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

She tugged at a bit of lace at her throat. “He kissed me yesterday.”

Melisande stilled. “Mr. Hartley?”

“Yes.” She could feel his eyes on her, even though she had not looked at him again.

“And did you kiss him back?” her friend asked as if she inquired the price of ribbons from a vendor.

“God.” Emeline choked on the word.

“I’ll assume that means yes,” Melisande murmured. “He is a handsome man, in a rather primitive way, but I wouldn’t’ve thought that he’d attract you.”

“He doesn’t!”

But her heart knew she lied. This was like a horrible fever. She actually grew flushed whenever he was near. She was quite unable to control her body—or herself—when around the awful man. Emeline had never felt this wild in her life, not even with Danny, and that thought made her bite her lip. Danny had been so young, so gay, and she had been young and gay with him. It didn’t seem right to have stronger feelings now for another man—a man not even her husband.

Melisande glanced at her skeptically. “Then you will avoid him in the future, no doubt.”

Emeline turned her head so that Samuel wasn’t in her line of sight at all. Instead, she stared at an ornamental pond behind the targets. It looked like it was filled with reeds. Lady Hasselthorpe should’ve had the pond cleared before the house party. Mrs. Fitzwilliam stood by herself near the bank, poor woman. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“A wise lady would seek out her fiancé’s company, of course,” Melisande murmured.

Jasper was part of the shooting party, naturally. He loved anything to do with physical exertion. Unlike Samuel, though, he was in constant movement—one moment crouching on the ground for some reason, the next bounding up to the footmen to help with straightening the targets. For a moment, Emeline remembered what Samuel had said about Jasper: that he fought as if he’d had no fear. That was certainly not the man she knew. But then again, maybe a woman never really knew the men in her life.

Emeline shook her head. None of that mattered. “This has nothing to do with Jasper. You know that.”

“You do have an understanding with him,” her friend reminded her neutrally.

“An understanding, yes. That’s exactly what it is. Jasper’s heart is not involved.”

“Isn’t it?” Melisande glanced at her toes, pursing her lips. “I think he has a certain fondness for you.”

“He sees me as a sister.”

“That can be the basis for a loving union—”

“He has other women.”

Melisande didn’t say anything, and Emeline wondered if she’d shocked her friend. It was to be expected that an aristocratic gentleman would have affairs, both before and after a marriage, but it was considered gauche to speak of such things aloud.

“You had no quarrel with that before,” Melisande said. The gentlemen were beginning to order themselves as to who would shoot first. “Come, let us go watch the target shooting.”

They strolled toward the shooters.

“I still have no quarrel with Jasper’s feelings for me,” Emeline said low. “In fact, I believe a kind regard toward one’s spouse is for the best in marriage. Far better than desperate passion.”

She felt Melisande’s sharp glance, but her friend did not comment. They had neared the group of gentlemen shooters now. The Duke of Lister stepped forward and made a show of preparing to shoot. No doubt he’d been given the first shot as a badge of his rank.

“Nasty man,” Melisande muttered.

Emeline raised her eyebrows. “The duke?”

“Mmm. He drags his mistress about like a little dog on a chain.”

“She doesn’t seem to mind.” Emeline glanced at Mrs. Fitzwilliam again. She was shielding her eyes to watch the shot, her golden hair glinting in the sunshine. She appeared perfectly relaxed.

“She can’t show any vexation, can she, if she’s to keep her position?” Melisande frowned at her, and Emeline suddenly felt rather dim-witted. “But all the same, it must be wretched. None of the ladies will talk to her and yet he is perfectly respectable.”

The duke raised the gun to his shoulder.

Melisande covered her ears with her hands as he fired, and she winced when the sound of the shot echoed off Hasselthorpe House. “Why do guns have to be so loud?”

“So that we ladies can be duly impressed, I expect,” Emeline said absently.

A footman advanced ceremonially toward the target and painted a black circle around the bullet hole so that all could see where it had hit. Lister’s shot was near the edge of the target. He scowled, but the watching ladies clapped enthusiastically. Mrs. Fitzwilliams started forward as if to congratulate her protector, but the man didn’t notice her and turned away to talk loudly with Lord Hasselthorpe. Emeline watched as the woman halted uncertainly before smiling and strolling back to the edge of the lake. Melisande was right. Obviously it wasn’t an easy job being a mistress.

“Don’t the gentlemen look manly!” Lady Hasselthorpe fluttered toward them. Today their hostess was dressed in pink-dotted dimity over wide panniers. Many pink and green ribbons decorated her elaborately draped skirts, and she held a white shepherd’s crook in one hand. Apparently she fancied herself a rustic shepherdess, although Emeline doubted many shepherdesses wore panniers whilst tending sheep. “I do so love to watch the gentlemen show off their prowess.”

She was interrupted by another loud bang!

Melisande started at the sound. “Lovely,” she said with a strained smile.

“Oh, and Mr. Hartley is next with his odd gun.” Lady Hasselthorpe squinted toward the gentlemen—she was notoriously nearsighted but refused to wear spectacles. “Do you think it will fire properly with such a long barrel? Perhaps it will explode. That would be most exciting!”

“Quite,” Emeline said.

