Anne Gracie - Gallant Waif

“Señorita.”

Kate smiled slightly and inclined her head.

He sniffed the air and let out a long, soulful sigh. “Ah, coffee.”

Kate chuckled. “Would you care for a cup, sir?”

“The señorita is very kind.” The white smile widened in the dark face and he bowed again.

Kate dimpled. “Then please be seated, sir, and I will fetch you a cup directly.” She went to fetch the coffee pot.

The two men began to converse in Spanish. Kate slowly stiffened. Three years in Spain and Portugal had resulted in a certain amount of fluency in both languages. She could understand every word the men said. And she was not impressed.

“So, Major Jack, who is the little brown mouse with the pretty eyes, the terrible clothes and the dirty face?”

Kate peered at her reflection in a spoon, then scrubbed at her face with a clean dishcloth.

“Damned if I know, Carlos. Some servant of my grandmother’s.” His tone was indifferent, bored.

A chair scraped on the floor and footsteps came towards her. Kate bent over the pots, then jumped nervously as a warm hand touched her lightly on the shoulder. She turned quickly and found a pair of dark blue eyes regarding her from a great height, a glimmer of amusement in their depths. Did he find it amusing to give her a fright? Or had he noticed the clean face? She blushed.

“If you would be so good…” He waved her aside, bent, took a burning twig from the fire, lit a cheroot and returned to the table, limping heavily.

“Jumpy, isn’t she, the little mouse?” said Carlos in Spanish.

Kate could almost feel the shrug of the broad shoulders.

“Skinny too.”

“Probably hasn’t had a square meal in a good few weeks,” the deep voice agreed. “I don’t know what my grandmother could want with such a little waif.”

Kate flushed in mortification. Was it that obvious?

Carlos continued, “Pretty, though. Those eyes are beautiful. Needs some meat on her bones yet. Me, I like a woman to feel like a woman.”

Jack Carstairs grunted. “You think too much about women.”

“Ah, Major Jack, do not say so, you, with your fine handsome face and wicked blue eyes that all the ladies sigh over.”

Jack’s hand went unconsciously to the shattered cheek.

“Ah, Major Jack, that little scratch will never make you safe from the ladies’ attentions. It will only—”

“Hold your tongue, Carlos,” Jack snapped brusquely.

There was a short silence. Kate pushed some more sticks into the fire, her face rosy.

“Yes,” Carlos continued, “that little bird is as flat as a board at the moment, but with some of your good solid English beef in her the curves will grow—oh, yes, they will grow most deliciously.”

His soft laughter washed over Kate’s rigid body. How dared they discuss her like that? She was no innocent, not any longer, but they did not know it.

No one who had travelled with an army could retain the total innocence of men that was so necessary for an unmarried English lady. Still, for most of that time she’d had the protection of her father and brothers and the broader protection of the soldiers who knew them. Kate had walked freely among the troops, tending wounds, writing letters to loved ones and doling out soup and cheerful greetings, secure in the knowledge that not one of them would offer her the sort of insult that she was now having to endure in the home of a so-called English gentleman! Even if it was in a foreign tongue.

Of course, given how she had left the Peninsula, she should be inured to this sort of insult by now—but these men knew nothing of that. And she was not inured to insult and never would be!

Carlos’s voice penetrated her consciousness again. “And when those curves do grow, Major Jack, I will be there to worship them. I, Carlos Miguel Riviera.”

“That’s enough!” Jack’s voice was suddenly harsh. “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Ah, Major Jack…” the other smiled with dawning comprehension “…you fancy the little mouse yourself, do you?”

“Not at all,” snapped Jack furiously. “I have no interest in tumbling scrawny kitchen maids. But I won’t have you sniffing around her. She’s…she’s my grandmother’s servant and you’re not to go near her, understand?”

The men of the Coldstream Guards all knew that particular tone and not one of them would have dreamed of answering back or disobeying. Carlos’s hands rose in a placatory fashion. “No, no, of course not, Major Jack. I will have nothing to do with the girl, nothing, I promise you.” His voice was soothing, conciliatory, then his evil genius prompted him to add, “She is all yours, Major Jack, all yours.”

Jack sat up and glared at Carlos, but a clatter from the other end of the kitchen distracted him. Both men turned to look at Kate.

The small body was rigid with fury, the grey-green eyes blazing tempestuously. “Your coffee, gentlemen.” She emphasised the last word sarcastically, then, to both men’s utter amazement, she lifted the coffee pot and hurled it straight at them.

Reactions honed by years of fighting sent both men instantly diving out of the way, but nothing could save them from being splattered with hot coffee as the earthenware pot shattered against the wall behind them. They cursed and swore in a fluent mixture of Spanish, Portuguese and English and turned to face the source of their anger. But there was no one to be seen. Kate had not waited to see the results of her action, but had stormed out of the kitchen while they were still ducking for cover.

“Blast the wench!” Jack growled. “What the hell’s the matter with her? Damned coffee all over me.” He pulled off his shirt, now sodden with brown coffee, and used it to mop down his dripping face and chest.

Carlos, similarly engaged with the aid of a drying cloth, looked across at him. “You think, Major Jack, that maybe she understand what we were saying?”

Jack stared at him. “An English kitchen maid, in the middle of Leicestershire, understand Spanish?” His tone was incredulous. “Impossible! Though she did clean that soot off her face.”

He absent-mindedly rubbed the shirt over his arms and chest, then shook his head. “No. Ridiculous. She’s English.” He stood up and roughly towelled the remains of the coffee from his unruly black hair.

“Unless she has Spanish blood in her.” He considered her clear, pale skin, the grey-green eyes and the curly, nut-brown hair, then he shook his head again. “Hasn’t got the colouring for it.”

Carlos shrugged. “Then why?” His hands spread out eloquently, indicating the devastated coffee pot.

“How the hell should I know why?” Jack growled. “The chit ought to be in Bedlam for all I know. Damn her, but she’ll not get away with it this time!”

“This time?” queried Carlos, the beginnings of a grin appearing on his broad face. “Do you say, Major Jack, that the little mouse has crossed you before?”

A pair of icy-blue eyes turned on him. “Clean up this mess at once,” snapped the crisp voice so familiar to the men of the Coldstreams.

“Sí, sí. At once, Major Jack, at once.” Carlos bent to the task instantly as Jack strode from the room with a frown like a black thundercloud on his face.

“Oho, little mouse, you’ve roused the lion in him, to be sure,” Carlos muttered. “I hope you’ve hidden yourself safe away, for Major Jack is greatly to be feared when he has the devil in him.”

Jack entered the hallway and glanced swiftly around. No sign of the chit. His hands clenched into fists. He’d give the little hussy a good shaking before he sent her packing! The chill morning air quivered against his bare skin, and with a muttered curse he moved quickly up the stairs towards his room, favouring his stiff leg quite heavily. Turning the corner on the landing, he ran smack into Kate storming along the corridor. They collided with such force he had to grab her to steady himself.