A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(83)

“You must. Otherwise, it will be obvious what’s happened between us, and Evan would . . .” She pulled her shift over her head. “Samuel, there’s a very real chance he would try to kill you.”

Kill him? Thorne couldn’t help but chuckle at that. His lordship was welcome to try.

“Just let me break the news gently,” she said. Her fingers worked desperately to do up her buttons. “Please.”

He swore, despising himself for causing her such obvious distress. Of course she wanted to break the news gently, because there was no way in hell a family of aristocrats—no matter how eccentric and unconventional—would rejoice to see their legitimate cousin marry a man like him.

Even he couldn’t rejoice at the idea. The two halves of his being were at war—the half that wanted the best for her, against the half that simply wanted her.

He gathered a pair of loose trousers and pulled them on.

“I think I’ll have a little money,” she said, rolling a woolen stocking up her leg and tying it off with a simple garter. “That’s the good news. We can buy ourselves a fair slice of America.”

Smiling, she reached past him to take her frock from the screen. He took the garment from her hands.

“Turn away,” he said. “Arms up.”

He helped her into the frock, taking time with all the buttons and laces. His right hand was still clumsy, so several moments passed.

When he’d finished, he put his hands on her slender waist. “Katie, how can you truly want that life? How can you want me?”

She swiveled to face him. “How could I want anyone else?”

To be sure, she said such sweet things now. But in time, he worried she’d come to resent him. A solitary life on the American frontier would give her far too many quiet hours to ponder all she’d left behind. A comfortable, lavish home and every convenience money could purchase. Her pupils, her friends. The family she’d waited her whole life to find.

“You will miss them.”

She nodded. “I will miss them. And I’ll be happy with you. The two conditions can coexist.”

Not knowing what to say without contradicting her, he instead bent his head and took her mouth in a kiss.

What started out tender quickly became passionate, feverish. He clutched her tight against his body and swept his tongue between her lips. She opened to him readily, no hint of shyness or restraint, and he kissed her as deeply as he could. Probing, searching. Desperately seeking the reassurance that would give his guilt-stricken soul some peace.

Convince me. Make me believe I can make you happy.

Light up for me.

When they broke apart, her cheeks were flushed and her eyes were glassy. But he couldn’t exactly say that she glowed. Damn.

“Samuel, I won’t claim loving you is easy. But it’s scarcely the hardship you’re making it out to be, either.” She stretched to touch his face, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows with a single fingertip. “I want to iron this flat. Stop fretting so.”

“I’m not fretting. Men don’t fret.”

Men acted. If he saw a problem, a real man addressed it. He took bold risks, made life-altering changes.

“I’ll let you go home to the Gramercys tonight,” he said, “on one condition. Don’t tell them anything just yet.”

“But I’ll have to—”

He shushed her by placing two fingertips to her soft pink lips.

“Not a word of this. Not yet.” He caressed her cheek. “I want to ask for you properly. I must speak to Drewe myself, Katie. Man-to-man. You cannot deny me that.”

She swallowed and nodded. “I understand. Will you come down to the village tomorrow?”

He shook his head. “I need to return to London. I need some time to make arrangements first.”

“Will you be long?”

“A few days, that’s all.”

Her eyes shimmered. “Promise you’ll return?”

“You have my word.”

She had his word, his heart, his soul, his life. Always.

And he had a few days. A few days’ time—to change his life and place a wild, reckless wager on the future.

Chapter Twenty-One

Kate stood before a mirror in the Queen’s Ruby.

Fretting.

It was all very well and good for Samuel to say men didn’t fret. But he was cruel to give her so much reason to fret herself. Nearly a week had passed since their night at the castle, and she hadn’t heard a word. While she had no reason to doubt his intentions, the longer she went without breaking the news to the Gramercys, the more of a liar she felt.

All week long the Gramercys had gone about making plans for Ambervale and Town. Parties they would host, places they would take her to see, people to whom she would be introduced. Kate tried to limit her responses to noncommittal nods and polite smiles, but she knew she was giving them the impression that she meant to come live with them forever.

Now it was the night of the ball. In a matter of hours she would be introduced as Lady Katherine Gramercy to all of Spindle Cove. To be sure, this was not exactly English high society—but word would spread to London, and soon. When she eloped to America with an enlisted man just weeks thereafter—wouldn’t that be a public embarrassment for the Gramercys?

And if her connection to the Hothouse ever became public . . . if the gossips of London ever learned that a onetime Marchioness of Drewe had lived as a Southwark opera dancer . . .