Susanna stood on tiptoe, stretching her neck for a glimpse. She didn’t have to stretch far. There were times her freakish height came in handy.
There they were. All three of them, dismounting their horses on the village green. The Bright boys eagerly accepted the reins.
Pressed around her on all sides, the ladies cooed over Lord Payne’s handsome features and debonair mien. Susanna couldn’t spare the man a glance. Her attention was drawn immediately and unswervingly to the horrid Lord Rycliff, who was looking more dark and medieval than ever with his unshaven jaw and that impudently long hair tied in a thick queue at his nape. She couldn’t stop looking at him. And she couldn’t look at him without . . . feeling him. His solid warmth against her chest. His strong grip on her elbow. His hot kiss brushing over her lips.
“My goodness,” Kate whispered in her ear. “They are rather . . . manly, aren’t they?”
Yes, Susanna thought. God help her, he was.
“And that dark one is frightfully big.”
“You should feel him up close.”
Kate’s eyes went wide, and a startled laugh burst from her lips. “What did you just say?”
“Er . . . I said, you should see him up close.”
“No. You didn’t. You said I should feel him up close.” Her hazel eyes lit with a mischievous twinkle.
Ears hot with embarrassment, Susanna fluttered a hand in weak defense. “I’m a healer. We assess with our hands.”
“If you say so.” Kate turned back to the window.
Violet sighed loudly. “I suppose this means we’ll have to cancel our afternoon salon.”
“Of course not,” Susanna countered. “There’s no need to alter our plans. Most likely, the men won’t trouble with us at all. But if the new Lord Rycliff and his party do see fit to take tea . . . We must do our best to welcome them.”
This statement was met with a flurry of enthusiasm and a cyclone of alarm. Objections rose up all around her.
“Miss Finch, they won’t understand. They’ll mock us, just like the gentlemen in Town.”
“To think, playing for an earl? I haven’t anything fine enough to wear.”
“I shall die of mortification. Positively die.”
“Ladies.” Susanna lifted her voice. “There is no cause for concern. We will go on as we always do. In a month’s time, this militia business will be over and these men will have gone. Nothing in Spindle Cove will be the different for their visit.”
For her friends’ sake, she must maintain a brave front in the face of this invasion. But she knew, staring through the small window in the door, that her words were false. It was too late. Things were already changing in Spindle Cove.
Something had altered in her.
After dismounting from his gelding, Bram straightened his coat and had a look about the place. “A fair enough village,” he mused. “Rather charming.”
“I knew it,” Colin said, adding a petulant curse.
The green was expansive, dotted with shade trees. Across the lane sat a neat row of buildings. He took the largest to be the inn. Narrow dirt lanes lined with cottages curved out from the village’s center, following the contours of the valley. Toward the cove side of the village, he spied a cluster of humble cottages. Fishermen’s abodes, no doubt. And in the center of the green loomed the church—a soaring cathedral, remarkably grand for a village of this size. He supposed it was a remnant of that medieval port city Sir Lewis had mentioned.
“This place is clean,” Colin said carefully. “Too clean. And too quiet. It’s unnatural. It’s giving me the shudders.”
Bram had to admit, the village was oddly immaculate and eerily empty of people. Each cobble sparkled in the street. The dirt lanes were swept clean of debris. Every shop front and cottage boasted neat window boxes overflowing with red geraniums.
A pair of lads rushed toward them. “Can we help with the horses, Lord Rycliff?”
Lord Rycliff? So, they knew him already. News traveled fast in a small village, he supposed.
Bram handed his reins to one of two eager, towheaded youths. “What are your names, lads?”
“Rufus Bright,” the one on the left said. “And this is Finn.”
“We’re twins,” Finn offered.
“You don’t say.” The Brights. A suitable name, what with those incandescent shocks of hair—so blond as to be nearly white. “See?” he said to Colin. “I told you the place couldn’t be devoid of men.”
“They’re not men,” Colin replied. “They’re boys.”
“They didn’t germinate from the soil. If there are children, there must be men. What’s more, men whose pegos aren’t withered to twigs.” He beckoned one of the youths. “Is your father about?”
A shock of lightning hair swiveled in the negative. “He’s . . . uh, not here.”
“When do you expect him back?”
The twins looked to each other, exchanging wary glances.
Finally, Rufus said, “Can’t say, my lord. Errol—that’s our older brother—he travels to and fro, bringing in wares for the shop. We own the All Things, across the way. As for Father . . . he hasn’t been around for some time.”“Last time was almost two years ago,” Finn said. “Came around just long enough to get another babe on Mum and dole out his knocks to the rest of us. He’s fonder of his drink than his brats.”
Rufus elbowed his twin. “That’ll be enough airing of family business, then. What are you going to reveal next? The patches in your smallclothes?”
“He asked about our father. I told him the truth.”
The truth was a damned shame. Not only because these boys had an absent sot for a father, but because Bram could have used a sober Mr. Bright in his militia. He sized up the twins before him. Fourteen, perhaps fifteen at the outside. A shade too young to be of any real use.
“Can you point us toward the smithy?” he asked.
“Has your horse thrown a shoe, my lord?”
