Samantha James Read Online Free

lip. Likely as not, the girl was a doxy just like the other…
     
    Cassie McClellan slammed the tray down on the long work table in the kitchen. God, but she hated this! The smell of sweat and ale. Groping male hands and wet lips. She shuddered. It was disgusting, the way they pawed and grabbed. She’d far rather peel and chop onions, scald her fingers fetching hot kettles, even scrub the floors until her hands were raw and burning than return to that noisy hellhole. The very thought made her belly clench in dread.
    But Black Jack was ever determined to please his customers—no matter their treatment of his barmaids. She shuddered, experiencing anew the feel of grasping hands and pinching fingers. Lord, but she hated those swine! They sought respite from their troubles in drink—and sport from those who served it.
    And then, tonight there was him , the dark-haired one in the corner. Staring at her. Watching her.
    Oddly, it was that she hated most. Knowing he watched while those awful men pinched and fondled her only deepened her shame and humiliation…and her anger. The soft line of her lips compressed. Had he been amused by it? Had he secretly laughed? Oh, but the nerve of the man!
    Still, she could not help but wonder who he was, he and his friend. A wealthy captain and mate of a vessel berthed in the harbor? Low-country planters? Well-to-do merchants traveling through Charleston? Black Jack himself, in a rare moment, had seen to the supper preparations and served them their meal. That alone proclaimed them men of some stature.
    Wiping her hands on a length of rag, she cast a furtive glance through the swinging double doors into the taproom. It was hard to see through the smoky haze, but sure enough, Black Jack was again at their table.
    The double doors opened with a swish. Nell sauntered in, her braid askew, the shoulders of her dress rumpled and sagging from her shoulders. Cassie hastily averted her gaze. Nell looked as if she’d just crawled from someone’s bed.
    She gave a tittering laugh. “Sakes, can you imagine? An English earl stayin’ here at Black Jack’s! Ye saw him, didn’t ye, girl, the two gents in the far corner? The black-haired one, ’e’s the earl. Wickedly handsome, he is. Gives me shivers right down to me very toes, he does.”
    She dumped half a dozen dirty tankards into the washbasin. “I’ve never seen such hands on a man—so clean, even his nails, mind ye! And that coat he’s wearin’…did you see it, Cassie? Made of velvet, it is! ’Course I don’t know why I’m rattlin’ on so about his clothes—it’s what’s beneath that interests me far more!” She let out a gusty laugh.
    Cassie said nothing, but inside she winced. Nell was one such as her mother had been; she oft loved unwisely and too well. But while her mother had been far too free with her favors, Cassie had long ago vowed she’d not make the same mistake. Ducking the sides of ham and beef curing from the beam, she stepped before the pantry. With her back to Nell, she did her best to ignore her, placing several clean tankards back into the cupboard.
    Nell paid no heed. “And the other one—Sir Christopher Marley, he called himself—why, he’s almost as handsome as the earl! In fact, I’m feeling very generous tonight, Cassie. Sir Christopher Marley is yours!” She gave a cackling laugh. “Ah, but you wouldn’t know what to do with a man such as he, would ye now, love?”
    Cassie flushed, which made Nell laugh all the harder. Would she never get used to Nell making light of her? Oh, if only she could walk throughthe door and never return! And as for the earl, it mattered little to her whether he was the king of England, or master of a dung heap!
    Black Jack hammered the doors open with beefy fists. Big, burly, and shaggy-haired as he was, Cassie had long ago decided his sour disposition had earned him his name. “What the blazes are the two of ye doin’?” he demanded. “Get yer lazy bums back where ye