Miranda Jarrett - The Secrets Of Catie Hazard

The groom was slow coming from the stable, sleepily shoving his shirt into his breeches as he trotted forward to take the reins. Anthony winced as he swung his leg over the horse and slid to the ground, the impact jarring like a bolt straight to his arm. He knew the wound wasn’t a bad one, especially considering what it might have been, but his sleeve was wet and clammy with blood and his knees felt weak, and he prayed he’d be able to walk across the yard to the doorway without keeling over facefirst onto the paving stones.

Carefully he placed one foot after the other, holding his injured arm beneath his cloak as naturally as he could. If he wobbled now, the groom would merely believe he was in his cups, which was far better than letting the man spread stories about how the redcoat major had been fool enough to get himself shot.

Anthony gritted his teeth from the effort, his forehead glazed with sweat even on this cold night. He was almost to the back door now, where his manservant, Routt, would be waiting for him in the kitchen. Routt would know what to do; he’d mended far worse than this.

Inside the kitchen, Catie hurried to the window at the sound of the horse in the courtyard and peeked through the shutters. One flambeau was always kept burning for the sake of any late travelers, and by its dancing light she made out the tall shape of Major Sparhawk as he climbed from his horse. With a self-conscious shake of her skirts, she stepped back from the window and took a deep breath to calm herself. She’d been preparing for this moment all evening. So why, then, was she as nervous as a cat on coals?

She heard him try the door, discover it locked, swear to himself and knock instead. She almost smiled at that muttered oath, for the very human irritation behind it made him somehow less daunting.

“Who is it?” she asked. Though she knew full well who was there, she decided it wouldn’t hurt to make him wait that extra half minute.

“Major Anthony Sparhawk,” he said, his voice rumbling deep through the barred oak door. “Damnation, woman, open the bloody door!”

This time she frowned, not caring to have the oaths directed at her. It would serve him right if she left him out in the cold all night. But she had her promise to Jon to keep, and, setting her face in a smile she drew the bolt and swung open the door.

“Good evening to you, Major,” she said pleasantly as he brushed past her with a rush of icy air. “Though, faith, ‘tis well past midnight. Do all you English officers keep London hours?”

Anthony ignored her, in no mood or condition for banter. “Where’s my man?”

She closed the door and stood beside it, her hand still resting on the latch. He was hatless, his neat queue torn apart from the wind in a way that left his golden hair loose and wild around his face, dashing and dangerous, enough to make her feel once again like a giddy seventeen-year-old girl.

What Jon asked of her, she thought woefully, oh, what Jon asked!

“Your Mr. Routt?” she repeated, as offhandedly as she could. “I sent him to bed.”

Anthony wheeled around to face her, his long, dark cloak swirling around him. “You’d no right to do that. Routt reports to me, not you.”

“I’ve every right in the world, when he’s cluttering up my kitchen, getting himself underfoot with my cook,” she said defensively. “I sent him to his bed an hour ago, along with the rest of my own help. We’ve precious few customers tonight, thanks to you and I saw no reason to make them all wait up.”

“That still doesn’t give you the…give you the…” Lord help him, he couldn’t remember. All he knew now was that the fireplace was drifting upward at a crazy angle, and if he didn’t sit down directly he was going to fall down, here at her feet. He groped for the chair that must be behind him, his uninjured hand tangling clumsily in his cloak.

“Let me help you.” In an instant she was there at his side, her arm around his waist as she guided him into the chair. “Here you are, no harm done.”

But as soon as he was seated, Catie drew back, frowning down at the blood smeared on her hand and sleeve. Before he could protest, she gently lifted his cloak back over his shoulder to reveal the torn, bruised wound where the ball had ripped through his arm.

He grimaced, but didn’t flinch. At least for now, the fireplace had stopped spinning. “Not pretty, is it?”

“Not in the least.” To his surprise, she didn’t flinch, either. Deftly she unfastened the clasp at the neck of his cloak and pulled it off. “Is a jealous husband after you already?”

“Something like that.” He flexed his fingers and grimaced, noting how the blood still oozed fresh from the wound. “Send for my servant, Mrs. Hazard, so I can stop cluttering up your kitchen, as well.”

She looked at him sharply. “Don’t you wish me to summon a surgeon?”

“What, and have the news common on every street corner, with every rebel in town claiming credit for having done this?” He shook his head with disgust at his own foolishness. “No, thank you, ma’am. For now, I’d rather stake my luck on Routt.”

Catie bent closer to him, her arms akimbo as she studied the wound. At least now she had something safer than politics to discuss with him. “You don’t need Mr. Routt just yet. I can tend to this well enough myself.”

He glanced at her skeptically and tugged his neckcloth loose with his thumb. “How do I know you won’t put arsenic in the dressing, and thus be rid of one more wretched redcoat?”

“You don’t know. You’ll simply have to trust me.” Without waiting for an answer, Catie went to one of the wall cabinets and took down a wooden box filled in readiness with neatly rolled bandages and lint, scissors, needles and waxed thread. Next she hung a kettle of water over the coals to boil, and laid a clean towel and a dish of soap on the table beside Anthony.

Yet as Anthony watched her preparations, his doubts grew. The only other woman to nurse him had been his own grandmother, when he was still a boy. And considering how this woman had practically spat at him this afternoon, trusting her now hardly seemed wise.

He pushed himself up from the chair, leaning heavily on the edge of the table. “A lady such as yourself needn’t do such—such tasks.”

“You won’t escape that way, sir,” she said softly. How could a man as tall and strong as this one be so clearly terrified of her? Jon had been right when he’d called her kindhearted. Perhaps because she’d been something of a stray herself, no mongrel was ever turned from her door without a plate of scraps. She’d always been tender that way, and she doubted she could ever bring herself to harm any creature, beast or man, enemy or not.

Yet even so, the hazy reality of what he was to her pricked uneasily at her conscience. Was she being kind to him only because he was a man in sore need of her help, or in spite of it?

Anthony thought of the long retreat from Lexington to Charlestown, when he first learned that the people they’d come to protect didn’t want protecting. The rebel marksmen had stayed hidden in houses and behind walls, like the one who’d fired at him tonight, and like that unseen man, the Massachusetts rebels had almost always found their mark. His regiment had formed the rear guard of the retreat, and over the musket fire and screams of the wounded and dying he had shouted at his men until he was hoarse, to hold their lines steady, to reload, to fire, to be brave.

But by the time they reached Charlestown, more than two hundred British soldiers had been wounded or killed outright, and those marked as missing, those left behind, had found no mercy at all at the hands of the enemy, even hands that seemed as gentle as Catharine Hazard’s. Better to leave now, to find Routt. Aye, Routt he could trust.