A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(6)

“I hadn’t any choice.” Her voice caught. “I am completely alone.”

His grip firmed on her arms. “I’m here. You’re not alone now.”

Hardly poetry, those words. A simple statement of fact. They scarcely shared the same alphabet as kindness. If true comfort were a nourishing, wholemeal loaf, what he offered her were a few stale crumbs.

It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. She was a starving girl, and she hadn’t the dignity to refuse.

“I’m so sorry,” she managed, choking back a sob. “You’re not going to like this.”

And with that, Kate fell into his immense, rigid, unwilling embrace—and wept.

Bloody hell.

She burst into tears. Right there in the street, for God’s sake. Her lovely face screwed up. She bent forward until her forehead met his chest, and then she heaved a loud, wrenching sob.

Then a second. And a third.

His gelding danced sideways, and Thorne shared the beast’s unease. Given a choice between watching Miss Kate Taylor weep and offering his own liver to carrion birds, he would have had his knife out and sharpened before the first tear rolled down her face.

He clucked his tongue softly, which did some good toward calming the horse. It had no effect on the girl. Her slender shoulders convulsed as she wept into his coat. His hands remained fixed on her arms.

In a desperate gesture, he slid them up. Then down.

No help.

What’s happened? he wanted to ask. Who’s hurt you? Who can I maim or kill for distressing you this way?

“I’m sorry,” she said, pulling away after some minutes had passed.

“Why?”

“For weeping all over you. Forcing you to hold me. I know you must hate it.” She fished a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. Her nose and eyes were red. “I mean, not that you don’t like holding women. Everyone in Spindle Cove knows you like women. I’ve heard far more than I care to hear about your—”

She paled and stopped talking.

Just as well.

He took the horse’s lead in one hand and laid the other hand to Miss Taylor’s back, guiding her out of the street. Once they reached the side of the lane, he looped his horse’s reins about a post and turned his sights toward making her comfortable. There wasn’t anywhere for her to sit. No bench, no crate.

This disturbed him beyond reason.

His gaze went to a tavern across the street—the sort of establishment he’d never allow her to enter—but he was seriously considering crossing the lane, toppling the first available drunk off his seat, and dragging the vacated chair out for her. A woman shouldn’t weep while standing. It didn’t seem right.

“Please, can’t you just loan me a few shillings?” she asked. “I’ll find an inn for the night, and I won’t trouble you any further.”

“Miss Taylor, I can’t lend you money to pass the night alone in a coaching inn. It’s not safe.”

“I have no choice but to stay. There won’t be another stage back to Spindle Cove until morning.”

Thorne looked at his gelding. “I’ll hire you a horse, if you can ride.”

She shook her head. “I never had any lessons.”

Curse it. How was he going to remedy this situation? He easily had the money to hire another horse, but nowhere near enough coin in his pocket for a private carriage. He could put her up in an inn—but damned if he would let her stay alone.

A dangerous thought visited him, sinking talons into his mind.

He could stay with her.

Not in a tawdry way, he told himself. Just as her protector. He could find a damned place for her to sit down, as a start. He could see that she had food and drink and warm blankets. He could stand watch while she slept and make certain nothing disturbed her. He could be there when she woke.

After all these months of frustrated longing, maybe that would be enough.

Enough? Right.

“Good heavens.” She took a sudden step back.

“What is it?”

Her gaze dropped and she swallowed hard. “Some part of you is moving.”

“No, it’s not.” Thorne conducted a quick, silent assessment of his personal equipment. He found all to be under regulation. On another occasion—one with fewer tears involved—this degree of closeness would have undoubtedly roused his lust. But today she was affecting him rather higher in his torso. Tying his guts in knots and poking at whatever black, smoking cinder remained of his heart.

“Your satchel.” She indicated the leather pouch slung crossways over his chest. “It’s . . . wriggling.”

Oh. That. In all the commotion, he’d nearly forgotten the creature.

He reached beneath the leather flap and withdrew the source of the wriggling, holding it up for her to see.

“It’s just this.”

And suddenly everything was different. It was like the whole world took a knock and tilted at a fresh angle. In less time than it took a man’s heart to skip, Miss Taylor’s face transformed. The tears were gone. Her elegant, sweeping eyebrows arched in surprise. Her eyes candled to life—glowed, really, like two stars. Her lips fell apart in a delighted gasp.

“Oh.” She pressed one hand to her cheek. “Oh, it’s a puppy.”

She smiled. Lord, how she smiled. All because of this wriggling ball of snout and fur that was as likely to piss on her slippers as chew them to bits.