A Night to Surrender (Spindle Cove #1)(78)

He sighed. “I can promise to come back. Eventually.”

“From war? Bram, no one can make such a promise. I wish I understood why returning to field command is so important to you. Is it just a matter of proving you can?”

“Partly.”

“But not entirely.”

She looked up at him, those patient blue eyes sparkling in the night. If he couldn’t talk to her, he couldn’t talk to anyone.

“I just don’t have anything else. I’m an infantry officer, Susanna. It’s all I’ve ever been, all I’ve ever wanted since I was a boy. I wanted it so badly, I left Cambridge the month I turned twenty-one. That was when I could finally access the small legacy my grandfather left me, and I used it to purchase my first commission. My father made a show of being angry, but I know he was secretly pleased that I’d done it on my own. I never relied on his influence. I paid my dues, rose up through the ranks. I made him proud. When news reached me of his death—” He broke off, unsure how to continue.

Beneath the water’s surface, her hand found his. “I’m so sorry, Bram. I can’t even imagine how devastating it must have been.”

She couldn’t imagine, and he didn’t know how to explain. Bram thought of his father’s last letter. He’d received it through the usual mail, a full week after the express informing him of the major general’s death. The letter’s contents were nothing out of the ordinary. But Bram would never forget the closing. Don’t feel rushed in writing back, his father had written. I know you’ve been writing too many letters, of late.

His father had obviously learned of Badajoz, where the allied forces had taken the garrison at human costs so great, Wellington himself wept over the carnage. And therefore he’d known Bram was writing condolence letters by the dozen, to the surviving families of his fallen men—to the point where his hand cramped up and his vocabulary went dry as the inkwell. There were only so many words for “regret.”

His father hadn’t offered any hollow words of comfort or tried to impose meaning on senseless death. He’d simply let Bram know he understood.

Bram couldn’t voice what it meant, to know they’d reached a place where they understood each other as men, as fellow officers. As equals. If he retired from command and became just another privileged lord loafing around England . . . He wasn’t sure his father would still understand that man. Bram wasn’t sure he would understand himself.

“Losing my father was hard,” he said. “Damned hard. But what it made it a little easier was telling myself I’d continue making him proud. Carry the family banner forward. Keep his legacy alive.” He released a breath. “That lasted all of a few months, and then I was shot. Couldn’t be so lucky as to have a glorious, noble death on the battlefield. Now I’m just another lamed soldier with no prospects of returning to command.”

“Oh, Bram.” She brushed his face with her free hand, pushing aside drops of salt water on either cheek. He feared they weren’t all from the sea.

“Sir Lewis was my very last chance. I’ve written to every retired general I could imagine, asking for a good word. I’ve felt out every colonel who might be in need of a lieutenant, hoping one of them would put in a request. Nothing. No one wants me like this.”

The night’s silence was profound.

“Well, I do.”

At her words, his heart seized. He clutched her tight with both arms, as if this tiny cove were a bottomless ocean, and she a life preserver.

“I want you like this,” she said again. Bending her head, she kissed the underside of his jaw. Her lips lingered there for a hot, sensuous moment. Then she ran her tongue down his neck and brought her body flush with his. “Just as you are. Right here, right now.”

Twenty-one

“Right here?” he echoed, his voice breaking with surprise. “Right now?”

Susanna couldn’t help but laugh a little. It felt good to catch him off guard, lighten the sadness in his voice. “It can be accomplished in the water, can’t it?”

He nodded numbly. “It can.”

“Unless you have some objection.”

He shook his head, just as numbly. “I don’t.”

“Good.”

Her hands went to the buttons down the front of her bathing costume. His throat worked as she loosened them one by one. She wriggled her arms free and pushed the garment down into the water so she could step out. Then she tossed the whole sodden heap over a nearby rock.

“Wait, Susanna—” He took her by the waist. “You don’t have to do this just because . . .”

“I’m not.” She put her fingers to his lips. “I’m not.”

When she dropped her hand, placing it flat against his chest, his heartbeat whomped beneath her touch. His palpably anxious response made her own heart flutter.

He needed her right now. He needed to know that someone could see all his weaknesses, all his flaws—and still find him not only desirable, but worthy and strong. Vulnerable as she felt, she couldn’t bring herself to deny him that reassurance. Not when it was the simple truth.

What was more, she needed him, too.

“Don’t look so stunned,” she teased. “I want you, Bram. So much. All the time. When it comes to you, this buttoned-up spinster is just seething with wild, insatiable passion.” She kissed him, teasing her tongue over his lips. “It should hardly come as any surprise. You’ve been telling me so since the very beginning.”