Of course, once she did sit next to him, he found his powers of concentration immediately diminished. The dwarfish size of the table forced them so close, her shoulder rubbed his arm. From there, it was all too easy to imagine sweeter sources of friction. To recall the feel of her body under his.

The music resumed. A cup of tea appeared on the table.

She leaned close, bathing him in her hothouse scent. In a hushed murmur, she asked, “Milk or sugar?”

Bloody hell. She was offering him tea. His body responded as if she’d stood naked before him, balancing cream jug in one hand and sugar bowl in the other, asking him which substance he’d rather lick from her bare skin.

Both. Both, please.

“Neither.” Bracing himself against temptation, Bram removed the flask from his breast pocket and added a generous splash of whiskey to the steaming cup. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s our weekly salon. As I told you yesterday, here in Spindle Cove we ladies have a schedule. Monday, country walks. Tuesday, sea bathing. We spend Wednesdays in the garden, and . . .”

“Yes, yes,” he said, scratching his unshaven jaw. “I recall the schedule. On Thursday, I hope you foster orphaned lambs.”

She went on, unruffled. “Aside from our group activities, each lady pursues her own interests. Art, music, science, poetry. On Saturdays, we celebrate our individual accomplishments. These salons help the young ladies develop their confidence before they return to wider society.”

Bram couldn’t imagine why the lady currently playing the pianoforte would ever lack for confidence in society. He had little musical ability himself, but he knew true talent when he heard it. This young woman coaxed sounds from the instrument he hadn’t known a pianoforte could make—cascades of laughter and plaintive, heartfelt sighs. And the girl was pretty, too. Watching her in profile, he observed thick chestnut hair and delicate features. She wasn’t Bram’s usual sort, but she possessed the kind of beauty with which a man could pose no argument.

And while the girl played, Bram nearly managed to stop lusting after Susanna Finch. Nothing short of musical genius could accomplish that.

“That’s Miss Taylor,” she whispered. “She’s our music tutor.”

Colin arrived, plunking a serving plate in the center of the table and helpfully dispelling the tension. “There,” he said. “Food.”

Bram eyed the refreshments. “Are you sure?”

The plate was lined with rows of tiny pastries and bite-sized cakes, each iced in a different pastel shade. Little piped rosettes and sugar pearls topped the dainty morsels.

“This isn’t food.” Bram picked up a lavender-iced cake between thumb and finger and stared at it. “This is . . . edible ornamentation.”

“It’s edible. That’s all I care about.” Colin shoved a bit of seedcake into his mouth.

“Oh, these lavender ones are Mr. Fosbury’s specialty.” She nodded toward the cake in Bram’s hand and selected an identical morsel for herself. “They’re filled with his own currant jelly. Divine.”

“A Mr. Fosbury made these?” Bram lifted the lavender cake.

“Yes, of course. He’s owned this place for a generation. It used to be a tavern.”

So, this place used to be a tavern. With pints of proper ale, one would assume. And kidney pie. Steaks so rare, a man could still hear the cow lowing. Bram’s stomach gave a despairing rumble.

“Why would a tavern keeper turn to baking teacakes?” He cast a look about the place, so cheerily furnished and refined. In the window, lace curtains fluttered gaily, mocking him and his lavender-iced petit four.

“Things change. Once the inn became a ladies’ retreat, an alteration of business strategy only made sense.”

“I see. So this place isn’t a tavern any longer. It’s a tea shop. Instead of real, hearty food we have this assortment of pastel absurdity. You’ve reduced a hardworking, decent man to piping rosettes to earn his keep.”

“Nonsense. We haven’t ‘reduced’ Mr. Fosbury to anything.”

“Like the devil you haven’t. You’ve . . . shriveled the man to currants.” Bram threw away the cake in disgust, looking for somewhere to wipe the lavender icing from his fingers. In the end, he smeared violet streaks on the damask tablecloth, enjoying Miss Finch’s gasp of dismay.

“That’s a rather medieval view,” she said, obviously affronted. “Here in Spindle Cove, we live in modern times. Why shouldn’t a man make currant jam or pretty lockets, if such things please him? Why shouldn’t a lady pursue geology or medicine, if she takes an interest?”

“The women aren’t my concern.” Bram looked around the place. “So where do all these ‘modern’ men congregate of an evening, since they’re deprived of a tavern?”

She shrugged. “They go home, I suppose. What few remain.”

“Fleeing the village, are they? Not hard to believe.”

“Some joined the army or navy. Others left to seek work in larger towns. There simply aren’t that many men in Spindle Cove.” Her clear blue gaze met his. “I realize this makes your task more difficult, but to be perfectly frank . . . We have not felt it as a deprivation.”

She took a sip of tea. He was surprised she could manage it through that coy little grin.

As she lowered the cup, her eyebrows arched. “I know what you’re wanting, Lord Rycliff.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that.” Her imagination couldn’t possibly be so vivid.

She reached for another cake, balancing it between her thumb and forefinger. “You’d prefer we offer you a great, bloody slab of meat. Something you can pierce with your fork. Stab with your knife. Conquer, in brutish fashion. A man looks on his food as a conquest. But to a woman, it’s rebellion. We are all ladies here, and Spindle Cove is our place to taste freedom, in small, sweet bites.”

