Never Resist Temptation Read online

  Never Resist Temptation

  Miranda Neville

  To Kathy, Sophia and Susan,

  without whom…

  Contents

  Prologue

  Nothing in Anthony’s upbringing or experience had taught him the…

  Chapter 1

  Jacob Léon muttered a French word inappropriate for polite company.

  Chapter 2

  The morning after a banquet was a pleasant change from…

  Chapter 3

  It had seemed a brilliant idea, Anthony thought as he…

  Chapter 4

  Lord Candover’s butler accepted the presence of a Bow Street…

  Chapter 5

  Jacobin’s doubts about her new job were confirmed when she…

  Chapter 6

  “Anthony,” croaked the dying man, reaching out feebly to his…

  Chapter 7

  He’d followed her without conscious volition. The withdrawal of her…

  Chapter 8

  Twelve hours later Anthony was in London. He’d escaped the…

  Chapter 9

  Apricots cost a fortune in November. Jacobin had no idea…

  Chapter 10

  Jacobin had welcomed Storrington’s summons to London, despite the danger…

  Chapter 11

  “What do you think of the earl?” Miss Lavinia Bellamy…

  Chapter 12

  Tracking down Mr. Chauncey Bellamy had been ridiculously easy. A…

  Chapter 13

  Lucy reverently unfolded the dress from its wrappings. The deep…

  Chapter 14

  Anthony hoped Lord Hugo Hartley could provide the final piece…

  Chapter 15

  She’s a beauty. Looks like her father. He was the…

  Chapter 16

  However often she looked at her two shabby gowns, neither…

  Chapter 17

  It was a beautiful bed with a canopy of yellow…

  Chapter 18

  Tom Hawkins was a frustrated man. The Bow Street runner…

  Chapter 19

  “I understand you have recently employed a female cook,” Hawkins…

  Chapter 20

  She spent hours in the inadequately furnished kitchen, oblivious of…

  Chapter 21

  The first two bottles of Anthony’s best Clos de Bèze…

  Chapter 22

  Candover won the cut and dealt first, giving Anthony the…

  Chapter 23

  She disengaged from his lap and stood up to look…

  Chapter 24

  Whoever put the Queen’s House in order, removing the Holland…

  Chapter 25

  “I’m surprised to see you again so soon, Storrington. Delighted,…

  Chapter 26

  Although Lady Kitty had been perfectly agreeable during their two…

  Chapter 27

  Anthony loved her and they were to be married in…

  Chapter 28

  By the middle of the afternoon Jacobin was bored and…

  Chapter 29

  With Edgar awaiting trial for Candover’s murder, Kitty had decreed…

  Epilogue

  The Countess of Storrington awoke at noon feeling hungry. She…

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Miranda Neville

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Cards are war, in disguise of a sport.

  Charles Lamb

  London, 1816

  Nothing in Anthony’s upbringing or experience had taught him the proper etiquette for taking delivery of a woman won in a card game. Had his prize been a courtesan, his imagination might have been adequate to the occasion. But this girl—what was her name? something outlandish like Robina or Jacinta—was the niece of a baron, the blood relation of the man he’d defeated at piquet. However awkward he might feel under the circumstances, Anthony consoled himself with the reflection that it must be far worse for the uncle.

  Good. Candover’s discomfort was his goal. And he intended to make sure it greatly increased by the time he had finished with him.

  “Lord Candover, my lord,” announced the butler, who had been told to show the visitors directly to the library.

  The old debauchee was alone and wore a furtive look that clashed with his gold-embroidered purple waistcoat. Candover must have decided the correct protocol was to leave the girl in the carriage. Just as well, perhaps. What the devil would the servants think if she were delivered like a parcel and abandoned in his respectable household? Anthony could imagine the tittle-tattle. And though gossip was certainly his goal, he’d prefer to control it until he’d made up his mind what form it should take.

  “Candover,” he said with a polite bow. “I take it you’re here to settle our bet.”

  “Storrington.” Candover returned Anthony’s courtesy with a creak of corsets. Then he cleared his throat but said nothing more. His face darkened to an unbecoming puce, and perspiration glistened on his forehead.

  As Anthony covertly observed his distress, Candover’s eyes shifted to a tray of drinks on the marbled-topped rosewood table in the center of the room. Anthony toyed with the notion of ignoring the hint. He knew everything about Candover’s habits, including just how long he usually went without alcoholic stimulation. Not very long. Spirits and sweets were addictions the man never resisted, as testified by his complexion and his girth. Anthony tamped down his hatred and rage. Time enough to reveal himself to his enemy when victory was complete.

  Like a courteous host he walked over to the table and picked up a decanter. “Brandy?” Without waiting for a reply he poured a generous measure.

  Candover seized the offered glass, tipped back his head, and drained it. A few drops of spirit dribbled from the corner of his flaccid mouth, down his chin, and onto his protruding belly.

  “About our bet…” he began, then faltered. “I can’t meet the terms.” He looked away to avoid Anthony’s eye.

