This Perfect Kiss by Melody Thomas Read Free Book Online

as she moved the tray onto her lap and began to eat. Nay, devour. The pancakes were more like flatbread, the eggs were runny and the sweet coffee had thick grounds on the bottom of the cup, but nothing had ever tasted better. “Thank you.” She dabbed the corner of her mouth with her finger and smiled. “You would not by chance have a cow on board. I would love a glass of cold milk.”
    He chuckled, resettling the water tins in his arms. “No cows, lass. And you’ll most likely be dinin’ off pickled herring and hardtack the rest of the trip. The cap’n has closed the galley.”
    Approaching darkness prevented her from seeing outside the window. “Where are we?” she murmured over a mouthful while sharing a kipper with the dog. He had somehow snuck back up on the berth to better observe her tray without her noticing.
    â€œJest near Dover, mum. And this mutt be?” Red Harry asked.
    Scratching between his ears, Christel nuzzled her nose against his neck. “I have no idea. I only just met him on the docks in London.” With a mottled red-and-white spotted coat, he seemed to be a mishmash of breeds with perky ears and amber eyes and an equal need to belong. “He just found me.”
    The weathered face of the old man turned fatherly. “Did he now?” he said approvingly. “A dog knows a lot about a person’s character, ye ken.”
    She patted the hound’s head and fed him the last kipper from her tray. “Or perhaps he merely likes me because I feed him. Is that not right, boy? People oughtn’t be so cruel,” she said as if to herself, still miffed by Lord Carrick’s curtness with her this morning.
    Red Harry sniffed. “If it makes ye feel better, his lordship be harder on hisself than he is on others, lass.”
    It didn’t make her feel better, but she finished her meal rather than state her sentiment aloud. “You have served Lord Carrick long?”
    Red Harry closed the cupboard and walked past her with an armful of linens that had been behind the screen. “Been with his lordship from the day he took his first command ten years ago. Course he is no longer a captain in His Majesty’s navy. . . . A lot has changed from those days.”
    She hoped he would reveal more. He didn’t.
    â€œIt has been a long time since I have been back to Ayr. Is it the same, then?”
    He withdrew the tinderbox from the cupboard and began lighting the lamps. “Gossip never changes as far as I can tell. But there still be gels standin’ in line to be the next Countess Carrick, and his grandmother still be wantin’ him to wed and settle down at Blackthorn like a proper lord should. And him in London instead with that Spanish mistress hangin’ on his arm and causin’ one scandal or another, and him carin’ about nothin’ at all, ’cept maybe his little girl.”
    The little steward snapped shut the glass casing on the copper lamp next to the door. “Me bein’ only his lordship’s loyal servant for nigh on ten years and savin’ his life more than once, I am no’ sayin’ it be my business how he lives his life. People spend too much time sticking their noses in other people’s affairs as is, and no one can accuse me of puttin’ my nose where it does no’ belong.”
    â€œI am sure his lordship can handle himself, Mr. Harry.”
    â€œMy name be Red Harry. Mister makes me sound too old and formal. I be old enough without ye makin’ me older than I am, and I ain’t been a gentleman ever.”
    She smiled. “Then we are kindred spirits, Red Harry, for no one can accuse me of being much of a lady.”
    â€œDo no’ fool yourself, lass,” he said, his brown eyes softening. “Ye be beautiful like his lady wife. Ye could be her, ye ken.”
    Looking away, Christel tried not to resent the physical comparison. But she loved