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

But Daniel straightened and grinned. “Is it clean now?”

“Well and truly clean.” The colonial stood, rising so close to her that they nearly touched.

Emeline checked an impulse to step back. He was so tall. It was really quite rude of him to tower over her in such a manner.

“Now may I try it?” Daniel asked.

She opened her mouth to give a resounding No!, but Mr. Hartley spoke first. “This isn’t the place to shoot a gun. Think of all the things—and people—we might accidentally hit.”

Her son’s lower lip puckered out in a pout. “But—”

“Daniel,” Emeline said in warning, “you mustn’t badger Mr. Hartley when he has been so kind as to let you help him with his gun.”

Mr. Hartley frowned as if she’d said something wrong. “I was very pleased to have Danny’s help—”

“His name is Daniel.” The words were out before she could check them. Her tone was too sharp.

He stared at her, his mouth thinning.

She glared back, thrusting out her chin.

He said slowly, “Daniel worked well today. He isn’t bothering me.”

Her son beamed as if he’d been given the most extravagant praise. She should be grateful that Mr. Hartley was so kind, that he knew exactly what to say to a small boy. Instead, she was vaguely peeved.

Mr. Hartley smiled back at Daniel and then bent to pick up the cloths and oil. “You’ll probably be busy tomorrow morning, preparing for the ball.”

Emeline blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “Why, no. There are many preparations if one is throwing a ball, but as we are simply attending—”

“Good.” He glanced up, his brown eyes laughing, and Emeline suddenly realized she’d walked straight into a trap. “Then you’ll be able to accompany me to view Mr. Wedgwood’s pottery. I should like a feminine perspective on what to order.”

She opened her mouth to say something that she’d no doubt regret later but was saved by the voice of Mr. Smythe-Jones.

“My lord? Lord Eddings?”

Daniel hunched his shoulders and whispered, “Don’t tell him I’m here.”

Emeline frowned. “Nonsense. Go to your tutor at once, Daniel.”

“But—”

“Best to do as your mother says,” Mr. Hartley said quietly.

And miraculously, her son shut his mouth. “Yes, sir.” He went to the wall and called over, “I’m here.”

They heard the thin voice of the tutor. “Whatever are you doing over there? Come down at once, Lord Eddings!”

“I—”

Mr. Hartley leapt onto the marble bench that sat against the wall. For such a big man, he moved lithely. “Danny was visiting me, Mr. Smythe-Jones. I hope you don’t mind.”

Startled murmuring came from over the wall.

“Come on, Danny.” Mr. Hartley made a step with his hands. “I’ll give you a leg up.”

“Thanks!” Daniel stepped into the big hands and Mr. Hartley gently lifted him up. The boy scrambled to the top of the wall and then onto the big crab-apple branch that lay just over it. In a moment he was gone.

Emeline looked at the toes of her shoes as she listened to the tutor remonstrating with her son, his voice fading as they walked back to the house. She twisted a bit of ribbon on her overskirt. Then she looked up.

Mr. Hartley was watching her from atop the bench. He jumped lightly to the ground, landing just a little too close to her, his coffee-brown eyes intent. “Why don’t you want me to call your son Danny?”

She pursed her lips. “His name is Daniel.”

“And Danny is the nickname for Daniel.”

“He’s a baron. He will sit in the House of Lords one day.” The ribbon was digging into the soft pads of her fingers. “He doesn’t need a nickname.”

“Need it, no.” He stepped even closer to her so that she was forced to look up in order to continue meeting his eyes. “But what harm does a nickname do a little boy?”

She inhaled, realizing as she did so that she could smell him, a combination of gunpowder, starch, and gun oil. The scent should have been repulsive, but she found it strangely intimate instead. And the intimacy was arousing. How awful.

“It was his father’s name,” she blurted. The ribbon broke.

He stilled, his big body poised as if to pounce. “Your husband?”

“Yes.”

“It reminds you of him?”

“Yes. No.” She waved the suggestion away. “I don’t know.”

He began a slow prowl around her. “You miss him, your husband.”

She shrugged, fighting down the urge to twist and face him. “He was my husband for six years. It would be very odd if I didn’t miss him.”

“Even so, it doesn’t follow that you would miss him.” He had meandered behind her and now spoke over her shoulder. She imagined that she could feel his breath against the spot behind her ear.

“What do you mean?”

“Did you love him?”

“Love is not a consideration in a fashionable marriage.” She bit her lip.

“No? Then you do not miss him.”

She closed her eyes and remembered laughing blue eyes that had teased. Soft, pale hands that had been unbearably gentle. A tenor voice that had talked and talked about dogs and horses and phaetons. Then she remembered that pale face, unnaturally drawn, all the laughter gone, lying against black satin in a casket. She didn’t want those memories. They were too painful.

“No.” She turned blindly to the house and a way out of this too-close garden and the man who stalked her. “No, I do not miss my husband.”

