The Secrets Of Catie Hazard

“An understanding, sir?” said Catie faintly.

“Aye, Miss Cate, and don’t pretend we didn’t. Before this, I’d believed that by your interest in this trade and your willingness to work at it you would be equally willing to share the profits, as well as the toil.”

“Forgive me, Master Hazard, but I do not—do not follow you.” It was exactly, horribly, as Rebeckah had predicted, the only role for plain, dutiful Catie Willman.

Ben sniffed and scowled and twisted his mouth to one side. “How can I make it more clear, Catie? A tavern needs a woman’s eye to make it respectable and prosper, and I judged you able to fill that role. I’ve grand plans, Catie, enough to make us both proud. But the wife of a tavern owner must be a sober, hardworking woman, and after tonight—”

“The wife?” repeated Catie, her voice turning suddenly squeaky. “But you haven’t asked for me, any more than I’ve agreed to accept you!”

“If I haven’t spoken before this, it was because I did not feel such idle words were necessary between us.” Impatiently he thrust his fingers through his wispy hair, still matted flat by his wig. “Be honest, Catie. What better offer are you likely to have?”

Tears of frustration stung her eyes. If she was honest with herself, the way Ben asked, then she’d have to admit that his offer was a handsome one, a chance to improve her station far beyond what she’d dreamed when she ran away from her stepfather’s farm.

Yesterday, even this afternoon, Ben’s offer would have been enough. But that would have been before she heard the sweet, empty praise of Anthony Sparhawk, and discovered how much her poor, parched heart ached to hear such words again, sweet words meant for her alone.

And with no answer she could bring herself to speak, she turned and fled. She ran through the taproom and the kitchen and out the back door to the yard, and she didn’t stop until she reached the well, to lean against the rough bricks.

She didn’t want to be sober and plain and capable, and she didn’t want to work her life away as Ben Hazard’s wife. She was only seventeen, and she wanted to be pretty and merry and praised by a gentleman with golden hair and red silk flowers on his waistcoat. She wanted—oh, Lord help her, she didn’t know what she wanted, and with a muffled sob she buried her face against her forearm.

“Did they blame you for that foolish row, pet?” asked Anthony softly. “’Twas hardly your fault that we Sparhawk men regard such scrapes as entertainment.”

Startled, Catie swiftly raised her head. He was standing there in the shadows on the other side of the well, his jacket and waistcoat gone, one sleeve of his fine linen shirt torn in a strip from the shoulder.

“Mr. Sparhawk!” Self-consciously she rubbed away her tears with the heel of her hand instead of taking the handkerchief he offered. “Oh, dear Lord, look at you! Are you hurt? I can take you into the kitchen and—”

“No, lass, I swear I’m none the worse for wear.” He stepped into the moonlight to show he’d no hideous bruises or blackened eyes. “And for the last time, it’s Anthony, not Mr. Sparhawk.”

“Anthony, then.” She frowned and clucked her tongue with dismay. “But look what’s become of your beautiful clothes!”

“Ha! Old rags, not to be missed.” Dramatically he held his arms out straight at his sides so that the tattered fabric fluttered in the breeze. “You know, I was afraid you wouldn’t come.”

She hoped the shadows hid her flush of pleasure. He had come back, no matter what Rebeckah said, and he’d come back to see her. “Why did you take my side against Zeb?”

“What, because you’re a serving girl in a sailors’ tavern?” He let his arms drop back to his sides and walked around the well to join her. “Ah, that you must blame on my grandfather’s teachings. His own chivalrous inclinations were wonderfully universal, an indubitable doctrine I espouse as my own, as well.”

To her shame, she hadn’t the faintest idea what he’d just told her. Such grand language the gentry used!

“But why?” she asked hesitantly, praying another question would not displease him. “Why me?”

“Because I wished it, pet. Because you’re fresh and pretty, with marvelous, solemn eyes that shine like polished pewter.” He was studying her intently, almost frowning, like an artist composing a painting. “You color most charmingly, too, you know, especially by moonlight.”

“But I’m not pretty,” she protested. “It’s very gallant of you to say that foolishness about my eyes, but I know they’re just gray, just as I know my face is too round and my hair’s drab and straight. I know I’m plain. Everyone tells me so.”

