“Are you certain?” Sally plunked a bottle of ink on the counter. “That’s not what I hear.”
The sly note in the girl’s voice made Kate snap to attention.
“What did you hear?”
Sally feigned innocence. “Only that someone made a trip up to Rycliff Castle the other day. Alone.”
Kate felt her cheeks heating. Which annoyed her, because she had nothing whatever to feel embarrassed or ashamed about. “Yes, I did walk up to the castle. I needed to speak with Corporal Thorne. We had a . . . a disagreement to settle.”
“Ah.” Sally’s brow arched. “A disagreement to settle. Well, that all sounds very proper.”
“It wasn’t improper, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
Kate declined to mention the fact that she’d come upon the man at his labor. Half-dressed, drenched with perspiration. All that bronzed skin stretched over a hard, muscled body . . . his broad-shouldered silhouette was burned into her memory now. As though she’d stared directly at the sun, and the impression lingered on her retinas.
“I’m just teasing you, Miss Taylor. I know there’s nothing untoward between you. But mind you be careful. You don’t want the wrong idea getting around. Else you’re sure to suffer a plague of small mishaps. Salt will find its way into your sugar bowl, pins will be left in your hemmed skirts, and so forth.”
Kate frowned. “How do you mean?”
“Envy. Half the women in the village will be wishing you ill.”
“They’d envy me? Why?”
“Cor, you truly don’t know.” Sally straightened the pieces of jewelry in the display case. “From the moment Lord Rycliff’s party rode into the village last summer, I know all you ladies of the Queen’s Ruby had your eyes on Lord Payne. Dashing, handsome, charming. What gentlewoman wouldn’t take a fancy to him? But there’s other women in this village, Miss Taylor. Serving girls, sailors’ widows, housemaids . . . women who won’t bother to dream of a viscount. They’ve all been jostling to catch Corporal Thorne.”
“Truly? But . . .” Kate slapped at a gnat pestering her neck. “But he’s so big. And rough. And coarse mannered.”
“Exactly.” Sally gave her a knowing smile.
Kate wondered at it.
“So far, it’s all come to naught. Traps have been laid for him all over this village, but he’s evaded every one. Rumor is, he’s got himself an ‘arrangement’ with a widow next town over. Goes to pay her a kindly visit once or twice a month, if you catch my meaning.”
Kate did catch Sally’s meaning. And it made her suddenly, unaccountably nauseous. Naturally, Corporal Thorne had the right to do whatever he pleased with whomever he pleased. She just didn’t like knowing about it.
Much less picturing it.
She gave herself a brisk mental shake.
“Well, you can spread the word”—and she knew Sally would—“that the women of Spindle Cove have nothing to envy. There’s absolutely nothing between me and Corporal Thorne. Nothing but polite acquaintance on my side, and certainly no affection on his. The man barely tolerates my existence.”
Thorne had been only too eager to see Kate leave that day. She recalled the terse impatience in his motions as he’d shown her to the castle gate, once their conversation was concluded. Evidently, digging a well was more entertaining.
Sally shrugged, wiping a dusting cloth over the shelves behind the counter. “You never know, Miss Taylor. No one thought there was anything between Miss Minerva and Lord Payne, either. And look at them.”
“That’s entirely different.”
“How?”
“It . . . just is.” Kate was saved by the clip-clop of hoofbeats and a rumble of approaching carriage wheels.
In an acrobatic maneuver, Sally clutched the shelf with one hand and leaned her weight to the other side, craning her neck to peek out the shop’s front window. Glimpse achieved, she dropped her dusting cloth.
“Just a moment, Miss Taylor. That’s the post. I have to meet it, or they’ll be ever so angry. Those mail-coach drivers are surly ones. They don’t even like to slow down.”
While Sally gathered the post, Kate fished in her reticule for coins to pay for the ink. There weren’t all that many coins left. Winter and early spring were lean seasons for a music tutor in a holiday village. She had to exercise constant frugality.
“Do you have change for a half crown?” she asked, as Sally came back through the door.
“Just a moment . . .” The young woman sifted through the small bundle of envelopes and letters. She seized on one missive, separating it from the stack. “Cor. Here it is.”
“Here what is?”
“A letter from Miss Minerva.”
Kate’s heart jumped in her chest. The whole village had been waiting for word from Minerva. She rushed to Sally’s side. “That’s her penmanship. I’m certain of it.”
“Oh!” Sally squealed. “It’s sealed with Lord Payne’s crest, just look.”