To Taste Temptation

Page 38

“I won’t, miss.”
She smiled at him, and he smiled back, his lovely green eyes crinkling at the corners, and she thought about how comfortable he made her feel. With so many people, she spent all her time watching every word she said and constantly worrying over what they thought of her. But with Gil she could just talk.
She turned back to the table to finish her meal, secure in the knowledge that Gil was standing behind her.
EMELINE WAS IN the small sitting room of her town house, drinking tea, listening to Tante Cristelle, and wishing she could be just about anywhere else.
“You are lucky,” her aunt proclaimed. “Very lucky. I do not know how that man could hide his murderous habit so well.”
That man was Samuel. Tante Cristelle had decided by a logic understood only by herself that the terrible fight on the stairs the night before was the result of Samuel’s true violent nature breaking free from his control.
“Madmen are very cunning, I believe. And he did have very odd shoes,” Tante Cristelle said, and took a thoughtful sip of tea.
“I don’t think his shoes had anything to do with it, Tante,” Emeline muttered.
“But, yes, they must!” Her aunt stared in outrage. “A person’s shoes tell so much about them. The drunkard wears the shoes so dirty and worn. The lady of ill-repute has shoes too ornamented. And the so-murderous man, he wears the oddity—the moccasins of an Indian savage.”
Emeline tucked her feet beneath her skirts. The slippers she wore today were rather unfortunately embroidered in gold.
Hastily she sought to change the subject. “I don’t know how we will survive the gossip. Half of society was crowded into the upper hall last night, the better to see Mr. Hartley throw Jasper down the stairs.”
“Yes, and that is very odd.”
Emeline raised her eyebrows. “That everyone was staring?”
“No, no!” The older woman waved an impatient hand. “That Lord Vale allowed himself to be tossed so cavalierly.”
“I don’t think—”
“Mr. Hartley is not so big as milord Vale, and yet he was able to overpower him. It makes one wonder how he came by this strength.”
“Perhaps it was the strength of a madman,” Emeline muttered with dark humor. She didn’t want to think about the fight, the sight of two men she loved trying to kill each other, the look in Samuel’s eyes at the last...But it was hard to distract Tante Cristelle off the subject. “The wedding will be ruined, I know. We will be lucky to have more than two guests attend.”
Tante Cristelle immediately took the contrary opinion. “It is not so very bad, this gossip and excitement. One would think that gossip is always bad, but this is not so. The talk will cause many to come to your wedding. I think you will have quite the turnout.”
Emeline shuddered and looked down at the teacup in her lap. The thought of all those people coming to her wedding just to gawk, hoping perhaps that Samuel would make another appearance and disrupt the wedding, was terribly distasteful. And worse, she knew Samuel had washed his hands of her. The look of disillusionment, of disgust, in his eyes last night had felt like a physical blow. He would never want to see her again, she knew. Which was just as well, of course. Far better to make a clean break.
If only she could pick up her spirits a bit so that she could face her future. This path had been laid out for her before she was ever born. She was an aristocrat, the daughter and sister to earls, a woman of family and standing. All that was expected of her was that she make a good match, have children, and conform to society’s rules. It was not such a hard task, and until now she had never questioned it. She’d been a good wife and mother. Hadn’t she held the remains of her family together against all odds? Hadn’t she found a second husband as worthy as the first? And if there would be no fidelity in the marriage, if the love was a fraternal, rather than passionate one, that was only to be expected. Only a fool would balk at her path at this late date.
Only a fool.
Emeline bit her lip and gazed into her cooling tea as Tante Cristelle droned on across from her. Despite all the lectures she gave herself, she couldn’t stop mourning for a man not of her world. Samuel had looked at her and really seen her. He was the first and probably the last in her life to ever do so. And what was more miraculous, he’d not recoiled. He’d seen her awful temper, her unwomanly strength of mind, and he’d said they were good. No wonder she still mourned him. Such complete acceptance was intoxicating.
Still, she was a fool.
PEOPLE LOOKED AT Sam as he made his way through the London streets that afternoon. They would peer at him out of the corner of their eyes, then look quickly away again, especially if they met his gaze. He’d seen himself in the mirror this morning and knew what they gawked at: a blackening eye, a cut and swollen lip, and the bruises turning purple on his cheek and jaw. He knew why they looked, but he hated it nevertheless. He’d never been anonymous in a crowd—he wore moccasins, after all—but today they looked at him as if he were a lunatic.
That was the first difficulty. The second was that he wished Vale was making this trip with him. Stupid, he knew, but there it was. He’d become used to Vale’s banter and his sardonic view of the world, and even though he loathed the man, he missed him as well. Too, it would’ve been useful to have another at his back in this.
Sam glanced over his shoulder for followers and ducked into a narrow passageway. He had to pause a moment and lean against a filthy wall, holding his side. Something stabbed there. One or more of his ribs were probably cracked. Rebecca would have a fit if she knew that he was out of bed. His little sister had been surprisingly stubborn last night in her insistence that he see a doctor. In the end, he’d given in to her pleas. What did it matter when the world had fallen in on him?
He peered around the corner of the wall he leaned against and started out again, ignoring the continual pain from his ribs. There was only one thing he had to resolve, and then they could quit this damn island and go home.
