The Price of Temptation

by Lecia Cornwall

  Evelyn dug her nails into her knee and forced herself to smile. “I’ll see to it myself.”

  Charlotte shrugged. “Well, I suppose since you have nothing else to do—are you going to eat that last bun?”

  “Please, enjoy it. You are a guest in my home,” Evelyn said pointedly, but Charlotte didn’t notice. When the cakes were gone, she rose to leave.

  “I cannot tarry. I must go and pay a comforting call on poor Lucy, and visit my modiste. I believe my maid washed several of my best gowns incorrectly and shrank the lot of them. None of them fit the way they did a few weeks ago. I cannot tell you how I long to have Miss Trask back with me again, but she is, of course, now indispensable to you.”

  “I’m sure she would be glad to return to Somserson House. Her talents are going to waste here, ” Evelyn hinted.

  But Charlotte had already set sail toward the door, full of cream cakes and empty of further conversation.

  “Do send me a copy of the menu for dinner, Evelyn. I shall advise you if it is lacking in any way.”

  “I believe I can assure you that the evening will go off without the slightest misstep, Charlotte.”

  “I do hope so. Somerson’s half sister has been raised in strict seclusion in the country. She has no knowledge of treason, sin, or fancy dishes. Plain fare and dull conversation are what’s wanted.”

  Evelyn forced a smile. How could it be dull, with the traitor’s wife entertaining a viscount, a countess, and an unwanted girl who had just lost her mother, all strangers to her?

  Fortunately, Sam would be there, helping to serve the meal, teasing her with secret glances, waiting as eagerly as she for the tedious evening to be over so they could go upstairs. The strictures of a formal dinner party would only heighten their desire.

  Evelyn smiled. She would gladly put up with a dozen dull country viscounts for dinner if she could have Sam for dessert.

  Chapter 29

  Sinjon was trimming the wicks of a dozen lamps and packing up baskets of candles to be distributed to each room. The rich fragrance of beeswax, a luxury that Evelyn insisted upon, reminded him of the scent of the bedroom they shared, the honey sweetness of the wax mixing with her perfume and the deeper odors of sex. He glanced at the clock and tried to think of something else.

  “Her ladyship has been in a very fine mood of late,” Mary said. “She gave me a dozen yellow ribbons this morning, and she was smiling as she did so!” She patted the golden band around her bodice. “I hear every lady at the Somerson ball was dressed in yellow. Who could be melancholy dancing the night away in such a happy color? That ball did Lady Evelyn a great deal of good, if you ask me. I’ve never seen her as happy as she’s been lately.”

  Sinjon hid a smile.

  Mrs. Cooper, aware that Charlotte was upstairs, piled more cream buns on a plate, making ready in case a second helping was needed. “I agree. Her ladyship is looking lovely of late, but it’s good, wholesome food, not dancing. My strawberry tarts are what’s put the roses back in her cheeks, and there’s nothing like fresh eggs, butter, and beef to put meat on her bones and a smile on her face.”

  Sinjon looked at the cream buns, imagined other, more daring uses for whipped cream that would make Evelyn smile.

  Annie looked up from peeling a turnip. “It’s certainly not turnips. Or beet roots.”

  Penance Trask entered the kitchen. “Countess Charlotte will not require any more buns. She has left for today.”

  Mrs. Cooper blew out a sigh of relief and set the plate down amid the servants. “Well, then, we mustn’t let these go to waste. Sal, put the kettle on.”

  “We were discussing how happy Lady Evelyn is looking, Miss Trask,” Mary said, trying to ingratiate herself with the companion. “What is your opinion of the reason for it?”

  Penance preened. “I believe the credit belongs entirely to me. I read to her every day from improving books. They fortify the mind, and do the soul a world of good. Inner strength shows upon the face. I have improved her thoughts, and therefore, her countenance is also improved.”

  Sinjon’s lips rippled. If Penance Trask had any idea of the direction of Evelyn’s thoughts, her own countenance would be as purple as Annie’s beets.

  Sal set the kettle on the fire. “If you ask me, there’s only one thing that makes a woman sparkle like that,” she said. “And that’s a man.”

