A Night to Surrender (12 page)

His current problem tilted her lovely, freckled head. “You were supposed to keep your men
apart
from my ladies.”

“Need I remind you who broke that agreement first?” He picked up the pair of scissors on the table—the ones Thorne had been using to cut the measuring tapes. “Well?” he asked loudly. “What will it be, Finch?”

She stared at the scissors, wide-eyed. “Above the collar, you say?”

“Oh yes.”

“Every volunteer in the militia?”

“No exceptions.”

Her eyes pleaded with him. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “They’re boys. Finn and Rufus, I mean. Their mother is anxious for them. Try to understand.”

“Oh, I understand.” He understood that she was ostensibly trying to shield those boys from harm. But he also understood her other purpose—clinging to her position of power in this village. On that score, he could not let her win. “Perhaps neither you nor I wanted it, but I’m the lord now. My militia. My village. My rules.” He held out the scissors. “Shear or be shorn.”

After a long moment, she removed her borrowed hat and set it aside. Reaching both hands behind her neck, she unbound her long queue of hair, then shook out the locks with a sensual toss of her head. The newly freed hair tumbled about her shoulders in lush, golden-red waves that shimmered in the sunlight, dazzling him into a near stupor.

In that instant, Bram knew he’d made a grave tactical error.

With a resigned sigh, she met his gaze. “Very well. It’s just hair.”

It’s just hair.

Good Lord. That molten bronze aura framing her face was most definitely
not
“just hair.” It was living, flowing beauty. It was a crown of glory. It was . . . like the righteous breath of angry angels. Some kind of religious experience, and he was probably damned just for daring to look upon it.

A faint, wistful noise scraped from his throat. He covered it with a cough.

Let her cut it
, he told himself.
You have no choice. If she wins this battle, it’s all over. You’re done for.

“Let me have them,” she said. “I’ll do it myself.” She reached for the shears.

He gripped them tight. “No.”

“N
o?” Susanna repeated, trying not to betray her panic. A brave front was important here.

She truly didn’t want to cut her hair—“that
hair
,” as her cousins had less than affectionately cursed it. Wild and unfashionable as it might be, it suited her now, and it was one thing she had of her mother’s. But Susanna would make the sacrifice, if it meant keeping Finn and Rufus safe.

If it meant besting
him
.

It would grow back, she told herself. It had all grown back once before, after that dreadful summer in Norfolk. Only she wanted to cut it herself this time. Quickly, and with as little thought as possible. She didn’t think she could bear to stand still while another held the shears.

“Just give me them.” Growing close to desperate, she tugged on the scissors handles. “I’ll do it now.”

He wouldn’t let go.

“Finn and Rufus.” He spoke low, only to her. “I’ll make them drummer and fifer. They’ll be in the militia, attend drill and draw wages. But they won’t be armed. Will that suffice?”

She was stunned. He had her just where he wanted her—on the verge of public humiliation—and now he wished to compromise? “I . . . I suppose that will do. Yes.”

“Very well, then. Does this mean you’re a lady again?”

“I’ll go change straightaway.”

“Not so fast,” he said, still clutching the scissors handles tight. He gave her a bold look. “Before you leave, you’ll do a service for me. Just like the other ladies are doing.”

Indeed, all around them the men and women of Spindle Cove were pairing off. As Diana busied herself with Lord Payne, the blacksmith made his way to the widowed Mrs. Watson and her shears. Finn and Rufus seemed to be arguing over which of them would be stuck with Sally.

“You want me to cut
your
hair?” Her mind’s eye went to that long, overgrown tail of hair always dangling between his shoulders, taunting her.

“As I said, no exceptions.” He pressed the shears into her hand. “Go on, then. I’m all yours.”

Susanna cleared her throat. “I believe you’ll have to kneel.”

“Kneel?” He snorted. “Not a chance, Miss Finch. There’s precisely one reason I will kneel before a woman, and this isn’t it.”

“Proposing marriage, I hope you mean.”

A devilish spark lit his eyes. “No.”

Awareness raced through her body. She glanced around them. All around the green, the business of clipping hair had occupied her friends and neighbors. This had become a private conversation. And a fortunate thing, too, considering what took place next.

