A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove #1)(50)

Minerva blinked at her, clearly hurt. Susanna felt horrible, but the future of their community was at stake. Where would Minerva hunt her fossils if word reached London of spinsters gone wild, and the Queen’s Ruby was forced to close its doors?

“We’ll be called to tea shortly.” She picked up her basket and headed inside. “Until then, I’ll be in the stillroom, pounding herbs. I’m running low on liniment.”

Kate followed her. “I’ll help.” As they neared the house, she whispered, “How was it? The kiss.”

Susanna suppressed a little cry of frustration.

“You can tell me,” Kate said, propping open the stillroom door. When both had entered, she swiftly shut and locked it behind them. “Miss Finch, you know I won’t tell a soul. I have nowhere else to live but here. Spindle Cove’s fate is my fate, too.”

Susanna leaned against the door and closed her eyes.

“Was it wonderful?”

“Wonderful” wasn’t the word. There were no words to describe the wild, breathless flood of sensation.

And there was no way she could keep it a secret one instant longer. She gave a tiny nod and whispered, “Yes.”

Kate clutched her arm. “I knew it. You must tell me everything.”

“Oh, Kate. I can’t. I shouldn’t even have admitted that much.” She began taking bottles down from the shelves and snipped a bundle of dried St. John’s wort from its string. “And it won’t ever happen again.”

“Don’t you think he means to marry you?”

“Absolutely not. And I have no plans to marry him.”

“I don’t mean to pry,” Kate said. “Truly, I don’t. It’s just my only chance to know. I mean . . . It won’t ever be me, kissed in the cove by a lord.”

Susanna let pestle drop against mortar. “Why wouldn’t it be you? You’re beautiful, and so talented.”

“I’m an orphan of unknown family. A nobody. What’s more, a nobody with this.” She touched the birthmark at her temple.

Susanna set aside her work entirely and placed both hands on her friend’s shoulders, looking her square in the eye. “Kate, if that little mark is your greatest imperfection, then you are surely the most lovely and lovable woman I know.”

“Men don’t seem to agree.”

“Perhaps you’ve been meeting all the wrong men.”

At the echo of Bram’s words to her, Susanna bit back a rueful smile. No matter what happened, life would always be a bit different now. Because at last, Susanna knew what it was to feel desired, flaws and all. She felt the unexpected warmth of it lighting her from the inside, and she wanted Kate to experience the same.

“Your admirer will come along someday. I’m sure of it. But in the meantime . . .” She tugged one of her friend’s chestnut curls. “This is Spindle Cove, Kate. We base our self-worth on our qualities and accomplishments, not just the opinions of gentlemen.”

“Yes, I know. I know.” A sheepish look stole into Kate’s eyes. “But it’s impossible to stop thinking about them, just the same.”

Yes, Susanna silently agreed. It was. And with their leader indisposed upstairs, she suddenly worried what trouble the rest of the men were finding today.

In the shadow of Rycliff Castle, Colin Sandhurst regarded his troops.

They were his troops for the day, he presumed, since his fool cousin remained unconscious. Colin had warned him not to take that ridiculous dive off the cliff, but did Bram ever listen to him? Oh no. Of course not.

He’d half expected the whole militia business to be over after that show of absurdity. But apparently the lure of eight shillings and the promise of high entertainment had brought the recruits back for another day.

He clapped his hands together. “Right, then. Gather round, fellows. Over here.”

Nothing happened.

Thorne shot him a smug look. “Fall in line!” he barked.

The men fell in line.

“Thank you, Corporal Thorne.” Colin cleared his throat and addressed the men. “As you all know, our stalwart commander is currently flat on his back, nursing a head wound. A wound, I might add, given him by a little nothing of a girl. So today, as your first lieutenant, I am in charge. And we’re going to have a different sort of drill today.”

Keane, the vicar, raised a hand. “Are we going to learn a new formation?”

“No,” Colin told him. “We’re going to stage an invasion. Those little ladies down there in Spindle Cove have occupied what should be your village. Our village. Are we going to roll over and take that?”

The men looked from one to the other.

“No!” Colin supplied, exasperated. “No, we are not going to take that, not one evening more.”

Bram had the right idea, at least. These men definitely needed some help reattaching their bollocks and reasserting their dominance in this village. But his cousin had the wrong tactic, appealing to some vague sense of honor and duty. There was a much better source of motivation—that primal, undeniable impulse that drove every man.

Sex.

“Tonight,” he announced, “is the night we take back that village. And we’re not going to do it by marching in lines or committing acts of brave idiocy. We’re going to do it by being men. Manly men. The kind of men a woman wants to take control.”