Chapter Six

Well! The king was very grateful to the guard who had saved his life single-handedly. All hailed Iron Heart as a hero, and he was immediately made the captain of the king’s guard. But though everyone asked the valiant captain his name, he would not say a word. This stubborn refusal to speak rather vexed the king, who was a man used to having his own way in such matters. However, even that little worry was put aside when one day the king was out riding and a terrible troll decided to make the king his lunch. Clang! Thump! Iron Heart charged forward and soon separated the troll’s head from his body....

—from Iron Heart

Emeline awoke to the curtains being pulled back on her bed. She blinked sleepily up into the face of Harris, her lady’s maid. Harris was a wooden-faced woman of at least five decades with a large, bulbous nose that dominated the rest of her more-petite features. Emeline knew of many ladies who complained that their personal maids spent too much time gossiping and flirting with the menservants in the household.

Such was not the case with Harris.

“There is a Mr. Hartley waiting in the downstairs hall for you, my lady,” Harris said stonily.

Emeline glanced blearily at her bedroom window. The light seemed quite pale. “What?”

“He says that he has an appointment with you, and he will not leave until he sees you.”

She sat up. “What time is it?”

Harris pursed her lips. “A quarter of eight, my lady.”

“Good Lord. Whatever is he about?” Emeline threw back the covers and searched for her slippers. “He must be mad. No one comes calling at eight o’clock.”

“Yes, my lady.” Harris bent to help her with her slippers.

“Not even nine o’clock,” Emeline muttered, thrusting her arms into the wrapper Harris held for her. “Really, anything before eleven is suspect, and I myself would never bother before two o’clock. Quite, quite mad.”

“Yes, my lady.”

Emeline became conscious now of tuneless whistling. “What is that noise?”

“Mr. Hartley is whistling in the downstairs hall, my lady,” Harris said.

For a moment, Emeline stared at her maid, speechless. The whistling crested on a particularly horrific note. Emeline rushed from her room and out into the upper hall. She marched down the hall and to the banister that overlooked the downstairs entry. Mr. Hartley was standing with his hands behind his back, holding his tricorne. As she watched, he idly rocked back on his heels and whistled through his teeth.

“Hist!” Emeline leaned over the banister.

Mr. Hartley whirled and looked up at her. “Good morning, my lady!” He gave a little bow. The man looked fresh and alarmingly alert for so early in the morning.

“Have you gone stark, raving mad?” Emeline demanded. “What are you doing in my hall this early?”

“I’ve come to take you to Wedgwood’s business offices to help me order pottery.”

She scowled. “I never—”

“You’ll need to dress.” His gaze wandered to her chest. “Not that I mind your present attire.”

Emeline slapped a hand to her bosom. “How dare—”

“Wait here, shall I?” And he began that awful whistling again, this time even louder.

Emeline opened her mouth, realized that he wouldn’t be able to hear anything over the noise coming out between his lips, and shut it again. She gathered her skirts and stomped back to her room. Harris had already laid out a flame-colored watered silk, and Emeline was clothed and coiffed in scandalously little time. Even so, Mr. Hartley was peering at the hall clock when she descended the stairs.

He glanced at her rather perfunctorily. “Took you long enough. Come on, I don’t want to be late to see Mr. Bentley—Mr. Wedgwood’s partner.”

Emeline frowned as he hustled her out the door. “When is your appointment?”

“Nine o’clock.” Mr. Hartley handed her into the waiting carriage.

She narrowed her eyes at him when he sat across from her. “But you came for me before eight o’clock.”

“I thought it might take you a while to get ready.” He smiled at her, his coffee-brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “And I was right, wasn’t I?” He rapped on the roof.

“You take too much for granted,” Emeline said frostily.

“Only with you, ma’am. Only with you.” His voice was low and soft and disconcertingly intimate.

Emeline glanced out the window so she wouldn’t have to meet his eyes. “Why is that?”

There was a silence and for a moment she thought he might avoid the question.

“I don’t know why you affect me like this,” he said finally. “I think you’d as well ask a catamount why it runs after a fleeing deer as ask me why I quicken when you’re near.”

Her gaze jerked around to his. He watched her with a purely male gaze, frank and assessing. It should’ve made her afraid, being the subject of such a perusal. Instead it thrilled her. “Then you admit it.”

He shrugged. “Why not? It’s purely instinctive, I assure you.”

She twitched at a ribbon on the front of her gown. “You must be quite at a loss if your instincts cause you this problem whenever you’re near a lady.”

“I already told you, remember?” He leaned forward and wrapped his hand around her fingers, stilling her agitated teasing of the ribbon. “This happens only with you.”

Emeline looked down at their fingers. She should snap at him. Set him down properly and let him know that he’d gone too far with his familiarity. But the sight of his brown fingers wrapped around and cradling her own smaller, white ones was mesmerizing somehow. The carriage bumped around a curve, and he withdrew his hand.

She smoothed out the ribbon. “Haven’t you a man of business?”

“Yes, Mr. Kitcher. But he’s a rather dry old man. I thought you’d be better company.”

She snorted softly at that. “Where are these offices?”

“Not far,” he said. “They’ve rented part of a warehouse.”