“If you don’t mean to kneel,” she said, angling on tiptoe, “I don’t know how you expect me to cut your hair. All the chairs are in use. I may be tall, but there’s no way I can reach—oh!”

He framed her rib cage in both hands and lifted her into the air. The brute power in the motion thrilled her. This made two times in three days that he’d swept her off her feet. Three, if she counted yesterday’s kiss.

Why was she counting? She shouldn’t be counting.

He set her down atop the table, making her the taller of the two. “Steady?”

At her mute nod, he slid his hands from her waist. Now she was lost in memories of their embrace yesterday, the press of his body against hers . . . Their gazes clashed. The now-familiar sparks flew.

Susanna swallowed hard. “Turn around, if you will.”

Thank God. For once, he obeyed.

She took it in her hand, that thick, dark hank at his nape, bound with a bit of leather cord. His hair was lush, soft. Probably the softest thing on this man, she mused. Once it was cut, he would be all angles and sinew, hard all over.

“Why the delay?” he taunted. “Are you afraid?”

“No.” With a steady hand, she raised the shears. Grasping the queue of hair firmly in the other hand, she aimed . . . and snipped. “Oh dear.” She dangled the lopped-off coil before his face, then dropped it to the ground without ceremony. “Pity.”

He only chuckled, but she thought she caught a hint of bruised pride in his laughter. “I see you’re enjoying your chance to play Delilah.”

“You’d better hope I don’t decide to play Judith. I’m holding shears at the moment, and I’d advise you to be still. I need to concentrate.” Setting the scissors aside for a moment, she pulled back her own locks and wound them into a simple knot. Then she set about the work of clipping his hair, and they both went quiet.

And as she worked, the quiet deepened, grew profound. The task was so intimate. In order to cut his hair evenly, she had to sift her fingers through the heavy locks, lifting and angling them for the shears. She touched his ear, his temple, his jaw.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if you removed your gloves?” he asked.

“No.” At the moment, those thin leather gloves were the only thing keeping her sane.

A palpable, sensual tension had thickened the air surrounding them. His breathing was audible, a husky sighing in and out. Her fingers faltered for a moment, and she scraped his ear with one blade of the shears. She was horrified, but he seemed to take no notice. Only the tiniest drop of blood welled at the site, but it took all she had not to press her lips to the wound.

After a few more snips, she laid the shears aside. To test the cut’s evenness, she raised both hands to his hair and dragged her gloved fingertips over his scalp, slowly raking them from his hairline to his nape.

As her fingers made that long, gentle sweep, he made a sound. An involuntary moan. Or perhaps a groan. It originated not in his throat, but deep in his chest, somewhere in the region of his heart.

That rumbling sound was more than a sigh. It was a confession, a plea. With a simple brush of her fingertips, she’d called forth an expression of deep, hidden yearning. Her whole body ached with an instinctive response.

Oh goodness. Oh, Bram.

“Turn around,” she whispered.

When he obeyed, his eyes were closed.

Hers were open. Open to a whole new man. This big, brutish soldier-turned-medieval lord, now shorn close as a yearling—looking vulnerable and lost, in need of care.
Her
care.

All his staunch denials of emotion echoed in her ears. Did he know how thoroughly he’d just betrayed them? She thought of those passionate kisses yesterday. How he used every excuse to touch her, in every interaction. Heavens, the way he’d taken her measurements . . . Sensation rippled down her spine, as though she could still feel the deliberate sweep of his thumb. She’d thought him merely trying to rattle her.

But now she saw his motives clear. Here it was, his secret. No childhood trauma, no ravages of war. Just a deep, unspoken desire for closeness. Oh, he’d rather die than admit it in such terms, but that low, yearning sound told all.

That was the sound a great shaggy beast made when the nettle in his paw was plucked.

Here was a man who needed touch, craved tenderness—and he was
starved
for them both. Just how much would he allow her to give? She teased her fingers through the clipped fringe at his temples. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. She let a single gloved fingertip skim the ridge of his cheekbone.

“That’s enough.” His eyes snapped open, cool and defiant.

Wounded by his sharp tone, she withdrew her touch.

“Well, Miss Finch.” Stepping back, he ran a hand over his dark, now short hair. “Tell me, how do the men look?”

