Temptation and Surrender (24 page)

Smiling, Em made her way to the table; there were no others close enough to overhear a quiet conversation.

Lady Fortemain saw her and smiled. “Emily, dear. Dare I hope you have time to pass a few minutes with an old lady?”

“You’re not that old,” Em dutifully responded, slipping into the chair opposite her ladyship.

They exchanged views on the pasties, and on the various improvements to the inn, before Em drew in a breath and said, “Issy and I were discussing our futures, and as you know, our mother died long ago. I wondered if you had any advice to offer regarding what a gentlewoman should look for in her marriage.”

Lady Fortemain beamed. She laid a hand on Em’s wrist. “My dear, I’m honored to have you ask. And indeed”—her ladyship reformed her features into a most serious expression—“that’s a subject all young ladies would do well to explore at length before making any choice.”

She sat back, clearly formulating her advice. Em waited patiently.

“If I had to define what is most important to look for in marriage, I would say it’s a combination of two elements, which are themselves linked in a way.” Lady Fortemain met Em’s eyes earnestly and lowered her voice. “It’s the man, my dear—marriage is all about the man. You want him to be devoted to you, utterly devoted beyond question, and he must have an adequate standing—no one respects a lady who marries beneath her—and suitable wealth, although wealth is relative, of course.”

Em nodded.

Her ladyship rolled on, one finger raised for emphasis. “
And
you need a gentleman who knows what is due to his position—one who pays attention to the little things that underpin that position, and therefore that of his wife. For instance, although it pains me to say it, Cedric has grown a great deal too lax and easy in his ways, too ready to rub shoulders with his workers, which in my view does his position no good at all. Pommeroy, on the other hand…” Lady Fortemain smiled brightly into Em’s eyes. “Suffice to say, my dear, that Pommeroy will make some young lady an
excellent
husband.”

Em registered the sudden intentness in Lady Fortemain’s eyes; she managed not to let her own flare in alarm. “Yes.” She nodded decisively. “I daresay he will. It’s a pity there are so few young ladies hereabouts. But I daresay he intends to seek a wife in London—one with the polish and connections he deserves.”

Her last comment gave her ladyship pause. She pursed her lips. “I hadn’t thought of matters quite like that, but…” Abruptly she shook her head; looking up, she smiled—fondly—again at Em. “You might well be right, my dear,
but
—”

“Pray excuse me, ma’am—I believe I’m needed urgently.” Gently detaching her ladyship’s clawlike grip on her wrist, smiling charmingly, Em rose, bobbed a curtsy, and managed to leave Lady Fortemain still smiling.

She’d been right in thinking someone was waiting in the hall outside her office. Dulcie, one of the laundry maids, was bobbing up and down in the shadows; when she saw Em coming, she jigged even faster. “Miss, come quick! One of the twins—Bea, I think it is—has gone and got her hair tangled in the mangle. We turned away for just a minute, and next thing we knew—”

“She was trying to straighten her hair.” Em nodded briskly, more relieved than concerned; Bea had tried that trick before. “I’ll come and get her out.”

T
he next quiet moment Em got to consider marriage and the insights she’d thus far gained was when she sat down alone to a late luncheon. Issy and the twins—Bea now freed, no worse for wear—had retired upstairs to continue their lessons; although they still grumbled and groaned, Issy reported they were progressing with their arithmetic and their reading and writing. Ladylike skills such as drawing and playing the pianoforte were more difficult; the twins were at the tomboy stage; such occupations didn’t appeal.

As both Em and Issy could sympathize, neither was strident in forcing those issues. Colytons as a whole were a more adventurous breed, ergo not well suited to sitting at home embroidering.

Henry was with Filing; Hilda and her girls had cleared the kitchen and retired for a well-earned rest until it was time to prepare dinner. Edgar was cleaning his bar and nattering to a few locals in the tap. For once, Em actually had time and space to herself.

She quietly munched her way through the pasty Hilda had saved for her while weighing Hilda’s and Lady Fortemain’s opinions, contrasting them with what she imagined Phyllida’s response would be, metaphorically trying the notions on, seeing how they fit.

While she could understand Hilda’s view, and acknowledged Lady Fortemain’s position as wise, it was Phyllida’s imagined attitude—that love was all—that resonated best with Em’s Colyton soul.

She had no doubt whatever that her forebears were the sort who would count the world well lost for love. And she knew herself too well to imagine she could go against her inherited grain; while she might pretend otherwise for a short time, ultimately her innate tendencies would out. Like all the Colytons, she was a Colyton through and through, and if love was the mast to which her family habitually nailed its flag, then she, too, would have to embrace that nebulous but powerful emotion.

She would have to learn of it, enough to recognize it, have to learn to understand it, nurture it, protect it—and all the rest, whatever that rest was.

Being a Colyton, her correct response to Jonas’s intentions would be governed by love—by whether she loved him and he loved her.

But
—as always there was a “but”—he didn’t, as yet, even know who she truly was. She couldn’t in all fairness expect him to love—to admit to loving—a lady whose family name he didn’t know.