“Then everyone may go to the devil.” Gently, easily, he drew her close, guiding her arms around his waist. “Someday you’ll be more beautiful than all of them put together.”

“But I—”

“Hush now, and listen to me.” He cradled her face in his hands, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. “The loveliest flowers are often the ones that take the longest to blossom. I can see the promise of real beauty in this charming little face already, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

For an endless moment, Catie let the sweetness of his words wash over her, before she forced herself to break away. “We can’t stay here. Someone may see us from the tavern.” Someone like Ben Hazard, she added mentally. How she’d hate for him to spoil this moment with his grumpy face! “Come, across here to the stable.”

Shyly she took his hand. Anthony Sparhawk wasn’t like the other men from the tavern that she’d always avoided. He was a gentleman, and he had defended her against Zeb. How could she not trust him?

“I was born on a farm,” she explained as she led him across the shadow-filled yard to the stable that shared the well with the Crossed Keys, “and when I cannot bear the city crowds and noises any longer, I come here to be alone with the beasts. Mr. Freeman— he’s the ostler—he understands, and lets me come and go as I please.”

Carefully she unfastened the latch and slipped inside, pausing for Anthony to follow her up the ladder to the loft. Her feet slipped deep into the mounded hay, the fragrance musty and redolent of summer. She knelt beside the narrow window and looked out at the harbor and the ships at the moorings.

“When all the sails are furled like that, I think the masts look like trees,” she said dreamily, the breeze from the harbor cool on her cheeks. “A whole magic, silvery forest on the water.”

She heard the straw rustle as he came to kneel beside her. “How old are you, pet?”

“Seventeen,” she admitted, hoping he wouldn’t think her a child. “But I’ve been working in Newport on my own since last spring.”

“That makes seven years between us. Was I ever as young as you, I wonder?”

She turned and smiled. “Of course you were,” she said. “Seven years ago.”

“Of course.” Gently he tugged off her white linen cap, letting her fine, pale hair spill over her shoulders. “In the morning I’ll be sailing in one of those ships for England. After years of fighting the French for king and country, my grandfather’s at last seen fit to reward me with a lieutenancy in a real regiment. My commission’s waiting in London.”

“London?” said Catie unhappily as she shook her hair back from her eyes. He might as well have said the moon. “When will you come back?”

“Ah, that only God in His mercy can answer. One year or ten, or maybe not at all.” He spoke with such a brave melancholy that it tore at her heart, and impulsively she slipped her arms around him, eager to take the sorrow from his blue eyes.

“You must not talk that way,” she said fiercely, pressing her cheek against the fine linen of his shirt. “You will come back, I know it.”

He sighed, letting his hands settle around her waist to hold her against his chest. “A good soldier’s life isn’t his own, pet, and he never knows when it may be forfeit.”

“But that’s so sad!” cried Catie, pushing herself back so that she could search his face. With all his grim talk of war and soldiering, she had meant to comfort him, but she was the one who felt safe here, his arms around her making a special haven in the warm, fragrant straw. “How can you bear to sail from home, knowing you may not live to return?”

With infinite care, he slowly traced the bow of her upper lip. “You can help me bear it, sweet,” he said, his voice deep and low. “Give me a memory to take with me.”

He kissed her then, as lightly at first as his touch had been, brushing his mouth across her lips until they parted willingly for him. If he wished to take the memory of her kiss with him into battle, then she’d give it gladly. How, really, could she not?

But in the first instant, disappointment stung her, for he tasted unmistakably of rum. How could he share this same rare joy that she felt if his senses were clouded by liquor? Then he deepened the kiss, his mouth warm and sure, and she forgot the rum and everything else in the heady new sensations swirling through her.

Drawn into his passion, she scarcely noticed that he’d lowered her back into the rustling pillow of the straw, or that somehow her skirts had become tangled above her knee as he caressed the soft skin above her stockings and garters until she sighed into his mouth with pleasure.

But still she started when she felt his hand roam higher, and clumsily she tried to move away and push down her skirts.

