The Huntress (26 page)

Take care.

Had that been kindly advice or a threat? The secretary was so soft-spoken, it was not always easy to tell the difference. Despite his quiet Puritan demeanor, Sir Francis would be a dangerous and ruthless man to cross.

But Martin needed no warning from Walsingham to realize the precariousness of his situation. If he played his role as spy half-heartedly, he risked detection from Babington and his cohorts. Foolish they might be, but they were also desperate men, their own lives at risk. Arouse their suspicion and Martin could end up dead.

If he played his role well, Martin might succeed in gaining the information Walsingham wanted, the names of those six men. But if Ned Lambert was indeed one of them, Martin would expose him as well and thus break the gentle Lady Danvers’s heart.

And if Martin played his part
too
well, he risked being mistaken for one of the conspirators and being cast into prison himself…if not worse.

Martin swore softly under his breath. What a damnable coil. Why had he never realized before how appallingly vulnerable he was? He was but a bit player in this great drama and his exit from the stage would be of importance to no one except Meg. His daughter would be left an orphan.

No, Martin thought, his jaw hardening. He would not allow that to happen. He was merely being morose because he was tired and there was something cursed depressing about creeping home at such an hour to a dark, unwelcoming house. All the world snug asleep except for him.

As Martin eased open the front door, he was startled when it was wrenched from his hand. Cat confronted him, holding her candle aloft. A petite dragon in a night rail and bare feet, her blue eyes flashed fire, her red hair a wild tangle.

“Ah! So ’tis himself come creeping home at last,” she snarled.

Martin was momentarily taken aback and then he tensed with alarm. Crossing the threshold, he closed the door, demanding, “What’s amiss? Has something happened to Meg?”

“Meg is fine other than the fact that she possesses an idiot for a father. Where the devil have you been? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Yes, and the rest of the household will as well if you don’t keep your voice down,” Martin hissed. “What the blazes are you doing out of bed?”

“Wearing a hole in the floor, waiting for you. Picturing you arrested by the watch or—or set upon by footpads, beaten to a bloody pulp and left lying in a gutter.” Cat punctuated her words with furious gestures, regardless of the candle she held. “Do you have no sense? No idea of the dangers you risk traipsing alone through the streets at this hour?”

Martin reared back when the candle flame flared close to his cloak, spattering him with wax. “The only danger I am in at the moment is of being set afire.”

He seized the candlestick from her. Grabbing her by the arm, he hustled Cat inside his study before she roused the entire house with her tirade.

“Cat, I am sorry if I worried you—” he began, but she wrenched herself free of his grasp.

“Worried me? Not a bit. I was only concerned for Meg’s sake. I am sure I don’t care a damn if you get your fool throat slit in some dark alley.”

But she
did
care. Beneath all her furious bluster, Martin could see traces of her fear still shadowing her eyes, the small furrow carved into her brow. Despite his own exhaustion, Martin couldn’t help breaking out into a grin.

“Mon Dieu! You really were concerned about me.”

“No such thing,” she spluttered. “I told you. It was because of Meg. I didn’t want the poor wee thing fretting over her da.”

“Oh? Did Meg notice I was gone? Is she also up pacing?” Setting the candlestick atop the mantel, Martin made a great show of looking about for his daughter, even peering under the desk.

“No, damn you! She’s sound asleep just as I should be.” Cat advanced upon him, shaking her fist. “By the goddess Brigid, I’d love to kick you square in your arse.”

“Have at it then. It will save me the bother of trying to do it myself. I apologize if I alarmed you with my absence, but I thought you’d have been long abed.”

“I waited up only because I have a vexing matter to discuss with you.”

Martin’s grin faded as he divested himself of his feathered cap and short cape. He truly was sorry if he had caused Cat any distress, but he did not feel up to any further confrontation. All he wanted to do was collapse into bed and bury his head in his pillow.

He winced at the ache in his sore shoulder as he tossed the garments down upon the stool in front of the hearth. “Whatever is amiss, can it not wait until morning?”

“It nearly is morning.”

Martin vented a resigned sigh. “Very well. What have I done to vex you now?”