Susanna let her gaze wander the green. Everywhere she looked, she saw newly revealed, blinding-white scalp. “Like a flock of yearlings, freshly shorn.”

“Wrong,” he said. “They do not look like sheep. They look like soldiers. Men with a common purpose. A team. Soon I’ll have them acting like one, too.”

Taking her by the waist, he lifted her off the table and put her back on firm ground. Oddly enough, the world still felt unsteady.

“Have a good look at them. In a month’s time, I’ll have a militia. These will become men of duty, action. I’ll have shown all your prim, sheltered spinsters precisely what
real
men can do.” The corner of his mouth quirked. “Spindle Cove will be a much different place. And you, Miss Finch, will thank me.”

She shook her head. He’d revealed too much. That brute male swagger couldn’t intimidate her now, and she would not let such a challenge pass without a strong, confident response.

She calmly brushed stray snips of hair from his lapel. “In a month’s time, this community I love, and this atmosphere we’ve worked so hard to foster, will be the same. Everything I see here today will remain unaltered, except for one thing. Spindle Cove will change
you
, Lord Rycliff.

“And if you threaten my ladies’ health and happiness?” She laid a sweet touch to his cheek. “I will bring you to your knees.”

Eleven

“O
n Mondays, we always have country walks.”

Susanna paced the Highwood sisters on the sloping footpath. Together, they trailed behind the larger group. The ladies made a rainbow-hued column of muslin, filing up the path.

“The Downlands are beautiful this time of year. When we reach the top of the ridge, you can see for miles. It feels like being on top of the world.”

Thank heaven for scheduled activities. After yesterday’s . . . excitement . . . on the green and yet another restless night, Susanna was grateful for the distraction. She walked with vigor and purpose, inhaling deep lungfuls of the green-scented air.

“The wildflowers are lovely.” Charlotte plucked a stalk of lavender-tipped rampion from the hillside and twirled it between her fingertips.

Minerva tromped along at Susanna’s side. “Miss Finch, you cannot know how much I hate to sound like my mother. But are you certain this exertion is good for Diana’s health?”

“Absolutely. Exercise is the only way she’ll grow stronger. We’ll go slowly at first, and no farther than is comfortable.” She touched Diana’s arm. “Miss Highwood, you are to tell me if you feel the slightest hint of difficulty with your breathing. We’ll stop and rest at once.”

Her straw bonnet bobbed in agreement.

“And”—Susanna reached into her pocket and withdrew a small, capped bottle—“I have a special tincture for you. Keep it in your reticule at all times. It’s too strong to be taken every day, mind. Only when you feel you truly need it. The cap measures the proper dose. Aaron Dawes fashioned it specially at his forge. He’s so clever with these small things.”

Miss Highwood accepted the small vial. “What’s in it?”

“The layman’s name is shrubby horsetail. Rather common-sounding, but its ability to open the lungs is unique indeed. The plant normally grows in warmer climes, but our coastal weather is mild enough that I’m able to cultivate it here.”

“
You
made this?”

“Yes,” Susanna answered. “I dabble in apothecary.”

Minerva eyed the bottle warily. As they all continued their slow, steady climb, she drew Susanna aside. “Forgive me, Miss Finch, but my sister has suffered greatly. I don’t like the idea of entrusting her health to a ‘dabbler.’ ”

Susanna took her arm. “I knew I liked you, Minerva. You’re absolutely right to protect your sister, and I should not have described my work that way. No more than you should say you ‘dabble’ in geology. Why is it that we women so often downplay our accomplishments?”

“I don’t know. Men are always boasting of theirs.”

“Too true. Let’s boast to each other, then. I’ve made a careful, scientific study of apothecary for several years. I make remedies for many of the visitors and villagers, and I have solid, scientific reason to believe that in a breathing crisis, the contents of that vial can do your sister some good.”

“In that case, I trust your expertise.” Minerva smiled. “Now for
my
boasting.” With a glance toward the other ladies, she slowed. They’d fallen well behind the main group now. “Can you keep a secret? I am the first—and only—female member of the Royal Geological Society.”

Susanna gasped with delight. “How did you manage that?”

“By neglecting to tell them I’m female. I’m just M. R. Highwood to them, and all my contributions are made through written correspondence. Fossils are my area of specialty.”