“You—you must not,” she gasped raggedly as she broke off their kiss. “No, Anthony, please.”

“Yes, sweet lass, yes,” he murmured, his breath warm on her ear. “I told you I was a chivalrous man, and I mean to prove it. You’ll have your pleasure from me, be sure of that.”

And Catie gasped, her protests forgotten as he kept his promise. She had no words to describe the delicious heat that filled her body as he kissed her and touched her again, or experience to warn her what would come next as her body arched with instinctive wantonness.

Another moment, her ravished senses pleaded with her conscience, only another precious moment more.

The pleasure spiraled dizzily upward, and her conscience fell silent. Lost in her own world, she didn’t try to stop him as he shifted on top of her. He was a gentleman, her Anthony, and she would trust him not to harm her.

She would trust him; and then came the sharp, sudden hurt that ended that trust and the pleasure with it, and the helpless little cry tore from her heart when she realized too late what he’d done, what she’d done, and now could never undo.

Afterward he smiled down upon her as he stroked her cheek with the back of his hand and called her his own sweetest pet, coaxing her to smile, too. But she didn’t smile; nor did she weep, either, not even when he heard the ribald, drunken bellow from the street and with an oath rolled off her to one side. All she did was close her eyes so that she would not have to see the shame of his nakedness.

“Damn Jon,” muttered Anthony as he buttoned the fall of his breeches and bent to peer from the window into the street below. “He’ll bring the whole bloody watch back here again.”

He turned back to her, shaking his hair back from his face as he shoved his shirttails back into his waistband. “I must go now, pet,” he said hurriedly. “I’ve still much to do, packing and such, before I sail, and besides, it’s high time I stopped my sot of a cousin from braying like a jackass at the moon.”

She’d sat up by then, tucking her petticoats tightly over her legs and hugging her bent knees to her chest. She could not understand why there was no blood on her shift to prove she’d been a maid, and miserably she wondered if that was a sign of her wickedness and sin.

He fumbled in his pocket, his fingers jingling coins together. He held them out to her as he bent to kiss her farewell, silver coins shining in the moonlight that had lost all its magic.

“Go,” she said softly, lowering her face to avoid his lips. Now she was only a fool, but if she took his money she would be something far worse. “Just—just go.”

And without another word, he left. She listened to the ladder from the loft creak beneath his weight, and heard the thump of the latch as he let himself out, the echo of his footsteps fading down the street while one of the horses in the stalls below stirred and nickered sleepily.

Alone in the silence, she closed her eyes. No matter how tightly she curled herself, the cold, empty hollowness deep inside wouldn’t go away. It was bad enough that she’d lost her maidenhead here in the straw like a common strumpet, to a man who’d never bothered to learn her name. But worse still was knowing that when Anthony Sparhawk took the innocence of her body, he’d also destroyed the innocence of her heart, and her future with it. And that she would never be able to forget.

Or forgive.

Chapter Two

Eight years later

Newport Rhode Island December 1776

The streets that should have been alive with people at this time of the morning were as quiet and still as if it were midnight. Houses and shops were shuttered. The market house was empty. Even the church bells failed to toll the hour. Only the raucous mewing of the gulls that wheeled over the lifeless ships in the harbor proved it was indeed day, rather than night.

Uneasily Major Anthony Sparhawk of His Majesty’s Royal Welsh Fusiliers scanned the silent houses, sensing the hostility of the eyes that watched from behind the shutters. How many rifles and muskets and pistols were hiding there, too, ready to offer the only welcome he and his men could expect?

He rode at the head of his regiment, their bright red uniforms and tall fur caps making a brave show for the secret watchers on this cold, gray December morning. So far, they’d taken the island without a single casualty, and a blatant display of the king’s forces like this was calculated to keep it that way. Besides, Rhode Islanders had never been as extreme in their politics as the mob in Boston were. Here, surely, King George would have more friends than enemies.

A day for rejoicing, thought Anthony. Hadn’t they managed to capture the best harbor in the northern colonies? Perhaps at last the British luck was changing for the better. No wonder every brass button was proudly polished, every man’s hat cocked to the same degree, every musket and bayonet held at the same precise angle, as they marched in practiced unison through the Newport streets Anthony remembered so well.

