Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Thorne was a man of habit.

That evening, after all the men had left, he returned to his solitary quarters—one of the four turrets that comprised the Rycliff Castle keep. He brushed the dust from his officer’s coat and polished his boots to a fresh shine, so they’d be ready the next day.

Then he sat down at the small, simple table to review the day’s events.

This, too, was routine. In the infantry, he’d served under then-Lieutenant Colonel Bramwell, now Lord General Rycliff. After every battle, Rycliff would sit down with his maps and journals to painstakingly recreate the order of events. Thorne would help him to recall the details. Together, they laid it all out before them. What had happened, exactly? Where had key decisions been taken? Where had ground been gained, lives been lost?

Most importantly, they asked themselves this: Could anything have been done differently, to achieve a more favorable outcome?

In most cases, they arrived honestly at the same answer: no. Given a chance, they would do the same again. The ritual dampened any whispers of guilt or regret. Left unchecked, such whispers could become echoes—bouncing off the walls of a man’s skull. Growing louder, faster, more dangerous over weeks and months and years.

Thorne knew the echoes. He had enough of them rattling around his brain already. He didn’t need any more. So tonight he poured himself a tumbler of whiskey and reviewed the events of his most recent conflict.

The Melon Siege.

Could he have reasonably predicted the danger to Miss Taylor?

He didn’t think so. The trebuchet had been firing reliably seaward, if with varying degrees of strength. Sir Lewis had said afterward he could not have replicated that trajectory if he tried. A freak accident, nothing more.

Had he acted rightly to tackle her?

Again he could not regret his actions. Even if he’d been aware that the missile was a melon, he likely would have done the same. Had the fruit been any less ripe, it might not have exploded on contact. She could have been seriously injured. Thorne’s head was still pounding from the impact.

No, it was everything that came afterward. That was where he’d gone wrong. The shock had rocketed him to some other place. A place filled with smoke and the stench of blood. He’d found himself crawling on his belly toward the sound of her voice. For miles, it seemed, collecting scrapes on his knees and hands. Until he found the source—a clear, calm pool of water amidst the ugliness, with her face reflecting up at him instead of his own. He’d lowered his face to drink from it, lapping up that cool, refreshing peace. But it wasn’t enough. He’d wanted to bathe in her, drown in her.

That kiss . . .

Even when he came to his senses, he hadn’t pulled back. Not immediately, as he should have done. He’d never forgive himself for that. He could have truly hurt her.

But Lord. She’d been so sweet.

He lifted—and swiftly gulped—the tumbler of whiskey. Didn’t help. Even a second dose of liquid fire couldn’t burn her taste from his lips. He let his pounding head fall back until it met with the uneven stone wall.

So sweet. So soft in his arms. Christ, she’d been under him, every bit as warm and alive as he’d known she would be. Stroking his face and his hair, murmuring gentle words. The recollection made his chest ache and his groin tighten.

Good God. Good God.

He sipped the liquor again. As he forced the swallow down, a groan of raw pain and longing rose in his chest. All the whiskey in the bottle couldn’t numb this ache.

But he knew one thing.

This lusting stopped here. With these queer, mysterious Gramercys in the picture, she needed his protection. He needed to keep his wits sharp. If he came too close, he risked compromising her and losing his own focus. So there could be no more closeness. Only the bare minimum of contact. Handing her down from carriages and the like. Perhaps he’d be pressed to offer his arm on occasion.

But on this, he was resolved—

There would be no more kisses. Ever.

Someone pounded on the door.

“Corporal Thorne! Corporal Thorne, come out.”

Thorne’s heart kicked into a gallop. He thrust his feet into his boots and punched to a standing position. As he made for the door, he snagged his coat from its hook.

“What is it?” He flung open the door to view a red-faced, out-of-breath Rufus Bright.

The young man’s eyes were serious. “Sir, you’re needed down in the village at once.”

“Where? What’s happened?”

“The Bull and Blossom. And I can’t describe it, sir. You’ll see when you get there.”