This part of London was quiet and mostly clean, the odors assaulting his nostrils kept to a dull roar that hardly disturbed. Sam turned down Starling Lane. The buildings that lined the street were made of newer brick, probably built after the great fire. Small shops were at the street level, tiny, dark windows displaying wares. Above the shops were apartments, presumably for the shopkeepers.
Sam pushed open the door of a small tailor. The shop was dim inside with a low ceiling and a dusty scent. He didn’t see anyone else in there. Sam turned and locked the front door behind him.
“A moment’s wait, if it please you, sir!” a male voice called from somewhere in back.
The shop was actually quite shallow—presumably the bulk was taken up by the back where the work would be done. Bolts of cloth were stacked on shelves with a single waistcoat displayed on a tree. The waistcoat was well stitched and sturdy enough, but the material wasn’t of the finest. This led Sam to think that this tailor probably catered to merchants, doctors, and lawyers, instead of more wealthy gentlemen. There was a tall counter and beyond that an open doorway. Sam slipped behind the counter and peered into the doorway. As he’d suspected, the room behind the shop was much larger. A long table took up much of the space, with odd pieces of cloth, marking pencils, spools of thread, and paper patterns scattered along its length. Two young men sat cross-legged on the table, sewing, while an older, balding man bent over a swath of fabric, swiftly snipping with a pair of shears.
The older man glanced up but didn’t stop cutting. “Only a moment, sir.”
“I can talk as you work,” Sam said.
The man looked puzzled. “Sir?” His hand flew over the fabric as if it had a life of its own.
“I have some questions for you. About a former neighbor of yours.”
The tailor hesitated for a second, eyeing him.
The bruises weren’t helping his case, Sam knew. “There used to be a cobbler’s shop next door.”
“Yes, sir.” The tailor pivoted the fabric and went back to cutting.
“Did you know the owner, Dick Thornton?”
“Might.” The tailor bent over his task as if to hide his eyes from Sam.
“Thornton’s father had the place before him, I believe.”
“Yes, sir. That was old George Thornton.” The tailor threw down his shears, whipped the fabric off the table, and smoothed a new piece of cloth in its place. “A fine man. He’d only opened the shop a year or so before he passed. Even so, he was much missed on this street.”
Sam stilled. “The elder Thornton had just opened the shop? He wasn’t here before?”
“No, sir, he weren’t. Moved from someplace else.”
“Dogleg Lane.” One of the men sewing piped in suddenly.
The master tailor gave him a gimlet eye under his brows, and the man ducked his head back to his work.
Sam hitched his hip onto the table and folded his arms. “Was Dick home from the war in the Colonies when his father died?”
The tailor shook his head once. “No, sir. It were another year or so before Dick came home. His wife, what was George’s daughter-in-law, ran the shop until Dick returned. She was a good lass but not the canniest of women, if you follow my meaning, sir. Wasn’t doing too well by the time Dick made it home, but he soon turned it around. Dick were here only a couple of years before he got a bigger shop somewheres else.”
“Did you know Dick before he came home from the war? Had you met him?”
“No, sir.” The tailor frowned as he deftly snipped a perfect oval in the cloth. “’Twasn’t a loss, not knowing Dick Thornton, neither.”
“You don’t like the man,” Sam murmured.
“Not many here did,” the sitting tailor muttered.
The master tailor shrugged. “He puts on a nice face, always smiling, but I didn’t trust him. And his wife was afraid of him.”
“Was she?” Sam looked at his moccasins as he spoke. If what he suspected were true, Mrs. Thornton should’ve shown much more than fear. “Did she act odd in any other way?”
“No, but it wasn’t as if we saw her long after Dick returned.”
Sam glanced up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“Died, didn’t she?” The tailor met his eyes, his own shrewd, before he looked back at his work again. “Fell down the stairs and broke her neck. That was what her husband said, anyway.”
Both of the sitting tailors shook their heads to show what they thought about that.
A savage thrill of triumph went through Sam. This was it, he knew. Dick Thornton wasn’t who he said he was. The prisoner MacDonald crouching under a wagon as the battle raged all around. MacDonald catching Sam’s eye from his hiding place. MacDonald grinning and winking. That was what Sam had remembered the night before as he’d pushed through the crowd at Emeline’s party. The way MacDonald used to grin and wink—the same way that Thornton grinned and winked now. Somehow MacDonald the prisoner had taken Thornton’s place.
Taken his place and now lived his life.
Ten minutes later, Sam unlocked the door to the little tailor shop and let himself out. It was all but over now. He only had to confront Dick Thornton—or the man who was calling himself Dick Thornton—and then go home. A year of searching for answers would be over. The dead of Spinner’s Falls would finally rest in peace.
Except, as he made his way back to his town house, he knew he would never be at peace again. His body might return to Boston, but his heart would forever remain behind in England.
He was in the mews behind the town house now. He hesitated, then walked past his own gate to the gate that led into Emeline’s garden. It was locked, of course, but he scaled the wall, moving a bit slower than he’d have liked because of his ribs. The garden beyond was deserted. Michaelmas daisies bloomed on either side of the path, and the ornamental trees were just beginning to turn color. He could see the back of the house and the windows that lined the upper floors. One of those windows belonged to Emeline. She might at this very moment be looking out.