Eight years had passed since he was here last. To his eyes, the town looked much the same, and yet everything—everything—had changed.

He was a major now, an officer in one of the finest regiments in the army. And because the land where he was born, the New England he still thought of as his home, was in open rebellion against the king he’d sworn to serve, he was also now the enemy.

He tightened his chilled fingers around the reins, striving to get the blood flowing through his hands again. Like the rest of the British troops, he’d been soaked to the skin by an icy rain when they landed from the transports at Weaver’s Cove, and two nights spent on a windswept hillside had left him feeling the ache in every one of the old wounds that marked his body. He’d be thirty-three his next birthday, and this wretched campaign against the American rebels had made him feel every day of it.

As if to mock his age even more, the youngest officer in the regiment, a lieutenant from Dorset whose voice had barely broken, came racing up to ride beside him.

“General Ridley’s compliments, sir, and he says to tell you that you’re to be quartered at…quartered at…” Peterson gulped and referred nervously to the crumpled paper in his hand. “At a tavern in Farewell Street. That’s three streets to the north, sir, and—”

“I know perfectly well where Farewell Street lies,” snapped Anthony irritably. He’d already received these orders once this morning, before they broke camp, and he didn’t need to have them repeated as if he were in his dotage. “And I know the tavern in question.”

“Of course, sir,” said Peterson immediately, his cheeks flushing. “Forgive me, sir. I should have recalled your familiarity with the rebels’ town, sir.”

Anthony didn’t answer. Oh, aye, he knew this town well, too well. Hadn’t he spent half his summers here as a boy, clambering up and down the entire island with his Sparhawk cousins? It was the reason he’d been chosen as one of General Ridley’s adjutants for the duration of the action in Rhode Island. A considerable honor, that, though one he hadn’t particularly wished to receive.

Still the young lieutenant hung doggedly at Anthony’s side, refusing to be dismissed. “The general said I was to take you to your quarters directly, sir. Your baggage is already there. Afterward he expects you to report to him, sir.”

Briefly Anthony glared at the younger man, then swung his horse away from the ranks to follow. He’d rather see his men properly cantoned, but being one of Ridley’s staff officers carried a whole different set of responsibilities. If the general wished him to report to the tavern now, he had no choice but to obey.

Ridley had made no secret of his reasons for quartering Anthony there, instead of with the rest of the general’s staff. Anthony was expected to make the most of his colonial background and strive to win the confidences of the tavernkeeper and his people, reporting whatever he learned.

Gathering information, Ridley had delicately called it. Spying, Anthony had thought with disgust. Listening at keyholes in a public house seemed a low, dirty task for a king’s officer. But those were his orders, and if such foolishness would help put down the rebels, then it was his duty to do it.

A pair of guards had already been posted on either side of the door to the tavern, marking it as officers’ lodgings, and his regiment’s flag—dark blue centered with the three plumes of the Prince of Wales—hung limply from the staff over the doorway. With disgust, Anthony wondered how many of the local townspeople, particularly those sympathetic to the rebels, would dare cross that threshold to reach the taproom on the other side.

Briefly he paused on the steps, letting Peterson swallow his impatience. Unlike many taverns that had begun life as a private home, this one had clearly been built to the purpose, a large, imposing public house with a gambrel roof and an elaborately carved pediment, complete with a pineapple for hospitality over the door. According to the gilded signboard, the tavern was now called Hazard’s, and from the fresh coat of dark red paint and the new kitchen ell to the rear, Mr. Hazard had clearly prospered.

But to Anthony’s surprise, no one came to greet them as they stepped inside. Whatever Hazard’s politics, it was poor business to keep guests waiting. Anthony unhooked his cloak and walked into the front room off the hall to warm his hands over the fire. The furnishings were elegant enough to grace a private parlor: mahogany chairs cushioned in leather, tavern tables with polished brasses, a chinoiserie mirror over the mantel and framed engravings on the walls. From the kitchen drifted the aroma of roasting, seasoned beef, tempting enough to make Anthony’s mouth water in anticipation. No ordinary rum shop, this, he thought with approval; lodging here would be infinitely more comfortable than a water-soaked tent on a windswept hillside.