  Sinjon nearly lopped off his finger instead of the charred end of the lamp wick.

  Shocked silence fell over the kitchen for a moment, then laughter erupted. Mrs. Cooper chortled. Annie giggled. Mary snickered. Penance Trask snorted.

  “A man! She hasn’t been out of this house for a week, and her only visitors are ladies!” Miss Trask said. She took a small notebook out of her pocket. “Countess Westlake and Viscountess Frayne were here on Monday last. Countess Eloisa has called twice, and of course my own mistress Countess Charlotte was here this morning. Her visits are sure to have a salubrious effect on Lady Evelyn. She is a lady who knows how to enjoy the simple pleasures of life—”

  “Like a pound of butter and two pints of cream,” Mrs. Cooper muttered.

  Penance ignored her. “In fact, I have a treatise on the value of feminine companionship I think I shall read to Lady Evelyn this afternoon—”

  “What do you think, Sam?” Sal interrupted, and every female eye in the room turned on him. “Have you got any idea why Lady Evelyn has been so much happier lately?”

  Sin.

  His chest tightened as he looked at each woman, but there was no suspicion in anyone’s eyes, just simple curiosity.

  If he told them the truth, they’d swoon like a pack of overfed dowagers in undersized corsets. Or they’d call him a liar. Who’d believe a lady like Evelyn would keep a secret like him?

  “We’ve been enjoying excellent weather,” he said. “Her ladyship has been able to ride in the park nearly every morning.”

  And at night, she was enjoying an entirely different kind of ride.

  His body twitched at the memory of Evelyn, naked in his arms, urging him to go faster.

  “But it could be the morning chocolate you make for her, Mrs. Cooper. I have heard that chocolate is very beneficial to a lady’s nerves.”

  He served her a pot of steaming chocolate this morning, and had stolen a kiss, right there in the breakfast room, tasting the rich sweetness on her lips, her tongue, and in her sigh of longing.

  “I make it with cinnamon and a touch of sweet cream,” Mrs. Cooper said, blushing at the praise.

  Sinjon smiled at Mary next. “Dancing is a pleasant pastime. There’s nothing lovelier than a country lass, flushed pink and pretty from dancing at a country fete or a harvest ball. More ladies should take up vigorous dancing.”

  Making love to Evelyn was a kind of dance. In a few short weeks together, they’d learned the steps that best pleased them both, enhanced them. Every night was different, thrilling, an exhilarating waltz.

  He looked at Sal. She was waiting for him to confirm that only a man could make a woman feel the way Evelyn looked—radiant and beautiful. Loved.

  He felt a jolt of surprise.

  Loved? Surely there was a better, lesser word to describe what he felt for Evelyn, but his tongue tied itself in a knot. Admired, perhaps? Esteemed? Neither of those polite descriptions captured it.

  Starling’s arrival saved him from the need to reply. “I have wonderful news,” he said with a broad smile. “We’re to have a dinner party here at Renshaw House!”

  Mrs. Cooper squealed, and was suddenly radiant herself. Her face bloomed like a garden, pink, then fuchsia, then red, then purple with pleasure. “When?” the cook cried. “How many guests?”

  She lovingly stroked the scrubbed surface of the kitchen table, as if it was an artist’s canvas awaiting inspiration. “It has been over a year since our last dinner party. I must go to the butcher’s and bespeak a leg of lamb at once! It’s Lady Evelyn’s favorite. We’ll need spices, and I’ll need to send to the country for fre
sh fruit, and partridges. How fast can we get a Scottish salmon?”

  “Six days if he walks fast,” Sinjon quipped, but no one heard him.

  “I was not informed that there was anything to celebrate,” Miss Trask sniffed. “Is there an occasion?”

  “Indeed. Countess Charlotte has relatives coming to visit. Lady Evelyn has graciously agreed to host a dinner to welcome them to London,” Starling explained.

  Graciously agreed, or was coerced? Sinjon wondered.

  “Will there be dancing?” Mary asked.

  “What about gentlemen?” Sal put in. “They always bring coachmen and footmen with them.”

