To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(75)

“No. I think what you have to tell me is more important.” Melisande closed the old book and laid it aside. “What is it?”

“I’m leaving.” Emeline dropped into the chair opposite her friend. “Today.”

Melisande relaxed her rigid posture to lean back into her chair. Her eyes were hooded. “Has he hurt you?”

“Samuel? No!”

“Then why the haste?”

“I can’t...I can’t...” Emeline threw her hands up in frustration. “I can’t seem to resist him.”

“Not at all?”

“No!”

“That is interesting,” her friend murmured. “You’re usually so controlled. He must be a very—”

“Yes, well, he is,” Emeline said. “And what do you know of such matters? You’re supposed to be a maiden.”

“I know,” Melisande said. “But we’re discussing you. Have you thought what you’ll do if you’re increasing?”

Emeline’s heart seemed to stop dead at her fear spoken aloud. “I’m not.”

“Do you know that?”

“No.”

“So, if you are?”

“I shall have to marry him.” She said the words with dread, but inside her chest, something traitorous leapt with a forbidden joy. If she was pregnant, she’d have no choice, would she? Even with all her doubts and fears, she’d have to embrace the catamount.

“And if you’re not?”

Emeline thrust aside the traitorous emotions. She could not marry a colonial. “I’ll do what I’d always planned to do.”

Melisande sighed. “Will you tell Lord Vale about what happened during this house party?”

Emeline swallowed. “No.”

Melisande was looking down now, her face closed and impossible to read. “That is probably best if you want to make a life with him. A man often cannot take the truth.”

“Do you think me awful?”

“No. No, of course not, dear.” Melisande glanced up, a flicker of surprise crossing her face. “Why would you think that I’d judge you?”

Emeline closed her eyes. “So many would. I think I would, if I only heard the facts and not the people involved.”

“Well, I am not such a Puritan as you,” her friend said with pragmatic flatness. “But I do have one question. How will leaving here help your problem with Mr. Hartley?”

“The distance, don’t you see? If I’m not in the same house, or county, as he is, well, then I won’t be as susceptible to his...his...” Emeline waved her hands. “You know.”

Melisande looked thoughtful—and not altogether convinced. “And when he returns to London as well?”

“It’ll be all over. I’m sure time and distance will make a great difference.” Emeline said the words sturdily, as if she completely believed them, but inside she was not so certain.

And no matter her words, Melisande must’ve sensed the doubt. Her eyebrows were up almost to her hairline again. But her friend didn’t comment. She simply stood and gave one of her rare signs of affection.

Melisande drew Emeline into her thin chest and hugged her tightly. “Good luck, then, dear. I hope your plan works.”

And Emeline laid her head against her friend’s shoulder and prayed, eyes squeezed shut, that her plan would work. If it didn’t, she had nowhere else to run.

Chapter Fifteen

Murder! cried the guards. Murder! cried the lords and ladies of the court. Murder! cried the people of the Shining City. And all Iron Heart could do was clasp his head in his bloodied hands. The princess cried and begged, first to her mute husband that he might break his silence and explain what he had done, and then to her father for mercy, but in the end, it was no use. The king had no choice but to sentence Iron Heart to death by fire, the execution to be carried out before the next dawn....

—from Iron Heart

“It was a lovely party, wasn’t it?” Rebecca broke an hour’s silence with her tentative question.

Sam tore his gaze from the gloomy scenery rolling past and tried to focus on his younger sister. She was sitting across from him in their rented carriage, looking forlorn, which was his fault, he knew. It had been three days since Emeline had quit the house party so abruptly. He hadn’t even known she was gone until long after she hadn’t shown for luncheon on the day they’d made love in the corridor. By the time he discovered her flight, she’d had a two-hour start.

Still, he would’ve followed her if Rebecca hadn’t talked some sense into him. She’d begged him to stay, pointing out the scandal he’d create if he pursued Lady Emeline so soon after she’d left. Personally, he didn’t care two figs about possible wagging tongues. But Rebecca was a different matter entirely. She’d been spending quite a bit of time with several of the young ladies from good English families. Scandal would kill any budding friendships.

Sam had tamped down his raging need to hunt Emeline, catch her, and hold her until she came to her senses and stayed by him. He’d sat on his hands and made polite conversation with giggling girls and insipid matrons. He’d dressed in his best clothes, played idiot games, and ate overly rich foods. And at night he’d dreamed of her snapping tongue and her soft, warm breasts. For three days, he’d restrained himself, until finally members of the house party had begun to leave and Rebecca deemed it appropriate for them to depart Hasselthorpe House as well. It had been three days of hell, but that was hardly Rebecca’s fault, and he was a cad to be such a boring traveling partner.