The Secrets Of Catie Hazard. Miranda Jarrett

one amounts to much the same thing, doesn’t it, Major?” She smoothed the sleek wings of her hair with her fingertips, making sure no loose strands trailed from beneath her cap. “Now, if there’s nothing more you’ll be requiring from me, I have other matters to tend to.”

      She left him by the window, her head bowed to avoid meeting his eyes as she began to close the door after her.

      “One last question, Mrs. Hazard,” called Anthony, and reluctantly she looked back. He smiled slowly, almost teasingly, holding her attention for a fraction longer than was necessary.

      “Mrs. Hazard, ma’am. You’ve been so good as to house my men in your attic and my junior officers in your lesser rooms, and you’ve been especially kind to grant me this splendid chamber for my own use. But where, ma’am, will that leave you to lay your own weary head this night?”

      “Your concern touches me, Major Sparhawk. Where shall I sleep?” She smiled with an insolence that challenged his own. “In my own bed, behind a locked door, with a loaded musket on the pillow beside me. Good day to you, Major. And may the devil rot your red-coated soul in the black hell you deserve.”

      The door clicked shut, and Anthony smiled. If she wanted a battle from him, then a battle she’d get. He’d make her his second, more personal, Rhode Island campaign, another chance to subdue another rebel. And before he was done, he meant to make her surrender every bit as complete.

      

      An hour later, her heart still beating too fast, Catie watched from the window of her bedchamber as Anthony Sparhawk finally left the tavern with two other officers, his unpowdered golden hair gleaming in the moment before he settled his hat. With a muffled groan, Catie closed her eyes and sank into the nearest chair, and wondered at the impossibly cruel trick that fate had played upon her.

      At least she’d had some warning from the young lieutenant. If she’d walked into the front room to find him there without it, she felt sure, she would have fainted dead away from the shock. He was, if anything, more handsome than she’d remembered, his face more ruggedly masculine, and the easy, inborn charm that had been her undoing so long ago was there still, too.

      A week ago, she would have laughed at anyone who told her that Anthony Sparhawk would come back into her life. Didn’t she have more than enough Sparhawks in it already?

      It was Gabriel Sparhawk who had long ago loaned Ben the money to buy Hazard’s, with the stipulation that the tavern serve only Sparhawk rum, and even after her husband paid back the debt, Gabriel had remained involved with the business as a silent partner. After Ben’s death, Catie had come to regard Gabriel as a friend, as well, a trusted and powerful business advisor who helped make certain she could keep the tavern in her name. With his support, she’d been able to prosper where most other widows would have foundered and failed.

      But she’d gained more than mere bookkeeping from the Sparhawks. Through the example of the old captain’s wife, Mariah, Catie had learned to speak and act like the gentry, and to match her manners and clothing to theirs. Soon more and more of the tavern’s customers had been gentry, as well, drawn by curiosity and the Sparhawks’ recommendations and won by Catie’s hospitality.

      Yet not once in all that time had either Gabriel or Mariah mentioned a nephew named Anthony, and Catie had secretly rejoiced. It made perfect sense: Anthony had chosen to be a soldier, and soldier’s lives were notoriously short.

      But not, it seemed, short enough. What were the phenomenal odds that Anthony Sparhawk’s regiment would be among those sent to subdue the American colonies, and then, even more unlikely, one of the three sent to invade Newport? Before this, the island had been considered impregnable, protected by nature and defended by the fort on Goat Island, and no one had seriously thought the British would even attempt to take the best harbor in New England.

      But dare they had, and, worse yet, they’d succeeded, and now here she was, with Anthony Sparhawk beneath her roof. Once before, he’d come close to ruining her life, and now—Lord, he could bring her whole careful world crashing down around her.

      With trembling fingers Catie unfastened the locket from her bodice and opened it. Inside one half lay curled a wisp of her daughter’s silvery baby hair, tied with a red thread, while on the other was the portrait Catie had had painted of Belinda two years ago, on her fifth birthday. The artist had perfectly captured the little girl’s serious smile and the wide green eyes that looked upon the world with a wisdom beyond her years.

      So much like her mother, everyone said, the very image of Catie. Ben had always laughed and said what a blessing it was that his darling Belinda hadn’t favored her father instead.

      But Belinda did favor her father, thought Catie miserably. Lord help them both, she did, more than anyone could ever have dreamed possible.

      “Mrs. Hazard, there be—Oh, forgive me, mistress, but the door was open.” Self-consciously Hannah ducked her head, giving Catie time to compose herself. Hannah had worked for Ben Hazard long before he hired and then wed Catie, and the older woman’s cookery was one of the main reasons that he had prospered.

      “No harm done, Hannah,” said Catie as she dabbed at her eyes with the corner of her apron and forced herself to smile. “’Twas my fault, leaving the door ajar like that. With all these wretched Britishers underfoot, I’ll have to change my ways, won’t I?”

      “Yes, ma’am,” said Hannah with obvious relief. Though she was at least thirty years Catie’s senior, Catie was the mistress, and mistresses were supposed to be the strong ones that everyone else depended upon.

      But where, thought Catie unhappily, was she supposed to turn for comfort?

      “Yes, indeed, Hannah,” she said, closing the locket with a soft click to repin it to her bodice. “There are many things that must change, whether we wish them to or not.”

      Hannah’s glance followed the locket. “You’re fretting over your little girl, aren’t you?” she said sympathetically. “I’m sure Miss Belinda’s worrying over you, as well. But you did right to send her away, mistress. A house full o’ rough men’s no place for a sweet angel like Miss Belinda.”

      Catie nodded, her smile tight. It wasn’t the score of rough men under her roof that she feared so much as the one very polished major. When two nights ago, at the first news of the invasion, she sent Belinda from Newport to stay with a married couple she knew near Nantasket, she’d had no idea how wise a precaution it would prove to be.

      She rose briskly, determined to put aside her own worries. “Now, Hannah, I want you to make sure that you keep the cellar locked, and that you leave nothing—nothing—unattended in the kitchen as long as we must house these particular guests,” she warned. “While that puppy of a lieutenant assured me his men will receive daily rations from their quartermaster, I don’t believe for a minute they’ll be able to resist trying to steal a taste of your cooking.”

      “Don’t know a man what can, mistress,” said Hannah proudly. “But any of them lobsterbacks come creepin’ into my kitchen, an’ they’ll answer to my cleaver.”

      “We should have had you and your cleaver on the beach at Weaver’s Cove instead of that fool militia,” said Catie wryly, only half jesting. Certainly she and Hannah would have made a better show of defending their home. “Now, as for supper—”

      “Beggin’ your pardon, mistress,” Hannah interrupted, “but Cap’n Jon’s still waitin’ downstairs at the back door. That’s why I came up here, to tell you.”

      “Captain Sparhawk’s here? Now?” Without waiting for an answer, Catie gathered her skirts and hurried down the back stairs to the kitchen. Jon Sparhawk was known to be a brave man, a daring man, but he was tempting fate to come to Hazard’s when it was so full of British soldiers.

      Yet when she reached the kitchen, the room was empty, Hannah’s pie crust sitting half-crimped in its pan on the table, the back door closed and latched. Puzzled, Catie went to bolt the door. Perhaps Jon Sparhawk had