A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove #1)(65)

“You’re such a principled, arrogant ass. If you respected me, I’d have your sanity challenged. And so far as filial affection is concerned . . .” Colin gestured angrily toward the spot where the Bright twins had grappled. “It seems clawing at one another’s throats is the standard practice.”

“Well, in that case.” With his left hand, Bram grabbed Colin by the shirtfront. His right fist made an impulsive swing at his cousin’s jaw. He checked the strength of the blow somewhat, but it still landed with enough force to send Colin’s head whipping left. “That’s for Miss Highwood.” He drove a halfhearted, joyless punch into his cousin’s gut. “And that’s for . . . for fun.”

He waited, breathing hard, holding his cousin by the collar and bracing himself for retaliation. Longing for it, truly. Bram knew he had blows coming to him—for Susanna, for Sir Lewis, for everything. The impact could only come as a relief.

But his cousin wouldn’t do him even that favor. He simply touched his tongue to his bruised lip and said, “I’ll be off in the morning, Bram. I’d let you be rid of me sooner, but I don’t travel at night.”

“Oh no, you don’t.” Bram gave him a shake.

Damn it, what was he going to do with this man? If he left here, nothing good could come of it. Of him. As a young, unattached, soon-to-be-wealthy peer, Colin had no checks on his behavior. Since a tragically young age, he’d been lacking both a father’s example and a mother’s understanding.

Susanna, he thought with a bittersweet twinge, would probably argue Colin needed a hug.

Well, Bram didn’t know how to offer his cousin any of those things—not with a straight face, at any rate. But he knew how to be an officer, and experience had taught him that duty and discipline could patch a good many holes in a man’s life.

He might be the only person in the world who could offer Colin this: the chance to rise to expectations, rather than sink to them.

“You’re not leaving,” he told him. “Not now, and not tomorrow, either.” He released his cousin, then gestured at the scene of destruction and chaos. “You broke this, and you’re damned well going to mend it.”

Spindle Cove was falling to pieces.

Once she’d seen that Diana was safely upstairs and resting in her bed, Susanna descended to the drawing room of the Queen’s Ruby. There she found her whole world breaking apart. Complaints and confessions detonated in every corner of the room.

“Oh Lord. Oh Lord,” a voice pitched above frantic flapping. A gull’s wing couldn’t have worked harder than that fan. “I feel an attack of nerves coming on.”

“I can’t believe I drank whiskey,” mourned another. “And danced with a fisherman. If my uncle hears of this, I’ll be called home in such disgrace.”

“Perhaps I ought to go upstairs. Start packing my things now.”

And then came the observation that froze Susanna’s blood.

“Miss Finch, what’s happened to your gown? The buttons are all askew. And look at your hair.”

“I . . .” Susanna strove to keep calm. “I suppose I dressed too hurriedly tonight.”

“But it wasn’t like that at Summerfield,” Violet Winterbottom said. “And I thought for certain you would have arrived in the village long before me—I was forced to rest for so long—but you didn’t. Did you meet with some accident on the way?”

“Something like that.” As she melted into a nearby chair, Susanna’s conscience stabbed at her. Then she knew the piercing quality of Kate Taylor’s curious gaze. Then Minerva’s.

They all turned to her, every lady in the room. Staring. Noticing. Then wondering.

She’d been so foolish. What she’d shared with Bram had been . . . indescribable, and she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. But to engage in it on the village green, where they had every chance of discovery? While complete pandemonium broke out nearby, putting a woman’s life at risk?

And Miss Highwood wasn’t the only one in danger. Women like Kate and Minerva . . . If Spindle Cove ceased to be a reputable place, what chance would they have to pursue their talents and enjoy the freedom of independent thought?

“Miss Finch?” Kate asked quietly, coming to sit beside her and take her hand. “Is there anything you wish to tell us? Anything at all?”

Susanna squeezed her friend’s hand and looked around the room. She was not a resentful person as a matter of course. But in that brief moment, she rather hated the world. She hated that all these bright, unconventional women were here because they’d been made to think there was something wrong with them. That they had to escape from society, just to be themselves. She hated that the slightest hint of her behavior tonight could put their safe haven at risk—assuming that tavern debacle hadn’t ruined everything anyway.

And most of all, she hated that she could not sit here with her only friends and confess to them that she’d just given her virginity to the strongest, most sensual, wonderfully tender man. That beneath her rumpled clothing, she was still flushed and damp and . . . pleasantly sticky from his attentions. That she was changed inside, still reeling from the pleasure and profundity of it all. Little echoes of bliss cinched tight in her belly, and her heart brimmed with emotion. And did they know the wicked things a man could do with his tongue?