She had chosen to partake of breakfast in the bedchamber in an attempt to delay the inevitable encounter with him for as long as possible, and had spent no little time pondering over what his attitude towards her might be this morning. She had half-expected him to distance himself, as he had done before, only speaking when it was absolutely necessary, and then in a voice which bordered on the icily polite. At the very least she had anticipated a little reserve in his manner, and yet he was behaving just as though nothing untoward had occurred between them, adopting the same high-handed approach which had not infrequently irked her during their short but highly eventful association. Somehow, though, it made facing him again after the events of last night so very much easier, so she swiftly decided to follow his lead by revealing her own faint annoyance at his imperious attitude.
‘Well, I certainly wasn’t about to lop off an ear,’ she responded with thinly veiled sarcasm, while having no difficulty whatsoever in returning his angry gaze through the dressing-table mirror. ‘And hasn’t anyone ever told you that it is extremely rude to enter a lady’s bedchamber without knocking first? Also that it is most impolite to snatch.
‘I don’t know why you are glowering at me like a bear with a sore head,’ she went on when she quite failed to win an apology. ‘You informed me that I was to adopt the role of your nephew. It might have escaped your notice, but boys don’t generally wear their hair halfway down their backs.’
If anything his expression darkened. ‘I cannot imagine why you are so out-of-all-reason cross,’ she continued, taking little heed of the angry sparkle in his dark eyes. ‘I thought you would be pleased that I was willing to sacrifice my hair for the role. After all, you dislike it intensely.’
This did at last manage to elicit a response. ‘I’d like to know from where you gleaned that piece of utter nonsense,’ he retorted, placing the scissors well out of harm’s way and then reaching for the hairbrush. ‘Your hair must rate as possibly the most beautiful I’ve ever seen,’ he astounded her by admitting, before making use of the hairbrush and sweeping the rich auburn locks gently back from her face, and securing them at the nape of her neck with a length of ribbon.
It was the total sincerity in his voice that astonished Katherine as much as anything else, and in an attempt to hide her confusion she proffered a mild joke. ‘You missed your vocation in life, Major Ross. You would have made an excellent lady’s maid.’
‘Any more remarks like that, young woman, and I shall apply this hairbrush none too gently to quite a different part of your anatomy,’ he threatened, with a swift return to his former domineering manner. ‘Which would be no more than you deserve, after hurling the wretched thing at me last night.’
Evidently he was not in the least reticent to allude to the incident, but Katherine wasn’t so certain whether the memory of those more tender moments was one that he found difficult to forget, or simply did not wish to do so, for his expression was quite unreadable as he handed her the hat that he had acquired to complete her disguise.
‘Yes, very neat,’ he approved, after watching her secure her hair beneath the rim, and scrutinising her overall appearance. ‘Providing no one looks at you too closely, you’d pass for a lad. Now, if you’re ready, we’d best be on our way. Josephine has kindly put her carriage at our disposal. But first, she wishes to make her farewells.’
They discovered both the carriage and its owner awaiting them in the courtyard at the front of the house. None of them chose to linger long over the leave-taking, although Katherine did promise, before finally clambering into the carriage, to visit Paris again when Josephine had acquired her house overlooking the Seine.
‘You sounded as if you genuinely meant that,’ Daniel remarked as he made himself comfortable in the seat opposite, and they commenced the last stage of their journey through France.
‘I did,’ she assured him. ‘Although I might not wholeheartedly approve of the way Madame Carre earns a living, I cannot help but admire her spirit and determination. What she was forced to endure during her marriage would have destroyed a lesser woman.’
‘Possibly,’ he agreed.
‘Furthermore, it does not necessarily follow that, just because she runs a bawdy house, she need participate in any of the activities that take place beneath its roof. In fact, I gained the distinct impression last night that she spends most of her evenings entertaining guests in the card-room, though I do not suppose for a moment that she would refuse to be—er—private with a gentleman if he should appeal to her.’
Thankful now that he had spent the night alone on the couch, Daniel was able to return that penetrating turquoise-eyed gaze. No, Katherine was certainly no fool, he mused. She possibly did suspect that he and Josephine had enjoyed a closer relationship at one time. But that had taken place in the past, long before he had met her. How he conducted himself from now on was all that need concern her.
Katherine was not slow to note his look of smug satisfaction. ‘Why are you smiling? Have I a smudge on my nose?’
‘No, but it might be better if you had. You make a damnable pretty boy, my darling,’ he informed her before, much to her intense surprise, he leaned back against the squabs and closed his eyes.
‘Heavens above! Surely you don’t propose to sleep?’
The indignant tone brought a further smile to his lips. ‘You might have enjoyed a good night’s repose. But I most certainly did not. I spent the whole night with my legs dangling over the end of that confounded chaise-longue in the parlour. And damnably uncomfortable it was too!’
Katherine hurriedly turned her head away to stare out of the window, thereby concealing an expression of unbridled satisfaction. It ought not to matter a whit to her where he had spent the night, but it did, and she couldn’t deny the intense pleasure it gave her knowing that he had spent the night alone.
By the time Madame Carre’s coachman had set them down in the centre of a small habitation on the coast, and they had visited several of the inns in a vain attempt to find the man who was supposed to be taking them across the Channel, Katherine’s feelings towards Daniel were far less charitable. He had been highly critical over her behaviour from the moment she had stepped down from the carriage and she was fast coming to the end of her tether.
‘I have not got a mincing walk. I’ll have you know that I have frequently been complimented on the elegance of my carriage. And I do not simper like an idiot, either!’
‘But you’re speaking in English again, you infuriating little baggage!’ he snapped, grasping her elbow, thereby forcing her to halt in the middle of the street. ‘Go and await me on the quayside! And here …’ delving into his pocket he handed her a few coins ‘ … go buy yourself a pasty from the street hawker we just passed. If anyone should attempt to hold you in conversation you can start munching it, then with any luck they won’t take too much notice of your deplorable accent.’
Satisfying herself with casting him a dagger-look, Katherine did as bidden, buying a pie before settling herself on the wall by the quay. Although the afternoon was dry and reasonably sunny, there was a stiff breeze coming off the sea, and it wasn’t too long before she began to feel decidedly chilled. The rough woollen cloak he had purchased for her was nowhere near as warm as the totally feminine, fur-lined garment she had been forced to leave behind at Josephine’s house.
But of course the wretched man wouldn’t have considered that, not when he’s no doubt swigging down wine or brandy in some comfortable inn! she thought angrily, following the progress of a boat leaving the small harbour, before her attention was captured by a troupe of acrobats performing wondrous feats as they progressed along the street. So enthralled did she become that she didn’t even notice a tall figure positioning himself on the wall beside her.
‘You’ve been well entertained during my absence, I see,’ that unmistakable voice remarked, thereby alerting Katherine to Daniel’s presence at last. ‘You’ll no doubt be pleased to hear I was successful in my search, and we’ll soon be leaving these shores.’