A Lady by Midnight (3 page)

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 breasts. 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.

When his strong lips touched hers, she went soft everywhere. He pulled her close, wrapping his other arm about her waist. She didn’t even try to resist. The voice of her conscience went mute, and her eyelids fluttered in exquisite surrender. She sighed into the kiss. A shameless confession of longing.

His lips were so warm. And for all his cool, stony appearance, he tasted delicious and comforting. Like freshly baked bread, mixed with some faint memory of bitters by the pint. She had a vision of him earlier that day, drinking in a dimly lit tavern. Alone. The poignant solitude of that image made her want to hold him. She had to settle for clutching his coat lapels, nestling close to his chest.

She let her lips fall apart, the better to breathe him in. He caught her top lip between his, then sipped at the lower. As though he craved the taste of her, too.

He brushed firm kisses to the corner of her mouth, her jaw, the pounding pulse in her throat. Each press of his lips was swift and strong. She could feel each kiss’s imprint linger like a fiery brand on her skin. He was marking her with stamps of his approval.

Her passion-swelled mouth . . .
Wanted.

Her softly arching neck . . .
Desired.

The sweep of her cheekbone . . .
Lovely.

And last—the wine-splashed mark at her temple . . .
Sweet
.

His kiss lingered there for several moments. His breath moved in and out, stirring her hair. Standing like this, pressed so close to him, she could feel the barely restrained power coursing through his body. His whole being shuddered with palpable desire.

Then he pulled away.

She clung to his coat, dizzied. “I—”

“Don’t be concerned. That won’t happen again.”

“It won’t?”

“No.”

“Then why did it happen in the first place?”

He put a single fingertip under her chin, tilting her face to his. “Don’t ever—
ever
—think no man wants you. That’s all.”

That’s all?

She stared up at the hardened, handsome, impossible man. He would kiss her at sunset in a field of heather, make her feel beautiful and desired, set her whole body throbbing with sensation . . . only to set her back on her feet and say, “That’s all”?

His weight shifted, as though he would retreat.

“Wait.” She tightened her grip and held him in place. “What if I want more?”

Chapter Four

M
ore.

Thorne braced himself. That word shook the ground beneath him. He could have sworn the hillside rolled and swayed.

More.
What did it mean to her, that word? Certainly something different from the visions his own mind supplied. He saw the two of them, tangled in the heather and the rucked-up muslin of her skirts. This was why he sought out experienced women who shared his definition of “more”—and had no qualms about telling him exactly when and where and how often they’d like it.

But Miss Taylor was a lady, no matter how she denied it. She was innocent, young, given to foolish dreaming. He cringed to imagine what “more” meant in her mind. Sweet words? Courting? A vinegar jar had more sweetness in it than he did. His experience with courting had been limited to courting danger.

That wrongheaded kiss had been just one more example.

Stupid, stupid. His own mother had said it best.
Your head’s as thick as it is ugly, boy. You never will learn.

“You can’t just walk away from me,” she said. “Not after a kiss like that. We need to talk.”

Brilliant. This was worse than sweetness, more fraught with danger than courting. She wanted
talking
.

Why couldn’t a woman let an action speak for itself? If he’d wanted to use words, he would have used them.

“We have nothing to discuss,” he said.

“Oh, I beg to differ.”

Thorne stared at her, considering. He’d spent the better part of a decade on campaign with the British infantry. He knew when his best option was retreat.

He turned and whistled for the dog. The pup bounded to his side. Thorne was pleased. He’d been divided as to whether to leave him with the breeder so long, but the extra weeks of training seemed to have paid off.

He walked toward the place where he’d left the horse grazing, near a wooden stile that served as the only gap in the field’s waist-high stone border.

Miss Taylor followed him. “Corporal Thorne . . .”

He vaulted the stile, putting the fence between them. “We need to get back to Spindle Cove. You’ve missed lessons with the Youngfield sisters this evening. They’ll be wondering where you are.”

“You know my schedule of lessons?” Her voice carried an interested lilt.

He cursed under his breath. “Not all of them. Just the irritating ones.”

“Oh. The irritating ones.”

He tossed the pup a scrap of rabbit hide from his pocket, then began checking over the horse’s tack.

She placed both hands on the evenly mortared top of the stone fence and boosted herself to sit atop it. “So my lessons and your drinking sessions just happen to coincide. At the same times and on the same days, to the point that you know my schedule. By heart.”

For God’s sake. What heart?

He shook his head. “Don’t tell yourself some sentimental story of how I’ve been pining for you. You’re a fetching enough woman, and I’m a man with eyes. I’ve noticed. That’s all.”

She gathered her skirts in one hand, lifted her legs, and swung them to his side of the fence. “And yet you’ve never said a word.”

