To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(61)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Best be back to work,” Low Voice said. A shoe scraped against the passageway’s stone floor as the man evidently put away his pipe. “Haven’t looked in the cellar yet, have we?”

“Don’t be daft, man.” The footsteps were receding now. “The tennis things won’t be in the cellar.”

“You’re such a clever one, tell me where they are, then.” Low Voice’s words floated back down the hall to them, and then there was silence.

Oh, Lord. Samuel had never stopped moving his fingers within her or kissing her open mouth all this time, and now she felt the first tremors start. She broke away and gasped, biting her lip, so that she wouldn’t cry out loud.

But he withdrew his hand from her suddenly, catching her about the waist and lifting and shoving so that her rump balanced precariously on a barrel. Then he was between her legs, and she opened her eyes to watch him frantically rip at his breeches.

“God!” It was a groan. He freed himself and thrust into her, huge and hot, in the same movement. “God!”

She sank her nails into the cloth covering his shoulders and hung on for dear life, wrapping her legs high over his hips. He jerked rapidly in her, thrusting again and again and again. Her orgasm had not fully crested and now it began anew on a higher, sweeter, almost painful note. He had one hand braced flat against the wall by her head, one at her hip, and his cock buried deep in between her spread legs. She tore at his coat, ripping it off his upper arm, and filled her mouth with clean linen and his shoulder. Her eyes closed in bliss as she bit him. She clung to him while his cock took his pleasure of her. He rode her hard, rode her until she wanted to scream, rode her until he grabbed the back of her head and kissed her, his mouth wide and gasping as he came, his great body shaking. She could feel the heat of his seed flooding within her. And she knew, even as she crested the wave herself, she knew.

This must be the last time.

“MAY I TALK to you?” Emeline asked Jasper that afternoon. She’d caught him in an upper hallway. The guests were beginning to linger by the dining room in anticipation of a late luncheon.

“Of course.” He smiled his wide, slightly lopsided smile, and she could tell that he wasn’t really paying attention to her.

“Jasper.” She touched his sleeve.

He stopped and turned to her, his bushy eyebrows knit. “What?”

“It’s important.”

His eyes searched hers. So often they were vague or camouflaged behind the fool he liked to play. It was rare for him to look clearly, for her to see the man who lurked beneath the mask. Now, though, he was looking at her. Really looking at her. “Are you all right?”

She took a breath, and to her own astonishment, the truth escaped her lips. “No.”

He blinked, then raised his head to glance around the hallway. They were at the back of the house, but there were still people about, footmen and maids bringing in the luncheon, guests assembling in the next room. He took her hand and pulled her through a doorway into another passage. Several doors lined the hall here, and he seemed to pick one at random. He opened it and stuck his head in.

“This’ll do.” He pulled her inside and shut the door behind them. It was a small sitting room or office, evidently unused because the fireplace was empty and sheets covered most of the furniture. He folded his arms. “Tell me.”

Oh, how she wanted to! The urge to simply spill all her secrets was nearly overpowering. What a relief it would be if she could tell him everything and he would pat her shoulder and say, “There, there.”

Except he wouldn’t. Jasper might be the closest thing she had to a brother, he might be scandalously liberal about love affairs and matters of the flesh, but when you came right down to it, he was a viscount. He was expected to sire an heir to a very old and very respected family. The knowledge that his fiancée had been meeting secretly with another man would not bring him joy. He might hide it, but in the end, Emeline very much feared that he would care.

So she pasted on a smile and lied. “I can’t stand it here anymore. I really can’t. I know I should be more patient and bear with Lady Hasselthorpe and her awful conversation and this dreadful house party, but I can’t. Do you think you could take me back to London, Jasper? Please?”

His face as he watched her make this speech was disconcertingly blank. Odd that such a manic man, a man with many comical expressions should, when he chose, be utterly impossible to read. But when she came to the end and there was an awful dead silence, he suddenly sprang forward, his face animated once more as if a toymaker had turned the key on a very clever windup toy.

“Naturally, dear Emmie, naturally! I shall have my bag packed in a thrice. Can our flight wait for the morning, or…?”

“Today, if you don’t mind. Now, please.” Emeline nearly wept with relief when he simply nodded.

He leaned forward and bussed her cheek. “I’d best alert Pynch.” And he strode off.

Emeline paused a moment to gather her sensibilities. Horrible, this constant feeling of losing control over her emotions. She’d always thought of herself as a levelheaded woman. The unemotional one, the one who others leaned on. She’d hardly wept when Father had died; she’d been too busy packing up Tante Cristelle, overseeing the succession of the estate to the next earl, and settling their decimated family in London. Then people had been admiring, almost awed by her good sense and stoicism. Now she was like an infant—shook by whatever emotion stormed over her.

She made her way back to her room, always alert like some woodland animal afraid of the hunter. And that was quite apropos, wasn’t it? Samuel was a hunter—a good one, too. He’d hunted her down this morning, chased her into a corner, and had had his way with her. She grimaced. No, that wasn’t exactly right. Samuel might’ve chased her, but she’d been thrilled to be caught; and while he’d had his way with her, she’d been having her way with him. That was the real problem. She had no defenses against the man. She’d never thought of herself as being a slave to the flesh, but here she was fleeing a man because she could not withstand his advances. Evidently she’d been a wanton all these years and not even known it. Either that, or it was the man involved.

But she pushed that thought away as she entered her room. Harris was supervising the packing of all her things with the help of two maids from the house.

The lady’s maid looked up as Emeline entered. “We shall be ready in a half hour more, should it please your ladyship.”