Chapter Nine #2
“And will you let us—both of us—stay on as your servants?” Kat challenged, as she took Jacob’s hand and stood up.
Miss Ellen glanced at the captain, and he smiled at her before saying, “We shall. Jake, I’m taking my betrothed for a walk to give you time to propose properly. ”
Jake’s captain placed the lady’s hand on his arm, and escorted her away on the path that led around the lake.
Proposing properly? The captain was right. It was the least Jake owed his Kat. But right at this minute, his brain had turned to mush and he had not the least idea what to do or what to say.
He looked Kat’s way. She was regarding him with calm, level eyes set in a face that gave nothing away. Both of them had learned early not to let their emotions show. It meant nothing, except that once she had not worn her mask in front of him.
A sudden thought occurred, and he blurted it. “I should have flowers!”
Kat laughed, her face suddenly alive with amusement. “ That is what is keeping you silent? You should have flowers?”
There she was. The girl behind the mask.
And he had made her laugh, even if the joke was on him.
“Well, I should. I always promised myself I’d propose to you when I saw you again.
You took me by surprise in the bakery, but I knew I would see you again today.
I should have thought to bring flowers, as a token of my esteem and affection. ”
“Listen to you, with your fine words—‘a token of my esteem and affection,’ indeed,” she jeered, but her tone was fond.
Jake’s heart soared. She would not be teasing him if she did not still like him.
Suddenly, declaring his heart seemed the easiest thing in the world.
“Kat, I have loved you since I was a boy. I told you eight years ago that I wanted to wed you, and I’ve never changed my mind.
Now that we are both grown, you are even more amazing than you were eight years ago.
I admire your devotion to Miss Ellen. I am in awe of how you turned one guinea into a marriage and a future for her, and your behind in those breeches is driving me demented. ”
She was no longer hiding behind a bland expression and the emotions flitting across her face made him increasingly certain of her answer. He finished, “I love you, Kat. Will you marry me?”
His beloved still had the habit of tipping her head to one side while she thought. Jake held his breath, waiting for her answer, and he hadn’t passed out from lack of air by the time she answered, so it could not have been as long as he thought.
“You are the only man I have ever imagined marrying, Jacob Flynn. If I do not marry you, I suppose I shall never marry. But we do not know one another. Not anymore.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she put up a hand to stop him.
“Don’t misunderstand. I like what I have seen. But Jacob, eight years!”
It was to be a negotiation, then. “How about this? We ask the vicar to read the banns, then spend the next few weeks in one another’s company. Miss Ellen and Captain Harraway will be husband and wife in a few days, so we shall have plenty of time to see if our wedding should go ahead.”
Kat thought about that, too. “Very well,” she said, at last. “But if we don’t agree, let us not fall out about it. We will still have to work together.”
Jake agreed without a second’s thought. That would not be an issue. Either they would marry, or he would leave. For he loved Kat Fivepence with all his heart and soul, and he would not be able to stay near her unless he could make her his.
They would marry, of course. Kat was already certain of it, though all the lessons she’d learned about the unreliability of others urged her to caution. She amended her thought. We shall marry unless Jacob shows himself to be a bad man .
He isn’t , scoffed her heart. He is my love and my heart’s desire . He was also just a trifle smug. His expression at the end of his confession of love had made it clear he was sure of her.
“Flowers would be nice,” she commented. No one but Jacob had ever brought her flowers.
He used to seek out the first primroses, the first violets, the first of every sort of wildflower that grew in the fields or woods around the Miller home.
Once, when he had run an urgent message for Lord Miller and had been rewarded with a penny, he had spent it on a rose from the village.
“Roses,” he said. “I bought you a rose, once.”
Ignoring the melting of her heart at this evidence the memory was precious to them both, Kat repeated, “Flowers. I shall leave the choice to you.”
“May I have a kiss?” Jacob asked, reaching for her as if her agreement was assured.
“Out in the open like this when I am dressed as a man?” Kat demanded. He must have completely forgotten, for her refusal had him blinking in surprise.
“Oh. That’s right,” he said. “Later then? When we have some privacy?”
How did such a masculine man—a tough, hardened warrior—manage to make puppy eyes? Kat took advantage of her masculine persona to punch his shoulder. “Definitely later,” she promised. “Come on. Let’s also walk around the lake. Tell me about your adventures, Jacob.”
He moved his elbow as if to offer her an arm and stopped. He must have once again forgotten that she was masquerading as a man.
“And you shall tell me about yours,” he said. “Lady Miller is dead, you said, and the baron. What of Miss Clara and Miss Francine? Is Miss Clara as nasty as ever? Does Miss Francine yet think of anything but horses?”
Kat found she was talking as much as him, though she’d had no adventures to speak of until she and Miss Ellen left home. Still, Jacob seemed interested at her domestic tales of what had, after all, been his home for four years, and she was enthralled by his stories of life in His Majesty’s army.
When they reunited with their employers, they discovered that Captain Harraway and Miss Ellen had been far more practical in their discussions.
Captain Harraway opened the topic. “My betrothed and I have been talking about introducing me to the household as its master,” he said.
“Rather than disclose your deception, we think we should just announce that Lady Ellen is my betrothed and that we are to be married in a few days, after which I shall join her in the manor.”
“Phil…” Miss Ellen looked up at her captain and blushed, “that is, Captain Harraway suggests that the staff and the neighbors should be given to understand that I needed a place to live until the wedding, and that—when people called me the Lady of Carr Abbas—I did not like to correct them. Especially since it will be true next week.”
Jacob was nodding, but he said, “We shall have to make certain that Mrs. Kirby knows our cover story. Does anyone know of your true identities, my lady? Kat?”
“My housekeeper,” grumbled Captain Harraway. “Your accomplice.”
Miss Ellen nudged him with the elbow. “An old friend and a loyal one. Your steward knows I am not the Lady of Carr Abbas, too. We had to take him into our confidence, for he was insistent that, though he did not know the heir’s name, the lawyers had talked of a nephew.”
“He would not give me permission to trap your game or pick your vegetables and fruit while he was suspicious of our identity,” Kat explained. “But when he knew of my lady’s plight, he agreed that taking the surplus could do no harm.”
“I am pleased,” said the captain, looking anything but pleased, “that some of my servants remembered their duty to the man who pays them. ”
That fetched him another nudge from Miss Ellen, and he could not maintain his sour face, but chuckled.
“Peace, Ellen. Peace, my love. I am just teasing your handmaiden. Speaking of which, I suspect the biggest shock to the household will be the revelation that he is a she . What is your plan for that, Miss Fivepence?”
Kat had not considered it. She had assumed they would be leaving when Miss Ellen married, and since they discovered that Captain Harraway was the owner of the estate, her mind had been too full of Jacob.
“I suggest telling the truth,” she decided, and ignored the captain’s muttered, “Unexpected,” since he wasn’t addressing the remark to anyone.
“I chose to pretend to be a man, because we were traveling and then staying in a strange house, and Miss Ellen needed a manservant to discourage those who might have attempted to take advantage,” she said.
“I would have provided a footman for my betrothed,” Captain Harraway protested. “What I mean is, if we are saying she was already my betrothed, then why did I not provide a footman?”
“He would have been a stranger to me,” Miss Ellen pointed out. “As it is, Phil, may we leave things as they are until after the wedding? And then we can explain to the household that Kat Fivepence is, in fact, my maid.”
And so it was decided.