A Lady's Taste For Temptation (Historical Regency Romance)

by Emily Honeyfield

  “Maybe that is for the best,” she said. “You know how the beaches can be mayhem, and you don’t want to be involved in that.”

  “But I don’t want to just sit there and watch,” Lady Emily said. “I can help with something I am not sure with what, but I know there is something I could help with.”

  “I know,” Catherine said. “I know. We should stay here though.”

  “Well, no, we could at least go to the cliffs,” Lady Emily said. “I just did not want you sitting here and waiting for us to have lunch if we were not going to come.”

  “You aren’t going to come at all?” Catherine said, and glanced at the food that was laid out. “But…”

  “I am sure we will be hungry,” Lady Emily said and looked at the spread of food. “We could pack it up and bring it to them.”

  “All of it?” Catherine said, as she looked doubtfully at the table.

  “I could hitch my horse to the carriage,” Lady Emily said. “And we could put everything in there.”

  “Do you know how to do that?” she asked.

  “No,” she said. “But I can figure it out.”

  Lady Emily saw this as the way she could help, especially given the fact that there was nothing else she could do. She started fiddling with the harness, and then moved towards the carriage.

  “I assume that the servants rode the horses back?” she said to Catherine.

  “Yes,” she said. “They said it was faster for them to ride them back and I said I wouldn’t need them for a while.”

  “So the servants are coming back?” Lady Emily said. “Good, that is extra horses if we need them.”

  “If we need?” she asked. “For what?”

  “Just in case some need medical care,” Lady Emily was talking quickly. She had no idea how to hitch the horse up and she was starting to wonder if she did not have the right pieces. Eventually she did it and she started to help Catherine load the food into the carriage.

  “How is Old Sam?” Catherine asked. She had known Sam for a long time as well, and she liked him very much.

  “He’s very well,” Lady Emily said. “He seemed quite happy, even as he told me about the shipwreck.”

  “I can only imagine living as long as Old Sam,” Catherine said. “What tales I would tell to my children and my grandchildren.”

  “I sometimes think about such things as well,” Lady Emily said. “And sometimes I wonder if I will even have children to tell the tales of my life to. What tales do I have right now?”

  “Of course you will have tales,” Catherine said. “That is my worse fear, Emmie, that there are no children and grandchildren surrounding me in my old age.”

  “Perhaps I have already had my chance,” Lady Emily said. “And it is gone now.”

  “No!” Catherine cried. “So many women marry twice or sometimes three times. All through history, this has happened. You cannot lose hope.”

  “I did not say I have lost hope,” Lady Emily said. “I am just perhaps being realistic.”

  Catherine gave her friend a sad look, but she didn’t say anything.

  “I think everything is hooked up,” Lady Emily said. “I will not go fast, because I am not entirely sure it is correct.”

  “You’ll ride in the carriage with me, won’t you?” Catherine asked, and Lady Emily shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll have to ride the horse.”

  “Ride the horse?” Catherine asked her, in shook. “No, you cannot. It’s too dangerous.”

  Lady Emily gave her a funny look.

  “No,” she said. “It’s not dangerous at all. It’s no more dangerous than just riding.”

  “I don’t want to be responsible if you are in danger,” Catherine said, and Lady Emily raised an eyebrow.

  “How would…” She paused. She knew that her friend was afraid of so many things. “Would it make you feel better if I walked the horse?”

  “Well…” Catherine paused. “I mean, yes, but…”

  “Then that is what I will do,” Lady Emily said. “Go ahead, get in the carriage.”

  “All right,” Catherine agreed. She sat down and Lady Emily started to lead her horse. There wasn’t enough room for both of them with all the food, and she was happy to walk, even if it was quite a while back to the point where the baroness was waiting.

  “Edward took charge,” Lady Emily said, as they walked. “He seemed to know what to do and he showed no fear.”

  “Oh,” Catherine said. “That is wonderful. He is always brave.”

  “He is, isn’t he?” Lady Emily turned to see if her friend was feeling anything beyond friendship for Edward. She respected her friend’s wishes and didn’t want to plant any seeds, but she wondered how Catherine could not notice Edward’s advances.

