More Than You Know Read Online Free PDF Page A

you?"
    Rand gave the older man a sour look. “I think I can manage from here, thank you."
    Cutch watched him mount the stairs anyway, silent laughter in his coffee-colored eyes. He had just the remedy for what ailed his captain.
    The water was a few degrees cooler than tepid, but Rand didn't care. For once he drank down Cutch's foul-tasting concoction without asking what was in it. On the few occasions he had required it before, Cutch had never been forthcoming with the recipe. Rand had no reason to believe that would change. He preferred not to think beyond the obvious ingredients of tomato and raw egg. It was probably better not to know what gave the drink its peculiar tang and made him sweat rum as though he were a tapped keg.
    While he soaked, he heard Cutch moving about in the bedchamber, laying out fresh clothes. Rand had no recollection of a time when Cutch hadn't been looking out for him or some other member of his family. He was of an indeterminate age, though his long history with the Hamiltons suggested he was now in his late fifties. It was Rand's father who had given Cutch his manumission papers, making the slave a free man twenty years before the Emancipation Proclamation required it. It was not a thing Andrew Hamilton had done lightly, but Cutch had saved young David from drowning and there was no better way to thank him. Cutch didn't go anywhere, though. He celebrated his freedom by shaving his head and kept it that way just because he could.
    Rand felt almost human by the time he finished dressing. He looked over his reflection in the cheval glass while Cutch pronounced himself satisfied with the transformation. Rand raked back his hair and felt the lingering dampness in the dark copper strands. He tugged on his collar and let the overlong curling ends drop against his skin. Cutch brushed off the shoulders and back of his jacket and adjusted the fit.
    "Don't be too proud to take the money,” Cutch said.
    Rand's eyes lifted to meet Cutch's in the mirror. “There might not be another offer."
    Cutch shrugged his broad shoulders. “Can't imagine someone going to all the trouble of coming here unless there's an offer in the waiting."
    Rand remained unconvinced, but he was in a better frame of mind to meet the duke. “We'll see. Will you bring us some tea?"
    "I already have."
    There was no hesitation in Rand's step this time as he retraced his trail down the stairs. On the threshold to the sitting room he gave Cutch an encouraging sign, noticing only at the last moment that the other man was smiling perhaps a little too broadly. Rand was completely inside the room before he understood why that might be so.
    "Good morning,” he said. “It's Miss Bancroft, isn't it?"
    Claire Bancroft nodded. She had started to rise when she heard the door open; now she lowered herself back into the corner of the sofa. “Your man said you wouldn't mind if I waited for you."
    Rand dismissed the apologetic undertone. If she knew that it was a bother for him, she should have left her card and taken herself off. Apology now was a waste of breath. “Cutch doesn't always know my mind.” He saw her head jerk up and a faint wash of color touch her cheeks. It was an immediate improvement on the pallor of her complexion.
    Rand went to the side table where Cutch had placed the tea service. He poured himself a cup and added a small amount of milk. Claire Bancroft, he noted, seemed interested in his movement, although she did not appear to watch him directly. He also saw that she avoided looking him straight in the eye. “Will you have some more tea?” he asked.
    "No, thank you.” Her hands settled quietly in her lap. She turned her eyes in their direction.
    Rand sat opposite her on an overstuffed armchair. He took his first sip of tea and wished to heaven that he had asked Cutch for coffee. Miss Bancroft's English taste buds be damned, he thought. Darjeeling was no fit substitute for the heady pitch that Cutch brewed. “What can I do