  Anthony was surprised that Candover owned scruples enough to regret his shocking wager. He’d been eager to offer his niece as Anthony’s mistress in an effort to recoup a loss of ten thousand pounds, had goaded Anthony to accept the terms. Anthony forced himself to remain as unemotional as he always did at the piquet table. With Candover the game didn’t end when the last card was played.

  “Might I suggest, Candover,” he said with gentle reproach, the tone he might take with an erring friend, “that you shouldn’t have wagered something you weren’t prepared to part with. Not, of course, that I don’t understand your reluctance to part with your niece.”

  “Reluctance, be damned,” Candover growled. “I’ve never reneged on a debt of honor in my life. You could have the girl and be welcome to her if I could deliver her. But I can’t. The chit ran away.”

  “Dear me,” Anthony murmured, enjoying Candover’s embarrassment. “Do you mean she wasn’t willing to come to me?”

  “Willing or not, she’d do as I ordered.” Candover’s temper, never easy, was fraying at the edges. “But the bitch ran off with my cook, my French pastry cook. Eloped in the night! Damn it,” he shouted in an explosion of ire, “I’ll never find a hand with pastry like Jean-Luc.”

  “I regret the loss of your cook, Candover.” Anthony found it difficult to keep his features impassive. “And of your niece too, of course. Do you need a few days to arrange your affairs before settling with me?”

  “If you’d be good enough to wait,” Candover replied, “I’d be grateful. It’ll take me a day or two to raise ten thousand.”

  “Twenty thousand,” Anthony reminded him quiet
ly. “Twenty thousand. If you recall you were already down ten when you staked your niece against your previous losses.”

  Candover gulped. “Twenty it is, Storrington.”

  “A most unfortunate run of bad luck. Take your time.” Anthony positively oozed false sympathy. “Shall we say one week?”

  Inwardly he exulted. Twenty thousand was a vast sum, difficult for any man to raise in such a short time, even one in better financial health than Candover. It might well be enough to tip him over the edge into utter insolvency. At the least his enemy would endure a miserable seven days attempting to meet his debt of honor.

  Revenge was most definitely a dish best eaten cold.

  Chapter 1

  Rose Bavarian Cream

  Strip the petals off about thirty freshly picked roses and put them, with a pinch of cochineal grains, into clarified boiling sugar syrup. Cover, and when it has become just warm, add isinglass. Strain the mixture through muslin and set on ice. When it begins to set, fold in whipped cream.

  Antonin Carême

  Three months later

  Jacob Léon muttered a French word inappropriate for polite company. It was, however, the kind of language heard often in the kitchens of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton. Especially on a day when the Prince Regent was giving an important dinner and the staff was under pressure to prepare dozens of dishes.

  Mrs. Underwood, the supervisor of confectionery, swept into the frigid pastry room and sneered at the young French pastry cook.

  “Why aren’t you working, Léon?” she demanded. “We’ve a banquet. Or did you maybe forget?”

  Jacob Léon suppressed an insolent retort. There were suppressed sniggers from the other cooks in the big chamber, and Jacob knew that they—and Mrs. Underwood herself—were enjoying the supervisor’s sarcasm. Her long nose had been out of joint since Antonin Carême, the most famous pâtissier in all of Europe, had taken command of the Prince Regent’s kitchens. Carême didn’t approve of professional female cooks and failed to treat Mrs. Underwood with the respect she deserved for her ten years in the royal service. Although Jacob had sympathy for the woman’s position—more than she would have suspected—he wished she wouldn’t use him as a whipping boy for her resentment.

  Most of the royal staff disliked him too, because he was French. And it didn’t help that he was on the short side, with effeminate features and no trace of a beard. To retain their respect he made sure his language—in both English and French—exceeded any of theirs in the depth and variety of its profanity. But this was not the moment for swearing, or for the cocky attitude he adopted to keep bullies at bay.

  “The recipe for rose Bavarian cream,” he explained. “Someone’s mixed up the quantities again. I’ve made this dish a hundred times and I can tell the proportions are wrong. Someone translated French ounces to English ones without making the adjustment.”

  He shuddered to think what would have happened if he’d ruined the rose cream and wasted those costly blooms. Mrs. Underwood would love an excuse to toss him out. Even more than most in domestic service, Jacob needed to keep his job. Desperately.

  “I can send Charlie to fetch Maître Carême’s book and look up the correct quantities.” He glanced at the skinny kitchen boy who was shivering in the ice-cooled room.

  “Finish it quickly,” said Mrs. Underwood with an impatient sniff. “You’re wanted in the small confectionery room.”

  “Why?” Jacob was surprised to be summoned to Carême’s own domain, and a little alarmed. Since Carême had hired him as an assistant pastry cook, he’d had little direct contact with the great man.

  Mrs. Underwood looked as though she’d swallowed something nasty. “Mr. Carême has come down with a fever. He cannot work today.”

  Jacob gasped. “Les pièces montées! They are not finished.”

  “We are all well aware of that fact. Mr. Carême has directed that you will complete them.”

