A Night to Surrender by Tessa Dare Page A

country was where he belonged. He didn’t need a place like Summerfield. However, his empty stomach was beginning to argue he should have accepted a meal at Sir Lewis’s table, at least.
    A low bleat drew his attention downward. A lamb stood at his feet, nosing the tassel on his boot.
    “Oh look,” said Colin brightly. “Dinner.”
    “Where did this come from?”
    Thorne approached. “Followed us up. The drivers say it’s been nosing around the carts ever since the blasts.”
    Bram examined the creature. Must have been separated from its mother. By this time of summer, it was well past the age of weaning. It was also well past the age of being adorable. The lamb looked up at him and gave another plaintive bleat.
    “I don’t suppose we have any mint jelly?” Colin asked.
    “We can’t eat it,” Bram said. “The beast belongs to some crofter hereabouts, and whoever he is will be missing it.”
    “The crofter will never know.” A wolfish smile spread across his cousin’s face as he reached to pat the lamb’s woolly flank. “We’ll destroy the evidence.”
    Bram shook his head. “Not going to happen. Give up your lamb chop fantasies. His home can’t be far. We’ll find it tomorrow.”
    “Well, we do have to eat something tonight, and I don’t see a ready alternative.”
    Thorne strode toward the fire, carrying a brace of hares, already split and gutted. “There’s your alternative.”
    “Where did you get those?” Colin asked.
    “On the heath.” Crouching on the ground, Thorne drew a knife from his boot and began skinning the animals with ruthless efficiency. The rich smell of blood soon mingled with smoke and ash.
    Colin stared at the officer. “Thorne, you scare me. I’m not ashamed to say it.”
    Bram said, “You’ll learn to appreciate him. Thorne always comes up with a meal. We had the best-stocked officers’ mess on the Peninsula.”
    “Well, at least that satisfies one type of hunger,” Colin said. “Now, for the other. I’ve an insatiable craving for female companionship that must be addressed. I don’t sleep alone.” He looked from Bram to Thorne. “What? You’ve just returned from years on the Peninsula. I’d think you two would be positively salivating.”
    Thorne made a gruff sound. “There’s women in Portugal and Spain.” He set aside one skinned carcass and reached for the other hare. “And I’ve already found one here.”
    “What?” Colin sputtered. “Who? When?”
    “The widow what sold us eggs at the last turnpike. She’ll have me.”
    Colin looked to Bram, as if to say, Am I to believe this?
    Bram shrugged. Thorne was nothing if not resourceful. At every place of encampment, he’d always ferreted out the local game and found a local woman. He hadn’t seemed particularly attached to any of them. Or perhaps the women simply didn’t attach themselves to Thorne.
    Attachments were Bram’s problem. He was an officer, a gentleman of wealth, and, all things being equal, he preferred to converse with a woman before tupping her senseless. Taken together, these qualities seemed to encourage a woman’s attachment, and romantic entanglements were the one thing he couldn’t afford.
    Colin straightened, obviously piqued. “Now wait just a minute. I will happily be outdone when it comes to hunting game, but I will not be . . . outgamed, where the fairer sex is concerned. You couldn’t know it, Thorne, but my reputation is legendary. Legendary. Give me one day down in the village. I don’t care if they are ape-leading spinsters. I’ll be under skirts in this neighborhood long before you are, and far more often.”
    “Keep your pegos buttoned, both of you.” Bram gave the sleeping lamb at his knee a sullen nudge. “The only way we’ll accomplish our task and be quit of this place is if the local men cooperate. And the local men won’t be eager to cooperate if we’re seducing their sisters and daughters.”
    “What precisely are you saying,