“Oh, then you are in exactly the right place. These chalk hills are filled with strange little nuggets, and the cove—wait until you see the cove tomorrow.”

They went quiet for a while as the way grew steeper, and narrower—so that they were forced to walk single file.

“There’s the castle.” Up the path, Charlotte stood on her toes and waved her growing posy of wildflowers in the direction of the ruins. “It’s so romantic, isn’t it? With that backdrop of the sea.”

“I suppose,” Susanna said, keeping her own eyes on the ground. She knew very well what a picturesque sight it made, but she’d been trying to keep castles and romance in two distinctly different, tightly corked bottles on her mental shelf.

“Your turn, Miss Finch,” Minerva whispered, following close behind. “Don’t you have your own secret to tell?”

Susanna sighed. She did have a secret—a scandalous, explosive secret that involved Lord Rycliff and kisses in the armory and a great many emotions she couldn’t sort out. She wished she could trust Minerva with it. But men and fossils were different things.

They rounded a bend in the path and nearly collided with the other ladies. They’d all stopped in their tracks at the edge of an overlook, staring down in mute wonder at the valley below.

“Cor,” said Violet Winterbottom. “Isn’t that a sight?”

“Just look at them all,” Kate Taylor breathed.

“For heaven’s sake, what is it?” Susanna asked, pushing to the fore. “Did Mr. Yarborough’s cows escape again?”

“No, no. These are beasts of a different sort.” Kate grinned at her.

Sounds floated up to Susanna’s ears. Halting, erratic drumbeats. The shrill squawk of a fife. The impatient whinny of a horse.

Finally, she got a look.

The men. There they were, down on the flat meadow just north of the castle bluffs. From this vantage, it was difficult to distinguish any of the men as individuals. She could not have singled out Mr. Fosbury or the smith. But Bram, as usual, stood out from the crowd. This time, not merely because he was the tallest and his coat the brightest, but because he rode on horseback, giving him the advantage of height to gauge the formation’s precision. As they marched, he directed his mount to circle the group, giving direction from all sides.

He looked very capable and strong and active. Which was unfortunate, because those were all the qualities she found appealing in a man. She’d never grieved over her disastrous London season because the gentlemen had been such disappointments. So idle and useless. She found it so much easier to respect people who
did
something.

Violet shaded her brow with her hand. “It doesn’t seem to be going very well, does it?”

Kate laughed. “They keep doing the same thing. Just a single line, marching back and forth. Over and over. From this end of the meadow to that. Then they stop, turn around, and do it again.” She looked to Violet. “How many times now?”

“I stopped counting at eight.”

“We shouldn’t be watching them,” Susanna said.

“Why not?” Kate looked at her. “Aren’t they meant to be preparing a field review? A public display?”

“Just the same, let’s continue on our walk.”

“Actually, Miss Finch,” Diana said, “I’m feeling a bit winded. Perhaps a rest would do me good.”

“Oh. But of course.” Unable to argue, Susanna spread her shawl and took a seat on the hillside. All the other ladies did likewise, and no one even bothered to pretend that gathering wildflowers or spotting birds would be the purpose of the moment. They all stared, riveted to the meadow below and the new militia’s halting, sorry drill.

Susanna worried. She’d agreed to keep her ladies apart from Bram’s men. The physical distance separating them at the moment didn’t allay her concerns. Being this far removed only made the ladies feel free to gawk and gossip.

“I recognize that bright green topcoat. That must be Mr. Keane.”

“You would think his sense of rhythm would be better, what with all the singing in church.”

An elbow dug into her side. “Lord Rycliff’s dismounting, look.”

Susanna resolved
not
to look.

“He’s taking the musket from one of them. Perhaps he means to show them himself just how it’s done.”

Susanna renewed her resolution not to look. The blades of grass beneath her fingertips were more interesting by far. And lo, here was a
fascinating
ant.

A female sigh. “What’s that small, fluffy thing trotting at his heels? Some kind of dog?”

Drat it, now she had to look. A broad smile stretched her cheeks. “No. That’s His Lordship’s pet lamb. The dear little thing follows him around. He’s named it Dinner.”

