Chapter Eight #2
There she was at long last. Not pacing behind her mistress as a dignified footman should, but marching beside her, the pair of them chatting like the friends they had been in girlhood—though not in front of Miss Ellen’s mother or her older sisters.
Captain Harraway had seen them too. He had been sitting on a rock by the lake, his sketch pad on his knee and his pencil flying, for the past fifteen minutes, so he must like the aspect.
Now he stood, put the pad and his pencils in the copious pocket of the coat he wore, and took several paces toward Miss Ellen and Kat.
Or, rather—Jake corrected himself to acknowledge the captain’s point of view—the false Lady of Carr Abbas and her footman.
The imposter certainly looked the part of a lady.
Little Miss Ellen had grown up. Nicely but not ostentatiously dressed, from the perky bonnet on her head to the neat walking boots on her dainty feet.
She was pretty in a quiet, understated way.
A bit washed out, in Jake’s opinion, with the porcelain skin the gentry valued, fair curls, and eyes of a pale blue that was almost grey.
Jake glanced at Captain Harraway. Was he going to challenge the lady to her face? But apparently not. He was staring at her like a man who has been starving for weeks might stare at a bowl of juicy, succulent stew.
Jake stood, too, and bowed in the direction of both Miss Ellen and Kat.
“My lady,” said Captain Harraway.
“Captain Harraway. I see you found a scene that pleased you.”
“I did, my lady. Is it Lady Carr Abbas? I must apologize. Our introduction was incomplete, as I only knew you as Ellen Miller.”
Miss Ellen was not a practiced liar, any more than she had been as a child. She blushed. “Ellen is my name,” she said, her high color and the way her eyes darted around signaling her discomfort with the direction of the conversation.
Kat intervened. “My lady is Lady Ellen Miller,” she said.
Kat, of course, had been a practiced liar from what had passed for a cradle in the orphanage that raised her until she was old enough to sell into service.
Jake admired her tone—flat and clipped with an undercurrent of boredom.
Just a footman doing his job. Nothing to see here.
The captain bowed. “Lady Ellen,” he repeated .
“May I see your sketch?” Miss Ellen asked. If she blushed any more, her face was going to burst into flames from the heat.
“Of course,” said Captain Harraway, and he took the book from his pocket.
Soon, the pair of them were absorbed, first leafing through the sketch book, then going through today’s pictures again, each time walking to the spot where the captain had drawn the scene.
Jake eyed Kat. She was just standing, watching her mistress and his master, making no move to approach.
Kat’s appearance was much more to Jake’s liking.
Kat was an armful of a woman. Even the men’s clothing couldn’t entirely disguise her figure, now that he was looking for it, and her calves were on full display in a pair of highly polished boots.
She had cropped her ebony hair short, which was a sin.
Add to that a vivid complexion and sparkling brown eyes, she had enough color to rival a whole bouquet of flowers.
“Kat,” Jake said, pitching his voice so Kat could hear it but the sound would not carry to the two who were chatting over the drawings. “We need to talk.”
With that, she marched up to him, glaring. She kept her voice low, but it vibrated with emotion as she said, “Jacob Flynn, you said you would come back.”
That was his Kat. She had always used anger to cover hurt.
Weirdly, that comforted him, for she still cared enough to be angry.
He had been wondering how to explain his absence but hadn’t planned anything.
Now that she was in front of him, the words tumbled out on their own.
“I am sorry, Kat. I went for a soldier, but I should have come to you as soon as I was back in England. But I couldn’t leave my captain alone. ”
She narrowed her eyes at him, as if gauging his reliability. After a moment, she gestured with a tip of her head toward Captain Harraway. “Him? He looks old enough to be out without a minder.”
“Come sit by me and I’ll tell you all about it,” Jake invited, trying to sound nonchalant while his heart was singing hallelujahs— Kat is here.
She is talking to me. She still cares . The glare had softened, but it was still there.
Even so, she flung herself down beside him, the old-fashioned long coat she wore flinging back to give him a good view of her shapely legs, encased in knitted breeches and stockings.
“Stop looking at my legs, Jacob Flynn, and tell me what took you so long.” A thread of amusement had entered her voice, and the glare had faded still further.
“It is good to see you, Kat,” said Jake, speaking from the heart. “How have you been?”
She wasn’t having any part of it. “You could have seen me any time in the past eight years,” she retorted.
“Not once I signed up with King George, I couldn’t,” he protested. “The army gets quite sour about soldiers swanning off on their own affairs.” She clearly wasn’t going to answer his question until he answered hers.
“I looked for work in London, as we discussed. I managed to find a few casual jobs in warehouses and the like, enough to keep me from starving, but nothing decent. Nothing permanent. I tried Birmingham, Sheffield, Bristol, Portsmouth. In Portsmouth, they were out hunting for men for the navy, and I only just avoided the press gang. It occurred to me that the navy and the army were the only people seeking workers and taking all comers. Since I get seasick in a bathtub, I figured I’d be better off in the army. ”
“In a bathtub” was an exaggeration, but it was no lie that the three or four times Boss Flynn’s work had taken them anywhere by boat, he’d been wretchedly ill for the entire trip.
Once, when they were caught in a storm on the way to Great Yarmouth, he’d been so sick that the medical officer had told Boss Flynn’s lieutenant, “You need to be prepared. The lad will probably not make it. Some people should never travel by sea. ”
“So where did the army send you?” Kat demanded. “You must have traveled on the ocean.”
“It was Spain and I did,” Jake acknowledged.
“I was as sick as a dog, but at least the trip only took six days. They said I would get over the sickness after a day or two, but it never happened. I ended up in the infirmary, and they had to carry me off the boat at the other end, straight to the hospital tent. I recovered quickly, though.” That was a lie.
It had been weeks before his stomach muscles stopped aching and months before he put back on the weight he’d lost in those six days.
Still, he didn’t want Kat to think he was playing for her sympathy.
“I just can’t see you in the army, Jacob. You never did like taking orders, and the number of times you got in trouble for talking back!”
Jake had to chuckle at her perceptive comment.
“I haven’t changed that much, Kat. I’ve got better at keeping my mouth shut when opening it might get me killed, but I still don’t like being ordered around by idiots.
The captain… He doesn’t order me to do stupid things, and he doesn’t mind a bit of back chat, unless we’re in company. ”
“And so, you feel responsible for him?” Kat asked, with a measure of scorn.
“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 around by an 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,” Jake reassured 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 .