That was all Thorne needed to hear. He broke into a run. From there it was a footrace with trouble—which particular kind of trouble, he hated to imagine. Was she sick? In danger? Had the Gramercys heard about the melon incident and departed in disgust, leaving her heartbroken and alone?

Damn, damn, damn.

Walking from the castle to the village normally took about twenty minutes. Going this direction, he had the advantage of the downslope—but with the light fading, a man had to watch his step.

Nevertheless, Thorne would venture no more than five minutes had passed by the time he reached the bottom of the path and plunged into the village lanes. A few moments later he was tearing across the green and throwing open the tavern door.

Bloody hell. It seemed that every soul in Spindle Cove was packed into the place. He saw villagers, militiamen, ladies from the Queen’s Ruby. Like fish in a net they were, just a mass of wriggling bodies with gaping mouths.

To a one, they turned and hushed as he burst through the doorway. Thorne could imagine why. He was panting, sweating, growling, and furious with the need to know just what the hell was going on.

But he was so winded, he hadn’t the breath for extensive questioning. Only three words mattered, in his mind. He used the last of his air to bark them out.

“Where is she?”

The crowd rustled and sorted itself, pushing Miss Taylor forward as if she were the wheat amid the chaff.

He swept his gaze up her body, then studied her face. She was whole, and not bleeding. Her eyes were clear, not red with tears. That alone was enough to make her the most beautiful thing he’d ever beheld. As far as he was concerned, her low-cut, fitted yellow gown was merely in the way. She had better not be bruised or broken under all that shimmering silk.

“Surprise,” she said. “It’s a party.”

“A . . .” He worked for breath. “ . . . A party.”

“Yes. An engagement party. For us.”

He swept a look around the crowded tavern. This might have started as a party. It was going to end as someone’s funeral.

“Wasn’t it a nice idea?” She forced a smile. “Your militiamen planned it.”

“Oh, did they?”

Thorne turned to the bar, where his militiamen stood in a lazy, substandard line. Pursing their lips like buglers, to keep from laughing aloud.

He wanted to murder them all. One by one by one. Unluckily for them, he’d left his pistol at the castle. But there had to be knives in this place.

She took a few steps closer. With every labored breath he drew, he now got a dizzying lungful of her lemon-clover scent. It calmed him in some ways and inflamed him in others.

“It wasn’t my idea,” she murmured at the floorboards. “I can see you were frightened. I’m so sorry.”

“Not frightened,” he replied curtly.

Just ready to fight. And she needed to stop looking so pained, or he’d be seriously tempted to put his fist through the wall.

Fosbury, the tavern keeper and confectioner, came out from the kitchen wearing an embroidered apron and bearing a large tray. “Come along, Corporal Thorne. Even you have to celebrate sometime. Look, I made you a cake.”

Thorne looked at the cake.

It was baked in the shape of a melon, iced with green. There were letters swimming on it—they spelled out congratulatory wishes, he supposed—but he was too angry and exhausted to push them together into words. Heaped atop all his other frustrations, that last insult to his pride was enough to turn his vision red.

“There’s a fly on it,” he said.

Fosbury bristled. “No, there’s not.”

“There is. Look close. In the center.”

The tavern keeper bent his head and peered closely at the center of the cake.

Thorne grabbed him by the hair and pushed downward, mashing his face straight into the icing. The man came up blinking and sputtering through a mask of green, sugary scum.

“Do you see it now?” Thorne asked.

A thick glob of piped icing fell from Fosbury’s brow. It landed with an audible plop. The entire room had gone silent.

They were all staring at him, aghast. What’s the matter with you? their horrified looks said. We’re your neighbors and friends. Don’t you know how to enjoy a party?

No. He didn’t.

No one had given him a party before. Never in his life. And the way everyone was staring at him, it was clear that no one would ever dare to give him one again.

Then it started. Just a light ripple of musical sound, coming from Miss Taylor’s direction. It grew louder, gained strength, until it was a full-force cascade.

She was laughing. Laughing at him, laughing at the stupid cake, laughing at Fosbury’s green-covered face. Her peals of melodious, good-natured laughter rang from the exposed ceiling timbers and shivered through his ribs.

