Captain Jack's Woman (Bastion Club 0.50)

Jack’s brows had risen to considerable heights. He could have informed Kit precisely what “Hendonish” meant—she’d just been treated to a sample, albeit restricted—but he didn’t. He was too taken up with grappling with a sense of outrage. “You’ve met the man, I take it.”

“No.” Kit shook her head. “Hardly anyone has, so he can hardly take exception to our visions of him if they’re unfairly unflattering, can he?”

And that, thought Jack, was a deucedly difficult argument to counter.

A sudden shriek of wind brought their situation forcibly to Kit’s mind. Heavens! Here she sat in Captain Jack’s bed, with him beside her, chatting the night away. She must have rocks in her head! She wriggled toward the edge of the bed. “I must go.”

Long fingers encircled her wrist. Jack didn’t exert any great pressure, yet Kit didn’t fool herself into thinking she could break free. “I take it we’re agreed, then. Your men and mine to join from now on.”

Kit frowned. “If the others agree. I’ll have to ask them. I’ll meet you at the quarries as we planned and tell you what we’ve decided.”

She glanced at Jack. His face was blank, his expression unreadable. But she sensed he didn’t like her conditions. Unconsciously, she tilted her chin.

Jack pondered her defiant expression and considered the advisability of pulling her to him and kissing her into agreement. Her lips were temptation incarnate, soft and full and devastatingly feminine. Particularly in their present half pout. Abruptly, he dragged his mind from its preoccupation. What she’d suggested was fair enough, but he didn’t trust her in the quarries. He’d a shrewd suspicion she knew them better than he did. “I’ll agree to wait two nights for your answer on the condition that you, personally, bring it to me here—not at the quarries.”

Kit forced herself not to look down at the hand trapping hers or at the long body stretched at ease on the covers. She needed no demonstration to understand her vulnerability. She looked into Jack’s eyes and read cool determination in their depths. Did it really matter if she came here again?

How deliriously dangerous, her wilder self purred.

“Very well.” The hand about her wrist was withdrawn. Kit stood. Then immediately sank back on the bed, blushing furiously. Her bands were still undone. She couldn’t ride back to Cranmer with them about her waist; and she didn’t fancy the idea of stopping along the way to get undressed and do them up.

It took Jack a moment to work out the reason for her blush. Then he laughed, a low chuckle that set Kit’s nerves skittering. He sat up. “Turn around and let me do them up for you.” When Kit sent him a scandalized look, he grinned wickedly. “I undid them, after all.”

At his teasing tone, Kit blushed again and reluctantly turned about, wriggling to work the bands into position. What else could she do? He’d already seen her naked back—and her seminaked front, too. She felt his weight shift on the bed, then he rolled up the back of her shirt.

“Hold them where you want them tied.”

Kit slipped her hands beneath her shirt to settle the bands over her breasts. “Tighter,” she said, as she felt him cinch the ends only just tight enough to stay up.

An unintelligible mutter came from behind her, but he tightened the knot.

“More.”

“Christ, woman! There ought to be a law against what you’re doing.”

Kit took a moment to work that out, then giggled. “There won’t be any permanent damage.”

The knot was tied, just tight enough, and her shirt pulled down. Kit stood and tucked the shirt into her waistband, then shrugged on her coat before winding the muffler tight about her nose and chin.

Lounging on the bed, Jack watched the transformation critically. Even knowing she was a woman, he had to admit her disguise was good. “Your mare’s in the stable out back, keeping company with my stallion. Don’t get too close to him; he bites.”

Kit nodded. She found her tricorne in the corner by the bed and crammed it over her curls. “You didn’t say where we are.”

“About two miles north of Castle Hendon.”

Beneath her muffler, Kit’s lips twisted wryly. Jack seemed a man very much after her own heart. “You do like to live dangerously, don’t you?”

Jack smiled brilliantly. “It keeps boredom at bay.”

With a regal inclination of her head, Kit sauntered to the door.

Jack grinned. With her husky voice and the mannish airs she assumed with such ease, he was confident they’d manage her charade for the requisite month.

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nbsp; At the door, Kit paused. “Until the night after tomorrow, then.”

Jack nodded, his expression leaching into impassivity. “Don’t try to disappear, will you? Your men might do something rash. And I know where to find you.”