A Lady by Midnight (Spindle Cove #3)(88)

Minerva patted her arm. “Kate, I don’t think you should worry overmuch. I have a strong suspicion your problems will work themselves out, and in hasty fashion.”

“I hope you’re right,” Kate said. But despite her natural bent for optimism, this was one situation where she had a difficult time seeing an easy solution.

“Well,” Susanna said, standing. “I suppose we’ve hidden ourselves up here as long as we dare. We had better go find our men before they create some mischief.”

“This is a Summerfield ball,” Kate agreed. “There seems to be something in the ratafia that makes male passions . . . explosive.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Thorne’s patience was nearing the end of its fuse.

Tucked away in the Egyptian-themed library of Sir Lewis Finch, he paced a small square of carpet, patrolling back and forth. His new boots pinched his feet. His starched cuffs chafed his wrists. Sheer agony was his companion.

And the agony had a name: Colin Sandhurst, Viscount Payne.

“Let me give you a bit of advice,” Payne said.

“I don’t want any more of your advice. Not on this.”

“You don’t want to admit you want it,” Payne replied smoothly. “But I shall talk to myself, and you can merely be nearby, not listening.”

Thorne rolled his eyes. He’d spent the better part of the past several days “nearby, not listening” to Payne. Through shopping trips, appointments with solicitors, lessons on . . . an activity Thorne hated to acknowledge in thought, let alone speak aloud.

Payne tossed back a swallow of his drink and propped one boot on an inscribed sarcophagus. “Before I found Minerva, I’d passed nights with more than my share of women.”

Thorne groaned. Don’t. Just don’t.

“I’ve passed time with duchesses and farm girls, and it doesn’t matter whether their skirts are silk or homespun. Once you get them bare—”

Thorne drew up short. “If you start in on rivers of silk and alabaster orbs, I will have to hit you.”

“Easy, Cinderella,” Payne said, holding up his hands. “All I meant to say is this. Beneath the trappings, all women crave the same thing.”

Thorne made a fist and clenched it until his knuckles cracked.

“What? I’m speaking of tenderness.”

From his chair behind the desk, Bram rubbed his temple. “I think what my cousin is trying to say is, just because she’s Lady Katherine Gramercy now and not Miss Taylor, that doesn’t mean that she’s changed inside.”

Thorne resumed pacing. Perhaps he shouldn’t have told them everything. He’d needed their help, but he hated that they knew he needed it. Feeling weak wasn’t something he was accustomed to, and he didn’t like it. His impulse was to crash through the doors, find his Katie, pick her up in his arms, and carry her away someplace warm and small and safe.

But he couldn’t take her away. That was the whole point of tonight. She had a family now. Not only a family, but a place among the English peerage.

This new life of hers . . . it meant she could never be entirely his. No matter the promises she made about leaving everything behind and sailing with him for America, he knew it couldn’t work that way. As a Gramercy, she was part of a family. As the daughter of a marquess, she would have obligations and duties here. As a lady, she would always be above him—the reminder of it would sit before her name on every letter she received or penned.

He didn’t want to share her. But he must, if he wanted to be a part of her new life. Most of all, he was utterly resolved: He would not bring shame to her, ever.

So tonight he was pacing the library carpet, waiting for his chance. He was hardly Cinderella, but at least he’d wedged his scarred body and ashen soul into a smart new outfit.

From behind the desk, Bram regarded Thorne. “I can’t believe you went to my cousin.”

I can’t believe it, either.

“If you needed anything, Thorne, I would have helped. You need only have asked.”

“You’re busy.”

Payne smiled wryly. “Yes, and I was only on my honeymoon. I had nothing better to do than scrub up a noble savage, take him shopping, and teach him to dance.”

“What?” Bram looked at Thorne in astonishment. “No.”

Thorne turned away.

Bram’s smug inquiries pursued him. “You danced? And Colin gave you lessons?”

“You act as though the pleasure should be mine,” Payne said. “It was rather a trial on my part, I’ll have you know. But thanks to my darling wife’s influence, I’m learning to embrace my academic duty. I’ve long been a scholar of the female sex. Since I’m now happily married and devoted to one particular woman, it would be miserly of me to hoard such accumulated knowledge for myself.”

“No doubt.” Bram laughed. To Thorne, he said, “Good God. If you put up with this for a week, you must really love that girl.”

Payne resumed his suave, professorial demeanor. “It’s like this, Thorne. If you mean to ask for a woman’s heart, you have to be willing to take risks of your own. Real ones. Not just dancing lessons.”

Thorne set his jaw. He’d given up his home for Katie. He’d spent years hungry in the countryside, then hungry in prison, then hungry and marching in the army. “I’ve sacrificed for her. I’ve given her as much as a man like me can give.”