To Taste Temptation by Elizabeth Hoyt

Author:Elizabeth Hoyt
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Mystery
ISBN: 9780446406918
Publisher: Forever
Published: 2008-05-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

So all of the things that the old wizard had promised came to pass. Iron Heart lived in a wonderful castle with Princess Solace as his bride. He had purple and crimson clothes to wear, and there were servants everywhere to wait upon him. Of course, he still could not speak, for that would break the promise he’d made the wizard, but Iron Heart found that silence was not such a very bad hardship. After all, a soldier is rarely asked his opinion….

—from Iron Heart

“That scowl on your face does not become you,” Melisande murmured the next morning.

Emeline tried to smooth her forehead, but she had a feeling her irritation still showed through. She was watching Samuel, after all. “I wish you had come down yesterday instead of today.”

Melisande raised an eyebrow fractionally. “Had I known that you would pine for my company, I would’ve, dear. Is that why your mood is so gray?”

Emeline sighed and interlocked her arm with her friend’s. “No. My mood has nothing at all to do with you except as you make me feel calmer.”

They stood on the long mown lawn at the back of Hasselthorpe House. Half of the house party had assembled here for target shooting, the other half having chosen to go into the nearby town to see what sights there were. Painted canvas targets were being erected at the far end of the lawn by footmen. Behind the targets were straw bundles to catch the balls that were fired. The gentlemen who intended to participate were standing about showing off their weapons to admiring ladies who were, of course, to be the audience.

“Mr. Hartley’s gun is awfully long,” Melisande commented. “No doubt that is why you are glaring at him so ferociously.”

“Why does he have to stand apart?” Emeline muttered. She picked fretfully at her rose and green striped skirts. “It’s as if the man goes out of his way to be different from the other gentlemen. I declare he does it just to aggravate me.”

“Yes, that’s probably the first thing he thinks about when he wakes in the morning. ‘How shall I go about aggravating Lady Emeline today?’”

Emeline looked at her friend, who was staring back with innocent wide brown eyes. “I’m being a ninny, aren’t I?”

“Now, dear, I didn’t say ninny—”

“No, but you didn’t have to.” Emeline sighed. “I brought something that I want to show you.”

Melisande looked at her, brows raised. “Oh?”

“It’s a book of fairy tales that my old nanny used to read to us. I found it recently, but I think it’s written in German. Can you translate it for me?”

“I can try,” her friend said. “But I won’t promise anything. My German is only fair, and there are many words I don’t know. A product of learning it from my mother and not a book.”

Emeline nodded. Melisande’s mother had been a Prussian who had never entirely learned English, despite marrying at the age of seventeen, and Melisande had grown up speaking both German and English.

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