A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(45)
Author: Tessa Dare

“What do you mean?” Kate’s every nerve jumped to attention. “It’s best what way?”

“You’ve done so well for yourself, Katie. If she could see you, she’d be . . . so proud . . .” His voice trailed off and he closed his eyes.

What did he just say?

She shook his arm. “Who? Who’d be proud?”

“Sing for me,” he whispered. “Your sweet voice will be the last thing I hear. I’ll carry a little echo of heaven with me, even when they drag me down to hell.”

She didn’t know what to make of any of his rambling. Perhaps he was simply delirious. That had to be the explanation.

“I have to pound the herbs,” she choked out. “There’s a salve you need, and then some tea.”

“Sing.” His grip on her hair went slack, and he pulled his fingers through her loosened curls. “Only not . . . not the garden. Not the blossoms so fair. Don’t sing that verse for me.”

She froze, stunned. “How do you know that song? When did you hear me sing it?”

“Always hated . . . hearing it from your lips.”

She searched her memory, trying to recall if she’d ever sung that verse in his presence. She didn’t think so. Even if she had, why would he hate it? “Have you been following me? Spying on me?”

He made no answer.

Well, Kate needed answers, and she was going to have them. She extricated herself from his grasp. “Lie still in that bed and let me make you some salve. We will talk about all this when you’ve recovered.”

“Katie, just sing to me. I’m dy—”

She grabbed him by the jaw and gave his head a brisk shake, forcing him to open his eyes. His pupils were so wide, there was almost no blue in them.

“You are not dying,” she told him. “Do you hear me, Thorne?”

“Aye.” His eyes slowly focused on her face. “But just in case . . .”

He pulled her mouth down to his, catching her in a kiss.

A wild, feverish, dangling-on-the-brink-of-death kiss.

He’d caught her unawares, lips parted. The result was a passionate, open-mouthed tangle of tongues and teeth. There was nothing tender in this kiss, nor even seductive. It was hot, possessive, fierce, and it held nothing back for tomorrow. As his tongue swept deep into her mouth, again and again, she could taste his hunger and desperation. His need resonated as a deep ache in her bones.

And she found herself answering. Out of pure instinct, she was kissing him back. Letting her tongue rub against his. With each slide of that sweet friction, desire spiraled through her. He moaned against her mouth and gripped her so tightly it hurt.

When the kiss broke apart, Kate was left reeling.

Which put her better off than Thorne, who slumped back onto the bed, unconscious.

“No. No.”

Frantic, she put a hand to his throat and felt for his pulse. It was there. Steady, if rather fast.

She had to act quickly. She rose from the bedside. From the table, she gathered up the vial of calamint.

Salve first. Tea, second. Prayers, third.

Extensive questioning later on.

As she took the tinderbox to the hearth, she spoke to him. “You are not going to die, do you understand me? I will not allow it. I am going to save your life if I have to barter with the devil for it.”

Whatever information Thorne was hiding, she’d be damned if she let him take it to his grave. She needed answers.

And she needed him.

Chapter Fourteen

He dreamt of a giant serpent. A thick rope of ominous power, sliding down the narrow alleys of London. Twining through gardens and thickets in Kent. Last, snaking over the low, rolling hills of Sussex . . . tracing the scent of salt all the way to the ocean. It had followed him here, to this ancient castle, where it slithered in through the turret’s smoke vent and dropped to the bed. It wound its length again and again about his arm.

It squeezed.

Devil take me.

The pressure was so intense, Thorne sensed his very bones pulverizing. Then, as if inflicting that flesh-grinding pain wasn’t enough, the dream snake settled on his chest. Each breath felt like a struggle to lift a hundredweight with his ribs.

Thorne wrestled the scaly beast for untold hours, thrashing and grappling with the pain. Finally, mercifully, it faded into blackness.

Sometime later he woke with a start.

All was dark, save for firelight. He couldn’t move. Repeated efforts to draw up his legs or rise to a sitting position came to naught. His limbs wouldn’t obey his commands.

He stared up at the ceiling, panting for breath. A bead of sweat trickled from his brow to his ear. The room was thick with the scents of herbs and tallow.

How much time had passed? Hours? Days?

He heard someone rustling over by the hearth.

“Katie?” he croaked.

She didn’t hear him. As she went about stirring the fire, she hummed a little tune.

He closed his eyes and went back to that very first day. He’d entered the Bull and Blossom and there she’d been. Singing.

He hadn’t recognized her, not at first. How could he? She was a woman now, near twenty years older than when he’d seen her last. And her profile was to him—the unmarked side. To his battle-weary eyes, she was just a fresh-faced girl in white.

To his ears, she was some sort of angel.

She hit this note—a soft, plaintive trill—and that was it. He was done for.

That note found the vulnerable slot between his plates of armor, wriggled in deep and sank in teeth. Her voice was the sweetest venom. It was in his blood, his heart, pumping all through his body before he could muster any defense. All sorts of impulses swelled in response: affinity, desire, protectiveness. An intense, sudden hunger for her approval.

Naturally, a well-bred lady of accomplishment would not look at a man like him. Nor should she. He’d formed no plans or expectations. But simply to know he could feel such things was a source of true wonder. He’d been numb for so long.

She’d struck the last chord, and the music eased into a full, vibrating silence. He would not have noticed a powder blast in the lane.

Then she’d risen from the pianoforte to take her seat. He saw the mark at her temple, and the truth detonated.

Good Lord. It was her. Katie.

Waifish, sweet-faced Katie, all grown up. Now it all made sense. There was a reason he felt a strong sense of recognition—because he did know her. He felt protective toward her because she’d once been in his keeping. And that hunger for her approval . . . it too had its roots in a time long past, when she’d looked up to him with something akin to worship in her eyes.