To Taste Temptation (11 page)

She shouldn’t care at all.

Mr. Hartley’s eyes had narrowed. There was no pity there. Not one trace of compassion. It was as if a tame tomcat suddenly showed the catamount that lurked always beneath the purring facade. As if she was his prey.

He nodded once and turned to discuss terms with Mr. Bentley. The civilized veneer was back in place, but Mr. Bentley was having to marshal all his wits to keep up with the American’s hard bargaining, and the sums of money that Mr. Hartley so casually mentioned were enough to raise even Emeline’s eyebrows. She had no doubt that this was the man who had made a fortune out of his uncle’s business in only four years.

As the men haggled, Emeline bent over the teapot, tracing its elegant lines, and thought about the ladies of the Colonies who would pour tea from the pretty little spout. And she wondered: Why exactly had Mr. Hartley brought her here?

What had he meant to show her besides a beautiful teapot?

“I
T’S JUST THAT
I’m not sure about the neckline.” Rebecca stared into the mirror and tried without success to tug up the material at her bodice. There seemed to be a vast amount of her own skin revealed in the mirror.

“It’s quite all right, miss.” Her maid, Evans, didn’t even glance up as she bustled about the room, collecting the debris from Rebecca’s toilet.

Rebecca tugged one more time at her bodice and then gave up. Evans had been personally recommended by Lady Emeline, and if the maid said it was required that Rebecca go to her first London ball nude, Rebecca would follow her suggestion. She’d been to many dances and social events in Boston, of course, but Lady Emeline had made it quite clear that a London ball was an entirely different matter.

All this trouble over her only served to make Rebecca feel guilty. It’d been she who had badgered Samuel into taking her on this trip. Now, he apparently felt obliged to spend great sums of money on her so she’d be entertained in London. It wasn’t exactly what she’d had in mind when she begged to accompany him. All she’d wanted was to spend some time with him. Perhaps learn to know her older brother just a little better. Rebecca wandered over to a chair as she thought.

“No,”
the maid called.

Rebecca froze in an unladylike half-crouch over the chair.

Evans gave a strained smile. “We don’t want to wrinkle our skirts, do we?”

Rebecca straightened. “But when I sit in the carriage, surely—”

“Can’t be helped, can it?” the maid chirped. “More’s the pity, really. I don’t know why these clever gentlemen don’t invent a method for a lady to travel to a ball standing up.”

“Oh, yes?” Rebecca murmured faintly.

Evans was a small, dark-haired woman who was dauntingly fashionable. Her panniers were so wide, she could hardly do her duties as maid. Actually, Rebecca was rather terrified of her.

Although the maid seemed to be trying to be friendly. “Perhaps we can go downstairs and rest in the small sitting room?
Not
in the hallway, of course. A lady should never be seen to hang about waiting for her carriage to arrive.”

“Of course.” Rebecca turned to the door, feeling rather relieved.

“Remember, we mustn’t sit!” her maid caroled after her.

“I wonder if
we
will be allowed to use the necessary,” Rebecca muttered to herself as she negotiated the stairs in her wide skirts.

She looked about guiltily to see if anyone had overheard her crass remark. The only person she could see was a single footman—the black-haired one—in the downstairs hall, and he stared straight ahead, apparently deaf to all that went on around him. Rebecca blew out a breath of relief. She continued down the stairs without incident until she came to the last step. There she somehow caught her heel on her hem and had a bad moment when she teetered ungracefully until she caught the banister with both hands. She froze, still clutching the wooden ball at the end of the stair banister, and glanced over at the footman. He was now looking at her, one foot forward as if he’d been about to leap to her rescue. When their gazes met, he withdrew his foot and resumed staring forward woodenly.

Oh, how embarrassing! She couldn’t even walk in her own skirts without falling down the stairs in front of the servants. Rebecca carefully placed both feet on the marble hallway and released the banister. She took a moment to smooth her skirts and then walked determinedly toward the doors to her right. The doors were tall and made of dark wood, and the handles were proportionately large. Rebecca grasped one and pulled.