  “I understand there is to be no more than six people for dinner,” Starling said.

  Mrs. Cooper deflated. “Such a small gathering! I can recall when fifty made an intimate party in this house.”

  Miss Trask tucked her notebook back into her pocket. “I’d better go upstairs at once. Lady Evelyn will want me to write the invitations. I have perfect penmanship.”

  “That will have to wait until tomorrow, Miss Trask,” Starling said. “Her ladyship is going out. It is her day to deliver things to the Foundling Hospital. Sam, you will accompany her, carry the bundles.”

  Sinjon wiped the lamp oil off his fingers, still wondering what had convinced Evelyn to entertain, and who her guests might be. Dull aunts or cousins probably, foisted on her by her sisters, as one of their “good works” on Evelyn’s behalf.

  He went out to order the coach prepared for her errand.

  However boring the evening might be, it would end upstairs, in bed, tangled in the sheets.

  Sinjon frowned. Thinking about making love to Evelyn had become an obsession. It was almost impossible not to touch her or kiss her when he saw her during the day.

  Even now, standing in the yard waiting for the coach, he was sporting an extremely inconvenient erection. He seemed to be permanently in that state, every time he thought of her, or heard her voice, or caught the scent of her perfume in an empty room, or served her breakfast. A hundred ordinary activities, all made erotic by the secret they shared.

  By the time they met at night, he was like a starving man who had been awaiting a banquet. Making love a dozen times a night wasn’t enough.

  He glanced up at the window of the little bedroom, their secret love nest. How long could it last? He had been with Evelyn longer than any woman. Weeks. Soon, they would tire of each other. There would be fewer and fewer nights together, until there were none at all.

  Would she find another man? That idea bothered him more as the days went on.

  He climbed on the back of the coach and rode around to the front door to wait for her.

  He wasn’t possessive or jealous. In fact, he usually grew bored with his bedmates once the conquest was made. He couldn’t leave them fast enough.

  With Evelyn, he was content to watch her sleep, and he actually liked her conversation. He wondered what she was thinking, tried to read each fleeting, fascinating expression that crossed her face.

  It was damned uncomfortable, and dangerous, to feel this way for any woman, especially the wife of a traitor.

  The front door opened and Evelyn descended the steps, peeping at him from under her bonnet, trying not to smile, and all he could think was how beautiful she was, and how much he wanted her.

  Chapter 30

  Evelyn tried not to look at Sam as he held the door of the coach for her, but she was aware of his eyes on her, and it made her melt with desire. She could smell the fine wool of his livery, and she longed to bury her nose in his shoulder, to smell his skin, feel his arms around her. If she looked at him now, she’d be lost.

  The touch of their gloved hands was proper and impersonal, an ordinary exchange between a footman and lady, but even that slight contact made her breathless. She couldn’t help but glance up at him, wanting to see the desire in his eyes, but except for the slightly suggestive lift of one eyebrow, it was as if there was no such thing as Evelyn and Sam.

  She felt the cold steel of disappointment, let it give her the strength to let go of his hand and climb into the coach.

  Evelyn felt the vehicle tilt as he climbed onto the back, just the way the bed shifted as he joined her there, or rose to leave her in the pale light of dawn.

  A gasp of longing caught in her throat. Could she ever have enough of him? She hesitated a moment before knocking on the roof, half considering inviting Sam to ride inside where she could touch him. But their intimacy belonged in the dark, behind locked doors, secret and forbidden.

  She signaled the coachman, and the vehicle jerked forward.

  She looked at the bundle of linens, shirts, and cast-off gowns that Sal and Mary had helped her sort. She had picked the monograms out of the cuffs of Philip’s shirts herself, taking wicked pleasure in every stitch she unraveled, knowing that a poor man or even a beggar might wear her husband’s expensive shirts. How Philip would hate that. She wished she could snip away the threads that tied her to Philip as easily, undo her marriage as if it had never been.

  A quiet fantasy had filled her mind of late, a dream of a cottage by the sea with a little plot of land, or a thatched house by a rushing stream in a country village. She’d live the rest of her life there with Sam, a peaceful, simple existence. As long as she had him in her bed at night and at her side during the day, she would be happy.