She lifted the iced morsel to her lips and took an arousing, unrepentant mouthful. Her nimble tongue darted out to rescue a stray bit of jam. She gave a little sigh of pleasure, and he nearly groaned aloud.

Bram forced his attention away, seeking refuge in the talented Miss Taylor’s performance. She’d cast such a spell over the assembly, a goodly pause elapsed between the final strains of music and the first claps of enthusiastic applause. Bram clapped along with the rest. The only soul in the tavern not applauding was Thorne. But then, did Thorne count as a soul? The corporal stood impassive by the door, arms folded over his chest. Bram supposed that for Thorne, clapping strayed too close to emotional display . . . along with dancing, laughter, and any facial expression more communicative than a blink. The man was a damned rock. No, not merely a rock. A rock encased in iron. Then, for good measure, glazed with ice.

Therefore, Bram knew something truly shocking had occurred when he saw his corporal startle. No one else in the room would have noticed it—just a subtle tensing of the shoulders and a quick, fierce swallow. But for Thorne, this reaction might as well have been a bloodcurdling shriek.

Bram turned to see what had so taken his friend aback. Miss Taylor had risen from the pianoforte bench, smiling and dropping a gracious curtsy before returning to her seat. Now he was able to see what he couldn’t have noticed, viewing her in profile. The other side of Miss Taylor’s, fair, delicate face was marred by a port-wine birthmark. The heart-shaped splash of red pigment obscured a good portion of her right temple, before disappearing into her hairline.

A pity, that. Such a pretty girl.

As if reading his thoughts, Miss Finch gave him a pointed look. “Miss Taylor is one of my dearest friends. I’m sure I don’t know a kinder person, or one more beautiful.”

Her voice had honed to a blade-sharp edge, and she wielded it with precise intent.

Don’t hurt my friend, it said.

Ah. So this explained matters. The strange state of affairs in this village, her resistance to the militia. Miss Finch styled herself the protector of this queer little clutch of female oddities. And in her eyes, that made Bram—or any red-blooded man, apparently—the enemy.

Interesting. Bram could respect her intent, even admire it. No doubt she fancied herself quite the problem solver. But her arithmetic needed fundamental correction. Men couldn’t simply be removed from the equation. Protecting this place was a man’s duty—Bram’s duty, to be specific. And her brood of odd ducks complicated things.

Speaking of odd, a bespectacled young woman replaced Miss Taylor at the center of attention. This girl did not sit down to the pianoforte, or produce any musical instrument. Rather, she held a box of curiosities that she began circulating among the other ladies, whose lack of interest was plain. Bram tilted his head. From his view these treasures looked to be . . . lumps of earth. That would explain the general bemusement.

“What on earth is that girl doing?” Colin murmured around his third bite of seedcake. “She seems to be giving a lecture on dirt.”

“That’s Minerva Highwood.” That blade-sharp tone again. “She’s a geologist.”

Colin made an amused sound. “Explains the six inches of mud at her hem.”

“She’s here for the summer with her mother and two sisters, Miss Diana and Miss Charlotte.” Miss Finch indicated a group of fair-haired women at a nearby table.

“Well, well,” Colin murmured. “Now they are interesting.”

Another young lady rose to take her turn at the pianoforte. Colin drifted away from the table, taking the newly vacated seat—which just happened to be near Diana Highwood.

“What’s he doing?” Miss Finch said. “Miss Highwood is convalescing. Surely your cousin doesn’t mean to pursue—” She began to rise from her chair.

There she went, protecting again. He stayed her with a hand. “Never mind him. I’ll manage my cousin. We’re talking now. You and me.”

As she sank back into her chair, he kicked the chair leg, turning it so that she’d be forced to face him. She glanced at his hand where he touched her gloved wrist. Just to vex them both, he kept it there. Satin heated beneath his fingertips. The row of buttons tempted.

Hell, everything about her tempted.

With effort, he let her go. “Let me be certain I understand you, Miss Finch. You’ve amassed a colony of unwed women, then driven away or gelded every red-blooded male in Spindle Cove. And yet you feel no deprivation.”

“None whatsoever. In fact, I believe our situation to be ideal.”

“You do realize, that sounds very . . .”

She tilted her head in empathy. “Threatening? I do understand how a man could perceive it that way.”

“I was going to say, Sapphic.”

Those lush, currant-stained lips parted in surprise.

Good. He was beginning to wonder what it would take to get under her skin. And by tugging that chain of inquiry, he was dredging up far too many images of her skin. The softness of it, the heat . . . those delectable freckles, sprinkled like spice.

“Have I shocked you, Miss Finch?”

“I must own, you have. Not with your insinuations of romantic love between women, mind. But I would never have supposed you to be so versed in ancient Greek poetry. That is a shock indeed.”

“I’ll have you know, I attended Cambridge for three terms.”

“Truly?” She stared at him in mock astonishment. “Three whole terms? Now that is impressive.” Her voice was a low, seductive drawl that raised every last hair on his forearm.

At some point in this conversation, she’d ceased arguing with him and begun flirting with him. He doubted she even realized it—any more than she’d realized the danger yesterday, when her tattered frock had been one angry huff away from exposing her pale, supple breast. She lacked the experience to grasp the subtle distinction between antagonism and getting on very well indeed.