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

might consider himself poor, his sort of poverty was relative; he would never be in danger of starvation—she had already experienced that, several times. No, he would never be in danger of having nowhere to go, no one to turn to.

He had a home, a family and he was his grandmother’s heir. It didn’t take a genius to realise that all of that would look good to a girl with nothing. And if the price was having to live with a broken-down ruin of a man, well, Kate was a girl full to overflowing with good Christian virtues—charity, selflessness, pity… Yes, it wasn’t hard to see what Kate might see in him. A girl could put up with a lot for the sake of a home, security and family…

“Senorita,” Carlos whispered tentatively. “I do not think this is a good idea.”

Kate glanced at him scornfully. “No, naturally you would not,” she snapped. “You are the one who purchases those bottles of poison he pours down his throat every night.”

Carlos shrugged. “He is my master, after all.”

“Well, if you had any concern for your master, you would refuse to do his bidding in this. Can you not see, he is destroying himself?” She stamped her foot. “Well, I won’t have it! I am employed by his grandmother to see to his welfare and I will put a stop to this right now.” She stepped towards the door.

“Senorita, I beg you, it is not a good time.” Carlos grabbed her sleeve in desperation. “Please, wait until morning.”

“By morning, he will have consumed a great deal more of that filthy stuff,” she responded briskly. “Now, let go of me, Carlos.” She flung open the door.

“Senorita, it is too dangerous to cross him when he is like this,” Carlos hissed urgently.

“Coward!” Kate flung off his hand and strode boldly into the room. She lit a brace of candles from the flickering fire and, placing them on the carved wooden mantelpiece, turned to face Jack. He remained silent and motionless, the glittering eyes regarding her broodingly from under heavy dark brows. She noted the glass balanced carelessly between long, elegant fingers, the half-empty decanters on the low mahogany table by his chair, the splatters where he had spilled the liquor while pouring it with unsteady hands, the mess of half-smoked cheroots where he had stubbed them out in a particularly beautiful china bowl.

“Carlos,” she said. “Bring the bucket here at once if you please.”

Reluctantly, Carlos shuffled forward, irritating Kate by throwing a sheepish grimace of apology towards Jack as he did so.

“Hold it up,” she ordered, and before Carlos or Jack had any idea of what she was planning she hurled the decanters and bottles into the bucket. The sound of smashing crystal echoed shockingly in the silence. With a sweeping movement she tossed in the cheroot stubs and ash and finally nipped the glass from out of Jack’s hand and tossed it into the mess in the bucket.

“There, that’s better,” she said, brushing her hands together. “That will be all, Carlos.”

“Madre de Dios! It will indeed,” he mumbled, and fled the battlefield.

Kate took two steps back. Jack was beginning to recover from his astonishment, exhibiting all the signs of a man in the beginnings of the black throes of rage. Kate hid her satisfaction.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing, woman?” he roared, rising from his chair and moving purposefully towards her.

“What I should have done a long time ago,” she answered composedly, and skipped behind a chaise longue. Her heart was beating fast, but although she was a little nervous of what he might do to her in his drunken state she didn’t think he would actually kill her, despite the fury in his eyes. And besides, there was something exhilarating about confronting him like this, just the two of them in the darkened room.

“You must know it is very bad for you to be up here like this, night after night, brooding and being miserable and drinking yourself into a stupor.” She moved from behind the chaise longue to a small refectory table. “So I decided it was time you stopped drinking.”

“Oh, did you, indeed?” he growled, and made a swipe to grab her. She darted from the shelter of the refectory table to that of a wing chair. “And just what the hell business is it of yours what I do, madam?”

She watched him warily. “Your grandmother employed me to look after you—”

 “The meddlesome old harpy foisted you upon me to drive me insane!” he roared, and made another grab in her direction. She eluded him just in time. “And, by God, she has succeeded beyond her wildest expectations!”

“Oh, nonsense!” responded Kate sensibly. “If you feel a trifle put out just now, I can understand that, but you are undoubtedly finding the effect worse because of all that brandy or port or whatever the horrid stuff is you’ve been drinking!”

He stopped and stared at her in stupefied fury. “A trifle put out? A trifle put out? I’ll show you a trifle put out! I’m going to teach you a lesson, my girl, a lesson that damned father of yours should have taught you a long, long time ago, about not interfering with a gentleman’s pleasures!” He lunged clumsily forward again.

“Don’t be rude about my father,” snapped Kate.

“I’ll do whatever I please in my own damned house, my girl, and that includes giving you that beating that your father should have given you the first time you treated him to the first taste of your damned impudence!”

“I was never impudent to my father in my life!” Kate lied indignantly, resolutely ignoring the dozens of birchings she had received for impudence and worse. “And how dare you threaten me, you big bully? If you dare to lay one finger on me, I. . .I’ll scream.”

“And who will rescue you, pray tell?” He grinned evilly. “If I know Carlos, he’ll be as far away as possible from this little fracas, Millie and Florence