That memory alone was enough to make Anthony lean closer to the fire, relishing the warmth clear through his body. “Have you met this host of ours, Peterson?” he asked. “He’s being so dilatory in his greeting that I’m beginning to suspect the fellow doesn’t exist.”

“He doesn’t,” said a woman behind him, her voice brittle with hostility. “At least he doesn’t any longer. My husband died two years ago of apoplexy, and thankful I am that he’s spared the sight of this house overrun with red-coated soldiers.”

“Then perhaps, ma’am,” answered Anthony, “it is also well that he died before he saw his colony turned traitor to His Majesty.”

Before he turned to face her, Anthony drew himself up to his full height, determined to let the woman feel the full impact of that officer’s uniform. In the black riding boots with the silver spurs, he stood over six feet, and in his immaculately cut red coat with blue facings and regimental lace over the white waistcoat and breeches, his sword hanging at his hip and the rose-colored sash of a staff officer around his waist, he was confident that he cut a far more imposing figure than any of his counterparts among the shabby American forces.

“Your servant, ma’am,” he said, and smiled, depending on the reliable charm of that smile to complete the work of the uniform. With women, anyway, it generally did.

But not, apparently, with this one. “My servant, or my oppressor?” she asked acidly. “You must be one or the other, for I can’t see how you could possibly be both.”

“Mistress Hazard,” said Peterson hastily, “may I introduce Major Anthony Sparhawk of the Twentythird Regiment, adjutant to General Ridley. Major Sparhawk, Mistress Catharine Hazard, proprietress of this establishment.”

Anthony smiled again and bowed slightly in acknowledgment, while she in her turn did nothing. Blast her impertinence, he thought irritably. Not only was it an insult to the crown he represented, but such rudeness stung his pride, as well. Mrs. Hazard was a beautiful woman, and beautiful women seldom scorned him like this.

In peacetime she’d be too young to be a widow, perhaps only in her middle twenties, and far too young for the responsibility of running so large a tavern. Her hair was the pale color of new wheat, her eyes a solemn gray that was at odds with a mouth that could, he suspected, blossom into ripe, lush temptation under more auspicious circumstances. She dressed with a peculiar blend of respectability and elegance in a flowered wool gown with a kerchief of sheer embroidered lawn tied over the front, a starched apron around her small waist and a gold locket in the shape of a heart pinned to the front of her bodice.

“You will forgive me, Major Sparhawk, if I have left you too long to enjoy this fine fire and this handsome, comfortable room,” she said, her sarcasm impossible to overlook. “I am somewhat shorthanded today, you see. A number of my people fled when they heard you and your brethren had come to save us from ourselves.”

“It is seldom the way of war to be agreeable, ma’am,” said Anthony evenly, determined to keep his temper. He knew she was baiting him, but the knowledge didn’t make it any easier to bear. “Perhaps you should be grateful instead that our coming was so peaceable, and that none of your people were wounded or killed in the process.”

She cocked one eyebrow and tipped her head, her gray eyes narrowing skeptically. “Grateful? Oh, I’d be a good deal more grateful if I weren’t expected to offer food and shelter to you and your men. I’m told I’ll have two dozen soldiers sleeping on mats in my attic alone.”

“You will receive just compensation for the quarters, ma’am,” said Peterson promptly, “and the men will receive their usual provisions, both fresh and salt. I thought I’d explained that well enough before.”

But Anthony doubted she even heard the lieutenant, her gaze was so fixed on him. “What of my four maidservants, major? They are accustomed to attending gentlemen and ladies of the better sort, not a troop of rough soldiers.”

“You have my assurance, ma’am, that the women will be unharmed,” said Anthony. If the maidservants were half as prickly as their mistress, then his men were the ones who’d need defending, not the other way around. “There will be no problems with my men. I give you my word upon it, both as a gentleman and an officer.”

To his surprise, Mrs. Hazard abruptly lost her studied composure as bright pink patches appeared on either cheek. “Your word as a gentleman, sir? As an officer?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, intrigued by the change the blush made in her face, “my word as both, and you’ve no reason to doubt either.”