"No, Susanna, " he said. "I cannot love you just a little. If that's what you want, you must find a different man." His green eyes were breathtaking in their intensity. His thumb brushed her bottom lip. "Because I can only love you entirely. With everything I am, and everything I ever will be. Body, mind, heart, soul."
"No, no. Don't make that face. Every time I propose to you, you make that twisty, unhappy face. It wears on a man's confidence."
"I'm so sorry to disappoint you," she said, breathing hard. "But it would take far more than that to scare me."
A quick flex of his arms, and their bodies collided. And he whispered, just as his mouth fell on hers, "God, I was hoping you'd say that.
"I'm not going to accept your challenge. There will be no duel."
"Why not? Because I'm a woman?"
"No, because I've seen the way you spinsters handle a pistol. You'd shoot me dead where I stood."
"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."
Brows wrinkled in confusion.
"But . . ." The blacksmith looked around the group. "We are men. Last I checked, anyhow."
"It's not just a matter of having the proper equipment. It's using the equipment properly." Leaping up on a crate, Colin spread his arms wide. "Look at me. Now look at yourselves. Now look back at me. I am the man you want to be like."
Dawes crossed his arms. "Why is that, precisely?"
"Do you know how many women I've bedded?" When Rufus and Finn perked, he waved at them. "Have a guess, boys."
"Seventeen," offered Finn.
"More."
"Eighteen."
"Still more."
"Er . . . nineteen?"
"Oh, for the love of God," he muttered. "We'll be here all day. Let's just call the number more than you can imagine. Because clearly, that is the case." Under his breath, he added, "Perhaps higher than you know how to count."
Colin stared at the officer. "Thorne, you scare me. I'm not ashamed to say it."
"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.
"We have to get out of here, Bram. Before they take our bollocks and use them for pincushions."
"This explains so much," she said, clucking her tongue in mother-hen fashion. "You're compensating for this withered appendage."
Withered appendage? What the devil was she talking about? He shook his head, trying to clear it. Colin's dire predictions of shriveled twigs and dried currants rattled in his skull. Wide awake now, he fought to sit up, wrestling the sheets.
"Listen, you. I don't know what sort of liberties you've taken while I was insensible, or just what your spinster imagination prepared you to see. But I'll have you know, that water was damned cold."
She blinked at him. "I'm referring to your leg."
"Oh." His leg. That withered appendage.
"Your breasts are alabaster orbs."
"What?" Rufus objected. "That's stupid. I'm not saying that."
"Do you have some better suggestion?"
"Why can't you just say she's got a fair set of titties?"
She [Susanna] realized she was still hugging the wall. Pride propelled her two steps forward. As she advanced, something bleated at her, as though chastising her for trespassing. She stopped midstep and peered at it. "Did you know there's a lamb in here?"
"Never mind it. That's dinner."
She gave it a smile and a friendly pat. "Hullo, Dinner. Aren't you a sweet thing."
"It's not his name, it's his...function."
When he [Colin] reached the center of the field, he paused to catch his breath and scan the area for telltale tufts of wool. When the lamb failed to appear, he cupped his hands around his mouth and tried again. "Dinner!"
This time, his call earned an answer. Several answers. In fact, the ground shook with the collective bestial response. He spied several large, dark forms lumbering toward him through the twilight dusk. He blinked, trying to make them out. These weren't sheep. No, they were...
Cows. Large cows. Remarkably fast and menacing cows. A small herd of them, all thundering straight for him where he stood in the center of the field.
Colin took a few steps backward. "Wait," he said, holding up his hands. "I didn't mean you."
Bram stared into a pair of wide, dark eyes. Eyes that reflected a surprising glimmer of intelligence. This might be the rare female a man could reason with.
"Now, then," he said. "We can do this the easy way, or we can make things difficult."
With a soft snort, she turned her head. It was as if he'd ceased to exist.
Bram shifted his weight to his good leg, feeling the stab to his pride. He was a lieutenant colonel in the British army, and at over six feet tall, he was said to cut an imposing figure. Typically, a pointed glance from his quarter would quell the slightest hint of disobedience. He was not accustomed to being ignored.
"Listen sharp, now." He gave her ear a rough tweak and sank his voice to a low threat. "If you know what's good for you, you'll do as I say."
Though she spoke not a word, her reply was clear: You can kiss my great wolly arse.
Confounded sheep.
So close. He'd get there. Not today, but soon. He had a task to accomplish here, and the sooner he completed it, the sooner he could rejoin his regiment. He wasn't stopping for anything.
Except sheep. Blast it. It would seem they were stopping for sheep.
A rough voice said, "I'll take care of them."
Thorne joined their group. Bram flicked his gaze to the side and spied his hulking mountain of a corporal shouldering a flintlock rifle.
"We can't simply shoot them, Thorne."
Obedient as ever, Thorne lowered his gun. "Then I've a cutlass. Just sharpened the blade last night."
"We can't butcher them, either."
Thorne shrugged. "I'm hungry."
Yes, that was Thorne--straightforward, practical. Ruthless.
Thorne looked to the woolly beast at his [Bram's] knee and and cocked a brow. "You seem to have acquired a lamb, my lord."
"The lamb goes home tomorrow."
"And if he doesn't?"
"He's dinner.
"This isn't food." Bram picked up a lavender-iced cake between thumb and finger and stared at it. "This is...edible ornamentation."
He shook his head, looking perplexed. "I even like it when you snipe at me."
"You've seen me with a gun. If I were to snipe at you, I promise you'd feel it. And you wouldn't like it one bit."
The further he raided, the closer he came to the other rooms. Those unused, cobwebbed chambers of her heart. Would he dare to venture there? She doubted. Jumping off a cliff was a flashy sort of courage, but a man would need true strength and valor to break through those padlocked doors. There were dark, uncharted spaces within her that had been built to house love, and even she was afraid to explore them. Terrified to learn just how vast and how achingly empty they truly were.
"Dodgy bastard," one of the twins spat. A trickle of blood from his temple made it hard to tell which one.
"Shite for brains," the other replied, reversing their positions and landing a punch to the gut. "We're twins. If I'm a bastard, you're one too."
And bloody hell. This journeyed far beyond like rocketed straight past fondness, and pushed all the way to the brink of absurdity.
"How is it you've never married?"
A soft splash. "It's an easy enough thing. Every morning I wake up, go about my day, and return to bed at night without having recited marriage vows. After several years, I have the trick of it down."
"A home isn't only defined by what you need, Bram. It's also about the people who need you."
What kind of a modern woman was she, if she didn't reach for her own dream? Maybe it was time to sweep the man off his feet, for a change.
"So I will just tell you I love you. I love you, Bram. I want everyone to see it, and I want you to know . . . you're a part of this place now. No matter where duty takes you, Spindle Cove will always be here for you. And so will I."
He put both arms around her, pulling her flush against his chest. "You beautiful, brazen thing." Then he went silent, just holding her gaze for what seemed like eons. Nerves multiplied in her stomach with every passing second. She swallowed hard. "Don't you have anything else to say?
"Hallelujah springs to mind. Beyond that . . ." He brushed a caress down her cheek. "Does this mean that if I proposed marriage to you right now, you might not make that twisty, unhappy face?"
"Try me and see."
"I adored you. All my life, I adored you. I asked nothing of you. No promises, no courtship. I surrendered my virtue. I gave you my trust. And you left me with a note."
His mouth twisted in an expression of regret. He pushed a hand through his hair. "I'm so very-"
"Twenty-six words!" she shot back, in the loudest whisper she could manage. "I gave you my virginity, and you left me twenty-six scribbled words."
