The King's Man Read Online Free Page B

to consider what path to take. For now the mindless repetition of physical tasks was a balm to her weary soul and she turned to the basket of carrots that Nan had set her to peel.
    She sat down on a rickety stool, picked up the first carrot and regarded it from all angles. Her life, until relatively recently, had never required the skill of peeling carrots. She picked up the knife. Flinching from its sharp blade she attacked the vegetable.
    "You don't hold the knife like that!"
    Thamsine looked up to see Kit Lovell standing over her, his green eyes dancing in amusement. Flushing, Thamsine nicked her finger. With a yelp of pain she dropped carrot and knife. Kit retrieved them and squatting down in front of her, deftly demonstrated the correct way of separating a carrot and its skin.
    "Didn't your mother teach you anything?” he asked, straightening and handing it back to her.
    "My mother? No, she didn't.” Thamsine retorted, removing her cut finger from her mouth and picking up another carrot from the pile. “She died when I was nine after a long illness that kept her from teaching me any form of useful domestic skill."
    "So how did you occupy your time instead?"
    "I shared the schoolroom with my brother. Nowhere did my books include a lesson on how to peel carrots."
    Kit pulled up a stool. “Look, I'll demonstrate.” He picked up a carrot and a knife from the table and with remarkable dexterity managed to peel four carrots in the time it had taken Thamsine to produce one badly mutilated vegetable.
    "Well, well, look who's here?” Nan swaggered in carrying a tray of empty platters. She set them down and put her arms around Kit's neck, pressing her ample bosom to his back and blowing in his ear. “Where've you been, lover?” She sniffed. “You smell nice. Been off visiting your lady friend?"
    Kit looked up at her and smiled.
    Nan straightened and cuffed his ear. “Ah, you're no fun these days, Cap'n Lovell.” She winked at him and sauntered out of the kitchen.
    Kit met Thamsine's eyes. “What are you smiling at?"
    "Is there a woman in London you don't share a bed with?"
    Kit turned his concentration to the carrot. “That is a harsh remark given I barely know you, Mistress Granville and, indeed, the circumstances of our meeting."
    Thamsine ignored the twinkling grey-green eyes and looked down at the carrot in her hand. She gave it a couple of vicious swipes.
    "The idea is to remove the skin, not the entire carrot,” Kit remarked. “And I apologize. I didn't mean to remind you of events you'd rather forget."
    Thamsine sighed and looked up at Kit Lovell. His concentration was on the carrot, and it gave her an opportunity to study his face. She could see the attraction that seemed to set half the women in London falling at this man's feet. The dark hair and the unusual green eyes were an irresistible combination.
    Even in London, in February, his skin held a tanned glow, but the lines of a hard soldier's life were etched around his nose and in the shadows of his eyes. She felt a prickle at the back of her neck. She had no doubt that the echoes of laughter in the corners of his mouth could disappear in an instant should he be crossed.
    A lock of dark brown hair fell into his eyes and he unconsciously flicked it back, drawing attention to the thin, pale line of a scar that ran from above his right eye to his temple, transecting his eyebrow.
    "You were lucky not to lose your eye. Was that Worcester?” she said aloud.
    Kit looked up at her and frowned, puzzled by her question. “Oh this,” he said, his fingers going to the scar. “No. It was a running skirmish in ‘43. Looked worse than it was."
    "You were there from the beginning?"
    "Stormed down a hill at Edgehill and just kept going until the bitter end in ‘46. I returned in ‘48 and ‘51 but I don't need to tell you what disastrous campaigns those were,” Kit said. “I joined the court in exile, fought a few foreign wars I cared nothing for. Saw things I