More, she herself didn’t know, at this point, what her status truly was—was she nearly penniless, the small portion inherited from her father frittered away in pursuit of the Colyton treasure?

Once they found the treasure, she would know precisely where she stood…

The more that thought revolved in her mind—the more the fact that she was dealing with Jonas in part under false pretenses abraded and irked—the greater and more urgent grew the need to make a serious effort to locate the treasure.

Once that was done—once the treasure was found, and she and her siblings were financially secure and could reclaim their true name and station—then all else, all the pretenses between herself and Jonas—and those equally pertinent between Issy and Filing—would be resolved.

And
then
she would be able to properly assess whether Jonas loved her and she loved him, and whether she should accept his proposal and marry him.

“I have to find that damned treasure.” There was no one around to hear her muttered words as she stood and cleared away her plate.

Standing at the scullery sink, she looked out of the window—at the hot, drowsy afternoon outside. It was an unseasonably warm day, a sleepy summer afternoon in October.

The Grange remained the most likely resting place of her family’s treasure. She’d often wondered why it had been buried somewhere other than at Colyton Manor, but the rhyme seemed fairly clear on that point. Of the houses in the immediate area, the Grange fitted the description of “the house of the highest” best; indeed, there seemed no other house it could be.

She brought up a vision of the Grange in her mind. Mentally walked around it, turning over in her mind ways and means, and possible stories, to gain access to its cellar in sufficient privacy and for long enough to mount a meaningful search.

It lies in a box made for the purpose—one only a Colyton would open.

Thus went the last line of the rhyme. Presumably when she saw whatever receptacle or hiding place the treasure was concealed in, she would know. She couldn’t imagine what the box referred to might be; she’d long ago given up trying. She would know it when she saw it; she had to believe that.

But first she had to get into the Grange cellar. The door to the cellar opened from the main kitchen; if she went in that way, she’d need a convincing excuse that would lead Mortimer to leave her down there alone for an hour or so.

No adequate story occurred to her, but thinking of Mortimer brought to mind something else he’d mentioned…

She refocused on the yard beyond the window, and the section of wood visible beyond. It was so warm, the Grange’s staff would as far as possible remain indoors; it was unlikely anyone would be about to notice someone searching the outbuildings—like the buttery, which according to Mortimer was linked by an underground tunnel to the cellar.

All was quiet at the inn.

She escaped with only a quick word to Edgar that she was taking a walk and would return in a few hours. She did walk, briskly, along the path through the wood—toward the rear of the Grange.

The wood ended at the edge of the wide clearing in which the Grange and its associated buildings stood. She halted just within the treeline; from the shadows, she scanned the rear yard of the old house. All was, as she’d predicted, quiet and still, the heat hanging oppressively heavy over all.

The path led on, through the kitchen garden to the back door. To her right, beyond the kitchen garden, lay the stables. She looked, strained her ears, but it was difficult to tell if there were stableboys or grooms somewhere in the largish structure.

To her left, abutting the house, lay a long, low building that looked like the washhouse. Further out from the house, closer to where she stood, another smaller square building sat, sharing one stone wall with the washhouse, but with its own wooden door and wooden shutters secured over two windows, one set into the stone on either side of the door.

The small square building had to be the buttery.

To reach its door, she could hug the treeline for a little way, but the last stretch was over open ground; she would be clearly visible from the house.

She weighed the risk for all of a second before her Colyton self dismissed it as inconsequential; she’d come prepared to take risks in pursuit of the treasure.

Grateful that, by pure chance, she’d that morning donned a forest green gown, she drew breath, then boldly stepped out—as if she knew exactly where she was going and had every reason to be there; walking briskly, she skirted the edge of the clearing, then cut across the last open stretch. Reaching the buttery, she grasped the wooden latch, lifted it—and literally sent up a prayer of thanks when it smoothly rose. Pushing open the door, she whisked inside. One glance was enough to assure her there was no maid or footman tapping any butts; she quickly and silently shut the door, then waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimness.

The shutters allowed a little light to seep in, enough to see, but the thick stone walls kept the area within cool; after the warmth outside, she shivered and rubbed her arms.

Gradually her senses adjusted. She took stock of the room, of the butts of ale and various foodstuffs deemed better stored there than in the chillier, damp cold and absolute dark of the cellars. The area was well organized, with orderly rows of different types of staples stacked on the floor perpendicular to the door. Shelves circled the walls, with goods in sacks sitting beneath on the flagstone floor.

There was no wall likely to house any tunnel, and no door other than the one through which she’d entered. Given the buttery floor was aboveground, and the house cellar was definitely below, then the tunnel between presumably ran below the floor, suggesting a trapdoor.

She paused to plan her search, then set out, carefully walking the aisles between the rows of stacked goods, studying the old flagstones, paying particular attention to the mortar between. Mortimer hadn’t suggested the tunnels to the cellar were still in use; she doubted they would be, but even if they were, they would most likely be used in winter, when a heavy snowfall made reaching the buttery from the kitchen difficult.