Before Thorne’s heart could remember its rhythm, everyone else was laughing, too. Even Fosbury. The mood went from black to some iridescent color only found in rainbows and seashells. The party was a party again.

Damn. If only he had it in him to love, to give her what she needed—he would claim her for his own and keep her so very close. To tease him, to kiss him back from the shadows, to laugh merrily when he terrorized his friends. To make him feel almost human, every once in while.

If only.

“For goodness’ sake,” she said, still laughing behind her cupped hand. “Someone fetch the poor man a cloth.”

A giggling serving girl handed a rag over the counter, and Miss Taylor took the cake from Fosbury’s hands so he could wipe his face clean.

She stuck her finger in the mussed icing, then held Thorne’s gaze while she sucked it clean. “Delicious.” She held the cake out. “Care to try?”

God above. No man could resist that. He had to take at least this much.

He reached—not for the cake, but for her wrist. While she stared at him, wide-eyed, he dipped her finger in the icing and brought it to his own mouth.

He sucked the creamy, sugary confection from her finger, and then he sucked the sweeter treat that was her bare fingertip, working his tongue up, down, and around it. The same way he would savor her nipple, or that hidden nub between her legs.

She gave a little gasp, and he fancied he heard pleasure in it. If she were his, he’d have her making that sound every night.

He released her hand and pronounced, “Delicious indeed.”

A raucous whoop went up from the assembled crowd.

She gave him a chastening look. Her cheeks were as red as his coat.

He shrugged, unapologetic. “It’s our engagement party. Just giving them what they came to see.”

Sometime later, Kate was seated at a corner table with Thorne and the Gramercys. Slices of half-eaten cake sat before each place.

She was having a difficult time attending conversation—not only because the tavern had only grown louder after two rounds of drinks, but because her thoughts were entirely absorbed by a tongue.

Histongue.

She’d gained a great deal of familiarity with that tongue today. It was nimble, impertinent, and had a way of ending in places she wasn’t expecting. It also gave her an inordinate amount of pleasure, when he wasn’t employing it to send her harsh words.

But right now, perhaps his tongue was fatigued from the day’s exertions, because he wasn’t using it. At all. He’d been sitting at this table for a half hour, at least, and hadn’t spoken a word.

“Why don’t you tell us how you and Corporal Thorne met,” Aunt Marmoset said.

Kate sent a nervous glance in Thorne’s direction. “Oh, no. It’s a boring story.”

Harry lifted her wine. “It can’t be a more boring topic than estate management and agriculture, and that’s all we ever hear from Evan.”

Beneath the table, Kate twisted her fingers in her lap. There was no way she could spin a plausible tale of courtship. She didn’t want to lie to the Gramercys at all, and Thorne’s taciturn presence across the table would only undermine any tales of romance she might concoct.

“It’s been a year,” she said. “So long ago. Truthfully, I’m not even sure I could remember the time and place of our first—”

“It was here.”

The reply came from Thorne. The silent oracle had spoken. The collective surprise was such that the glassware rattled on the table.

Even more astonishing—he appeared to have yet more to say.

“I arrived with Lord Rycliff last summer, to help assemble the local militia. Our first day in the village, we entered this tea shop.”

Lord Drewe looked around. “I thought this was a tavern.”

“It was a tea shop then,” Kate explained. “Called the Blushing Pansy. But since last summer, it’s been the Bull and Blossom. Part tea shop, part tavern.”

“So go on,” urged Aunt Marmoset. “You came in to the tea shop, and . . .”

“And it was a Saturday,” Thorne said. “All the ladies were here for their weekly salon.”

“Oh,” said Lark with excitement. “I see where this is going. Miss Taylor was playing the pianoforte. Or the harp.”

“Singing. She was singing.”

“She sings?” Drewe looked to Kate. “We must have you perform.”

“It’s a rare thing to hear her,” Thorne said. “Too often, she’s accompanying one of her pupils instead. But that first day, she was singing.”

Dreamy-eyed, Lark propped her chin with one hand. “And right there, that first moment, you were struck by her celestial voice and rare, ethereal beauty.”