  She thought that men were often the most obvious creatures in the world when they wanted to be noticed. She had seen it so many times before, and she had just learned to shrug it off. Catherine, however, as far as she knew, was not aware of how obvious men could be. It seemed she was blind to those attempts.

  “Did you make any progress with Lord Reginald?” Catherine asked and she raised an eyebrow.

  “Progress?” Lady Emily said. “Why would I make progress? There is no progress to be made because I am still not open to the possibility.”

  “But what is the issue?” she asked. “He seems lovely.”

  “I know that he is lovely,” Lady Emily said. “But he is someone else’s husband.”

  Catherine gasped.

  “You mean he’s already married?” she asked.

  “No!” Lady Emily cried. She couldn’t help but laugh at the way Catherine had interpreted it. “Not like that.”

  “Really?” she said. “I am so confused.”

  “I mean…” she paused. “He is a lovely man and he will make some woman every happy. Some woman will find him enchanting. I do not.”

  “But there is nothing wrong with him,” Catherine said.

  “There is nothing wrong with him,” Lady Emily agreed. “But he does not set my heart on fire.”

  “Did Lord Hambleton set your heart on fire?” Catherine asked.

  “No,” Lady Emily said. “But that is the point, Catherine. I have already done that once. I have already paid my penance”

  “It’s not a penance,” Catherine said. “It is the reality of what many women are faced with.”

  “But I am not many women,” Lady Emily said. “And I know that my fate could be that way, but...there are some things I could do.”

  “Aren’t you worried that you will never end up marrying again?” Catherine asked. “You are 19 now, Emmie. And I have never married once. We might be spinsters.”

  “I understand,” Lady Emily said. “But Catherine, I would not be disappointed if I had to travel alone.”

  “Oh no,” Catherine gasped at her. “You wouldn’t go by yourself, would you?”

  “If I had to,” Lady Emily said. “I would.”

  “You would destroy your reputation,” she cried. “Do you know how horrible that would be? You cannot repair it.”

  “I would not destroy it,” she said. “Because I would not behave in a way that was questionable. I would still behave like a lady, just in a different...country or a different part of Britain.”

  “Do you not remember Countess Tessa?” Catherine said. Lady Emily turned to her.

  “That is different,” she said. “The countess was always wild.”

  “She was always wild,” Catherine said. “But she also behaved in a way that could have been acceptable...if she was in British society. But she travelled and travelled and when she returned, no one would marry her.”

  Lady Emily was confused.

  “She married a British officer,” she said. “Or a privateer, from what I remember.”

  The Countess Tessa was several years older than them, and she had been dead for quite some time. The women had only encountered her as children, although they often had discuss
ions about her. They admired her as children, because they did not realize the repercussion of her actions when they were young

  “She married a pirate,” Catherine cried. “Who called himself a privateer. But he was a pirate lord, and he was her only option.”

  “That is not the way I think it was,” Lady Emily said. “She married him because she loved him, from what I remembered. And everyone was up in arms, because it was a love marriage rather than a marriage for a title, even if her reputation was in question. A good marriage would have repaired all the rumours, but she didn’t mind. She didn’t want that. In her last few years, she was happy.”

  “But her reputation never recovered,” Catherine said. “And her title was dragged through the mud, and now it no longer exists.”

  “I think he’s still alive, actually,” Lady Emily said, and Catherine looked at her in shock.

  “Emmie, you aren’t thinking of modelling yourself on this woman, are you?”

  “I am not purposely trying to, no,” Lady Emily said. “But if it was to happen, I would not be the first woman in the world to do it.”

  “Emmie!” Catherine cried, appalled ‘You cannot say such things.”

  “I haven’t done anything right now,” Lady Emily said. “All I have said is that Lord Reginald is not the man I wanted to marry.”

  “I don’t know how you can make such decisions after a few hours,” Catherine said.

  “I have had a lot of time to think,” Lady Emily said.

  “I know,” Catherine lowered her tone. “I am sorry, Emmie. I am just worried for you.’

  “Don’t be worried about me,” Lady Emily replied with a smile. “I’ll be able to take care of myself. Lord Hambleton was good at teaching me what I am capable of.”

  “It does sound like you were lucky to have been married to him,” Catherine said. “Even if it was for a little while.”

