Taste of Temptation (48 page)

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Authors: Cheryl Holt

Tags: #Romance - Historical, #American Light Romantic Fiction, #General, #Romance, #Fiction, #Fiction - Romance, #Love stories, #Romance: Historical, #Historical, #American Historical Fiction, #Regency novels, #Regency fiction

BOOK: Taste of Temptation
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“And if that doesn’t work?”
Odell waved the vial. “A little magic should be just the ticket.”
 
 
“HELEN, have you finished your tea?”
A flurry of giggles followed the question, and Helen scowled at Rose and Amelia. They were out in the hall and peeking into Helen’s sitting room as if they were spying on her.
It was the fourth time they’d pestered her about the tea, and she knew they were up to mischief, but she couldn’t figure out what plot they were hatching.
“Yes, I’m finished.”
“Would you like some more?”
“I’ve had plenty.”
The reply brought on another spate of giggles, which was interrupted by a knock on the front door.
“Who could that be?” Amelia was all wide-eyed innocence.
“I can’t imagine.” Rose looked just as guilty.
As they raced down the stairs to learn the identity of their visitor, Helen went to the window and peered down in the street, curious herself as to who had arrived. There was a horse tethered to the fence, but it provided no clue as to its rider. With all the merchants who had been stopping by, checking to be certain she had all she required, it could be anyone.
Captain Odell had been good at his word. He’d arranged a small house in a quiet neighborhood. It was comfortable and cozy, fully furnished, and staffed by a competent group of servants. She even had a carriage and driver at her disposal if she had errands to run.
Helen understood how the world worked: When your sister wed a rich man, your fortunes improved dramatically, but still, she felt like an intruder.
She kept expecting to be tossed out into the road, and she spent hours every day staring outside. She watched the people passing by, and it seemed as if everybody was moving forward except her.
She had nothing to do. The servants needed no supervision. She prepared lessons for Rose and Amelia, but both girls were so smart that classes were short and instruction limited. She’d promised Odell that she wouldn’t search for a job.
So she was ... waiting ... for something to happen.
She wished Jane would return from Scotland so that Helen could resolve how she was to carry on.
In the hectic interval surrounding the elopement, a brutal and unwelcome detail had been overlooked: Jane was now wife to Captain Odell’s brother, and the ramifications for Helen were monumental. For the rest of Helen’s life, she would be thrust into social situations with Odell, and she couldn’t bear the notion.
After reviewing her options, it was apparent that she had to retire to the country so she would be far away from events. She hoped Lord Hastings had a tenant’s cottage where she could live like a hermit, cut off from news and family.
At the prospect of being separated from Jane, of being alone and isolated, she was overcome by a wave of dizziness. Suddenly, she was very hot, the tea she’d ingested gurgling in her stomach. It tickled her innards, and she laughed at the sensation, as if she was slightly intoxicated. She sank into a chair and grabbed a napkin from the tea tray, and she vigorously fanned her heated face.
The girls scampered up the stairs, and Amelia poked her head in.
“You have a caller.”
“
I
do?”
“Yes. Guess who it is.”
“I haven’t a clue.”
Amelia opened the door, and Captain Odell stepped through. On observing him, Helen’s heart did a little flip-flop, and she was greatly annoyed by it.
She wasn’t a lovestruck adolescent. She wasn’t like Jane, who’d been swept off her feet and was too overwhelmed to think logically. She was a pragmatic, rational adult who knew better than to be thrilled, yet she was delighted by his arrival.
Since she’d moved out of Lord Hastings’s town house, she hadn’t seen Odell. He hadn’t visited or sent any notes of inquiry as to her condition. Initially, she’d been hurt by his disregard, but then, she’d realized that there was no reason for him to check on her.
In their last conversation, she’d been very clear.
He wasn’t the man she’d presumed him to be, and though he’d been eager to continue their illicit affair, she would countenance no further association. She’d sufficiently humiliated herself over him, and her ridiculous infatuation was at an end.
“She’s had her tea,” Amelia mysteriously informed him, “but there’s still some in the pot, if you decide she needs more.”
Amelia winked, and he winked back, and she shut the door and left. A silence descended that was so intense it was almost frightening.
She gathered her wits and stumbled to her feet, the peculiar dizziness keeping her off balance as she gestured to a chair.
“Won’t you sit?”
“No, thank you,” which meant she couldn’t sit, either.
“Why have you come?” she asked. “Is there a problem?”
He approached until he was directly in front of her, and she didn’t like him to be so close. Oddly, since she’d drunk her tea, her senses were heightened. She could smell his skin, and the fact that she could reminded her of why she knew his scent so well: Knowledge had been gained through immoral contact.
Her cheeks flushed with chagrin.
“I’m leaving London,” he said without warning.
“Leaving?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Today. I’m traveling to the country to inspect a property I just purchased, then I’m off to Scotland.”
“I see.”
She tried to maintain a bland expression, but detachment was difficult. The announcement was distressing, but she couldn’t figure out why it would be. What was it to her if he departed? She should be glad. She should be celebrating.
“I wanted you to hear some important news from me,” he kept on, “before you hear it from anyone else.”
“What is it?”
“I bought your father’s estate, the one where you grew up.”
“From the duke?”
“Yes.”
He’d bought her childhood home? He’d done business with the man who had killed her father in a duel? Who had acquired all of Harry’s debts and foreclosed? Who had thrown Harry’s indigent daughters out on the road?
