To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(53)

“Lady Emeline! I’m so glad to see you,” Lady Hasselthorpe cried as if she hadn’t just seen Emeline not two hours before. “What do you think of peacocks?”

Emeline blinked. “They seem a very pretty bird.”

“Yes, but carved in sugar?” Lady Hasselthorpe had reached her side and now leaned close, her lovely blue eyes genuinely concerned. “I mean, sugar is all white, is it not? Whereas peacocks are just the opposite, aren’t they? Not white. I think that’s what makes them so lovely, all the colors in their feathers. So if one does have a sugar peacock, it isn’t the same as a real one, is it?”

“No.” Emeline patted her hostess’s arm. “But I’m sure the sugar peacocks will be marvelous nonetheless.”

“Mmm.” Lady Hasselthorpe didn’t appear convinced, but her eyes had already wandered to a group of ladies beyond Emeline.

“Have you seen Mr. Hartley?” Emeline asked before her hostess could flit away.

“Yes. His sister is quite pretty and a good dancer. I always think that helps, don’t you?” And Lady Hasselthorpe was off, singing about turtle soup to a startled-looking matron.

Emeline blew out a frustrated breath. She could see Rebecca now, pacing gently with the other dancers, but where was Samuel? Emeline began to skirt the dancers, working her way to the far end of the ballroom. She passed Jasper, who was whispering something in a girl’s ear that made the child blush, and then Emeline was blocked by a phalanx of elderly men, their backs toward her as they gossiped.

“I saw the book of fairy tales you left in my room,” Melisande said from behind her.

Emeline turned. Her friend was wearing a shade of gray-brown that made her look like a dusty crow. Emeline raised her eyebrows but didn’t comment. They’d had this discussion before, and it hadn’t changed her friend’s attire a wit. “Can you translate it?”

“I think so.” Melisande opened her fan and waved it slowly. “I only looked at a page or two, but I could decipher some of the words.”

“Oh, good.”

But her voice must’ve been distracted. Melisande looked at her sharply. “Have you seen him?”

Sadly, there was no need to explain who him was. “No.”

“I thought I saw him go out onto the terrace.”

Emeline glanced to where glass doors had been opened to let in the night breeze. She touched her friend’s arm. “Thank you.”

“Humph.” Melisande snapped her fan shut. “Be careful.”

“I shall.” Emeline was already turning away, moving through the crush.

A few steps farther and she was at the doors leading to the garden. She slipped through. Only to meet disappointment. There were several couples outside, strolling the stone terrace, but she didn’t see Samuel’s distinctive silhouette. She glanced around as she advanced, and then she felt him.

“You look lovely this evening.” His breath brushed her bare shoulder, raising goose bumps on her skin.

“Thank you,” she murmured. She tried to look in his face, but he’d caught her hand and tucked it in his elbow.

“Shall we stroll?”

The question was rhetorical, but she nodded anyway. The night air was a relief from the hot ballroom. The chatter of the guests faded as they crossed to wide steps leading into a gravel path. Tiny lanterns hung from the branches of fruit trees in the garden, and they sparkled like fireflies in the autumn dusk.

Emeline shivered.

His hand tightened on hers. “If you’re cold, we can go back in.”

“No, I’m fine.” She glanced at his shadowed profile. “Are you?”

He gave a soft snort. “More or less. You must think me an idiot.”

“No.”

They were silent then, their steps crunching on the gravel. Emeline had thought he might try to lead her off the path into the dark, but he kept to the proper, lighted ways.

“Do you miss Daniel?” he asked, and for a moment she misunderstood him, thinking he meant her dead husband.

Then comprehension flooded her. “Yes. I keep worrying that he might be having nightmares. They sometimes trouble him, as they did his father.”

She felt him glance at her. “What was his father like?”

Emeline looked down blindly at the dark path. “He was young. Very young.” She glanced at him quickly. “You must think that a silly thing to say, but it’s true. I didn’t realize it at the time because I was young, too. He was only a boy when we married.”

“But you loved him,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” she whispered. “Desperately.” It was almost a relief to admit it, how terribly she’d been in love with Danny. How prostrate with grief she’d been at his death.

“Did he love you?”

“Oh, yes.” She didn’t even have to think about it. Danny’s love had been easy and natural, a thing she’d taken for granted. “He said he fell in love with me at first sight. It was at a ball, like this one, and Tante Cristelle introduced us. She knew Danny’s mother.”

He nodded, not speaking.

“And he sent me flowers and took me for drives and did everything that was expected. I think our families were almost surprised when we announced the engagement. They’d forgotten that we weren’t already engaged.” Those days were golden but a little blurry now. Had she ever been that young?