A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(26)
Author: Tessa Dare

“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.”