With her sitting on the stone wall, they were almost equal in height. She crooked one finger and swept a curling lock of hair behind her ear—in that graceful, unthinking way women had of pushing men to the brink of desperation.

“I’m not a smoothly spoken man. If I put my wants into words, I’d have you blushing so hard your frock would turn a deeper shade of pink.”

There. That ought to scare her off.

She colored slightly. But she didn’t back down.

“Do you know what I think?” she said. “I think that maybe—just maybe—all your stern, forbidding behavior is some strange, male form of modesty. A way to deflect notice. I’m almost ashamed to say it worked on me for the better part of a year, but—”

“Really, Miss Taylor—”

She met his gaze. “But I’m paying close attention now.”

Damn. So she was.

He’d been avoiding precisely this for a year now—the possibility that she’d someday catch sight of him in church or the tavern, hold that glance a beat longer than usual, and then . . . remember everything. He couldn’t let that happen. If Miss Kate Taylor, as she existed now, were ever connected with the den of squalor and sin that had served as her cradle, it could destroy everything for her. Her reputation, her livelihood, her happiness.

So he’d stayed away. Not an easy task, when the village was so small and this girl—who wasn’t a girl anymore, but an alluring woman—had her toes in every corner of it.

And then today . . .

A year’s worth of avoidance and intimidation, all shot to hell in one afternoon, thank to that wrongheaded, stupid, goddamned glorious kiss.

“Look at me.”

He leaned forward and braced his hands on the stone wall, confronting her face-to-face. Daring her; daring fate. If she was ever going to recognize him, it would be now.

As she took him in, he did some looking of his own. He drank in the small details he’d denied himself for long months. Her sweet pink frock, with ivory ribbons threaded through the neckline like little dollops of confectioner’s icing. The tiny freckle on her chest, just below her right collarbone. The brave set of her jaw, and the way her pink lips crooked fetchingly at the corners.

Then he searched those clever, lovely hazel eyes for any hint of awareness or flash of recognition.

Nothing.

“You don’t know me,” he said. Both a statement and a question.

She shook her head. Then she spoke what were quite possibly the most foolish, improbable words he’d ever heard. “But I think I’d like to.”

He gripped that stone wall as if it were the edge of a precipice.

She said, “Perhaps we could—”

“No. We couldn’t.”

“I didn’t finish my thought.”

“Doesn’t matter. Whatever you meant to suggest, it won’t happen.” He pushed off the wall and gathered his gelding’s lead, loosing it from the stile.

“You’ll have to talk to me sometime. We do live in the same tiny village.”

“Not for long.”

“How do you mean?”

“I’m leaving Spindle Cove.”

She paused. “What? When?”

“In a month’s time.” A month too late, it would seem.

“Are you being reassigned?”

“I’m leaving the army. And England. That’s what I was doing in Hastings today. I’ve booked passage to America on a merchant ship.”

“My.” Her hands fell to her lap. “America.”

“The war’s over. Lord Rycliff’s helping me arrange for an honorable discharge. I’ve a wish to own some land.”

She moved as though she’d hop down from the wall. By reflex, he took her by the waist, slowly lowering her to the ground.

Once there, she showed no inclination to leave his embrace.

“But we’re only just getting to know one another,” she said.

Oh, no. This stopped right here and now. She didn’t truly want him. She was overwrought from the day, clinging to the only soul in reach.

“Miss Taylor, we kissed. Once. It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“Are you certain?” She laced her arms around his neck.

He froze, stunned by the intent he read in her eyes.

Sweet merciful God. The girl meant to kiss
him
.

He could tell the exact moment she dared herself to do it. Her gaze lingered on his lips, and he heard her sharp intake of breath. She stretched up, and as her lips neared his, he marveled over every fraction of an instant in which she didn’t change her mind and turn away.

Her eyelids slipped shut. He might have closed his eyes, too, but he couldn’t.

This, he needed to see to believe.

She pressed her lips to his, just as the last wash of sunlight ebbed. And the world became a place he didn’t recognize.

She smelled so good. Not just pleasant, but
good.
Pure. Those light hints of clover and citrus were the essence of clean. He felt washed by that scent. He could almost imagine that he’d never lied, never stolen, never shivered in prison. Never marched into battle, never bled. That he hadn’t killed four men at distances so intimate, he could still recall the colors of their eyes. Brown, blue, another blue, then green.

This is wrong.

A dark growl rumbled in his chest. He kept his hands on her waist, but he fanned his fingers wide.

His thumbs skimmed upward, skipping from rib to rib until they just grazed the soft undersides of her breasts. With the little finger of each hand, he touched the gentle flare of her hip. His hand span was stretched to its limits. This was as much of her as he could possibly hold.

He needed every bit of that leverage to push her away.

When they broke apart, she gazed up at him. Waiting.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he said.

