To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)

To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1) Page 4

Emeline jerked the hot teapot away with the ease of long practice.

“M’man! M’man!” panted the demon child. His blond curls were quite deceptively angelic. “Cook says she has made currant buns. May I have one?”

Emeline set down the teapot and drew in a breath to castigate him, only to find Tante talking instead. “Mais oui, mon chou! Here, take a plate and Tante Cristelle will pick out the buns most plump for you.”

Emeline cleared her throat, and both boy and elderly aunt looked at her guiltily. She smiled meaningfully at her offspring. “Daniel, would you be so kind as to put down that bun clutched in your fist and make your bows to our guests?”

Daniel relinquished his rather squashed prize, and then regrettably wiped his palm on his breeches. Emeline took a breath but refrained from commenting. One skirmish at a time. She turned to the Hartleys. “May I present my son, Daniel Gordon, Baron Eddings.”

The imp made a very correct bow—beautiful enough to cause her bosom to swell with maternal pride. Not, of course, that Emeline let her satisfaction show; no need to make the boy vain. Mr. Hartley held out his hand in the exact same gesture that he’d given her yesterday. Her son beamed. Grown men didn’t usually offer their hands to eight-year-olds, no matter their rank. Gravely, Daniel took the much larger hand and shook it.

“I’m pleased to meet you, my lord,” Mr. Hartley said.

Daniel bowed to the girl, and then Emeline handed him a bun wrapped in a cloth. “Now run away, dear. I have—”

“Surely your son can stay with us, ma’am,” Mr. Hartley interrupted her.

Emeline drew herself up. How dare the man interfere between her and her child? She was on the point of giving him a set-down when he caught her eye. Mr. Hartley’s eyes were wrinkled about the edges, but instead of amusement, they appeared to reflect sorrow. He didn’t even know her son. Why, then, would he feel pity for the boy?

“Please, M’man?” Daniel asked.

Her consternation should’ve only grown stronger—the boy knew better than to beg once she’d made a decision—but instead something inside her melted.

“Oh, very well.” She knew she sounded like a grumpy old woman, but Daniel grinned and took a seat near Mr. Hartley, wiggling back in the too-big chair. And Mr. Hartley smiled at her with his coffee-brown eyes. That sight seemed to make her breath come short, which was a ridiculous reaction from a mature woman of the world.

“So, then, this is most pleasant,” Tante Cristelle said. She winked at Daniel, and he squirmed in his chair until he caught his mother’s eye. “But now, I think, we must discuss Mademoiselle Hartley’s clothing.”

Miss Hartley, who had just taken a sip of tea, seemed to choke. “Ma’am?”

Tante Cristelle nodded once. “It is atrocious.”

Mr. Hartley set his teacup down carefully. “Mademoiselle Molyneux, I think—”

The old woman rounded on him. “Do you wish your sister to be laughed at, eh? Do you want the other young ladies to whisper behind their fans? For the young men to refuse to dance with her? Is this what you aspire to?”

“No, of course not,” Mr. Hartley said. “What’s wrong with Rebecca’s dress?”

“Nothing.” Emeline set down her own dish of tea. “Nothing at all if Miss Hartley only wants to visit the parks and some of the sights of London. I’m quite sure what she’s wearing now is sufficient even for the fashionable of Boston in your colonies. But for the London haut ton—”

“She must have the frocks very elegant!” Tante Cristelle exclaimed. “And also the gloves and the shawls and the hats and the shoes.” She leaned forward to thump her stick. “The shoes, they are most important.”

Miss Hartley glanced at her slippers in alarm, but Mr. Hartley only looked faintly amused. “I see.”

Tante Cristelle peered at him shrewdly. “And all of these things, they will cost a pretty penny, non?”

She didn’t add that he would be providing a wardrobe for Emeline as well. It was understood in London society that this was the way in which Emeline would be recompensed for her time spent chaperoning his sister.

Emeline waited for some type of protest from Mr. Hartley. Evidently he hadn’t realized the expense involved in a young chit’s season. Most families saved for many years for the event; some even went into debt purchasing a girl’s costumes. He might be a very rich man in Boston, but how did that translate to London wealth? Would he be able to afford such an unexpected outlay? She was oddly disappointed at the thought that he might have to abandon the entire endeavor.

But Mr. Hartley merely took a bite from a bun. It was Miss Hartley who made the protest. “Oh, Samuel, it’s too much! I don’t need a new wardrobe, truly I don’t.”

A very pretty speech. The sister had given the brother an honorable out. Emeline turned to Mr. Hartley with raised eyebrows. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Daniel used the opportunity of the adults’ distraction to filch another bun.

Mr. Hartley took a long swallow of tea before speaking. “It seems you do need a new wardrobe, Rebecca. Lady Emeline says so and I think we must rely on her advice.”

“But the expense!” The girl looked truly distressed.

The brother did not. “Don’t worry over it. I can bear it.” He turned to Emeline. “When shall we go shopping, then, my lady?”

“There’s no need for you to accompany us,” Emeline said. “You may simply give us a letter of credit—”

“But I’d enjoy escorting you ladies,” the colonial interrupted her smoothly. “Surely you’ll not deny me so simple a pleasure?”

Emeline pressed her lips together. She knew he’d be a distraction, but there was no polite way to discourage him. Her smile was tight. “Of course, we would be glad to have your company.”

