greater interest in the traffic.”
From under his lashes, Jack watched her profile. “Who told you that?”
“I overheard someone tell my grandfather about it.”
“Who?”
“The Lord Lieutenant.”
Jack pursed his lips. It wasn’t exactly the message Lord Marchmont had been sent to deliver, but it was close enough. He was sure the Lord Lieutenant would have communicated his message accurately but if Kit had been flapping her ears at a distance, she might not have caught the whole of it. He couldn’t imagine the two peers openly discussing such business in front of Spencer’s housekeeper. “If that’s the case, we’ll have to keep a close eye on his lordship’s activities.”
Kit snorted derisively and sat up. “If he ever actually stirs himself to anything that can be so described. I’m beginning to think he’s gone to ground in that castle of his and just issues orders to the Revenue from his daybed.”
Jack looked at her in amazement. “What makes you think that?”
“He’s never seen about, that’s why. He’s been here for a few months, yet most people haven’t sighted him. I know because Spencer gave a dinner party. Lord Hendon was invited but had a prior engagement.”
The disgust in her voice made Jack blink. “What’s wrong with that?”
Kit’s lip curled. “A prior engagement with whom-when all the surrounding families were at Cranmer that night?”
Jack looked much struck, a fact Kit missed. She found the glass of brandy, now empty, amid the covers and, with the trailing ends of her muffler, ineffectually dabbed at the small stain where the dregs had spilt in their tumble. Suddenly, she giggled.
“What’s funny?”
“I was just wondering if I should pity the poor man, when he finally condescends to make a public appearance. The ladies of the neighborhood are all so
“Who’s Lady Marchmont got in mind for the poor devil?” The laughter bubbling beneath the smooth surface of Jack’s voice was encouraging.
“Someone else,” Kit replied repressively. “And I don’t envy the chit one bit.”
“Oh?” Jack turned a fascinated eye on her. “Why’s that?”
Kit was enjoying the unexpected sensation of sitting beside Jack, feeling oddly at ease and totally unthreatened, despite the panic of only minutes ago. For some inexplicable reason, she was quite sure he intended her no harm. His conviction that he could make her welcome his advances was frightening purely because she knew it was the truth. But when he wasn’t engaging in that sort of play, she felt completely at one with him, perfectly ready to share her opinion of the new High Commissioner. She pulled an expressive face. “From all I’ve heard, Hendon sounds a dry old stick, positively fusty.” She studied the glass in her hand. “He must be fifty and he limps. Lady Marchmont said he was ‘Hendonish’ but I’ve no idea what that means-probably stuffy.”
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?
“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.
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.”
For the first time that night, Kit confronted the side of Captain Jack that had, presumably, made him the leader of the Hunstanton Gang. She decided she wasn’t going to give him the joy of knowing how unnerving she found it. With a nourish, she swept him a bow before unlatching the door and pausing on the threshold to say, “I’ll be here.”
