A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(19)

They were careless, at best. Criminal, at worst.

He didn’t trust them with the next five minutes of Miss Taylor’s future, much less the entirety of her life.

“She’s not leaving with you,” he repeated. “I won’t allow it.”

“Remind me,” Drewe said coolly, “exactly who you are. In relation to Miss Taylor, I mean.”

Thorne saw the choice before him, clear as a fork in a road. He either spoke the words hovering on the tip of his tongue—words he would never have dared to dream, let alone give voice. Or he let Miss Taylor go with the Gramercys, surrendering any claim on her safety and happiness. Forever.

There was no choice at all. He spoke the words.

“I’m her betrothed,” he said. “We’re engaged to be married.”

Chapter Six

Kate startled in her chair. Surely she’d misheard him.

Engaged? To be married?

“Congratulations, dear.” Aunt Marmoset squeezed her hand. “Have another spice drop.”

“Truly,” Kate said, finally finding her voice. “I’ve no—”

Before she could get the words of protest out, Thorne’s big hand landed on her shoulder. And squeezed, hard. It was a concise, unmistakable message:

Don’t.

“No one mentioned that you were betrothed,” Lord Drewe said, looking suspiciously from Kate to Thorne and back. “Not the vicar, not the landlady . . .”

“We hadn’t told anyone yet,” Thorne replied. “It’s recent.”

“How recent?”

“She accepted me today, on the way home from Hastings.” Thorne lifted his hand from Kate’s shoulder and smoothed a stray wisp of her hair, subtly calling attention to its unbound state.

Kate’s cheeks burned as his implication spread through the parlor, working as a joist to lift eyebrows in every corner of the room.

Lark beamed. “Oh, I knew there was something between you. Why else would you have come home so late, looking so . . .” Her voice trailed off as her gaze wandered to Kate’s bedraggled hem and her mussed hair. “ . . . so natural.”

Her chair legs screeched as Kate shot to her feet. “Corporal Thorne, might I have a word?”

She excused herself with a nervous smile in the Gramercys’ direction.

“What are you on about?” she whispered, once he’d followed her to a corner near the pianoforte. Kate knew from experience they could speak quietly there without being overhead. “Hours ago you told me you don’t feel a . . . a dratted thing for me, and now you declare that we’re engaged?”

“I’m looking out for you.”

“Looking out for me? You just implied that we . . . that we’ve been . . .”

“They were already thinking it,” he said. “Believe me. I brought you home late at night, looking like you’ve been tumbled.”

“I—”

“And then you told them I gave you a puppy. What else are they going to conclude?”

Her cheeks blazed and she looked away.

“All that blushing doesn’t help, either.”

How could she keep from blushing? Her face heated further as she thought of his fingertips teasing that lock of her hair so presumptively.

“We won’t go through with it,” he said. “Marriage.”

“We won’t?” In the ensuing silence, Kate worried that she’d sounded disappointed. “I mean, of course we won’t. I’ve no desire to marry you. I’m going to tell the Gramercys so right now.”

“That would be a mistake.” His hands went to her shoulders, keeping her in place. “Hear me now. You’re overwhelmed.”

“I’m not over—”

Her voice broke. She couldn’t even find the strength to complete the objection. Of course she was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, exhausted, confused. And it was at least partly his fault. Perhaps mostly his fault.

To his credit, he didn’t deny it.

“It’s the end of a very long day,” he said. “Your schoolmistress treated you ill. The cart driver treated you ill. I treated you worst of all. Then these people show up with their fairy tale, their pockets full of candy and riches. You want to see the best in them, because that’s your nature. But I tell you, there’s something not right about them and their story.”

“What makes you say that?”

A long hesitation. “It’s a feeling.”

She opened her eyes and regarded him keenly. “A feeling? I thought you didn’t possess those.”

He ignored her baiting comment. “You can’t be sure what they’re after. They’re not yet sure of you. This is a risky situation, and you have no guardian or relations to safeguard your interests. That leaves me. But I can’t claim an interest in your well-being without making some claim on you.”

A claim on you. Kate didn’t know how to take those words. Her whole life, no one had ever tried to make any claim on her. Now two in one night.

The entire situation had an air of unreality about it. The lateness of the hour, the string of coincidences, the sheer strangeness of the Gramercys. She didn’t know whom or what she could trust at the moment—after the foolish way she’d thrown herself at Thorne that afternoon, her own desperate heart seemed the least reliable thing of all.