“I am sure you know full well what.” Cat glared. “I might have been obliged to accept a few garments from you, but I made it abundantly plain I will not be beholden to you any more than is necessary.”

Martin arched his brow in mild surprise. “You aren’t…I didn’t. All I bought you were some articles of clothing, a gown, a cap, an apron—”

“This is not a blasted apron.”

For the first time, Martin noticed she clutched something in her other hand. Cat slapped it down upon the desk, the small silver flask he had hidden in her bed earlier that afternoon.

“Oh. That.” He shrugged. “Damnation, woman, it is not as though I showered you with diamonds or ropes of pearls. It’s just a trifle.”

“It’s not just a trifle. The cursed thing is made of silver.”

Martin spread his hands in a helpless gesture as he sought to explain. “You were so upset by the loss of your father’s flask. I knew I could not replace that, but I wanted to do something.”

He frowned. “But I overdid it, didn’t I? I have a tendency to do that. It was just that the silver one looked so fine. Should I have bought you a plain leathern one instead?”

“You shouldn’t have bought me anything at all,” Cat said with a furious stamp of her foot.

“I can see that. It was obviously a stupid gesture. I am sorry.”

“N-no. It was a gesture of great kindness and—and I have no way to repay you.” Cat was swift to turn away, but not before Martin caught the glint of something in her eyes. Tears?

It was not often Cat displayed such womanly emotions. But if he had learned anything at all about the Irishwoman in these past few weeks, it was that Cat hated any display of weakness or vulnerability. Her ferocious pride and temper were often nothing more than a mask for the tender feelings she found it so hard to show. She had obviously been more moved by his gift than she cared to admit.

He approached her tentatively. Grasping her by the shoulders, he turned her to face him although he realized he risked getting his ears boxed.

But Cat merely stared at his boots, blinking fiercely. Martin crooked his fingers beneath her chin, obliging her to look up.

“The care that you have shown my daughter is more than payment enough. I am the one who is in your debt.” He smiled. “Besides, why should there be any talk of repayment between friends?”

Cat sniffed, mopping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Ah, so is it friends we are now?”

“Well, you have not tried to skewer me or break my head for the past week. So I thought you must be starting to like me a little.”

When her lips quivered, he tipped his head and peered coaxingly at her. “So am I forgiven for the flask? And for worrying you, or do you still want to kick my arse?”

Cat gave a reluctant laugh. “I suppose your arse is safe from me. At least for the moment.”

She retrieved the flask from the desk, cradling it almost reverently between her hands. “Usquebaugh…you even filled it with usquebaugh. However did you manage that?”

“I realize you have a poor opinion of London, but it is a port city. You can purchase most anything if you look hard enough. I have no familiarity with Irish whiskey so I can’t vouch for the quality.”

Cat uncorked the flask and took a swig, a blissful expression stealing over her features. “It’s the finest I’ve ever had.”

She offered the flask to him. But as he took it, his gaze was riveted on the drop that clung to her mouth, filling him with the overwhelming temptation to taste her lips instead.

It didn’t help when Cat’s tongue swirled sensuously over her bottom lip, capturing the drop, savoring it, turning her mouth a moist, luscious hue of red.

Wrenching his attention back to the flask, he took a huge gulp of Cat’s whiskey and choked. He felt as though he had swallowed a mouthful of fire and it blazed down his throat, scorching everything in its path.

Eyes watering, he spluttered, “Sweet Jesu, woman. How—how do you drink this stuff?”

“It is a wee bit fiery with a sharp bite to it. It takes some getting accustomed to.” She grinned. “Just like me.”

When he continued to wheeze, she whacked him on the back, striking against his tender shoulder.

“Ow! Ow!” Hastily setting the flask down, he clutched at his throbbing muscle.

Cat studied him through narrowed eyes. “Aha! I told you so, Martin le Loup. I warned you you would regret it if you kept relying on only your arm muscles to draw the bow.”

She clucked her tongue. “Ah, well, you’d best strip off your doublet and shirt. Let me have a go at you.”