All the ladies laughed, and Susanna laughed with them, knowing how it would vex Bram to be teased. Odd—and a bit disconcerting—how she felt so confident predicting his reactions. For that matter, how she kept thinking of him as “Bram.”

“Oh!” In a gesture that strongly recalled her mother, Charlotte pressed a hand to her heart. “They’re removing their coats.”

“Not only their coats.”

As the ladies all sat gawping in silence, the men halted their exercise and removed first their coats, then their waistcoats and cravats.

“Why would they do that?” Charlotte asked.

“They’re working hard,” Diana replied. “Perhaps it’s warm down there.”

Kate laughed. “It’s growing warm up here, too.”

“It’s not the heat,” Susanna said, again surprised how easily she knew his mind. “Their coats are all different colors. Lord Rycliff wants them looking the same, so they’ll act in unison, too.”

Charlotte grabbed the spectacles from Minerva’s hand and lifted them to her own eyes. “Drat. I can’t make out anything.”

“Goose,” Minerva said, giving her little sister an affectionate shove. “I’m farsighted. Those only help with objects up close. And I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss over a few men in shirtsleeves, anyhow. From this distance, they’re just pale, fleshy blurs.”

Except for Bram. There was nothing undefined about
his
torso. Even from this distance, Susanna could clearly make out the linen-sheathed muscles of his shoulders and arms. She recalled their solid heat beneath her touch.

“We should be heading back to the village.” She rose to her feet, brushing grass from her skirts and folding her Indian shawl into a neat rectangle.

Violet objected, “But Miss Finch, we haven’t yet reached—”

“Miss Highwood is winded,” she clipped, in a tone that would brook no argument. “This is far enough for today.”

The ladies rose in silence, retying bonnet ribbons and preparing to walk home.

“What do you say, Miss Finch?” Kate smiled as the sound of feeble drumming resumed. “How many times do you suppose he’ll make them march that same line?”

Susanna could not have given Kate a number, but she knew the answer just the same.

“Until they do it right.”

“T
hey’ll never get this right,” Thorne muttered. “Bloody hopeless, all of them.”

Bram swore under his breath. For God’s sake, he’d spent all day yesterday just trying to teach these men to march in a straight line. When they mustered on Tuesday morning, he’d decided to make the task even simpler. No strict formations—just marching in time across open land. Left, right, left.

But marching in time was easier with a drummer who could drum in time, and Finn Bright seemed to have been born without a sense of rhythm. Say nothing of Rufus’s ear-stabbing squawks on the fife.

Despite all this, somehow they’d managed to cover the crescent of high ground between Rycliff Castle and the steep cliffs marking the other end of the cove.

“Put them at ease,” he directed Thorne. “See if they can manage to just . . . stand there for a while, without falling on their arses.”

Bram would have fallen on his own saber before admitting it, but he was the one who needed a rest. He looked out across the cove. Perched on the arm of land opposite, sat the castle. So close, if one measured as the gulls flew, but a rather long march back. Blast it, he should have brought his horse.

“So that’s the spindle, I take it?” Colin squinted at a column of rocks punctuating the inlet. The formation was tall and roundish, with a knobby sandstone top.

“I suppose.”

Colin snorted. “Proof positive that this place was named by dried-up old maids. No man—hell, no woman with a lick of experience—would ever look at that and call it a
spindle
.”

Bram released a slow breath. He had no patience for his cousin’s adolescent humor today. The sun was warm on his back. The sky and sea were having a contest to out-blue each other. Wisps of white dotted both, sea foam mirroring the clouds. Watching the gulls soar on the wind, he felt his heart pulling against its tether, floating in his chest. The water looked cool and inviting, buoyant.

And his knee felt like a collection of glass shards, encased in flesh. Never in the eight months since his injury had he walked this far without his brace. He shouldn’t
need
the brace anymore, damn it. What was a mile or three across the fields, anyhow?

Tell that to his ligaments. His whole leg throbbed with fiery pain, and he wasn’t sure at all how he’d make it back to the castle. But he would. He would lead them all the way home, and never betray a wince.

The pain was good, Bram told himself. The pain would make him stronger. Next time, he would push himself a bit farther, and it would hurt a bit less.

A bright flutter down in the cove caught his eye. “What’s that?”