A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(101)

Aunt Marmoset clasped Kate’s hand. “Do you know how she responded that day, when I turned her away?”

Kate shook her head. “Tell me, please. I want to know everything.”

“She lifted her chin, bade me a good day. And she walked away, smiling. She kept her dignity, even after I’d lost mine.” The older woman’s papery hand squeezed Kate’s. “You have so much of your mother’s fire.”

Your mother’s fire.

At last, Kate had a name for that small flame warming her heart. She did have something of her mother. She’d carried it inside her all along, and it was more precious than a memory of her face or a verse her mother might have sung. She had the courage to smile in the face of cruelty and indifference—to clutch her dignity tight when she had nothing else. That inner fire was how she’d survived.

She would find an answer to this situation, and it would not involve marrying anyone. Anyone other than Samuel, that was.

“Should we tell Evan this?” she asked. “Perhaps he’d feel less obligated to marry me if he knew that—”

“Less obligated?” Harry cried. “Surely you know him better than that, Kate. If Evan hears of this, he’ll have us scraping your shoes in penance. He’ll dress Lark in sackcloth and ashes for her debut. He will certainly not feel less obligated.”

Kate chewed her lip, knowing Harry was right.

She did have one last source of hope, however. Susanna. Perhaps Susanna could make Lord Rycliff see sense and release Samuel from the gaol.

Just then, Susanna and Minerva entered through the parlor door. Badger scampered to the floor as Kate stood to welcome them.

Susanna wasted no time on pleasantries. “It’s no good, I’m afraid.”

“He won’t be moved?” Kate asked, deflating back into her chair. “Oh no.”

Susanna shook her head with so much agitation, her freckles blurred. “What good is a ‘code of honor’ if it flies in the face of all common sense? Bram insists that he’s bound to do as Thorne asks, even if he personally disagrees. He won’t hear any argument. It’s all wrapped up in pride and brotherhood and his wounded leg. I tell you, whenever that dratted leg is concerned, Bram’s impervious to reason. If the man ever had a sensible bone in his body, it must have been his right kneecap.”

She sat down next to Kate. “I’m so sorry. I tried my best.”

“I know you did.”

Minerva added, “I considered asking Colin speak to him, as a last resort. But I worried it might work against us.”

Kate tried to smile. “Thank you for the thought.”

“Surely one of them can be worn down, over the course of days,” Susanna said. “This can’t last forever.”

But even if it lasted days, it would be too much. No one could understand just what it meant for Samuel to be confined. Here was a man who’d etched the date of his release on his own arm, working carefully despite the teeth-gritting pain, because he knew he was in danger of losing all hope and forfeiting his last shred of humanity. Accepting chains must be torture for him.

“We’ll find another way,” Susanna said. She looked around the parlor at Lark, Harry, Aunt Marmoset, Minerva . . . finally coming back to Kate. “This is Spindle Cove. Here we have six intelligent, resourceful, strong-willed women in one room. We will not be thwarted by a few unreasonable men and their silly toy-soldier games.”

“That’s right,” Minerva said. “Let’s go through all the alternatives.”

“I can’t run away,” Kate said, ticking them off on her fingers. “Marrying Evan is out of the question, as is marrying anyone else.”

“I know!” Lark said. “Kate, you could take religious vows, so you’re forbidden to marry anyone.”

Aunt Marmoset coughed on her spice drop. “A Gramercy woman, sent to a nunnery? That would be unspeakably cruel—to the abbess, most of all.”

Harry wagged a finger, eyes keen. “Wait a moment. Perhaps she could marry Evan just for a few minutes, and then apply for a dissolution or annulment.”

“I can’t do that,” Kate said. “I did think of it, but the vicar told me annulments aren’t easy to obtain. Plus, it would be dishonest. Evan’s been so good to me—I couldn’t lie to his face that way, reciting vows I’ve no intention to keep.”

“Susanna had the right idea,” Minerva declared. She adjusted her spectacles. “In this village, we beat the men at their own games. If they want to play soldiers, we’ll assemble our own army of ladies. We’ll have at them with bows, pistols, rifles—even a trebuchet, if Sir Lewis will lend it—and stage a jailbreak by force.”

Aunt Marmoset perked up. “My dear, I like the way you think.”

“No, no,” Kate said. “That’s certainly an . . . exciting . . . idea, Min. But we can’t. There’d be too much chance of someone getting hurt, and the last thing Samuel needs is another siege.”

His unpredictable reaction to blasts was at the very heart of the problem.

“Besides, even if we were to break him out of the gaol, that wouldn’t change his mind. We’d just be back where we were last night.”

Kate believed, with all her heart, that she and Samuel could build a happy life together. But when he’d made that bargain with Evan last night, he revealed his own doubts. He’d passed her into someone else’s keeping, the same way he’d left her at Margate two decades ago. He doubted his own worth. And he didn’t believe her when she said she’d give up everything for him. She had run out of ways to convince him with words.