  It was midnight by the time Jacob reached his small room in the servants’ quarters. His shoulders ached from the painstaking task of decorating architectural monuments constructed from almond paste. Absurdly, to Jacob’s mind, these elaborate productions were not intended to be eaten, but rather to decorate the buffet table and astonish diners with the virtuosity of the chef. Maître Carême had been working on them for several days, but there had been hours of labor left on an ermitage russe to compliment the evening’s guest of honor, the Russian ambassador. Using dyed icing, Jacob transformed the miniature version of a supposedly humble thatched wooden building into an exotic retreat, colored in pale green and yellow and resting on orange rocks that sprouted moss and, oddly enough, a palm tree.

  Once these extraordinaires, as Carême dubbed his masterpieces, had been safely stowed in the ice room, Jacob had to turn around and assist in the final production and serving of the meal. Chaos was barely kept at bay, despite the fact the Pavilion boasted a huge kitchen, designed to the most exacting modern standards, for serving a prince who loved to eat. Even with a small army of kitchen and dining room staff, the serving of oysters, hors d’oeuvres, three different soups, two fish dishes, three roasts, six entrées, several vegetable entremets, and no fewer than eight choices of dessert was not to be achieved without dangerously fraying tempers and a good deal of cursing in several languages.

  The heat from the charcoal grills and huge ovens had been almost unbearable after a day spent in the frigid temperatures of the confectionery room. Now alone, Jacob sighed with relief as he removed his double-breasted chef’s coat and the padding he wore beneath it.

  Within minutes the pudgy cook was transformed into a slender girl.

  She longed to unwind the tightly wound linen cloth that constricted her small breasts. But she wasn’t yet ready to be Jacobin de Chastelux, the identity she would resume only when she retired to her narrow bed. Too enervated to sleep, she craved cool sea breezes. Quickly she donned the breeches, coat, and boots that made her look like a well-bred youth. She deftly tied a linen cloth around her neck, and even through her fatigue spared a glance of appreciation for the dapper young man in the tiny looking glass. She reflected on the irony that she was better dressed as a lowly cook than she’d been as a young lady from a wealthy family. Tying her unruly chestnut hair in a neat queue, she put on her hat and set off with a quiet swagger and a jaunty air.

  On a cool November evening Jacobin had the Steyne almost to herself on the short walk to the seashore and back. But as she approached the servants’ entrance to the Pavilion, she noticed a figure waiting nearby. Something about him struck her as familiar. Stopping, she examined the man cautiously. There was only one person in Brighton who was likely to recognize her. Lord Candover had attended this evening’s dinner, but he’d never stand out in the cold. He wouldn’t set foot outside until his well-warmed carriage was ready to receive him. Besides, this man was short and slightly built. Jacobin waited until the man turned his head and one of the lamps caught his features.

  Edgar. What was Edgar doing in Brighton? He rarely left Hurst Park.

  Her heartbeat accelerated. He mustn’t see her. She couldn’t even keep her head down and hope to pass as an anonymous stranger. It was all too possible that Edgar would recognize her clothes, since only three months earlier they’d belonged to him. To be fair, she supposed they still did. She certainly hadn’t obtained his permission before helping herself to them.

  Jacobin withdrew among some of the heaps of stone and building equipment that littered the area around the unfinished palace. The cold bit through the wool of her coat, and she felt exhaustion overtake her. Curse Edgar. She couldn’t stay here all night. She crept out from her hiding place and turned sharply in the opposite direction, practically running to the far corner of Castle Square. Straight into trouble.

  “Wot ’ave we here?” demanded a drunken voice as she almost collided with a group of three men. “’Ere’s a pretty lad.”

  From their clothing Jacobin deduced the trio were laborers employed on the renova
tions. From their state of inebriation she concluded that it was payday and she’d interrupted a celebration.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said pacifically. “I didn’t mean to disturb you gentlemen.”

  They all roared with laughter. One man’s eyes bulged like marbles from a filthy and unshaven face. He was the largest of the three and apparently their spokesman.

  “Gen’lemen, are we?” he mocked. “Don’t ’e speak nicely, this one. D’you reckon ’e’s a gen’leman too? I don’t think so. I think this one would like to be a lady.”

  Zut! How could this drunken oaf have seen through her disguise?

  “Look, lads,” the man continued. “I think we’ve caught ourselves a molly boy.”

  “Disgustin’!” commented one of the others, and the third grunted his agreement.

  “What would one of your kind be doin’ out here in the middle of the night, I wonder. Lookin’ for trade with one of the nobs with the same unnatcheral ’abits?”

  It was a relief they thought her merely an effeminate boy, but their intentions seemed far from friendly. She prepared to run.

  “No yer don’t.” A meaty hand encircled her upper arm, and the overpowering smell of stale onions mixed with gin assaulted her nose. She struggled, but liquor hadn’t affected Bulgy Eyes’s strength.

  “What do you say, lads?” he asked his friends, digging his fingers into Jacobin’s flesh. “Let’s get the young gen’leman ready for ’is next customer. Pull off them fancy britches, then ’Is Lordship won’t have to look too hard for his bumhole.”