To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(15)

Emeline twisted a ruffle at her waist until she felt silk tear. “Did you see him die?”

He blew out a breath, and when he spoke, his voice was tight. “No.”

She let the bit of fabric go. Was it relief she felt?

“Why do you ask? Surely it does no good to hear—”

“Because I want—no, I need—to know what it was like for him at the last.” She glanced at Mr. Hartley’s face and knew from the slight indent between his brows that he was puzzled. She gazed sightlessly ahead as she tried to find the words for her thoughts. “If I can understand, perhaps feel, just a little of what he went through, I can be closer to him.”

He was frowning harder now. “He’s dead. I doubt that your brother would want you to brood thus over his death.”

She chuckled, but it came out a dry exhalation of air. “But as you say, he is dead. What he would or would not want no longer matters.”

Ah, now she had shocked him. Men were sure that ladies were to be shielded from life’s harsh realities. Men, poor dears, were so naive. Did they think childbirth was a stroll before luncheon?

But he rallied fast, this strange colonialist. “Please explain.”

“I do this for myself, not Reynaud.” She puffed out a breath. Why did she even bother? He wouldn’t understand. “My brother was so young when he died, just eight and twenty, and there were many things left undone in his life. I have only a finite number of memories of him. There will never be any more.”

She stopped, still gazing sightlessly at the street ahead. He didn’t speak. This was a personal matter. She shouldn’t talk about it to a comparative stranger. But he’d been there in that foreign place where Reynaud had died. If only in a small way, he was part of Reynaud.

She sighed. “There was a book of fairy tales we used to look at together as children. Reynaud loved those stories. I can’t remember what they were about exactly, but I keep thinking if only I could read it again...” She was suddenly conscious that her conversation was meandering. She glanced up at him.

Mr. Hartley stared back, his head tilted in interest toward her.

She waved a hand impatiently. “But the book is neither here nor there. If I can find out how his last hours were, then he lives just a little longer in my memory. It doesn’t matter that they are awful moments, do you see? They are Reynaud’s moments, and thus precious. They bring me closer to him.”

He bowed his head as his brows drew together. “I think I understand.”

“Do you? Do you truly?” If he did, he would be the first to understand her. Not even Tante Cristelle could fully comprehend her need to find out everything that had happened to Reynaud in his last days. She watched him in amazement and with a dawning awareness. Maybe he truly was unlike other men. How odd.

He looked up then and caught her eye. That sensuous lower lip curved. “You’re a frightening woman.”

And Emeline realized to her horror that she could come to like Samuel Hartley. Come to like him too much. She hastily looked straight ahead and took a deep breath. “Tell me.”

He no longer pretended that he didn’t know what she asked. “I’m trying to find out why Spinner’s Falls happened. The Wyandot didn’t find our regiment by accident.” He turned to look at her, and she saw that his eyes had hardened to iron—strong, determined, and resolute. “I think we were betrayed.”

Chapter Four

The old man was dressed in dirty rags. It hardly seemed likely, so Iron Heart thought, that such a one would hold the key to marrying a princess.

But as he started to turn aside, the old man caught his arm. “Listen! You will live in a marble castle with Princess Solace as your bride. You will have silk clothes to wear and servants to wait upon your every need. All you must do is follow my instructions.”

“And what are your instructions?” Iron Heart asked.

The old wizard grinned—for naturally he was a wizard to know so much. “You must not speak for seven years.”

Iron Heart stared. “And if I am unable to do this?”

“If you utter one word—even one sound—you will be returned to rags and Princess Solace will die.”

Now, this may not seem such a wonderful bargain to you or me, but remember that Iron Heart was presently employed as a street sweeper. He looked down at his feet, shod in tattered leather, then over at the gutter where he would make his bed that night, and in the end he did the only thing he could. He agreed to the wizard’s price....

—from Iron Heart

Tonight the moon was curtained by clouds. Sam glanced at the sky as he paused beside a dark doorway. The moon was waning, anyway, so even when it came out from behind the clouds, its light was thin. He welcomed the thick shadows. It made the night perfect for hunting.

Sam slid now into an alley, moving swiftly past a bundled shape hunched against a wall. The bundle didn’t stir, but a cat sitting by its side paused in her bath to watch Sam with glowing eyes. There was a row of fine stables farther on, nearly twice the size of the ones behind his own rented house. Sam snorted. What did one man need with so many beasts?

A light appeared at one of the stable doors, and a short, sturdy man holding a lantern emerged. Sam froze, drifting back into the shadows. The man set his lantern down on the cobblestones in the mews while he dug in a pocket; then he withdrew a long clay pipe and lit it from the lantern’s flame. Puffing contentedly, he picked up his lantern again and disappeared around the corner of the stables.