He gave the impression of grinning without actually changing his expression, the lines deepening on either side of his mouth. Extraordinary man! “Then I repeat, when shall we make this expedition?”

“Tomorrow,” Emeline replied crisply.

His sensuous lips curved slightly. “Fine.”

And she narrowed her eyes. Either Mr. Hartley was a fool or he was richer than King Midas himself.

HE WOKE IN the night, covered in sweat from the nightmare. Sam held himself still, his eyes straining in the darkness as he waited for the thundering in his chest to quiet. The fire had gone out, dammit, and the room was cold. He’d told the maids to bank it well, but they never seemed to do so adequately. By morning, his fire was usually mere embers. Tonight it was entirely dead.

He swung his legs out of the bed, and his bare feet hit the carpet. He stumbled through the blackness to the window and pulled the heavy drapes aside. The moon hung high over the roofs of the city, its light cold and pale. He used the dim glow to dress, shedding his drenched nightshirt and donning breeches, shirt, waistcoat, leggings, and his moccasins.

Sam stole out of his room, the soft moccasins making his steps nearly silent. He padded down the great marble staircase and into the lower hall. Here he heard footsteps advancing toward him, and he merged into the shadows. Candlelight flickered closer, and he saw his butler dressed in a nightshirt and holding a bottle in one hand, the candlestick in the other. The man walked past, only inches from where he hid, and Sam caught a whiff of whiskey. He smiled in the dark. How the servant would start if he knew his master was lurking in the gloom. The butler would think him mad.

Sam waited until the glow of the butler’s candle had disappeared and his footsteps faded. Another minute ticked by as he listened, but all was quiet. He drifted from his hiding place and stole through the empty back kitchen to the servant’s entrance. The key was kept on the mantelpiece of the great fireplace, but he had a duplicate. He let himself out, the latch clicking closed behind him. It was pleasantly chill outside, and he repressed a shiver. For a moment, he lingered in the shadows by the back door, listening, watching, and scenting. All he caught was the scurrying of a rodent in the bushes and the sudden mewl of a cat. No human nearby. He slid through the narrow walled garden, brushing by mint and parsley and other herbs whose scents he couldn’t name. Then he was in the mews, checking for a minute here as well.

He began to run. His footfalls were as quiet as the cat’s, but he kept to the edge of the dark shadows near the stables. He hated to be found out when he stole into the night. Perhaps that was why he didn’t bother with a valet.

He passed a doorway, and the stink of urine wafted into his nose, making him veer away. He’d never seen a city—a small town, really—until he’d been ten years old. Three and twenty years later, he could still recall the shock of the smell. The terrible stink of hundreds of people living too close together with no place to dispose of their piss and shit. As a boy, he’d nearly heaved when he’d realized that the trickle of brown water in the middle of the fine cobblestone street was an open sewer. One of the first lessons Pa had taught him as a lad was to hide his waste. Animals were canny. If they smelled the odor of people, they’d not venture near. No animals, no food. It had been as simple as that in the great forests of Pennsylvania.

But here, where people lived cheek by jowl and let their waste pile into corners, where the reek of man seemed to hang like a fog that had to be fought through, here in the city it was more complicated. There were still predators and prey, but their forms had warped, and sometimes it was impossible to tell the two apart. This city was far more dangerous than any frontier with wild animals and raiding Indians.

His feet carried him to the end of the mews and to an intersection. He dipped across the lane and continued running down the street. A young man was entering the gate of a town house—a servant returning from an assignation? Sam passed him not a foot away, and the man didn’t even turn. But Sam inhaled the smell of ale and pipe smoke as he ran by.

Lady Emeline smelled of lemon balm. He’d caught the scent again as he’d bent over her white hand this afternoon. It wasn’t right. Such a sophisticated woman should have worn patchouli or musk. He’d often found himself overwhelmed by the smell—the stink—of society ladies. Their perfumes hung about them like a fog until he’d wanted nothing more than to cover his nose and choke. But Lady Emeline wore lemon balm, the scent of his mother’s garden. That dichotomy intrigued him.

He loped across the entrance of an alley and jumped a foul puddle. Someone lurked here, either for shelter or in ambush, but Sam was past before the form had time to react. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the lurker peering after him. Sam grinned to himself and picked up his pace, his moccasins brushing soundlessly on cobblestones. This was the only time he almost liked the city—when the streets were deserted and a man could move without fear of bumping into another person. When there was space. He felt his leg muscles begin to warm with his exertion.

He’d deliberately chosen the rented house next to Lady Emeline when they’d come to London. He’d had a need to find out how Reynaud’s sister had fared. It was the least he could do for the officer he’d failed. When he’d discovered that the lady enjoyed introducing young girls into society, asking for her help with Rebecca had seemed like the natural thing to do. Of course, he hadn’t told her the real reason that he was interested in London society, but that hadn’t mattered to him. At least until he’d actually met the lady.

Because Lady Emeline wasn’t what he’d expected. Somehow, without realizing it, he must’ve imagined her to be tall like her brother and with an equally aristocratic air. The aristocratic air was indeed there, but he was hard-put not to smile when she attempted to look down her nose at him. She couldn’t be more than a couple of inches over five feet. Her shape was nicely rounded, the type that made a man want to cup her arse in his hands just to feel the feminine warmth. Her hair was black and her eyes just as dark. With her rosy cheeks and snappish voice, she might’ve been a saucy Irish maid, ripe for a flirtation.