  “I was,” Lady Emily replied. “I truly was.”

  They walked in silence for a few moments until Catherine spoke up again.

  “Did you think about him?” she asked. “At the shipwreck?”

  “Yes,” Lady Emily said. “I am sorry I let you see that side of me, though. I do not wish to present myself that way.”

  “I do not think you should hide such emotions,” Catherine replied. “There is no shame in feeling grief.”

  “There is no shame in it, but it is not something I wish to dwell on,” Lady Emily said. “After all, it isn’t as if I can do anything about it. You cannot change the past.

  “No,” Catherine said, sadly. “No, you cannot.”

  When they reached the cliff side, Catherine was afraid to look over the edge. Instead, she busied herself with the food. The baroness looked like she was starving, and came right over.

  “What took you so long?” she asked her.

  “What took me so long?” Catherine cocked an eyebrow. She wasn’t always brave, but there were some days where Lady Emily was very proud of her for the things that she said. “No one came to tell me what was happening. I thought that you were just all taking a long time at the hunt.”

  “No, not you,” the baroness looked slightly annoyed. “I meant Lady Emily.”

  “It was not an easy thing to do, bring all this food,” Lady Emily said. “And I wanted to make sure Catherine would not be too disturbed by the scene.”

  “But your husband was the one that...” Catherine started, and Emily shook her head.

  “Let’s talk about something happier,” she said. “Like Lunch. If the men are going to be down there, we could at least start.”

  “I agree,” the baroness said

  “Have there been any developments?” Lady Emily asked. She knew that she should probably look over the cliff’s edge, but the truth was, she was afraid. She had memories of how her husband might have died, and she didn’t think she could bring herself to look at what might have been that reality right now.

  As the other two tore into lunch, Lady Emily stared off into the forest that they had just come from. Her mind was overtaken by the day that she got the letter. She remembered it well.

  She had been home, in the home that they had lived in for only a few months. She was just waking up, and she remembered thinking of walking in the garden, or writing her husband a letter. She was in a good mood, and she remembered thinking just how pleasant her situation actually was. She didn’t have a love match, but she saw a future.

  And then the letter had come. There had been a knock on the door and when she opened it, she saw the men in uniform, and she knew what had happened. She didn’t need them to tell her and she didn’t need to read the letter, although they made her do it anyway, to say that she understood.

  They weren’t very good at telling her what she needed to do next. She knew there would be a pension to collect, and a funeral to plan. But they just left her there with the darkness of her mind.

  In the days that followed, Lady Emily hadn’t really thought about what she wanted to do, in terms of a future or moving forward. The only thing she knew was she couldn’t stay in that big beautiful house without him, and she didn’t want to. She didn’t necessarily prefer crowds, but she certainly didn’t want to be alone either. When her father had asked her to move back, she had accepted the offer willingly. She had decided that she wasn’t going to look for a husband; that she was perfectly happy and content with the way things were.

  She hadn’t expected her father to insist on looking for one for her. She hadn’t expected to be struck by the feelings of wanting to be an obedient daughter. And even if all those things came to pass, she certainly hadn’t expected someone to actually turn up.

  “Emmie?” Catherine asked. “Hello?”

  Lady Emily turned around with a smile.

  “Sorry,” she said. “My mind was a million miles away.”

  “I know,” Catherine replied. “I just asked if you were all right.”

  “I’m all right,” Lady Emily said. “I was just thinking of…”

  “I know what you were thinking of,” Catherine said, and gently put her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

  “Were you thinking of your deceased husband?” the baroness blurted out, always the paragon of decorum.

  “Yes,” Lady Emily said, not about to let her get the upper hand. “I was, as a matter a fact.”

  “I’m so sorry, my dear,” the baroness said. “I could never imagine the pain that you went through. I couldn’t imagine having to think about remarrying at your age. But you seem to be doing quite well for yourself. I mean, Lord Reginald…”

  “I have yet to seriously consider Lord Reginald,” she said. “The truth is, I barely know him.”

  “Oh my dear, you can’t do better than that,” the baroness said and Lady Emily’s eyebrows shot up in shock.

  “I can’t?” she asked.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “But look at him. He’s handsome and he’s brave and he’s of our...type.”