“I wanted to. Does that make me loose?”

“No. It makes you soft in the head. Young ladies like you don’t pass time with men like me.”

“Men like you? You mean the sort of men who rescue helpless young ladies in the street and carry puppies in their satchels?” She gave a playful shiver. “Lord preserve me from men like you.”

A timid smile played at the corner of her mouth. He wanted to devour it. To catch her in his arms and teach her the consequences of teasing a fiercely lusting, barely civilized beast.

But saving this girl was the one decent thing he’d done in all his life. Some nineteen years ago, he’d sold the last bits of his own innocence to purchase hers. He’d be damned if he’d ruin her now.

With firm motions, he unlaced her arms from around his neck. He held her by the wrists, making his hands tight as manacles.

She gasped.

“Have a care for yourself, Miss Taylor. I’ll take blame for the kiss. It was a liberty and my mistake. I let a carnal impulse distract me from my duty. But if you’re imagining tender feelings on my side, they’re just that—imaginings.”

She twisted in his grip. “You’re frightening me.”

“Good,” he said evenly. “You should be scared. I’ve killed more men than you’ll kiss in your lifetime. You don’t want anything to do with me, and I don’t feel a damned thing for you.”

He released her wrists. “I’m finished discussing it.”

H
e was finished discussing it.

Kate only wished she were finished
living
it.

Sadly, she had another two hours on horseback in which to recline, mortified, against his chest and savor her full humiliation. What a horrid, horrid day.

She wasn’t used to riding horseback. As the miles wore on, her muscles began to knot. Her backside hurt as though it had been paddled. And her pride . . . oh, her pride smarted something fierce.

What was wrong with the man? Kissing her, telling her he wanted her, and then so callously pushing her away? After living with his standoffish treatment for an entire year, she supposed she should have known better. But today she’d fancied that maybe she’d found his hidden emotional side. Perhaps, she’d thought, the hardened beast had a tender underbelly—a soft spot, just for her. She couldn’t resist giving it a poke.

He’d all but snapped her finger off.

So mortifying. How could she have misread his intentions so completely? She should have refused his offer of a ride home and spent the night singing for pennies in the Hastings streets instead. It would have been less degrading.

I don’t feel a damned thing for you.

The only consolation was that he’d be leaving Spindle Cove in a matter of weeks, and she need never speak to him again.

Erasing him from her thoughts would be a more difficult trick. No matter how long she lived, this man would always be her first kiss. Or worse, her
only
kiss.

The cruel, teasing ogre.

Eventually they reached familiar bends in the road. The scattered amber lights of the village appeared on the horizon, just below the silvery stars.

Kate had a quiet laugh at her own expense. She’d left the village early this morning with a heart full of foolish hopes and dreams. Tonight, she returned with her spine wilted from six kinds of humiliation and her arms full of mongrel dog.

“If you’re still taking suggestions, I’d name him Badger,” she said when the silence became too much. “It suits him, I think. He’s all nose and teeth and tussle.”

His reply was a long time in coming. “Call the pup whatever you wish.”

She bent her head and nuzzled the dog’s fur. “Badger,” she whispered, worrying the soft flap of his ear, “you’d never spurn my kisses, would you?”

The pup licked her fingertip. She blinked away a silly tear.

As they neared the church and the heart of the village, she looked to the Queen’s Ruby. Lights burned in nearly every window. The sight kindled a warm glow in her heart. Badger’s tail began to wag, as if he sensed the lift in her spirits. She did have friends, and they were waiting up for her.

Thorne helped her dismount and loosed the horse to graze on the village green.

“Do you plan to come in and eat something?” she asked.

He shrugged back into his coat. “That’s a bad idea. You know there’s talk about me. I’m bringing you home well after dark. Your frock’s torn, and your hair’s a shambles.”

She cringed at the blow to what remained of her vanity. “My hair is a shambles? Since when? You might have said something.”

Tucking Badger under one arm, she plucked at her hairpins with her free hand. His concern for appearances wasn’t unfounded. Small villages were buzzing hives of gossip. She knew she must keep her reputation unsoiled if she wanted to continue living in the Queen’s Ruby and tutoring the gently bred ladies who summered there.

“Just give the dog here, Miss Taylor, and I’ll be on my way.”

In an instinctive reaction, she hugged the puppy close to her chest. “No. No, I don’t think I will.”

“What?”

“We get along, he and I. So I’m going to keep him. I believe he’d be happier that way.”

The severity of his frown seemed to slice through the darkness. “You can’t keep a puppy in a rooming house. Your landlady won’t allow it, and even if she would—a dog like that needs space to run.”

“He also needs
love.
Affection, Corporal Thorne. Are you telling me you can provide it?” She playfully tugged at Badger’s scruff. “Tell me right now that you love this dog, and I will return the pup at once.”