“No. But I have other work for him.” He needed to find the strongest, most capable men in the neighborhood. The smithy was as likely a place as any to start.
As the morning wore on, Bram began to comprehend why this Mr. Bright would have taken to drink.
This was supposed to be a simple task. As a lieutenant colonel, he’d been responsible for a thousand infantrymen. Here, he required only four-and-twenty men to form a volunteer force. After an hour spent scouring the village, he’d rounded up fewer likely prospects than he could count on one hand. Perhaps fewer than he could count on one thumb.
Discovering the absence of Mr. Bright was only the first disappointment, followed close on its heels by his visit to the smithy. The blacksmith, Aaron Dawes, was a strapping, solid fellow, as smiths usually were—and by appearances alone, Bram would have marked him an excellent candidate. What gave him pause, however, was entering the forge to find the man not shoeing an ox or hammering out an axe blade, but meticulously fashioning the hinge on a dainty locket.
Then there was the vicar. Bram had thought it prudent to stop in at the church and introduce himself. He hoped he could explain his military mission and have the clergyman’s cooperation in recruiting local men. The vicar, one Mr. Keane, was young and clever enough from the looks of him—but all the excitable fellow could speak about was some Ladies’ Auxiliary and new crewelwork cushions for the pews.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Colin said, as they left their discouraging interview with Keane.
“What kind of vicar wears a pink waistcoat?”
“One in Spindle Cove. It’s like I’ve been telling you, Bram. Shriveled twigs. Dried currants.”
“There are other men. Real men. Somewhere.”
There had to be others. The fishermen were all out to sea, of course, so the row of a half-dozen hovels and net huts by the cove had been emptied of men for the day. Surely there must be farmers out in the surrounding countryside. But they’d likely traveled to the nearest market town, this being Saturday.
For the time being, Bram supposed there was only one likely location to round up men. The long-favored haunt of army recruiters and navy press gangs alike.
“Let’s head for the tavern,” he said. “I need a drink.”
“I need a steak,” Thorne said.
“And I need a wench,” Colin put in. “Don’t they have those in little seaside villages? Tavern wenches?”
“That must be the place.” He headed across the green, toward a cheerful-looking establishment with a traditional tavern sign hanging above its entry. Thank God. This was almost as good as a homecoming. Proper English pubs, at least, with their sticky floorboards and dark, dank corners, were the true province of men.
Bram slowed as they approached the entrance. On closer inspection, this didn’t look like any tavern he’d ever seen. There were lace curtains in the window. The delicate strains of pianoforte music wafted out to him. And the sign hanging above the door read . . .
“Tell me that doesn’t say what I think it says.”
“The Blushing Pansy,” his cousin read aloud, in a tone of abject horror. “Tea shop and confectionery.”
Bram swore. This was going to be ugly.
Correct that. As he opened the establishment’s red-painted door, he realized this scene was not going to be ugly at all. It was going to be pretty, beyond all limits of masculine tolerance.
Six
“Sorry, cousin.” Colin clapped a hand on Bram’s shoulder as they entered the establishment. “I know you hate it when I’m right.”
Bram surveyed the scene. No sticky floorboards. No dark, dank corners. No men.
What he found were several tables draped in white damask. Atop each surface sat a crockery vase of fresh wildflower blooms. And seated around each table were a handful of young ladies. Together, they must have numbered nearly a score. Befrocked, beribboned, and in some cases, bespectacled. To a one, bemused by the men’s appearance.
The pianoforte music died a quick, mournful death. Then, as if on cue, the girls turned in unison to the center of the room, obviously looking to their leader for guidance.
Miss Susanna Finch.
Good God. Miss Finch was the spinster hive’s queen bee? Her molten-bronze hair was a flash of wild beauty in the room’s bland prettiness. And her scattered freckles did not fall in line with the otherwise ordered calm. Despite all his intentions to remain indifferent, Bram felt his blood heating to a quick, rebellious simmer.
“Why, Lord Rycliff. Lord Payne. Corporal Thorne. What a surprise.” She rose from her chair and dipped in a curtsy. “Won’t you join us?”
“Go on. Let’s at least eat,” Colin muttered. “Where two or more ladies are gathered, there will be food. I’m fairly certain that’s in the Scriptures.”
“Do have a seat.” Miss Finch waved them toward some vacant chairs at a table near the wall.
“You’re the infantryman.” Colin nudged him forward. “You first.”
Bram eased and edged his way to an empty chair, dodging low ceiling beams as he went, feeling like the proverbial bull in the china shop. All around him, fragile females held highly breakable cups in their delicate grips. They followed him with saucer-wide eyes set in porcelain complexions. Bram suspected that with one sudden movement, he could shatter the whole scene.
“I’ll fetch you some refreshments,” she said.
Oh no. She wasn’t leaving him alone with all this daintiness. He pulled the chair out, then held it for her. “My cousin will do it. Have a seat, Miss Finch.”
A flicker of surprise crossed her features as she accepted. Bram took the adjacent chair for himself. Between the morning’s observations and Colin’s dire warnings . . . he knew something very strange was going on in this village. And whatever it was, Miss Finch would sit down and explain it to him.