A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(5)

Kate came to a standstill in the crowded lane. People jostled and streamed about her on all sides. But she didn’t belong to any of them. None of them would help. Despair crawled its way through her veins, cold and black.

Her worst fears had been realized. She was alone. Not just tonight, but forever. Her own relations had abandoned her years ago. No one wanted her now. She would die alone. Living in some cramped pensioner’s apartment like Miss Paringham’s, drinking thrice-washed tea and chewing on her own bitterness.

Be brave, my Katie.

Her whole life she’d clung to the memory of those words. She’d held fast to the belief that they meant someone, somewhere cared. She wouldn’t let that voice down. This sort of panic wasn’t like her, and it wouldn’t do a bit of good.

She closed her eyes, drew a deep breath, and took a silent inventory. She had her wits. She had her talent. She had a young, healthy body. No one could take these things from her. Not even that cruel, shriveled wench with her cane and weak tea.

There had to be some solution. Did she have anything she could sell? Her pink muslin frock was rather fine—a handed-down gift from one of her pupils, trimmed with ribbon and lace—but she couldn’t sell the clothes off her back. She’d left her best summer bonnet at Miss Paringham’s, and she’d rather sleep in the streets than retrieve it.

If she hadn’t cut it so short last summer, she might have tried to sell her hair. But the locks barely reached below her shoulders now, and they were an unremarkable shade of brown. No wig maker would want it.

Her best chance was the music shop. Perhaps if she explained her predicament and asked very nicely, the proprietor would accept his music back and return her money. That would afford her enough for a room at a somewhat respectable inn. Staying alone was never advisable, and she didn’t even have her pistol. But she could prop a chair beneath her door and stay awake all night, clutching the fireplace poker and keeping her voice primed to scream.

There. She had a plan.

As Kate started to cross the street, an elbow knocked her off balance.

“Oy,” its owner said. “Watch yerself, miss.”

She whirled away, apologizing. The twine on her parcel snapped. White pages flapped and fluttered into the gusty summer afternoon, like a covey of startled doves.

“Oh no. The music.”

She made wild sweeps with both hands. A few pages disappeared down the street, and others fell to the cobblestones, quickly trampled by passersby. But the bulk of the parcel landed in the middle of the lane, still wrapped in brown paper.

She made a lunging grab for it, desperate to save what she could.

“Look sharp!” a man shouted.

Cartwheels creaked. Somewhere much too near, a horse bucked and whinnied. She looked up from where she’d crouched in the lane to see two windmilling, iron-shoed hooves, big as dinner plates, preparing to demolish her.

A woman screamed.

Kate threw her weight to one side. The horse’s hooves landed just to her left. With a squalling hiss of the brake, a cartwheel screeched to halt—inches from crushing her leg.

The parcel of sheet music landed some yards distant. Her “plan” was now a mud-stained, wheel-rutted smear on the street.

“Devil take you,” the driver cursed her from the box, brandishing his horsewhip. “A fine little witch you are. Near overset my whole cart.”

“I—I’m sorry, sir. It was an accident.”

He cracked his whip against the cobblestones. “Out of my way, then. You unnatural little—”

As he raised his whip for another strike, Kate flinched and ducked.

No blow came.

A man stepped between her and the cart. “Threaten her again,” she heard him warn the driver in a low, inhuman growl, “and I will whip the flesh from your miserable bones.”

Chilling, those words. But effective. The cart swiftly rolled away.

As strong arms pulled her to her feet, Kate’s gaze climbed a veritable mountain of man. She saw black, polished boots. Buff breeches stretched over granite thighs. A distinctive red wool officer’s coat.

Her heart jumped. She knew this coat. She’d probably sewn the brass buttons on these cuffs. This was the uniform of the Spindle Cove militia. She was in familiar arms. She was saved. And when she lifted her head, she was guaranteed to find a friendly face, unless . . .

“Miss Taylor?”

Unless.

Unless it was him.

“Corporal Thorne,” she whispered.

On another day, Kate could have laughed at the irony. Of all the men to come to her rescue, it would be this one.

“Miss Taylor, what the devil are you doing here?”

At his rough tone, all her muscles pulled tight. “I . . . I came into town to purchase new sheet music for Miss Elliott, and to . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to mention calling on Miss Paringham. “But I dropped my parcel, and now I’ve missed the stage home. Silly me.”

Silly, foolish, shame-marked, unwanted me.

“And now I’m truly stuck, I’m afraid. If only I’d brought a little more money, I could afford a room for the evening, then go back to Spindle Cove tomorrow.”

“You’ve no money?”

She turned away, unable to bear the chastisement in his gaze.

“What were you thinking, traveling all this distance alone?”