A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(33)

“It’s been a year,” she said. “So long ago. Truthfully, I’m not even sure I could remember the time and place of our first—”

“It was here.”

The reply came from Thorne. The silent oracle had spoken. The collective surprise was such that the glassware rattled on the table.

Even more astonishing—he appeared to have yet more to say.

“I arrived with Lord Rycliff last summer, to help assemble the local militia. Our first day in the village, we entered this tea shop.”

Lord Drewe looked around. “I thought this was a tavern.”

“It was a tea shop then,” Kate explained. “Called the Blushing Pansy. But since last summer, it’s been the Bull and Blossom. Part tea shop, part tavern.”

“So go on,” urged Aunt Marmoset. “You came in to the tea shop, and . . .”

“And it was a Saturday,” Thorne said. “All the ladies were here for their weekly salon.”

“Oh,” said Lark with excitement. “I see where this is going. Miss Taylor was playing the pianoforte. Or the harp.”

“Singing. She was singing.”

“She sings?” Drewe looked to Kate. “We must have you perform.”

“It’s a rare thing to hear her,” Thorne said. “Too often, she’s accompanying one of her pupils instead. But that first day, she was singing.”

Dreamy-eyed, Lark propped her chin with one hand. “And right there, that first moment, you were struck by her celestial voice and rare, ethereal beauty.”

Kate cringed. Celestial? Lark was taking it much too far. Surely he’d balk at confirming that.

Thorne cleared his throat. “Something like it.”

Lark sighed. “So romantic.”

Of all the words Kate had never expected to hear applied to Thorne, “so romantic” had to rank near the very top. Right beneath “talkative,” “dainty,” and “choirboy.” She had to admit, he was doing an admirable job of making this sound believable, without resorting to lies. He must have worried she’d give away the truth, with all her hesitant stammering on the subject.

“What was she wearing?” This question came from Lord Drewe. It had the sound of a quiz, not friendly curiosity. As if he didn’t believe Thorne was telling the truth.

“Lord Drewe, it was a year ago,” Kate interjected lightly, trying to divert this line of questioning. She was lucky they’d progressed this far without a misstep. “Even I don’t remember what I was wearing.”

“White.” Thorne regarded Lord Drewe across the table. “She was wearing white muslin. And an India shawl embroidered with peacocks. Her hair was dressed with blue ribbons.”

“Is that true?” Lark asked Kate.

“I . . . If Corporal Thorne says so, I suppose it must be.”

Kate struggled to conceal her shock. She remembered that shawl. It had been on loan from Mrs. Lange. Since she was angry with the husband who’d given it to her, she’d let Kate have use of the shawl all last summer. But Kate never imagined that Thorne would recall it. Much less the matching peacock ribbons in her hair.

She stole a glance at him as the serving girl removed the empty glasses. Had he truly been “struck by her” that day, the way Lark said?

“So he clapped eyes on you right here in the Spindle Cove tea shop,” Lark said dramatically, “and he knew at once—he must make you his own.”

Kate’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. “It wasn’t like that.”

“You know nothing of men, goose,” Harry said. “It’s been a whole year. Corporal Thorne is a man of action. Just look at him. If he’d made up his mind to have her, he would have done so long before now.”

“See, he didn’t like me,” Kate said. “Not at first. Perhaps there was some superficial attraction, but no emotions were involved.” She looked at him over her wineglass. “He didn’t feel a thing for me.”

“Oh, I won’t believe that.” Aunt Marmoset unwrapped another spice drop. “I think he liked you too well, dear. And he made up his mind to stay away.”

Kate looked to Thorne. She found him staring back at her with unnerving intensity.

“Well?” Lark asked him. “Does my aunt have it right?”

Does she? Kate asked him silently.

She didn’t know what answer to read in those ice-blue eyes, but she discerned there was a great deal going on behind them. For a man who claimed to feel nothing . . . the “nothing” went very deep.

“Miss Taylor, are you going to keep our new friends all to yourself?”

Kate shook herself back to the present. Mrs. Highwood stood behind her, Diana and Charlotte in tow.

“Introduce us, dear,” the matron said through a clenched smile.

“Yes, of course.” She rose, and so did the men at the table. “Lord Drewe, Lady Harriet, Lady Lark, and Aunt Marmoset, may I introduce Mrs. Highwood and her daughters, Diana and Charlotte.”

“I have a third daughter,” Mrs. Highwood said loftily, “but she is lately married. To the Viscount Payne of Northumberland.” The older woman turned and made a strange, awkward motion with her fan.

“Congratulations,” Lark said, smiling at the matron and her daughters. “We’ve seen you in the rooming house, but it’s a pleasure to be properly introduced.”