A blush climbed her throat. “I’ve always believed a woman should know how to protect herself.” She reached for the powder horn and a gleaming, polished example of the pistol with which she shared a name.

“The men have been working since sunup to put the tea shop back to rights,” he said. He nodded toward his cousin. “And I’ve brought Payne along to apologize. If he doesn’t do a fair job of it, you can use him for target practice.”

She didn’t smile. “Unfortunately, the tea shop is the least of the damage incurred. And it’s not me who deserves his apology.”

Concerned, he looked around the shooting party. “Is Miss Highwood still feeling poorly?”

She poured a measure of powder into the pistol, following the charge with a patch-wrapped ball. “I stopped by early this morning. She’s resting for caution’s sake, but I don’t think she’ll suffer any lasting effects from the incident.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“However”—she cocked her weapon—“her mother is now set on removing her daughters from Spindle Cove. There’s a new spa in Kent, you see. She’s heard they do remarkable things with leeches and mercury.”

Susanna turned, leveled her pistol at the distant target, and shot. A whisper of smoke wafted from the gun barrel. He could have sworn he glimpsed smoke emanating from her ears, as well.

Bram muttered an oath. “I’ll send my cousin to call on them, too. I’m told he can be very charming and persuasive with the ladies.”

“In all honesty, my lord, I’m not sure which has the greater toxic potential. Your cousin’s charm, or the mercury.” She lowered her weapon and her voice. “Mrs. Highwood is all but packing her trunks. Miss Winterbottom and Mrs. Lange are speaking of leaving, too. If they leave, others will doubtless follow. If the general concern reaches Society at large, our reputation as a safe haven will be destroyed. All the families will call their daughters and wards home. Everything will come to an end. And for what? This absurd militia is doomed to fail. The men are hopeless.”

Never mind the weapons, or the dozen ladies looking on. Bram longed to pull her into his arms, hold her just as close and tight as he had beneath that willow tree.

“Susanna, look at me.”

He waited until those clear, iris-blue eyes met his.

“I will mend this,” he said. “I know I let you down last night, but it won’t happen again. My cousin and I will convince the ladies it’s safe to stay. Until the midsummer fair, I will keep the men tightly reined and out of your way. And someway, somehow, over the course of the next fortnight, I will drill them into an elite, precise militia to impress your father’s guests.”

She made a sound of disbelief.

“I will,” he repeated. “Because that’s an officer’s duty. To make unlikely men into soldiers, and to ensure they turn up trained and prepared, wherever and whenever they’re needed. It’s what I do, and I’m good at it.”

She released a breath. “I know. I’m sure you’re a very capable commander, when you don’t have to contend with teacakes and poetry and cudgel-wielding bluestockings.”

“I have been distracted. But that’s all to do with you, Miss Finch.”

Her lips curved a little. A tiny fishhook of a smile that had his heart instantly snagged.

But then it faded, and she turned from him, looking off to the distance, toward the village. Her spine was straight; her shoulders, bravely squared. But the fear was there, in the tiny quiver of her bottom lip and the gooseflesh dotting the graceful curve of her shoulder. She felt responsible for the place, and she was scared.

He couldn’t let her feel that way. Not when he had the perfect opportunity and every honorable reason to make her problems his own. To make Susanna his own. Right now, this very morning. He’d been thinking on the possibility all night, but now the decision simply clicked within him. Crisp and clear as the sound of a pistol being cocked.

“Don’t worry. About anything.” He stepped back a pace, heading in the direction of the house. “I’m going to leave my cousin here to grovel before your ladies. Make him fall on his knees, if you would. I’m off to have a talk with your father.”

“Wait,” she said, turning back to him. “You promised not to involve my father. You gave me your word.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” He turned away. “I’m not talking to him about the militia. This is strictly to do with you and me.”

Susanna watched him as he walked toward the house, wondering if she’d understood him correctly. Did he just say he meant to speak with her father? About the two of them?

If he intended that the way it sounded . . .

“Oh drat.” She picked up her skirts and gave chase.

She caught up to him just as he reached the house’s side entrance. “What do you mean,” she asked, panting, “that you’re going to speak to my father? About us? Surely you can’t mean that the way it sounds.”

“Certainly I can.”

A footman opened the door for him, and he walked through. Leaving her on the threshold with no further explanation. Teasing, cryptic man.

“Wait just a minute,” she called, chasing him down the corridor. “Are you referring to”—she dropped her voice to a scandalized whisper—“marriage? And if that’s the case, shouldn’t you be talking to me first?”

“What we did last night renders that conversation rather irrelevant, don’t you agree?”

“No. No, I don’t agree.” Panic struck her in the breastbone. She put a hand on his arm, arresting his progress. “You’re going to tell my father. About last night.”

“Not in so many words. But when I offer for you so abruptly, I wager he’s going to gather the reason why.”

“Precisely. And if my father gathers the reason why, everyone will. All the ladies. The whole village. Bram, you can’t.”