It was well into autumn, so it was possible the trapdoor hadn’t been opened for nine or so months. Regardless, there should be some wear on the flagstones around it, some irregularity or mark made through long-term use.

If there was, she couldn’t see it. Reaching her original position by the door, she blew out a breath, then, refusing to be disheartened just because it hadn’t been easy, she went to the beginning of the first row and started to shift the goods so she could examine the floor beneath them.

She was bent over a sack of meal, with one finger tracing a gouge in a flagstone, when the buttery door opened.

Startled, she straightened and spun around—so fast she swayed and had to flail to keep from falling backward over several sacks.

Regaining her balance, her heart pounding, she found herself looking into Jonas’s dark eyes. Amusement glinted in their depths; his lips weren’t straight as he stepped over the threshold and closed the door.

Eyeing her, no more than a yard away in the small, cramped space, he leaned back against the door and arched a brow. “What are you searching for?”

“Ah…” She blinked, tried to think—of some tale he might believe. “I…ah…” She dragged in a breath and lifted her chin. “As you know I’m interested in old houses, and Mortimer mentioned there were tunnels connecting your stables and buttery to the cellar. I was passing”—she glanced around at the sacks she’d disarranged—“and couldn’t resist taking a peek to see what sort of tunnels they were, what sort of doors.” She shrugged and met his gaze. “That sort of thing.”

She’d always heard that when lying, it was best to stick as close as possible to the truth. Fixing him with an innocently inquiring gaze, she asked, “So…can you show me the tunnel?” She didn’t need to fabricate eagerness; if he showed her, she could use the tunnel to search the cellar at night.

He held her gaze for a long moment before pushing away from the door. “The tunnels collapsed long ago. They’ve been filled in for as long as I, or even my father, remember.” Halting before her, he looked down into her eyes. “Why do you want to find the tunnels?”

“Distraction.” That was what she needed now—to distract him. Raising her hand to his lean cheek, she smiled. “It’s a quiet afternoon at the inn, a sleepy time with few people about.” Letting her gaze lower to his mouth, she stretched up and brushed her lips over his. “I was bored, so I thought to come here to seek excitement.”

All true enough.

Her senses shivered, quivered, as she felt his hands slide around her waist, spanning, then gripping, holding her before him. She raised her gaze to his eyes; his dark gaze searched, then, slowly, he bent his head.

She stretched up the last inch and kissed him, then gave him her mouth as he kissed her.

The result, the conflagration, was instantaneous, as if they’d stepped off some platform directly into a furnace of growing, ravenous heat. A heat that sparked, flared, then roared, that sent fire racing down their veins to burn beneath their skins, to make them hungry, make them yearn, make them want.

To reduce them to some primitive state where they suddenly simply had to find surcease, to come together and quench the heat, to plunge into the flames and be consumed.

His hands were on her aching breasts, kneading, possessing; through the fine cotton of the simple round gown his fingers found her nipples and wickedly tweaked. She gasped; her head spun, even as she wrestled with the buttons of his jacket.

He broke from the kiss, shrugged out of the jacket, then swept her into his arms, hard against him; his lips recaptured hers in a searing kiss—and the flames raced hungrily, greedily on.

Down every vein, scorching every nerve.

Reducing inhibitions to ash.

Lifting his head, as breathless as she, his dark eyes wild and burning, he glanced swiftly around, then scooped her up in his arms, swung around—and tumbled her onto a pile of stacked sacks so she sprawled on her back, her skirts rucked up above her knees.

Before she could react and push her hems down, instinctively close her thighs, he stepped between, tossed her skirts higher, up to her waist, set his hands on her knees and spread them even more widely.

His gaze locked on hers, his own filled with dark fires, with emotions both powerful and raw, he paused…a mere heartbeat of time that seemed to stretch, when she knew he was waiting, if not precisely for permission, then for some hint she actively wanted this, him—more.

Eyes locked on his, she licked her lips and shifted restlessly, an evocative—patently inciting—movement of her hips.

The hiatus holding him shattered, splintered; all restraint fell away.

The planes of his face grew harder, sharper edged, hewn granite as he looked down at the delicate flesh between her thighs, fully revealed to him courtesy of her sprawl. Then he bent and set his lips to her softness.

She shrieked at the first contact—just as she had last night. Knuckles pressed to her lips, she fought valiantly to stifle the impossible-to-suppress sounds he wrung from her, then his lips moved on her, his tongue thrust in and she moaned.

He licked, supped, suckled, and savored; even more artfully than he had the previous night, he steadily drove her up the long rise to a shattering, breath-stealing, senses-imploding climax; she had to clamp her hand over her mouth to mute her scream.

As she gasped, panted, her heart still racing, the furnace inside her still molten, still empty and waiting, he straightened, looked down on her, then he smiled.

Wickedly. Dangerously.

To her surprise, he tugged down her skirts, then gripped her hips and, lifting her, flipped her over onto her stomach, drawing her hips back so her legs dangled down the front of the sacks; the pile was so high her toes didn’t reach the ground.