Page 46 of Gallant Waif
“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 will be home by now, and as for Martha—” he grinned even wider “—well, you know as well as I do that I can do no wrong in Martha’s eyes. She will probably egg me on.”
Kate gritted her teeth. Within minutes of stepping over the threshold of Jack Carstairs’s house, Martha had conceived the absurdesttendrefor him. And he dared to make mention of it! Boast of it, even! Kate glared at him across a bowl of greenery that she’d placed there only that morning.
“I don’t need to scream,” she panted, “I can protect myself.” She picked up the bowl and flung it. It missed him, smashing on the wall behind, but the foliage and water hit their target most satisfactorily. Kate grinned triumphantly.
Jack plucked greenery from his hair and dashed the water from his face. “Ha! Missed, little vixen! So much for cricket.”
“That was deliberate,” she said airily, “but I promise you, I won’t miss next time.”
He leaned over the table. “You certainly enjoy throwing things, don’t you? I suppose I ought to be grateful that there is not a pot of boiling oil to hand, or no doubt you would fling that at me, wouldn’t you?”
“Probably.”
“Well, just for that, I’m going to give you the biggest beating you’ve ever had in your life.”
There was amusement in his eyes, despite his anger. Kate resolved to remove it—she was certainly not going to let this deteriorate into a game.
“Well, at least now you’ve got an ambition in life! And about time too.”
Jack stiffened. “And just what do you mean by that?”
Kate’s chin lifted defiantly. She hadn’t meant to be quite so blunt—it had just slipped out—but she couldn’t back down and ruin the effect she had worked so hard to achieve.
“I said, at least you have an ambition in life now,” she enunciated, quailing inwardly as she did so. “I mean, of course, apart from that of drinking yourself to death! Not that threatening to beat a woman is exactly an ambition to be proud of…”
Jack’s face whitened with rage and shock. “How dare you? I’ve never beaten a woman in my life!” he grated. “Now, get out of my house now—before I break your neck and throw you down the stairs,” he added, sublimely unaware of his inconsistency. His long fingers dug into the back of the Queen Anne chair between them. Kate could hear the fine old brocade shredding under the pressure.
Kate was shaking, her pulse was pounding with excitement, unsure whether she was thrilled or terrified. It looked as if he really did want to kill her, now. But something deep inside her told her that, no matter how he was behaving and what he threatened, he would not actually harm her. Not really.
“Oh, yes, that would suit you very well, wouldn’t it?” she taunted, dancing from behind one piece of furniture to the next. “Get rid of me and there would be no one to prod you out of your shell again. Well, if you want me out of here, you will have to throw me out, Mr Carstairs, for I will not leave here unless of my own free will and I do not choose to go just yet.”
He made a lunge for her and as Kate skipped out of his way her foot caught on a loose rug. Without hesitation his arm shot out, preventing her from falling.
