To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(44)

“No. I believe he retired to the country after the war. I could be wrong, of course; one hears so many things. But I think he’s in Sussex, near Portsmouth.”

Emeline thought she hid it well, but Samuel must’ve felt her start nonetheless.

“What is it?” he murmured without taking his eyes from the path ahead.

She hesitated. She’d just sorted her stack of invitations this morning, trying to determine the social events that would be best to attend in the upcoming month.

He looked at her, his brows drawn. “Tell me.”

Really, what choice did she have? It was almost as if the Fates had arranged the trap, and she was the unlucky hare that had run straight into it. Was there any point in struggling at all?

“We’ve been invited to the Hasselthorpe estate in Sussex.”

“What’s this?” Jasper had halted and turned.

“Lord and Lady Hasselthorpe, dear. Remember? They invited us weeks ago, and their house isn’t far from Portsmouth.”

“Damn me, you’re right.” The furrows next to Jasper’s nose and mouth stretched into arcs as he grinned. “What a stroke of luck! We can all go to this house party and then call on Craddock. That is...” He looked worriedly at Mr. Thornton. Rebecca and Samuel were easily included in the invitation as friends of Emeline’s. A bootmaker—even a very rich one—was a different matter.

But Mr. Thornton grinned and winked. “Never fear, I can continue our inquiries here in London whilst you talk to Craddock.”

And like that, Emeline knew that it was all decided. Her breath seemed to grow short as if her chest were being squeezed. Oh, they would argue and discuss the details back and forth, and she would need to petition Lady Hasselthorpe for invitations for the Hartleys, but in the end, it would all work out. She would be attending a house party with Samuel.

She looked up, knowing that he was watching her, and as her eyes met his warm coffee-brown ones, she wondered, Did he know what went on at house parties?

Chapter Nine

Now, of all the things in the world that the king loved, he loved his daughter most of all. He so doted on her that whenever she asked for a thing, he did his utmost to see that she received it. Which is why, when Princess Solace begged the king for permission to marry her own guard, instead of being a trifle tetchy as most royal parents might, he simply sighed and nodded. And that is how Iron Heart came to marry the most beautiful maiden in the land and a princess to boot....

—from Iron Heart

“Will you be gone a very long time?” Daniel asked a week later.

He was lying on Emeline’s bed, head hanging off one end, both feet in the air, completely in the way of Harris, who was packing.

“Probably a fortnight,” Emeline said briskly. She sat at her pretty little dresser trying to decide which jewelry to bring to the Hasselthorpe house party.

“A fortnight is fourteen days. That’s a terrible long time.” Daniel swung a foot and got it tangled in the bed curtains.

“Lord Eddings!” Harris exclaimed.

Really, one ought not to miss one’s own offspring. She knew that. Many mothers of her rank hardly saw their children at all. Yet she hated leaving him. It was just so heart-wrenching to say good-bye.

“That will be all,” Emeline told her lady’s maid.

“But, my lady, I haven’t half finished.”

“I know.” Emeline smiled at Harris. “You’ve been working so hard, you must be in need of refreshment. Why don’t you take some tea in the kitchen?”

Harris pursed her lips, but she knew better than to contradict her mistress. She set down the pile of clothes she’d been holding and marched out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Emeline got up and went to the bed, shoving aside the mound of petticoats laid out on the surface to make a space. Then she sat, her back against the great oak headboard, her legs straight in front of her on the bed. “Come here.”

Daniel scrambled toward her like an eager puppy. “I don’t want you to go.”

He squirmed against her, smelling of little boy sweat, his knobby knees digging into her hip.

She stroked his blond curls. “I know, darling. But I shan’t be gone overlong, and I shall write you every day.”

More silent squirming. His face was hidden against her breast.

“Tante Cristelle will stay here with you,” Emeline whispered. “I don’t suppose you shall have any currant buns or sticky sweets or pies at all whilst I’m gone. You’ll have quite wasted away by the time I return and look like a stick boy and I shan’t recognize you.”

Breathy giggles came from her side until his blue eyes surfaced once again. “Silly. Tante will give me lots of sweets.”

Emeline feigned shock. “Do you think so? She’s very severe with me.”

“I’ll be fat when you come back.” He puffed out his cheeks to show her.

She laughed appreciatively.

“I can talk to Mr. Hartley, too,” he said.

Emeline blinked, startled. “I’m sorry, darling, but Mr. Hartley and his sister will be at the house party as well.”

Her son’s lower lip protruded.

“Have you been talking to Mr. Hartley often?”

He darted a look at her. “I talk to him over the wall, and sometimes I go to visit him in his garden. But I don’t bother him, really I don’t.”