Samuel stepped up to the mark and stood for a moment simply looking at the target. Emeline frowned, wondering what he was doing. Then, almost faster than her eye could follow, he lifted the rifle to his shoulder, aimed, and fired.

There was a stunned silence from his audience. The footman with the paintbrush started toward the target. Samuel had already turned aside even as everyone else waited to see where the ball had hit. Solemnly, the footman painted a black circle at the very center of the target.

“My God, he’s hit a bull’s-eye,” one of the gentlemen finally murmured.

The ladies clapped, the gentlemen crowding around Samuel to examine his gun.

“Lord, I hate the sound of a gun firing,” Melisande muttered as she lowered her hands.

“You should have brought lint for your ears,” Emeline said absently.

Samuel hadn’t blinked as he shot. Not as he’d raised the gun to his shoulder, not at the sound of the shot, and not as the smoke from the flintlock had wafted over him. The other gentlemen handled a gun easily; they probably went hunting and target shooting fairly often at country parties like this one. But none of them had shown the absolute familiarity that Samuel displayed. She could imagine that he’d know how to shoot that gun in the dark, while running, or while being attacked. In fact, he probably had.

“Yes,” Melisande muttered, “that would certainly improve my appearance if I had lint growing out of my ears like a rabbit.”

Emeline laughed at the image of her friend with rabbit ears, and Samuel turned as if he could hear her amusement. She caught her breath as his eyes met hers. He stared for a moment, his dark eyes intense even across the distance that separated them, and then turned away as Lord Hasselthorpe said something to him. Emeline could feel the blood pulsing in her head.

“Whatever am I to do?” she whispered.

“DAMN GOOD SHOT, that,” Vale murmured from behind Sam.

“Thanks.” Sam watched as their host prepared to shoot. Hasselthorpe stood with his feet too close together and was in danger of falling or at least staggering when he fired.

“But then you always were a good shot,” Vale continued. “Remember that time you got five squirrels for our dinner?”

Sam shrugged. “Not that it did much good. They still hardly filled the stew pot. Too scrawny.”

He was aware that Lady Emeline stood not twenty feet away, her head close to her friend’s, and he wondered what the ladies were talking about. She was avoiding his gaze.

“Scrawny or not, they were welcome fresh meat. I say, Hasselthorpe’s going to blow over, isn’t he?”

“Might.”

They were silent as their host squinted down the barrel, squeezed the trigger, and then inevitably couldn’t keep the gun from jerking as it fired. The shot went wide, missing the target altogether. Lady Emeline’s friend covered her ears and winced.

“At least he didn’t fall down,” Vale murmured. He sounded a little disappointed.

Sam turned to look at him. “Have you asked about Corporal Craddock yet?”

Vale idly rocked back on his heels. “I’ve got the address Thornton gave us, and I found out where Honey Lane is—Craddock’s house is there.”

Sam eyed him a moment. “Good. Then we shouldn’t have problems finding it tomorrow.”

“None at all,” Vale said cheerfully. “I remember Craddock as a sensible sort. If anyone can help, I’m sure he can.”

Sam nodded and faced ahead again, although he didn’t notice who stepped up to shoot next. He hoped to hell that Vale was right and Craddock could help them.

They were running out of survivors to question.

EMELINE SMOOTHED THE coral silk draped over her panniers that night as she stepped into the Hasselthorpe ballroom. The cavernous room had been recently redecorated, according to Lady Hasselthorpe, and it appeared as if no expense had been spared. The walls were shell pink with baroque gilt vines outlining ceiling, pilasters, windows, doors, and anything else the decorators could think of. Medallions along the walls, also rimmed in baroque gilt leaves, were painted with pastoral scenes of nymphs and satyrs. The whole was like a sugared flower—overpoweringly sweet.

Right now, though, Emeline was less concerned with the Hasselthorpes’ grand ballroom than with Samuel. She hadn’t seen him since the shooting party this afternoon. Would he attempt the dance, even after his problem at the Westerton ball? Or would he forgo the experience altogether? It was silly, she knew, to worry so much over a matter that was none of her business, but she couldn’t help hoping that Samuel had decided to stay in his rooms tonight. It would be awful if he were overcome again here.

“Lady Emeline!”

The high voice trilled nearby, and Emeline turned, unsurprised, to see her hostess bearing down on her. Lady Hasselthorpe wore a pink, gold, and apple-green confection, belled out so extravagantly that she had to sidle sideways to make her way through her guests. The pink of her skirts exactly matched the pink of her ballroom walls.

“Lady Emeline! I’m so glad to see you,” Lady Hasselthorpe cried as if she hadn’t just seen Emeline not two hours before. “What do you think of peacocks?”

Emeline blinked. “They seem a very pretty bird.”

“Yes, but carved in sugar?” Lady Hasselthorpe had reached her side and now leaned close, her lovely blue eyes genuinely concerned. “I mean, sugar is all white, is it not? Whereas peacocks are just the opposite, aren’t they? Not white. I think that’s what makes them so lovely, all the colors in their feathers. So if one does have a sugar peacock, it isn’t the same as a real one, is it?”

“No.” Emeline patted her hostess’s arm. “But I’m sure the sugar peacocks will be marvelous nonetheless.”

“Mmm.” Lady Hasselthorpe didn’t appear convinced, but her eyes had already wandered to a group of ladies beyond Emeline.