  She looked at the heavy gold wedding band on her left hand, Philip’s brand upon her, the shackle that bound them together. Taking it off, she let the sun glint through it, was surprised at how light and free she felt without it.

  She pushed it into her pocket instead of replacing it on her finger.

  Sinjon handed Evelyn out of the coach at the Foundling Hospital, trying not to notice how she caught her lip between her teeth when he touched her, how his body responded.

  A short, ruffled gentleman raced down the steps to meet the coach, pulling on his russet coat and babbling his delight at Evelyn’s visit. Children stared at them from the windows of the brick building, wide-eyed and white-faced.

  Sinjon wished he had a pocket full of coins or sweets to share with them. He grinned at them, and they scattered like leaves in the wind.

  He took the heavy bundle out of the coach.

  “How generous, Lady Evelyn!” the russet gnome gushed. He glanced at Sinjon and pointed. “Take it ’round the side, if you please.” He offered his arm and led Evelyn up the steps to the front door.

  Sinjon carried Evelyn’s donation around to a door that stood open to catch the breeze.

  Inside, a girl was sweeping the floor. She looked at him and his burden without much interest and set the broom aside.

  “This way,” she said dully, as if she fully expected the parcel to contain what it did, shirts and old linens, when she wanted sweets and lace gowns.

  He followed her down the ill-lit passageway, listening to the sounds of children’s voices and shuffling footsteps. There was no laughter or singing. This place was childhood’s antithesis, despite the fact that the children were fed, dressed, and housed. He supposed there was some comfort in that, but he remembered his own boyhood, spent outdoors, fishing or swimming or running through the woods on late spring days like this one, and he regretted that these children would never know that freedom.

  “In here,” the girl said, and swept back a curtain for him, exposing the shelves and baskets of a small storage room. The tattered threads of the concealing drapery dragged over his cheek as he passed through and caught on the wool of his coat, begging for notice. Was everything in this place so needy?

  He glanced up impatiently and saw the shimmer of old silk, faded and fraying at the edges. It was a fancy curtain for such a place. He wondered what service it had seen before it was forced to give way to modern times and new styles, and ended up here.

  Most ton matrons redecorated annually if the budget allowed, or every other year if it did not. It was an unwritten but strictly held female law that a lady’s drawing r
oom curtains must be every bit au courant as her gowns, and she would certainly not be seen in the same dress more than twice.

  The girl opened the bundle with work-reddened hands and began sorting the contents. The white linen was stark in the gray shadows of the little storeroom. Sinjon stood where he was in the doorway.

  He glanced again at the curtain, noting the careful embroidery upon it and the once colorful fringe. Wrinkles and small handprints marked the places where it had recently seen service as a handkerchief or a napkin. There were letters stitched on it in gold thread, and he ran his finger over them.

  His gut clenched.

  He’d seen this curtain before. He unfastened it, let it fall, and stepped back to look at it.

  “Hey!” the girl croaked, left in the dark.

  Sinjon barely heard her.

  An army of avenging angels and ivory doves flew above a fierce knight in shining silver armor. His sword was raised high over his head, radiating the embroidered Latin words Purity, Courage, and Victory.

  Sinjon swallowed, his knees weakening. He’d seen this flag before, met this knight, faced him across the field of battle. In his mind he heard the sound of drumbeats, felt the bone deep thunder of enemy troops approaching. The deafening crash of musket and artillery fire mingled with the screams of the dying.

  He licked his teeth, expecting to taste the acrid dust of a Spanish battlefield, but this was London, not Spain. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, but it was true.

  He was staring at the Gonfalon of Charlemagne.

  Chapter 31

  “Lady Evelyn!” a familiar voice called as Evelyn finished her visit. She turned and saw Anne O’Neill hurrying toward her.

  “Miss O’Neill, how lovely to see you.”

  “I was delivering some sewing for the littlest ones,” Anne said, pointing to the empty basket on her arm. She looked careworn and tired.

  “Have you had news of your brother?” Evelyn asked, concerned.