He’d bought it from
that
man?
“How ... marvelous for you.”
“I rather thought so. I got an especially good deal on it, too. The pompous ass didn’t really want it, and I expect—when he finds out who I’m bringing to live there with me—it will gall him to infinity.”
Was he referring to Lydia? To one of his mistresses?
Helen was so stunned that she worried she might faint.
“I purchased it sight unseen,” he said, “but it’s supposed to be lovely.”
“Yes, it’s very lovely,” she tightly replied.
“I’m in a rush to take possession, but before I go, I have a few things to tell you.”
The spurt of euphoria she’d suffered when he’d entered the room had vanished. She felt ill and simply wished he would leave and never return.
“There’s nothing you could say that I would care to hear.”
“I’m going to talk anyway, and you’re going to listen.”
She recognized his mulish attitude. He wouldn’t desist till he’d gotten his way.
“All right,” she fumed. “Please be brief.”
“When I’m finished, don’t you dare say that you don’t believe me.”
“I’ll believe you if I deem you to be credible, but you should know that your reputation for veracity is on thin ice with me.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He looked very much the ship’s captain he was, feet braced, hands clasped behind his back. His gaze was very powerful, very hypnotic. She wanted to glance away, but couldn’t.
That pesky tea sloshed in her stomach again, her surroundings fading into the distance until there was only him and her and no one else in the whole world.
“I understand,” he said, “that you had some unpleasant communications with Maud Seymour to which I wasn’t privy.”
“I did.”
“I also understand that she might have insinuated several details about my character that you chose to believe—without asking me if they were true.”
“I didn’t need to ask you. There was a witness to verify Seymour’s account.”
“First of all,” he seethed, his temper sparking, “while I’ve never claimed to be a saint, I have never kept a mistress. Not in London. Not in Edinburgh. Not anywhere.”
“A likely story,” she scoffed.
“Be silent!” he commanded. “Over the past few weeks, you’ve ranted and raved and insulted me, and I’ve bit my tongue through every lashing. Now it’s my turn.”
“Fine. Have at it.”
“I have no children.” He started counting on his fingers, tabulating the sins she’d committed against him. “I have no idea who Tim and Ruth are. I met the housemaid Lydia when I arrived in London last winter. Other than the fact that she was a servant, whom I occasionally caught flirting with Lord Hastings, I scarcely know her. She was never my governess, and I have no nephew in Edinburgh.”
She studied his eyes, his posture, his demeanor. Not by the slightest sign was there any indication of deceit. Her head began to pound as she tried to unravel his words.
She remembered that day in the library at Hastings Manor. Seymour had been so sure, Lydia so convincing. Seymour had produced a ... file assembled by a Bow Street runner. Who wouldn’t have believed them?
“You’re saying it was all a lie?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. If you’d had the courtesy to ask me, instead of skulking around and imagining the worst, we could have avoided all this turmoil.”
“You didn’t travel to London to visit your mistress?”
“No.”
“You weren’t going to Edinburgh to visit your other one?”
“No,” he said more forcefully. “When Michael and I came to London, I went straight to my ship, to wait for cargo to be loaded, but we didn’t leave for Scotland.” He paused. “I
couldn’t
leave.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m getting married. Why do you suppose I bought a house?”
“For your bride?”
“Yes, if she’ll have me.”
In light of how much she’d once cared about him, it was a cruel blow. She was aghast and couldn’t hide her dismay.
“You have someone in mind?”
“Yes. It’s the reason I purchased the property—so that I have a benefit to offer besides myself. I don’t presume I’m much of a prospect as a husband, so I wanted to put more on the table during any proposal.”
She tried to compute the number of hours that had passed since she’d assumed he loved her, to this horrid moment where he’d already moved on to someone else—someone he was eager to ... to ... wed.
There was a chair directly behind her, and she plopped down into it and stared at the floor, feeling again as if she might faint.
“You’re looking a bit peaked, Miss Hamilton.”
“My stomach is upset. It must be something I ate.”
“Why don’t you have more tea? Monsieur Dubois insists that it will cure what ails you, while Mr. Dudley simply nags that I should hurry up and do the right thing.”
She frowned and peered up at him. “What did you say?”
“I said: Have some more tea. Dudley claims it will work wonders for your disposition.”
He poured her a cup and held it out to her. With trembling hands, she took it. A shushed giggle whispered by, as if Rose and Amelia were peeking through the keyhole.
“You seem distraught,” he mentioned. “Why are you? Might it be because you don’t like to learn that I’m marrying?”
“It doesn’t really matter to me one way or another.”
“Liar. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were jealous, and you could only be jealous if you still had feelings for me.”
“I don’t,” she fibbed. “I don’t have any feelings for you at all.”
Yet as she spoke the falsehood, the room faded again, and she experienced the strangest vision, a compendium of scenes from earlier in the summer: afternoons spent watching for him, hoping to see him down the hall or to hear his tread on the stair; nights of torrid passion, when she’d felt so vibrant and joyful, as if she might live forever.
How had she lost it all? Could she get it back?
“Drink the rest of your tea, Helen.” His voice came from far away.
As if she were paralyzed, he pressed the cup to her lips, and he tipped it until she’d downed the entire contents.
Gradually, the odd dimming waned. Reality returned, and he took her hand and went down on bended knee.
“There is one other thing I need to say,” he told her.

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