To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(52)

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.