Who knew that wetness rendered a man more attractive?
Or that a wet, half-dressed, and disheveled Captain Kincaid wassomehow two-thirds more handsome than an impeccably attired and dry one?
Worse, to her utter shame, Georgie was not only hovering on the cusp of all aquiver, she was also irrationally—and uncharitably—annoyed that the frightened little girl in his arms had prevented her from properly ogling his perfect chest too. Mortified that her racing mind was suddenly filled with questions about it. The most burning of which was whether that chest was as smooth, rugged, and bare as one of the marble statues of the ancient gods in the British Museum, or if it was dusted with hair? She didn’t particularly have a preference—she just wanted to know.
Desperately.
Which all pointed to her being as shallow as Portia and Lottie, and perhaps more so, because they had no reason to dislike him, and she disliked him intensely.
Although less so since yesterday.
It was difficult to loathe and despise a man who took children for ice cream and laughed alongside them while they ate it.
Now she had tonight’s conflicting evidence to add to that. Though his room was downstairs, he must have dropped everything and sprinted to get to Grace before Georgie, whose room was on the same floor, scant feet away. Yet he had still beaten her to it.
He was also clearly wet, cold, and dog-tired—and yet he had acquiesced to his niece’s pleas without a moment’s complaint or reluctance. Then charitably sent Georgie back to bed when she sincerely doubted that there were many men, and mere uncles to boot, who would eschew a night of slumber for a child. Especially when their governess, who he was paying handsomely to look after those children for him, stood before him ready, willing, and expecting to step into the breach.
The colonel wouldn’t have behaved like the captain just had in a million years. He would have had no sympathy for a child’s tears. In fact, he would have responded to them with explosive outrage that his rest had been disturbed, no matter what the cause of the distress. Exactly as he had done whenever she had been upset while her mother was alive—when her dear mama had borne the brunt of his anger. Quietly and without complaint but still without bending to that tyrant’s will wherever her daughter’s well-being or happiness was concerned.
Which, of course, never ended well for poor Mama.
Not that her mother had ever complained about her dire lot in life nor ever mentioned his cruelty. To her, the sacrifices she had made were worth it because it kept a roof over Georgie’s head and food in her belly. Georgie had been her mother’s everything and had told her so every single day. Oh, how she missed that!
Instinctively, her fingers went to her mother’s locket where it rested on her collarbone, and she tried to will all those bad memories away. Despite the horrid life she had with a husband nobody could love, her mother had been all sunshine and light regardless of the unpalatable choices widowhood and then poverty had forced her to make. She had always been so much more than Georgie’s protector and her champion. Mama had, first and foremost, been her friend, and it was all those happy memories that deserved to be celebrated, not tarnished because of that vile man, now that she was gone.
Except tonight, the thunderstorm lashing the house and little Grace’s fear reminded her too much of the only occasion when she had forgotten to cry quietly into her pillow in the terrifying first days after her mother had died. That night, the colonel had threatened to beat Georgie within an inch of her life if she didn’t stop sniffling, notcuddled her close and offered to melt chocolate into her milk like the captain just had. And with nothing but love and concern swirling in his eyes for the frightened little girl left in his charge.
Clearly, she was going to have to reevaluate her original fraction and lower his disagreeableness to seven-tenths based on tonight’s noble and heroic performance alone. Six and a half if she factored in Gunther’s yesterday too.
Drat him.
With a more irritated sigh, she grabbed her robe, and in so doing, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
Her uncooperative hair had, of course, escaped the tight plait she had entrapped it in at bedtime and was a riotous, orange mess shooting from her scalp. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d clearly been having one of her infamous unrestrained fidgeting dreams before she was rudely awoken, because her nightgown was undone and was twisted in a manner that, frankly, wasn’t decent. Scandalized by her own reflection, she yanked the dangling sleeve back onto her shoulder and huffed as she tied the neck ribbons tight.
Good heavens above! What a shocking state to have been seen in.
Especially by such a perfect physical specimen as him!
As soon as her robe was on and the belt knotted tight, she slid her feet into her slippers and then twisted her horrid hair into a knot which she secured with at least twenty pins in case it had any notion of showing her up in front of him again. One final glance in the mirror reassured her that her disappointing reflection was at least proper before she ventured downstairs.
Everywhere was dark except for the soft glow emanating from the kitchen, and the only sounds beyond the elements still raging outside were the deep, reassuring tones of the captain’s voice.
“… the Vikings believed the thunder was caused by the wheelsof Thor’s mighty chariot hitting the mountaintops, and the lightning was the sparks from his hammer.”
That he was also telling his niece a story to alleviate her fears did peculiar things to Georgie’s heart. Because that was how things should be. How a real man—a surrogate father—should treat a child.
“Is Thor a carpenter, Uncle Harry?”
“Absolutely not. He was the Viking god of war.” He chuckled as a saucepan clattered against the range. “He wasn’t out in his chariot fixing things, poppet, as he was more about destruction than repair. Thor had quite the temper on him, apparently, and liked to take his bad moods out on everyone else. Hence all the noise up above us.”
Georgie hovered outside the door and was in two minds as to whether she should interrupt such a private and tender family moment at all when she heard him rummaging to no avail. “There is no rhyme or reason to this pantry, Grace. The flour is next to the butter and the jam is next to the tea. There are random spices all over the place and Lord only knows where Mrs. Rigsby hides the chocolate—but it’s not near the coffee, which is where I would put it. Nor the tea because tea is a drink that so obviously needs to reside beside the eggs. Her logic is baffling.”
“Not everything needs to be alphabetical.” Georgie couldn’t help but smile as she sailed in, and then almost choked on her own tongue as he emerged from the pantry with his niece hugging his leg and a wry smile on his face. Not that she noticed the curve of his mouth straightaway. Or little Grace clutching him as if her life depended upon it. Her eyes were too busy noticing the unmistakable shadow of dark hair beneath the soggy front of his shirt. Hair that dusted his pectoral muscles in the most intriguing way, then arrowed down his abdomen—although she couldn’t be certain of that as the thin, damplinen was too loose around his middle and refused to cling there while she investigated.
“Why don’t I put you out of your misery and take over?” Off-kilter, Georgie gestured to a chair well away from the stove so that she wouldn’t have to look at him all damp and disconcerting while she prepared the chocolate. Especially as her nipples had decided to pucker in sympathy with his when hers weren’t even wet or cold, so had absolutely no excuse for misbehaving so outrageously. Thank goodness for the heavy robe tightly knotted, else they’d have publicly disgraced her worse than her horrid hair and askew nightgown already had. “You sit down with Grace.”
“That’s very kind of you.” Acting more awkward than she had ever seen him, he picked the little girl up. Whether that was to offer the scared child some comfort or to protect his modesty from her suddenly hungry gaze, she had no clue, but was grateful for it all the same. “And probably just as well, as I’d have only burned the milk anyway and then incurred Mrs. Rigsby’s wrath. Despite this beingmykitchen, I am not allowed in here upon threat of death.”