Kate cringed. Celestial? Lark was taking it much too far. Surely he’d balk at confirming that.

Thorne cleared his throat. “Something like it.”

Lark sighed. “So romantic.”

Of all the words Kate had never expected to hear applied to Thorne, “so romantic” had to rank near the very top. Right beneath “talkative,” “dainty,” and “choirboy.” She had to admit, he was doing an admirable job of making this sound believable, without resorting to lies. He must have worried she’d give away the truth, with all her hesitant stammering on the subject.

“What was she wearing?” This question came from Lord Drewe. It had the sound of a quiz, not friendly curiosity. As if he didn’t believe Thorne was telling the truth.

“Lord Drewe, it was a year ago,” Kate interjected lightly, trying to divert this line of questioning. She was lucky they’d progressed this far without a misstep. “Even I don’t remember what I was wearing.”

“White.” Thorne regarded Lord Drewe across the table. “She was wearing white muslin. And an India shawl embroidered with peacocks. Her hair was dressed with blue ribbons.”

“Is that true?” Lark asked Kate.

“I . . . If Corporal Thorne says so, I suppose it must be.”

Kate struggled to conceal her shock. She remembered that shawl. It had been on loan from Mrs. Lange. Since she was angry with the husband who’d given it to her, she’d let Kate have use of the shawl all last summer. But Kate never imagined that Thorne would recall it. Much less the matching peacock ribbons in her hair.

She stole a glance at him as the serving girl removed the empty glasses. Had he truly been “struck by her” that day, the way Lark said?

“So he clapped eyes on you right here in the Spindle Cove tea shop,” Lark said dramatically, “and he knew at once—he must make you his own.”

Kate’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “It wasn’t like that.”

“You know nothing of men, goose,” Harry said. “It’s been a whole year. Corporal Thorne is a man of action. Just look at him. If he’d made up his mind to have her, he would have done so long before now.”

“See, he didn’t like me,” Kate said. “Not at first. Perhaps there was some superficial attraction, but no emotions were involved.” She looked at him over her wineglass. “He didn’t feel a thing for me.”

“Oh, I won’t believe that.” Aunt Marmoset unwrapped another spice drop. “I think he liked you too well, dear. And he made up his mind to stay away.”

Kate looked to Thorne. She found him staring back at her with unnerving intensity.

“Well?” Lark asked him. “Does my aunt have it right?”

Does she? Kate asked him silently.

She didn’t know what answer to read in those ice-blue eyes, but she discerned there was a great deal going on behind them. For a man who claimed to feel nothing . . . the “nothing” went very deep.

“Miss Taylor, are you going to keep our new friends all to yourself?”

Kate shook herself back to the present. Mrs. Highwood stood behind her, Diana and Charlotte in tow.

“Introduce us, dear,” the matron said through a clenched smile.

“Yes, of course.” She rose, and so did the men at the table. “Lord Drewe, Lady Harriet, Lady Lark, and Aunt Marmoset, may I introduce Mrs. Highwood and her daughters, Diana and Charlotte.”

“I have a third daughter,” Mrs. Highwood said loftily, “but she is lately married. To the Viscount Payne of Northumberland.” The older woman turned and made a strange, awkward motion with her fan.

“Congratulations,” Lark said, smiling at the matron and her daughters. “We’ve seen you in the rooming house, but it’s a pleasure to be properly introduced.”

“Yes, of course,” said Mrs. Highwood. “What a boon it is to have a family of your caliber in Spindle Cove. We are quite starved for society this summer.” Once again she turned and made the same swoop of her fan.

“Are you swatting a wasp?” asked Aunt Marmoset.

“Oh, no.” Mrs. Highwood flicked an agitated gaze toward the same corner of the room. “It’s nothing. Will you excuse me for just a moment?”

As Kate—and all the Gramercys—looked on, the matron turned away, walked two steps, and hurled her closed fan with such force that it smacked an unsuspecting man on the back of the head.

“Music,” she half growled. “Now.”

The man rubbed his head, offended, but he drew out a fiddle and began to saw a few creaky strains of a dance. Around the tavern, guests came to their feet to clear tables and chairs.

