To Taste Temptation (Legend of the Four Soldiers #1)(62)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Thank you, Harris.”

Emeline peeked out the door, scanning the hallway before venturing forth again. She’d rather spend that half hour hiding in her room where it was relatively safe, but her presence would only impede Harris’s well-organized packing campaign. Besides, she couldn’t in all conscience leave so abruptly without talking to Melisande.

Her friend’s door was only a few down in the same hallway, and Emeline swiftly crept to it. Melisande should be downstairs already, waiting with the other guests, but she had a habit of arriving late to a gathering. Emeline had long suspected that her friend’s tardiness was a ruse to keep from having to engage in conversation. Melisande was rather shy, although she hid her affliction well beneath a carapace of aloofness and sarcasm.

Emeline scratched at the door. There was a rustle within, and then Melisande cracked the door. She cocked an eyebrow at the sight of her friend and held the door wide in silent invitation.

Emeline hurried inside. “Close the door.”

Her friend’s eyebrows winged higher. “Are we hiding?”

“Yes,” Emeline replied, and went to warm her hands by the fire.

She heard Melisande’s skirts rustling behind her. “I think it’s a Germanic dialect.”

“What?” Emeline turned to find Melisande seated in a wingback chair.

Her friend gestured to the book spread on her knees. “Your nurse’s book. I think it’s some type of Germanic dialect, probably spoken only in a small area, maybe only a village or two. I can try to translate it for you, if you like.”

Emeline stared at the book. Somehow it didn’t seem as important as it once had. “I don’t care.”

“Really?” Melisande fingered a page. “I’ve already figured out the title: Four Soldiers Returned from War and Their Adventures.”

Emeline was distracted. “But I thought it was a book of fairy tales?”

“It is, that’s the funny thing. These four soldiers all have the strangest names, like the one I told you about, Iron Heart, and—”

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Emeline said, and then felt awful when her friend’s face, unusually animated, shuddered. “I’m sorry, dear, I’m a beast. Do go on.”

“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.