Nothing happened.

Sweat broke out at her hairline. The black-haired footman would think she was an absolute ninny. Why did the man have to be so lovely? It was one thing to make an ass of oneself in front of an old, balding man, and quite another—

He cleared his throat directly behind her.

Rebecca yelped and swung around. The footman’s beautiful green eyes were wide and startled, but he merely said, “If I might, miss?”

He reached around her and pushed open the door.

Rebecca stared past the open door and into the library. Oh, Lord. “Actually, I believe I’ve changed my mind. I’d like the sitting room, please.” And she pointed behind him like a small, slightly backward child.

Fortunately, he didn’t seem to find her at all odd. “Aye, mum.” He pivoted and opened the door across the hall.

Rebecca held her head high and swanned across the hallway, but as she neared the footman, she could see quite plainly that his gaze was not where it should be. She stopped dead and slapped her hands over her bosom.

“It’s too low, isn’t it? I knew I shouldn’t have listened to that maid. She might not mind her boobies hanging out for all to see, but I just can’t—” Her brain suddenly caught up with her mouth. She removed her hands from her bosom and slapped them over her awful, awful,
awful
mouth.

And then she just stared at the gorgeous black-haired footman, who was staring back at her. There really wasn’t anything else to do, except possibly die right here in her brother’s London town house hallway, and that option, unfortunately, seemed very unlikely at the moment.

Finally, he cleared his throat again. “You’re the fairest lass I’ve ever seen, mum, and in that gown, you look just like a princess, you do.”

Rebecca blinked and cautiously removed her hands. “Really?”

“Swear on me mam’s grave,” he said earnestly.

“Oh, is your mother dead, too?”

He nodded.

“That’s a pity, isn’t it? My mother died when I was born, and I never knew her.”

“Me mam died two years ago this Michaelmas,” he said in a soft kind of burr.

“I’m sorry.”

He merely shrugged. “After me youngest sister was born. Eldest of ten, that’s me.”

She smiled up at him. “You don’t sound like the other servants.”

“That’s because I’m Irish, mum.” His green eyes seemed to twinkle at her.

“Then, why—”

But she was interrupted by her brother’s voice. “Are you ready to leave, Rebecca?”

She jumped and spun for the second time that night. Samuel stood three risers above her on the stairs.

“I wish you’d make some sort of noise when you move,” she said.

He raised his eyebrows, his gaze flicking to the footman. Rebecca followed his look and found that the black-haired footman stood against the wall again, his eyes straight ahead. It was as if he were a magical creature who’d turned back into wood.

“O’Hare, will you get the door?” Samuel asked, and for a moment Rebecca wondered to whom he spoke.

Then the black-haired footman jumped forward. “Sir.” He opened the door and held it as they walked outside.

Rebecca looked into his face as they passed, but his expression was perfectly blank, and the twinkle was gone from his green eyes. She sighed and laid her hand on Samuel’s arm as he led her down the steps to the carriage. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that she’d imagined her conversation with O’Hare the footman.

They settled into the carriage, and she noticed her brother’s attire for the first time. He wore a perfectly respectable dark green coat and breeches with a gold brocade waistcoat. Unfortunately, he’d chosen to wear his usual leggings and moccasins over his breeches.

“Lady Emeline will not approve of your leggings,” she remarked.

He glanced at his legs, and his lips quirked. “No doubt she’ll make her opinion known.”

She stared at his face, and a funny thought entered her head. Samuel smiled the same way O’Hare the footman did: with his eyes.

L
ADY
E
MELINE CONTAINED
herself for fully a minute after entering the carriage, which was a minute longer than Sam had estimated.

“What are you thinking to wear such things?” She scowled at his feet and legs.