“Oh, look,” said Mrs. Highwood, turning back to the Gramercys with an innocent smile. “There’s going to be dancing. What a happy surprise.”

Kate shook her head, dismayed. Of course the woman would do anything in her power to engineer a dance between her eldest daughter and Lord Drewe. But dancing wasn’t a good idea for Diana. The last time she’d danced with a lord in this tavern, Diana had suffered a serious breathing crisis.

“Lord Drewe, I do hope you will honor us with a dance,” said Mrs. Highwood. “Spindle Cove offers no shortage of lovely partners.” She nudged Diana a step forward. “Ahem.”

Kate began to grow truly panicked. She didn’t know how to stop this. Even if he had no interest, Lord Drewe would not embarrass Diana with a refusal. And Diana was too shy and sweet to countermand her mother in company.

She cast a frantic, pleading glance at Thorne. He must understand what was going on. But unlike the others involved, he wasn’t the sort to let etiquette stop him from doing something about it.

Standing tall, he lifted his voice and called to the fiddler. “No dancing. Not tonight.”

The music died a quick, plaintive death. Around the room, guests muttered with discontent. Once again Thorne had single-handedly destroyed the celebratory spirit.

Only Kate knew the true reason, and it wasn’t surliness. Neither was it a lack of empathy.

Quite the opposite. There was good in him. Raw, molten goodness, bubbling deep in his core. But he didn’t possess the charm or manners to control it. It just erupted periodically in volcano fashion, startling anyone who happened to be nearby. Whether they were neighbors he prevented from dancing or teary-eyed spinsters he kissed in fields of heather.

He recalled the color of her hair ribbons on the first day they met. And she’d been blind to his essential nature all this time.

“Of course we can’t have any dancing,” Diana said, restoring peace with a smile. “How could we think of it, when we haven’t yet raised a glass to the happy couple?”

“That’s right,” someone called. “There must be a toast.”

“I’ll say something. I’m the host.” Fosbury raised a glass from behind the bar. “I don’t think I’ll be speaking out of turn to say this betrothal came as quite the surprise to everyone in Spindle Cove.”

Kate glanced at Lord Drewe, worried he’d suspect something was amiss.

Fosbury continued, “For a year, we’ve all been watching these two square off on opposites of every argument. I had it on good authority that Miss Taylor had diagnosed Corporal Thorne as possessing a stone for a heart and having rocks in his head.”

A wave of laughter rippled through the crowd.

“And considering these infirmities”—the tavern keeper stretched his glass in Thorne’s direction—“who would have thought the corporal could make so wise a choice?” He smiled at Kate. “We’re all terrible fond of you, m’dear. I think I speak for the entire militia when I say—we wouldn’t let you go to anyone less worthy. Or less capable of calling us up on court-martial.”

“Hear hear!”

Everyone laughed and drank, and the collective affection in the room created a knot in Kate’s throat. But it was another emotion that made her chest ache.

Fosbury was right. Over the past year, she’d abused Thorne thoroughly, to his face and behind his back, when he’d done nothing more egregious than ignore her. After tonight, she suspected all that neglect had been his clumsy attempt at chivalry.

Here she was, surrounded by friends—and possibly family—who believed her to be in love with the man. Engaged to marry him. But in reality, she knew she’d treated him ill.

He told her he had no feelings to hurt, but no one could be completely without emotion. And if all Thorne’s brusqueness had goodness beneath . . .

What sort of heart was hidden under all those staunch denials?

She regarded him now: arms crossed, face hard, eyes glazed with ice. He was a living suit of armor. If she listened hard enough, she might even hear him creak as he walked.

He wouldn’t surrender any secrets willingly. If she wanted to know what was truly inside the man, she would have to crack him open to find out. It seemed a dangerous proposition, and a sensible, clever young woman—a “Kate”—would turn and run the other way.

But she wasn’t a “Kate” to him. He’d called her Katie. And Katie was a courageous girl, even in the face of her fears.

Be brave, my Katie.

Yes. She would need to be.