“Susanna, I must.” His jade-green gaze captured hers. “It’s the only decent thing to do.”

She threw up her hands. “Since when do you care about decent behavior?”

He didn’t answer, only turned and walked on. This time, there was no stopping him until he’d turned down the rear corridor and halted in the entry of her father’s workshop.

“Sir Lewis?” He rapped smartly on the doorjamb.

“Not now, please,” her father replied, his voice hazy.

“He’s working,” Susanna whispered. “No one disturbs him when he’s working.”

Bram only raised his voice. “Sir Lewis, it’s Bramwell. I need to speak with you on a matter of some urgency.”

Good God. Susanna urgently needed to knock some sense into this man.

Her father sighed. “Very well, then. Go on to my library. I’ll meet you there in a moment.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Bram turned on his heel without further comment, making his way toward Sir Lewis’s library. Susanna stood there for a moment, dumbstruck, wondering whether her best hopes lay in reasoning with Bram or distracting her father. Perhaps she ought to simply run upstairs, pack a valise, and abscond to a small, uncharted territory. She’d heard the Sandwich Islands were lovely this time of year.

The idea was tempting, but she took her chances with the library. Bram stood grim and monolithic in the center of the Egyptian-themed room, looking like a man awaiting his own funeral.

“Why on earth are you doing this?” she asked, shutting the door. Obviously, not because he wished to.

“Because it’s the honorable thing. The only thing I can do.” He released a curt sigh. “I should not have done what I did last night if I weren’t prepared to do this today.”

“But don’t I enter this question at all? Don’t you have the slightest regard for my feelings in the matter?”

“I have every regard for you and your feelings. That’s the point. You’re a gentlewoman, and last night I took your virtue.”

“You didn’t take it. I gave it. Freely, and with no expectations.”

He shook his head. “Listen, I know you’re full of modern ideas. But my own views on marriage are more traditional. Or medieval, as you’re so fond of saying. If a man deflowers a gently bred virgin in a public square, he ought to marry her. End of story.”

End of story. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She might not be so panicked at the idea of marrying him—in fact, the prospect might make her dizzyingly happy—if he saw their wedding as the beginning of a story. A story that included love and a home and a family, and ended with the words “happily ever after.”

But he didn’t, as his next words made clear.

“It will come out to your advantage, you’ll see. We’ll marry before I go back to war, and then you’ll be free to do as you please. You’ll be Lady Rycliff. You can continue your work, but as a countess. It can only help the village’s reputation.” As an offhand addition, he told the desk blotter, “I have money. A good deal of it. You’ll be well provided for.”

“How very practical,” she muttered. It had been many years since Susanna had daydreamed about receiving marriage offers, but she was certain none of those imagined proposals had sounded quite like this.

She moved into his line of sight, standing in front of her father’s desk. She placed both hands on the desk’s carved wood edge and hoisted herself up so that she sat on the desktop, legs dangling.

“I don’t lack money. Nor do I lack social influence. If you go through with this fool plan this morning, however, you may find yourself lacking a pulse.” She raised her hands to shoulder height. “Every room of this house holds lethal weaponry. You do realize, there’s a solid chance my father could kill you.”

If he doesn’t collapse of an apoplexy first.

He shrugged. “If I were him, I’d want to kill me, too.”

“And even if he doesn’t,” she went on, “he could ruin you. Strip you of all your honors and insignia. Have you demoted to the lowest rank of foot soldier.”

He didn’t reply right away. Aha. So that argument made some impression.

“Think of your commission, Bram. And please stop being so dratted chivalrous, or I’ll . . .” She gestured wildly toward the alabaster sarcophagus. “Or I’ll stuff you in that coffin and close the lid.”

His brow quirked. “When you talk like that, you know you only make me want you more.”

He took a step forward, drawing close. Too close.

“This isn’t just chivalry.” His voice was a low, arousing rumble. His hand brushed her calf, and desire forked through her like lightning. “You must know that. What we shared last night? I want to do it again. And again. And again. Hard and fast. Slow and sweet. Every way in between.”

A long, languid sigh escaped her lips. Just those words had her warm and pink all over. How stupid she’d been, to think one taste of passion would satisfy her for a lifetime. She would hunger for this man as long as she lived.

He leaned in for a kiss, but she put a hand to his chest. Keeping some distance between them, but also maintaining contact. Enjoying the strong, male feel of him under her touch.

“Bram,” she said, swallowing hard, “lust isn’t a good reason to marry.”

He paused to reflect. “I think it’s the reason most people marry.”

“We’re not most people.” She felt herself frowning as she searched for a way to make him understand. “This may be silly to say now, after all that’s happened between us, but I . . . I like you.”

His chin ducked in surprise. “You . . . like me.”

“Yes. I do. I’ve come to like you. A great deal, you see. And I respect your deep commitment to your work. Because I feel the same. I wouldn’t want you to destroy your career and reputation. And I hope you wouldn’t want to see mine destroyed. But that’s what could happen, for both of us, if you insist on talking to my father today.”