He expected Hester to step forward. Mayhap Mistress Schoolcraft or Rosemary Swan. In the throng he’d lost track of Tessa. The women looked about in question. Maddie eyed him apprehensively as a hush fell over the gathering. He set the prize cake down just as the winner appeared.
Men hooted and hollered, the women all abuzz. Tessa stood before him, hands twined behind her back, bewilderment on her flushed face. All thought of the prize left his head.
“Kiss her, kiss her, kiss her!”
What? The heat of the moment swathed his own face. This was no cornhusking where a red ear earned a kiss. Even Tessa seemed to take a step back at the suggestion, which soon became a deafening chorus surrounding them.
“Kiss her, Colonel!”
He looked to the ground. Willed the crowd’s tempting chant away. Jude thumped him on the back. He looked up and caught that telling spark in Maddie’s eye. Tossing his hat to Ross across the circle, Clay mastered his waffling and slid an arm around Tessa’s slim waist, lowered his head, and kissed her full on the mouth. His senses spun. She tasted of nutmeg and molasses and had the feel of warm clay beneath his hands. And if there’d been no crowd he’d have kept on kissing her till she told him to stop.
They drew apart to huzzahs of approval. Tessa brought her fingers to her lips, studying him with a sort of stern surprise. If he read her right, she wasn’t altogether indignant.
She recovered enough to say, “Is that my prize, Colonel Tygart?”
“Nay, that’s theirs.” He angled his head toward the crowd. “Your reward for such foolishness is the pick of anything you please from Cutright’s shelves.”
Her eyes widened at the prospect. “Anything?”
With a nod, he wondered what she’d choose. “A pack train made it in day before yesterday, so the shelves aren’t so bare.” He gestured for his hat, which Ross handed over with a grin.
The crowd began to disperse in search of a new diversion. The remainder of the long July afternoon there’d be contests among the men while the women cleaned up. But for now, Tessa.
“So what sets that cake of yours apart from the pack?” he asked, returning his hat to his head.
“Nutmeg.” A shy smile. “You favor it, whereas Hester can’t abide it.”
“Hester’s loss.” He paused. What had just happened between them was hard to put into words. “I suppose I should apologize—”
“Nay.” She met his gaze.
Those violet eyes, so clear and earnest. They did things to a man . . .
“Can’t make too much of a called-for kiss,” she said without rancor.
“Meaning they would’ve wanted to thrash my hide if I didn’t oblige.” At her nod, he said, “So you don’t begrudge it.”
“Maybe a town-bred girl would take offense. But I’m hardly that. And I know there was no heart behind it.”
A called-for kiss with no heart. The honest appraisal, though said without heat, was razor sharp. He rubbed his jaw, more at a loss for words here than in any stilted, formal eastern parlor. “I wasn’t making sport of you. There was more heart behind it than you realize. If it’d been Hester, nay.”
She chuckled, and some of the tension between them gave way. “Hester will be mighty pleased Colonel Tygart kissed the Spinster Swan.”
“That I meant in jest.”
“’Tis true.”
“The only reason you’re not wed is because you don’t want to be. It’s easy to see you could have every unmarried man along the Buckhannon at your beck and call.”
“Nay,” she said shortly.
“Why nay?” ’Twas the one question that clawed at him.
“My mind is set on other things.” She looked past him with a wistfulness he could only call childlike. “Like leaving here for somewhere safe. Civilized. Peaceful.”
Deprived of, or rather spared, the polish of city and schoolroom, she retained an honest vulnerability rarely seen. He started to naysay her, talk about chamber pots emptied into city streets, unruly animals running amok, pickpockets and thugs, poverty and disease. But her winsomeness wouldn’t let him.
They were drawing notice standing here. Despite the itch to tarry, he touched the brim of his hat. “Best see to business. Yours at the fort store and mine beyond the gates.”
