To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(37)

He halted, placing his hands on the small of his back to stretch it. It was all a joke of the cosmos, it must be, for it all to come together at once as it had tonight. His nightmares about the massacre, made real and terribly tangible in the ballroom. His confrontation with Vale. The horrible revelation that she was engaged to that aristocratic prig. He threw back his head and laughed at the night and the black sky and his world that was trembling around him, about to fall. A cat startled and scurried into the shadows, howling its displeasure.

And then he ran again.

EMELINE TOUCHED ONE finger to the green baize book cover. A fine dusting of rot fell to the tabletop. She’d found the fairy-tale book that Reynaud and she had spent so many hours poring over as children. It had necessitated an extensive search of the attics all this morning, accompanied by much sneezing and filth, and she’d had to take a hot bath afterward, but she’d found the book. Now she’d placed it on a table in her sitting room as she contemplated her find.

What she hadn’t expected was that it would be in such terrible condition. In her memory, the book was pristine and new, Reynaud’s long, slim fingers deftly turning the pages. In truth, the worms and moths had evidently been at the book. The binding was warped, the pages yellowed and falling out. Quite a few were stained from damp and mold. Emeline frowned as she traced the embossing on a corner of the cover. It depicted a pike or staff laid against a worn soldier’s pack, as if a soldier home from war had set the items by his front door.

She sighed and turned back the cover to reveal the other unfortunate surprise. The book was in German—something she’s completely forgotten from her youth. She’d barely begun to read when she and Reynaud looked at the book, and she’d spent most of the time examining the illustrations.

At least she thought the language was German. On the frontispiece was the title in ornate, nearly illegible letters and beneath was a crude woodcut illustration. It showed four soldiers in tall métier hats and gaiters marching side by side. Nanny had been a Prussian émigré, having crossed the Channel when she was a little girl. The book must have originally been hers. Had Nanny told the stories from memory or had she translated them into English as she turned the pages?

Voices came from the hallway outside the sitting room door, and Emeline straightened away from the table, walking several paces from it. For some reason, she didn’t want to share her find just yet with her guests.

The door opened to reveal Crabs. “Lord Vale and Mr. Hartley are here, my lady.”

Emeline nodded. “Show them in.”

She struggled to hide her surprise. She’d invited them to tea this morning, but it had never occurred to her, after last night’s disagreement, that they’d arrive together. Yet here they came, Jasper first in a striking scarlet coat with yellow trim and a cobalt blue waistcoat that caught the color of his eyes. His dark mahogany hair was clubbed back in an unpowdered queue that no doubt had been quite neat when he’d left his valet this morning. Now, however, curling locks rioted about his temples. Emeline knew quite a few girls who’d cheerfully kill their nearest and dearest for hair like Jasper’s.

“My sweet.” Jasper advanced and caught her a careless kiss somewhere near her left ear. Emeline, looking over Jasper’s shoulder, met Samuel’s enigmatic gaze. The colonial was in brown again today, and, although the handsomer man, standing next to Jasper, he appeared like a crow in the shadow of a peacock. The viscount stepped back and threw himself into one of her setting-sun orange chairs. “Hartley and I have come hat in hand like petitioners before a queen. What would you have with us? Do you mean to broker a peace?”

“Perhaps.” Emeline smiled quickly at Jasper and then turned to Samuel, bracing herself for the contact. “Will your sister join us?”

“No.” Samuel laid his long fingertips against the back of a chair. “She sends her apologies and pleads a migraine.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Emeline gestured to a chair. “Please. Won’t you sit, Mr. Hartley?”

He inclined his head and sat. His hair was tightly braided in a military queue today, every strand contained and controlled, and the sight made her perversely want to take it apart. To let his hair stream round his shoulders and run her fingers through it until it pulled at his scalp.

The maids bustled in with tea at that moment, and Emeline was glad to take the chance to calm herself. She sat and oversaw the placement of the tea things and kept her eyes down, away from the wall and away from him. Just last night he’d kissed her in this very room. He’d pressed her against the wall beside the window, and he’d traced her lips with his tongue, and she’d bit him. She’d tasted his blood.

Her teaspoon clattered as Emeline’s hand trembled. She glanced up, right into Samuel’s dark stare. His face looked carved from stone.

She cleared her throat and glanced away. “Tea, Jasper?”

“Yes, please,” he replied cheerfully.

Was he completely oblivious to the undercurrents between her and Samuel? Or perhaps he was aware and chose not to notice. They had a very civilized understanding, after all. She didn’t expect him to live like a monk before marriage—or indeed afterward, if it came to that—and perhaps he was equally tolerant.

She handed the teacup to Jasper and asked without looking up, “Mr. Hartley?”

There was a silence. Jasper noisily stirred sugar into his tea—he had a horrible sweet tooth—and took a sip.