished in every way the army could punish a man. Cleaning the latrines. Double guard duty. All the worst jobs Lieutenant Lackwit could think of. And floggings. Lieutenant Lackwit just loved him a flogging.”
Kat shuddered.
“I survived it, Kat,” Jakereassured her.
“Obviously,” his beloved replied, the acid back in her tone. “Go on with your story.”
She still hated showing any softness, then. But it was there, nonetheless, and was one of the reasons he had fallen for her.
“The last time he ordered me flogged, it was fifty lashes. The captain came past when they were up to thirty.” Jake had passed out, and the lieutenant was calling for water to wake him up so he’d be able to feel the next twenty.
“The captain saw what was going on and pulled rank. Said he’d chosen me as his soldier servant, and I was therefore no longer under the lieutenant’s orders. He ordered a couple of the fellows to carry me to his tent, and he doctored me with his own hands. Called the medics. Sat with me through the fever. I’m his man, Kat. I owe him.”
“And I’m Miss Ellen’s ‘man’,” Kat retorted. “Where does that leave us, Jacob? Is Captain Harraway going to marry my Miss Ellen? Are we allies or enemies?”
“Allies,” Jake said. “Kat, I’m on your side, no matter what. It’s your amulet I’ve worn pinned to my shirt over my heart since the day you gave it to me. But I can’t help you cheat the captain. I just can’t. Miss Ellen is only a baron’s daughter, and no more the Lady of Carr Abbas than you are.”
Kat had softened at the mention of the amulet, but his last sentence made her bristle. “What makes you say that?”
Hedgehog of a girl. “I say it because Captain Harraway is the owner of Carr Abbas.”
“Oh,” said Kat.
Oh, indeed.
Chapter Nine
It was disconcertingto see—and, yes, to hear—the echoes of the boy she loved in this man in front of her. At fifteen, he had been a wiry youth, inches shorter and more slender than the man in front of her. The face, too, had changed, growing to fit his nose.
But that nose was the same nose she had peppered with kisses the day they had sealed their love. The eyes were Jacob’s. The voice had long since finished with the unexpected squeaks and squeals that had beleaguered him back in the day. It was the same voice, though—deep, pleasant, sending a thrill to places that Kat had nearly forgotten in the past eight years.
Those broad shoulders shrugged in the same way as Jacob the youth—one first and then the other. His muscular buttocks had changed very little—the hard work of the household presumably not much different now in Captain Harraway’s service than it had been back then—but his thighs now stretched the fabric of his pantaloons, and his broad chest did the same for his shirt and coat.
Eight years ago, at fourteen, Kat had reached her adult height and had topped Jacob by a fraction. Now, he had passed her by a good half a head, but not so much he could not easily bend his headto kiss her.
And why was she thinking about kisses when Jacob had set a conundrum before them? Captain Harraway was the true owner of Carr Abbas? Who would have imagined such a coincidence? For that matter, did Mrs. Dove-Lyon know? And had she planned to tell the principals in the marriage she had orchestrated?
She and Jacob needed to settle matters for her lady and his captain. Only then would they be able to consider their own path.
“Very well, Jacob,” she said. “Let us consult with Miss Ellen and Captain Harraway. I need Miss Ellen’s permission to tell you what we have been up to, but I promise I can explain.”
She glanced over at the other couple, who no longer had their head bent over Captain Harraway’s sketch pad, but were talking intently. Perhaps Miss Ellen was already explaining their ruse and the reason for it.
“Let us join our employers, then,” said Jacob.
“Kat,” said Miss Ellen as they approached, “I have been telling Captain Harraway that I am not really the Lady of Carr Abbas.”
“It was my idea, captain,” Kat said.
“But Kat meant it for the best,” Miss Ellen insisted. “She was trying to look after me.”
“She?” asked Captain Harraway. “Kat Fivepence is a woman?” He looked down at Kat’s hand, held firmly in Jacob’s. “Of course. She must be. But that is fast work, Jake.”
“Jacob Flynn used to be our footman,” said Miss Ellen. “He and Kat go back a long way.”
The captain narrowed his eyes, and the look he cast at Jacob was laden with hurt. “You were in on this plot, too, Jake?”
