A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(8)
Author: Tessa Dare

Corporal Thorne made a derisive noise. “He’s a dog.”

“You should call him Rex,” she said, tilting her head. “Or Duke. Or Prince, perhaps.”

His gaze slid sideways. “What about that dog says ‘royalty’ to you?”

“Well, nothing.” Kate set the pup down and watched him scamper through the heather. “But that’s the point. You’ll balance his humble origins by giving him a grand-sounding name. It’s called irony, Corporal Thorne. As if I were to call you ‘Cuddles.’ Or if you were to call me Helen of Troy.”

He paused and frowned. “Who’s Helen of Troy?”

Kate almost betrayed her surprise at his question. Fortunately, she caught herself just in time. She had to remind herself that “corporal” was an enlisted officer’s rank, and most of the army’s enlisted men had only a basic education.

She explained, “Helen of Troy was a queen in Ancient Greece. They called hers the face that could launch a thousand ships. She was so beautiful, every man wanted her. They fought whole wars.”

He was quiet for several moments. “So calling you Helen of . . .”

“Helen of Troy.”

“Right. Helen of Troy.” A small furrow formed between his dark eyebrows. “How would that be ironic?”

She laughed. “Isn’t it obvious? Just look at me.”

“I am looking at you.”

Good heavens. Yes, he was. He was looking at her in the same way he did everything. Intensely, and with quiet force. She could all but feel the muscle in his gaze. It unnerved her.

Out of habit, she raised her fingers to her birthmark, but at the last moment she used them to sweep locks of hair behind her ear.

“You can see for yourself, can’t you? It’s ironic because I’m no legendary beauty. No men are fighting battles over me.” She gave a self-effacing smile. “That would require at least two men to be interested. I’m three-and-twenty years old, and so far there hasn’t even been one.”

“You live in a village of women.”

“Spindle Cove’s not entirely women. There are some men. There’s the blacksmith. And the vicar.”

He dismissed these examples with a gruff sound.

“Well . . . there’s you,” she said.

He went stone still.

So. Now they came to it. She probably shouldn’t have put him on the spot, but then again—he was the one pressing the topic.

“There’s you,” she repeated. “And you can scarcely bear to share the same air I breathe. I tried to be friendly, when you first arrived in Spindle Cove. That didn’t go over well.”

“Miss Taylor—”

“And it’s not that you’re uninterested in women. I know you’ve had others.”

He blinked, and the small motion made her uneasy in her skin. Amazing. His blink had the same effect as another man pounding his palm with his fist.

“Well, it’s common knowledge,” she said, quietly grinding her toe in the dirt. Digging for courage. “In the village, your . . . arrangements . . . are the subject of far too much speculation. Even if I don’t want to hear about them, I do.”

He rose to his feet and began walking toward the road. His massive shoulders were squared, his heavy paces measured. There he went again, walking away. She’d had enough of this. She was tired of shrugging off his rejections, dismissing the wounded feelings with a good-natured laugh.

“Don’t you see?” She rose and waded through the heather, hurrying to catch the border of his long, monumental shadow. “This is exactly what I mean. If I smile in your direction, you turn the other way. If I find a seat toward your end of the room, you decide you’d rather stand. Do I make you itch, Corporal Thorne? Does the scent of my dusting powder make you sneeze? Or is there something in my demeanor that you find loathsome or terrifying?”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“Then admit it. You avoid me.”

“Very well.” He drew to a stop. “I avoid you.”

“Now tell me why.”

He turned to face her, and his ice-blue eyes burned into hers. But he didn’t say a word.

Kate’s breath left her lungs in a sigh, and her shoulders fell. “Come along,” she coaxed. “Say it. It’s all right. After all these years, I think it would be a mercy to hear someone speak the truth. Just be honest.”

In an impulsive move, she reached for his hand and brought it to her face, touching his fingertips to her birthmark. He tried pull back, but she wouldn’t let him escape. If she had to live with this mark every day, he could bear to touch it just this once.

She stepped closer, pressing her pigment-stained temple to his palm. His hand was cool.

She said, “This is the reason. Isn’t it? The reason you don’t take an interest. The reason no men take an interest.”

“Miss Taylor, I—” His jaw tensed. “No. It isn’t like that.”

“Then what is it?”

No reply.

Her face burned. She wanted to beat at his chest, crack him open. “What is it? For God’s sake, what is it about me you find so intolerable? So wretchedly unbearable you can’t even stand to be in the same room?”

He muttered an oath. “Stop provoking me. You won’t like the answer.”

“I want to hear it anyhow.”

He plunged one hand into her hair, startling a gasp from her lips. Strong fingers curled to cup the back of her head. His eyes searched her face, and every nerve ending in her body crackled with tension. The sinking sun threw a last flare of red-orange light between them, setting the moment ablaze.

“It’s this.”

With a flex of his arm, he pulled her into a kiss.

And he kissed her the way he did everything. Intensely, and with quiet force. His lips pressed firm against hers, demanding a response.

Acting out of pure instinct, Kate shoved at his chest. “Release me.”

“I will. But not yet.”

His grip kept her immobile. She had no escape.

Nevertheless, she didn’t fear him. No, she feared whatever was rapidly filling the space between them. The raw hunger in his eyes. This heat welling between their bodies. The sudden heaviness in her limbs, her abdomen, her br**sts. The mad acceleration of her pulse. The air around them seemed charged with intent. And not all of it was on his side.

He bent to kiss her again, and this time her instincts were different.

She stretched to meet him halfway.