Gallant Waif by Anne Gracie (best ereader manga .TXT) 📕

Arrogance obviously ran in the family too! “There’s only enough for one more cup,” she said.

“That’s all I want.” He finished the last bite of bacon.

“Oh, is it, indeed?” Kate said, pulling a face at his impervious back. The exquisite scent of the coffee had been tantalising her for long enough. She’d cleaned and washed his filthy kitchen. All morning her mouth had been watering in anticipation of bacon and eggs and coffee. And he’d just walked in and without so much as a by-your-leave had devoured the lot!

“There’s only enough for me,” she said. “You’ll have to wait. I’ll make a fresh pot in a few minutes.”

He swung around to face her. “What the deuce do you mean—only enough for you?”

Jack was outraged. To his recollection, he’d never even heard a kitchen maid speak, let alone answer him back in such a damned impertinent manner. And yet who else would cook and scrub at this hour of the morning?

She stared defiantly back at him, hands on hips, cheeks flushed, soft pink lips pursed stubbornly. One hand moved possessively towards the coffee pot and her small chin jutted pugnaciously. She was a far cry from the pale, exhausted girl he’d met by candlelight the night before.

Despite his annoyance, his mouth twitched with amusement—there was a wide smear of soot reaching from her cheek to her temple. She stared him down like a small grubby duchess. Her eyes weren’t grey, after all, but a sort of greeny-grey, quite unusual. He felt his breath catch for a moment as he stared into them, and then realised she was examining his own face just as intently. He stiffened, half turned away from her, keeping his scarred side to the wall, and unconsciously braced himself for her reaction.

She poured the last of the coffee into her own cup and proceeded to sip it, with every evidence of enjoyment.

Jack was flabbergasted. He was not used to being ignored—let alone by a dowdy little maidservant with a dirty face. And in his own kitchen! He opened his mouth to deliver a crashing reprimand, but she met his eye again and something held him back.

“I think I’ve earned it, don’t you?” She gestured at the sparkling kitchen.

He frowned again. What else did kitchen maids do but clean and scrub? Did the chit expect to be thanked? Did she realise who she was addressing? He opened his mouth to inform her, then hesitated uncertainly, a novel sensation for Major Carstahrs, late of the Coldstream Guards.

How the devil did one introduce oneself to a kitchen maid? Servants knew who one was, and acted accordingly. But this one didn’t seem to know the rules. And somehow it just didn’t seem right to roar at this pert little urchin when only a few hours before he had held her in his arms and felt just how frail she was. Despite her effrontery.

He cleared his throat. “Do you know who I am?”

“Lady Cahill’s grandson, Mr Carstairs, I presume?”

He grunted.

Why had he mentioned it? Kate looked gravely at the tall dark man leaning back in his chair. He didn’t look particularly out of place in the kitchen, sprawled at the large scrubbed table, his long booted legs crossed in front of him. He was very handsome, she realised. Maybe he felt it would not be appropriate to eat in here with her when they had not been properly introduced.

“Would you rather I brought your breakfast to another room? A breakfast parlour, perhaps?”

His scowl deepened. “I’ll eat it here.” Long brown fingers started to drum out an impatient tattoo on the wooden surface of the table.

“Please try to be patient. I’ll finish my coffee, then cook enough bacon and eggs for both of us.”

Jack stared at her, debating whether to dismiss her instantly or wait until she’d cooked the rest of his breakfast. The egg had been cooked just how he liked it, the bacon had been crisped to perfection and she did make the best coffee he’d tasted in months. But he was not some scrubby schoolboy, as she seemed to imagine—he was the master of the house!

Jack’s lips twitched with reluctant amusement. His manservant’s cooking had, he perceived ruefully, seriously undermined his authority and his resolution. The men in his brigade would have boggled at his acceptance of this little chit’s effrontery, but they had neither drunk her coffee nor looked into those speaking grey-green eyes. Nor had they carried her up a flight of stairs and felt the fragile bones and known she had been starving. He couldn’t dismiss her—he could as soon rescue a half-drowned kitten then kick it.

She sat down opposite him at the kitchen table. He stiffened awkwardly as her gaze fixed on his face.

“So,” she said, “it was you in my bedchamber last night.”

His mouth tightened abruptly, his face dark with bitter cynicism. What was she going to accuse him of?

“When I woke up this morning I couldn’t quite remember how I got to bed. I thought I remembered seeing Jemmy, but now that I see you, of course, that explains it.”

Kate didn’t notice the stiffening of his body and the way his eyes turned to flint.

“Jemmy caught a bayonet wound, too, in just the same place, only his became terribly infected. Yours has healed beautifully, hasn’t it?”

She stood up, stretched luxuriously and smiled. “Isn’t coffee wonderful? I feel like a new woman, so I’ll forgive your barefaced breakfast piracy and cook some more for both of us.”

He stared at her in stunned silence. Who the devil was this impertinent, shabby, amazingly self-possessed girl with the wide, lovely eyes? And how could she recognise a bayonet wound and, what was more, refer to his shattered cheek so calmly when every other blasted female who had laid eyes on it had shuddered in horror, or wept, or ostentatiously avoided looking at him? He had the evidence of his own mirror that it was not a pretty sight.

And, he thought, watching