“I believe I’ve told you before that they’re comfortable.” Probably she would scowl harder if she knew that he thought the expression was adorable. She wore an elaborately embroidered pale red gown with a yellow underskirt. The colors were gentler than those she usually employed, and although they became her, he preferred the flame reds and bold oranges.

She was an elegant lady of the London ton tonight, far removed from the woman who had accompanied him to a warehouse to inspect pottery. What had she thought of their outing? She’d seemed interested in his business transaction, but was it merely the novelty? Or did she perhaps feel the same communion of mind as he did?

Lady Emeline shook her head at him now, oblivious to the direction of his thoughts. Maybe she was beginning to realize the futility of arguing over his leggings. She turned on Rebecca instead. “Now, remember that you must not dance with anyone I have not expressly approved. Nor may you talk to anyone that I have not introduced you to. There will be men—I do not call them gentlemen—who have been known to break these rules, but you must not let them.”

Sam wondered if she was thinking of himself. She turned a gimlet eye on him, and he was made certain. He grinned back at her, his little ruffled hen. Lady Emeline sat beside her aunt, both ladies ramrod straight, although the older woman was nearly a head taller than her niece. The carriage rattled around a corner, making everyone inside sway. Beside him, Rebecca had wrapped her arms about herself.

He leaned close. “You look splendid. I hardly recognized you when I came down the stairs.”

Rebecca bit her lip and peeked up at him, and he was suddenly reminded of her as a little girl. She had looked at him thus when he’d visit her at their uncle’s house in Boston. He remembered her in a white cap and apron, standing shyly in Uncle Thomas’s dark hallway, waiting to greet him. He’d never known what to say to her when he’d visited—he’d come to Boston once or twice a year. His little sister had seemed such a foreign creature, a girl child brought up in the prim civilization of Boston society. All the things he knew—the forest, hunting and trapping, and eventually the army—were completely strange to her.

He blinked now, realizing that Rebecca had spoken to him. “What?”

She leaned close, her brown eyes vulnerable. “Do you think anyone will dance with me?”

“I’ll have to beat them off with a stick.”

She giggled and for a moment that little girl in the white cap shone in her eyes.

Mademoiselle Molyneux cleared her throat. “We are almost there,
ma petite
. Compose yourself so that you may present an appearance of gentility.” The old lady sent a sharp look at Rebecca’s skirts. “You have remembered to wear the shoes, yes?”

Rebecca blinked. “Yes, ma’am.”

“
Bon.
And here is the mansion.”

Sam looked out the window and saw a line of carriages creeping toward the Earl of Westerton’s town house. Lady Emeline was right: This was too grand a ball to be Rebecca’s first. But introducing his sister to society was only part of the reason he’d chosen this particular ball tonight. The other, more important half, was that he was on the hunt.

He waited patiently as their carriage crawled forward in line, listening with only a fraction of his attention to the female chatter within the carriage. Even now, when his entire being strained toward his goal, he was aware of Lady Emeline in particular. Without turning his head, he followed the cadence of her speech, the pauses and dips in tones. He knew when she glanced his way and could feel her puzzled curiosity in her gaze. She still wanted to know why he’d chosen this particular ball. He could tell her. It involved her brother as well. But something within him shrunk from revealing his true purpose.

The carriage door was flung open by a footman he didn’t know, and Sam’s eyes narrowed at the servant. That was a matter he must watch as well. He hadn’t missed how close O’Hare had stood to Rebecca earlier in the hallway. Sam met the footman’s gaze. This man immediately lowered his eyes, something O’Hare had failed to do. Sam admired courage, but he wondered how long a man could last as a servant with such a spirit.

Sam stepped down onto the cobblestones in front of the Westerton house and turned to help his sister and Mademoiselle Molyneux out. Only Lady Emeline remained in the carriage. She hesitated in the doorway, eyeing him suspiciously.

He smiled and held out his hand. “My lady.”