A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(59)

He discarded the damp towel, and she averted her eyes as she handed him the shirt. After a few moments she looked back. He’d managed to get his head through the wide, open collar and his good arm into the left sleeve. But she could tell he was struggling with his wounded side.

She went to him. “Let me help.”

He flinched away. “I’ll manage.”

Chastened, she let him be. “Well. I’m glad to see you survived the ordeal with your stubborn pride intact. I’ll take Badger out for a few minutes.”

The morning was chill and wet with dew, and she hurried Badger about his business, not wanting to risk an encounter with another snake.

When she returned, she found Thorne seated at the table with an open flask. His hair was damp and combed. He’d put on a coat.

“Would’ve shaved and donned a neckcloth, but . . .” He nodded at his right arm, dangling limp and useless at his side.

“Don’t be silly.” She sat with him and propped an elbow on the table. “There’s no need. I can’t imagine how I look at the moment.”

“Lovely.” He spoke the word without equivocation. His intense gaze caught hers. “You are lovely, always.” He reached out to catch a stray lock of her hair. “Her hair curled like this, but it wasn’t so dark.”

“Where was this?” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “Where did we live?”

“Southwark, as I’ve told you. Near the prison. The neighborhood was rough and very dangerous.”

“And you called me Katie then.”

He nodded. “Everyone did.”

“What did I call you?”

His chest rose and fell slowly. “You called me Samuel.”

Samuel.

The name struck a chime inside her. Memories heeded the summons, crowding the periphery of her mind. If she tried to look straight at them, they vanished. But she could sense that they were there, waiting—misty and dark.

“Our mothers took rooms in the same house,” he said.

“But you told me your mother turned whore.”

His mouth set in a hard line. “She did.”

Oh no. Kate’s breath caught painfully. The implications were too horrible to contemplate. “Is my . . . Could she still be living?”

Solemnly, he shook his head. “No. She died. That’s when you went to the school.”

Kate blinked, staring unfocused at a groove on the tabletop. Rage built within her, swift and sudden. She wanted to scold, scream, cry, pound something with her fists. She had never known this sort of raw, helpless anger, and she didn’t know just what it might cause her to do.

“I’m sorry, Katie. The truth isn’t pleasant.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not pleasant. But it’s my truth.” She pushed back from the table and punched to her feet. “My life. I can’t believe you kept this from me.”

He rubbed his face with one hand.

“Let me be certain I understand this,” she went on. “When you arrived in Spindle Cove last summer, are you telling me that you recognized me at once?”

“Yes.”

“By this.” She touched her birthmark.

“Yes.”

“So you immediately knew me as an acquaintance from your childhood. And in the present, you found me . . .” She churned the air with her hand. “ ‘Fetching enough’ was how you once phrased it.”

“More than fetching.”

“How much more?” She stood and flung her arms wide, taunting him. “Pretty? Beautiful? Rapturously stunning beyond all words and comprehension?”

“The third,” he shot back. “Something like that third. When you’re not flapping like an outraged chicken, I sometimes think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

She let her arms drop.

After an awkward pause, she said, “I’m not, you realize. I’m not even the most beautiful woman in Spindle Cove.”

He held up a hand. “Let’s just go back to desirable. I found you very desirable.”

“Fine. So you recognized me and found me desirable.”

“Very.”

“Yet rather than speak to me about any of this, you decided to intimidate and avoid me for an entire year. When you knew I thought myself to be an abandoned orphan. When you must have understood how desperate I was for any connection to my past. How could you do that to me?”

“Because it was best. Your dim memories are a blessing. We lived in a place most would wish to forget. I didn’t want to inflict that unpleasantness on you now.”

“That was not your choice to make!” She gestured angrily toward the unseen ocean beyond the castle walls. “I can’t believe this. You would have left for America, having never said a word. Leaving me to wonder forever.”

As he looked on, she paced back and forth. Badger chased the flounce of her skirt from one end of the room to the other.

“If the Gramercys hadn’t found that painting and come looking for—” A horrid thought struck her. “Oh, God. Were they looking for me? Did my mother look like the portrait? Did she wear a pendant of deep blue stone?”

“I can’t say. My memories of her aren’t a great deal more reliable than yours. When I saw her, she was usually made up with rouge and kohl. Later on, pale with illness. Ellie Rose was—”