A go at him? Even in the midst of his pain, that conjured far too many heated images. “No, I thank you, Cat. Truly, I am fine. I—”

But Cat was already undoing the buttons of his doublet with a brisk efficiency. He made another weak effort to protest, but he had learned by now that arguing with Cat was like trying to resist the tide. Sometimes it was just easier to relax and let the current take you.

He flinched as she eased the doublet off his shoulder, and then drew his shirt over his head, the cool air striking his bare skin.

Sinking down onto the chair, he gritted his teeth and braced himself for the assault. But her hands were strong, gentle as she began to knead his shoulder, working her way down his arm.

After an initial throb of pain, the knots in his arm muscles began to give way before her warm, skilled fingers.

“Oh,” he groaned. “Up a little higher. No, a little lower. Yes, right there.”

He sighed as her fingers worked their magic on the sorest spot, thinking that if he had been a dog, his leg would have twitched with pure ecstasy. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, giving himself over completely to her ministrations.

It was strange, he mused. He had never known the affection of a mother or a sister. Most of his relations with women had been of the fleeting kind. Those that had had any significance in his life, his daughter, Miri Cheney, and now Lady Danvers, consisted of him trying to be the protector and take care of them.

He had never before experienced a woman looking after him. The sensation was new and rather sweet. Martin found himself liking it, perhaps a shade too much.

He felt some of his tension ebb beneath Cat’s healing touch, all his doubts and fears…Not vanishing precisely, but receding, no longer seeming quite so overwhelming.

At least not until Cat asked softly, “So what’s wrong?”

He tensed all over again. “Wrong? Why—why nothing. What makes you think anything is wrong?”

“The fact that you are about as malleable as a fireplace poker.” Cat dug in, massaging his shoulder joint. “I don’t know where you went tonight or what you did, but I’ll wager it was something more stressful and dangerous than totting up theater accounts.”

“What have you been doing?” he attempted to jest. “Using the wise woman’s trick of reading eyes?”

Martin froze. That was something that had never occurred to him before, although it certainly should have. “You can’t do that, can you?” he asked anxiously, half starting to leap up from the chair.

Cat leaned on his shoulders, forcing him back down. “No, not very well. What I read is knots. And your muscles are pure plagued with them tonight.”

As she resumed working upon his shoulder, she said, “You are as tense as some beleaguered beastie with a pack of hounds nipping at his heels.”

She leaned forward to steal a glance at his face. “So what is troubling you, my edgy wolf?”

Martin stared deep into those wise Irish eyes and for a moment he was tempted to tell her everything about his dangerous service to Walsingham, the conspiracy plot, his tormenting doubts about Ned Lambert.

Cat was so strong and possessed of such a practical streak. She would not flinch, tremble with fear, or blanch with horror as another woman might. But Cat would certainly disapprove, think him more of an inept fool and poor father than she already did. Sinking knee-deep in such a quagmire when there was already enough danger to threaten Meg. Never mind that he had done so with the best of intentions, trying to secure a better future for his daughter.

Martin didn’t know when Cat’s opinion had begun to matter so much, but he was disconcerted to realize that it did. Besides, the woman had already taken enough risks on his daughter’s behalf. Cat didn’t deserve to be dragged into his troubles as well.

“Nothing is wrong,” he insisted. “I am just exhausted. I spent a very tiresome evening in a smoke-filled crowded tavern in the company of some—some actors.” He added with a grimace, “Some very bad actors as it happens. I would have far rather been at home with Meg and—”

And you,
he nearly said. He broke off just in time. He closed his eyes again to avoid her probing gaze, trying to force himself to relax beneath her touch. He didn’t know whether Cat believed his account of his evening. He could almost sense her frown as she went back to kneading his shoulder.

To divert her attention, he asked, “So how did you and Meg fare tonight?”

Cat’s fingers dug in deep, relieving the pain in his upper arm. “Well enough, but I am a bit concerned about Meg and her tutor. I am not sure young Master Naismith is a good choice as a music master.”

“Why? The lad is very gifted with the lute.”

“I don’t deny that. But did you realize he was once a cutpurse? Apparently, he was not as gifted at thieving because it cost him an ear.”

“Yes, I know all about that.”

“And you still engaged him to teach Meg?”