A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove #1)(55)
Author: Tessa Dare

Crack.

Neat, smoking holes appeared on each of the targets. In unison, the girls lowered their pistols and set them aside. Bram whistled low, admiring the accuracy of the ladies’ marksmanship.

“Rifles next,” Susanna called out, shouldering her own firearm. “One . . . Two . . .”

Bang.

Once again, true shots, all. One of the targets exploded with a little burst of paper, rather than the usual batting and straw. A breeze carried a scrap of it to land at Bram’s boots.

“What’s this?” Colin asked. He bent to retrieve it. “A page from some book. By a Mrs. Worthington?”

The name was oddly familiar to Bram, but he couldn’t think why.

Colin shook his head. “I’ve no idea why this place is called Spinster Cove. It ought to be Amazon Inlet. Or Valkyrie Bay.”

“No doubt.” Here Bram had been straining and sweating through his effort to round up the local men and train them into a fighting force. Meanwhile, Susanna had already organized her own army. An army of females, no less.

She was, quite simply, the most amazing woman he’d ever known. More the pity that this morning, as she stared down that target, she was probably envisioning Bram’s face on it—if not his nether regions.

Steeling his nerve, he strode forward into the breach. As he walked the line of markswomen, he had the distinct sensation of being a moving target. Susanna caught sight of him and stopped short.

As he neared her, he held up his open hands in a gesture of peace. “I told you I’d risk a firing squad.”

She wasn’t amused. “What are you doing here?”

“Watching. Admiring.” He flicked a glance toward the women. “You’ve trained your ladies well. I’m impressed. Impressed, but not surprised.”

A blush climbed her throat. “I’ve always believed a woman should know how to protect herself.” She reached for the powder horn and a gleaming, polished example of the pistol with which she shared a name.

“The men have been working since sunup to put the tea shop back to rights,” he said. He nodded toward his cousin. “And I’ve brought Payne along to apologize. If he doesn’t do a fair job of it, you can use him for target practice.”

She didn’t smile. “Unfortunately, the tea shop is the least of the damage incurred. And it’s not me who deserves his apology.”

Concerned, he looked around the shooting party. “Is Miss Highwood still feeling poorly?”

She poured a measure of powder into the pistol, following the charge with a patch-wrapped ball. “I stopped by early this morning. She’s resting for caution’s sake, but I don’t think she’ll suffer any lasting effects from the incident.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“However”—she cocked her weapon—“her mother is now set on removing her daughters from Spindle Cove. There’s a new spa in Kent, you see. She’s heard they do remarkable things with leeches and mercury.”

Susanna turned, leveled her pistol at the distant target, and shot. A whisper of smoke wafted from the gun barrel. He could have sworn he glimpsed smoke emanating from her ears, as well.

Bram muttered an oath. “I’ll send my cousin to call on them, too. I’m told he can be very charming and persuasive with the ladies.”

“In all honesty, my lord, I’m not sure which has the greater toxic potential. Your cousin’s charm, or the mercury.” She lowered her weapon and her voice. “Mrs. Highwood is all but packing her trunks. Miss Winterbottom and Mrs. Lange are speaking of leaving, too. If they leave, others will doubtless follow. If the general concern reaches Society at large, our reputation as a safe haven will be destroyed. All the families will call their daughters and wards home. Everything will come to an end. And for what? This absurd militia is doomed to fail. The men are hopeless.”

Never mind the weapons, or the dozen ladies looking on. Bram longed to pull her into his arms, hold her just as close and tight as he had beneath that willow tree.

“Susanna, look at me.”

He waited until those clear, iris-blue eyes met his.

“I will mend this,” he said. “I know I let you down last night, but it won’t happen again. My cousin and I will convince the ladies it’s safe to stay. Until the midsummer fair, I will keep the men tightly reined and out of your way. And someway, somehow, over the course of the next fortnight, I will drill them into an elite, precise militia to impress your father’s guests.”

She made a sound of disbelief.

“I will,” he repeated. “Because that’s an officer’s duty. To make unlikely men into soldiers, and to ensure they turn up trained and prepared, wherever and whenever they’re needed. It’s what I do, and I’m good at it.”

She released a breath. “I know. I’m sure you’re a very capable commander, when you don’t have to contend with teacakes and poetry and cudgel-wielding bluestockings.”

“I have been distracted. But that’s all to do with you, Miss Finch.”

Her lips curved a little. A tiny fishhook of a smile that had his heart instantly snagged.

But then it faded, and she turned from him, looking off to the distance, toward the village. Her spine was straight; her shoulders, bravely squared. But the fear was there, in the tiny quiver of her bottom lip and the gooseflesh dotting the graceful curve of her shoulder. She felt responsible for the place, and she was scared.

He couldn’t let her feel that way. Not when he had the perfect opportunity and every honorable reason to make her problems his own. To make Susanna his own. Right now, this very morning. He’d been thinking on the possibility all night, but now the decision simply clicked within him. Crisp and clear as the sound of a pistol being cocked.

“Don’t worry. About anything.” He stepped back a pace, heading in the direction of the house. “I’m going to leave my cousin here to grovel before your ladies. Make him fall on his knees, if you would. I’m off to have a talk with your father.”

“Wait,” she said, turning back to him. “You promised not to involve my father. You gave me your word.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” He turned away. “I’m not talking to him about the militia. This is strictly to do with you and me.”

Susanna watched him as he walked toward the house, wondering if she’d understood him correctly. Did he just say he meant to speak with her father? About the two of them?