To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(17)

Rebecca didn’t look reassured.

Emeline sighed. “You must move easily. Gracefully. Not like a...a...” She searched for a phrase that would not involve the word elephant.

“Drunken sailor.” Samuel Hartley’s voice echoed in her ballroom. He sounded amused.

Rebecca lowered her foot with a thump and glared at her brother. “Thank you very much!”

Mr. Hartley shrugged and strolled into the room. He was neatly turned out in brown and black, but the bruise on his chin was turning yellowy-green, and he had dark circles beneath his eyes.

Emeline narrowed her own eyes. What activities were keeping the colonial from sleeping at night? “Was there something you needed, Mr. Hartley?”

“Indeed,” he replied. “I find I have an urgent need to come supervise my sister’s dancing lesson.”

Rebecca harrumphed at his words, but a shy smile crept over her lips. She was obviously pleased at her brother’s attention.

Emeline was not. Merely the presence of the man in her ballroom disrupted her concentration. “We are very busy here, Mr. Hartley. There are only two days remaining before Rebecca’s first ball.”

“Ah.” He bowed with ironic precision. “I understand the gravity of the situation.”

“Do you?”

“Ahem!” Tante cleared her throat with a horrible grinding noise. Both Emeline and Mr. Hartley turned to stare at her. “The child and I need a short rest from our exertions. A walk about the garden, perhaps? Come, ma petite, I will instruct you on elegant conversations when strolling in so boring a garden.” She held out her hand to Rebecca.

“Oh, thank you, ma’am,” Rebecca replied weakly as she followed the older lady.

Emeline waited, her foot tapping, as her aunt and Rebecca walked to the door and exited the room; then she whirled on Mr. Hartley. “You’ve interrupted this morning’s lesson. What are you doing here?”

He raised his eyebrows and stepped so close, his breath brushed her cheek. “Why do you care?”

“Care?” She opened her mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “It isn’t that I care; it’s simply—”

“You’re in a bad mood.” He pursed his lips and tilted his head as if he were examining a suspect piece of fruit. “You’re often in a bad mood.”

“That’s not true.”

“You were in a bad mood yesterday.”

“But—”

“You were in a bad mood when first I met you at Mrs. Conrad’s salon.”

“I was not—”

“And while your mood was not precisely bad when we came to tea, it certainly could not be termed good.” He smiled kindly at her. “But perhaps I have the case wrong. Perhaps you’re usually a lady with a sunny disposition, and it’s only my advent into your life that has turned you sour.”

She gaped at him—actually gaped, her mouth hanging ajar like the greenest debutante. How dare he? No one spoke to her in this manner! He had turned away now and was idly plinking the harpsichord in a very annoying manner. She caught him glancing slyly at her, his mouth curving at the corner; then he went back to watching his fingers abuse the harpsichord.

Emeline took a deep breath and twitched her skirts straight. She hadn’t been the belle of innumerable balls for nothing.

“I hadn’t realized my voice was so sharp, Mr. Hartley,” she said as she wandered closer to where he stood. She kept her eyes downcast and worked to look woebegone—not a very familiar expression. “Had I known the distress my unladylike surliness would cause you, I would have died a thousand deaths rather than acted so. Please accept my apology.”

She waited. It was his turn. Now he would be covered in shame because he’d made a lady apologize so abjectly. Perhaps he would even stutter. She tried not to smirk.

Instead there was only silence. His long fingers played on the harpsichord keys without any notion of music. If he continued much longer, she would go mad.

Finally, she looked up.

Mr. Hartley wasn’t even paying attention to his hands. Instead he was watching her with a faintly amused expression. “When was the last time you apologized to a man?”

Oooh! He was the most provoking oaf!

“I don’t know,” she said sadly. “Years, perhaps.” She stepped closer and placed her hand on the keys beside his. Then she looked up at him and slowly let her mouth curve into a very small smile. “But I do know he was most satisfied with my apology.”

His hands stilled, the room suddenly hushed. His eyes were intent in an almost frightening way. For the life of her, Emeline could not look away from him. She watched as his gaze drifted over her face, coming finally to rest on her mouth. Without even thinking, her lips parted. His eyes narrowed and he took a step toward her, closing the space between them and raising his arms—

The door to the ballroom opened.

“We are ready now, yes?” Tante Cristelle said. “Another hour, I think, no more. My hands, they will be crippled if I play longer at that instrument.”

“Yes, of course,” Emeline gasped. Her face was probably as red as a boiled beet. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Mr. Hartley had somehow contrived to place himself on the other side of the harpsichord—a distance that was more than respectable. When had he done that? She hadn’t even seen him move.