Never Resist Temptation Page 28

  She laid her father’s letter carefully on the desk, giving it a last regretful look. Despite the misery the contents had caused her, she hadn’t been able to help thrilling at the sight of his handwriting and at the passionate words that had brought him back to her so vividly.

  “I shall leave now,” she said flatly. “I’ll return to Hurst and see my uncle’s solicitor. At least I have money. You won’t have to worry about me.”

  His eyes fastened on her. “What the blazes are you talking about?”

  “I understand that we cannot be married, and I think it’s better if I go at once.”

  “Go? Go?” His voice rose to a shout and he grabbed her shoulders roughly. “No! You can’t leave me. You can’t abandon me!” He sounded panicked and held her so hard it hurt.

  “But…but…you can’t want me now. My father…your mother. You must hate him. You must hate me.”

  He gathered her into his arms. “Hate you?” he asked, so tenderly she felt her senses melt with relief and love. “I could never hate you. I love you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said again through tears, “for what my father did. For what he did to you.”

  “He did nothing, and neither did Mama. You read the letter. He sent her back to me and Kitty and my father.”

  “Aren’t you still angry?”

  He was thinking about it. She could tell by the way his body stilled, though he held her in his embrace. “No,” he said in wonder. “It’s gone. She couldn’t help falling in love but she could help what she did about it. Her behavior was irreproachable.”

  “It made her very unhappy,” she said somberly.

  “I think she was always unhappy in a way, not because of what happened, but because she was an unhappy person. Lord Hugo said something about that, about a hidden darkness. After her separation from your father she succumbed to an illness that was already lurking. She probably couldn’t help it.”

  “Poor lady,” Jacobin murmured. Then, more severely, “But she should have tried harder for her children’s sake, for your sake.”

  Anthony released her and walked over to the window. “I was angry with her,” he said haltingly. “I never admitted it to myself. It’s why I became obsessed with Candover, because I didn’t want to blame her. I took it out on poor Kitty too, and she was innocent as a babe. She was a babe. But now I can forgive her. Mama, I mean. There’s nothing to forgive really. She did her best.”

  Pleased as she was for him, that he could finally put his mother’s treatment of him behind him, she still couldn’t fully sympathize with the woman.

  “Anthony,” she said. “If I die you are not to abandon our children. And if you die I will not kill myself.”

  He couldn’t help smiling as he turned to see her standing with her hands on her hips, scowling ferociously. No, he thought gladly. She was made of sterner stuff, his Jacobin.

  “Children? Are you trying to tell me something, my love?”

  “What? Oh no. At least I don’t think so. It’s too soon to tell.”

  He rather hoped she was with child. Especially since they’d be married in two days and the infant wouldn’t arrive embarrassingly early.

  “I know you’ll make a wonderful parent, just like your father.” He looked straight into her eyes, wanting to reassure her that he felt no resentment toward Auguste de Chastelux. “He sounds a remarkable man.”

  “Oh, he was! I couldn’t have had a better father.”

  “You must tell me all about him.”

  “I’d like to. I think we both had good fathers.”

  He nodded. His own father had, in his own way, been the best of men.

  “Why did he say that about Candover?” he said abruptly. “On his deathbed, I mean. My father said a letter came from Candover, just before Mama…died. What did the villain have to do with it?”

  “I forgot!” Jacobin exclaimed. “There’s another letter.” She picked it up from the desk and gave it to him.

  He froze when he recognized his mother’s hand, and his fingers trembled. It was directed on the address panel to his father.

  “‘My lord.’” His parents had always addressed each other formally, he remembered. “‘Today I received a letter from Candover. Auguste has been executed in France. I cannot bear to live without him in this world. I pray I may meet him in the next. Kiss Anthony, Kitty, and James for me. I love them all but I know I have failed in my duty as a mother. They will be better without me. I’m sorry, my lord. You have always been a good husband, better than I deserve. I commend our children to your care. Your respectful and affectionate wife, Catherine Storrington.’”

  An odd farewell, Jacobin thought as he read it. The words seemed perfunctory, almost cold, for all they spoke of love and respect. As though Catherine had already, in her own mind, departed the world when she wrote them.

  Her heart ached for Anthony. What a contrast to her father, who, despite the loss of his love, had carried on to be a decent husband, an adoring father, and to make something of his life in his political writings.

  “When did your mother die?” she asked.

  “August 1794.”

  “That’s when my father was imprisoned. He had taken my mother and me out of Paris for safety, but he returned to testify on behalf of a friend. It did no good. The friend went to the guillotine, and he was arrested. My mother must have got word to my uncle—”

  “—who couldn’t wait to tell my mother the news. The bastard couldn’t resist making her miserable.”

  “And even boasted to Edgar that he drove her to her death,” she added. “He deserved to die. No,” she corrected herself, “no one deserves to be killed, but I can’t say I’m sorry it happened to him.”

  He chuckled, a surprising, though welcome, sound.

  “Why are you laughing?” she asked suspiciously.

  “You always make me laugh. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  “That’s good. I think.” Actually she knew it was good. She felt like singing and dancing and leaping with joy.

  “Very good.” He was moving closer, with a look on his face that managed to be both mirthful and heated at the same time.

  She swayed her hips, tilted her breasts up, and eyed him provocatively through her lashes. “What are you going to do now?” she asked huskily.

  “Now immediately or now in the future?”

  “Either or both.”

  “Well…in the longer term I’m going to marry you and spend a lot of time in bed with you and laugh a lot and eat a lot of little puffy things and have as many children as you wish for and be happy for the rest of my life.”

  “That sounds…acceptable. And immediately?”

  “I came here this afternoon in answer to an invitation. I intend to accept it. Immediately.”

  Epilogue

  The Countess of Storrington’s Little Puffy Things

  Take plenty of whipped cream…

  The Countess of Storrington awoke at noon feeling hungry. She rather fancied a bit of French pastry. She could, of course, descend to the kitchen and make something, but one of the disadvantages of being a peeress was not being really welcome in the kitchen.

  At least Mrs. Simpson was no longer there. Once Anthony had ascertained that the Simpsons’ interactions with Edgar had been motivated by simple spite toward Jacobin, rather than a more sinister malice, he’d pensioned them off to a cottage on his most distant estate. Jacobin’s old friend, the cook from Hurst Park, was now installed in the kitchen at Storrington Hall. But Jacobin had learned that as mistress of the house her relationship with the servants required a certain formality.

  Still, there were many, many superb things about being a rich and fashionable countess.

  After a shaky start, Jacobin had been a success with all but the stuffiest members of the ton. Edgar’s murder trial in the House of Lords became the public sensation of the day. By the time he was convicted and hanged with a silken rope, such being the dubious privilege of a felonious peer,
most of the details of Jacobin’s past life were public knowledge. All Anthony’s family connections rallied round, and a number of older members of society came forward to support the daughter of Auguste de Chastelux, whom they remembered with affection from pre-revolutionary Parisian jaunts. The Prince Regent pronounced himself immensely amused that a countess had been employed in his kitchen and jovially offered to take her back into his service. The coup de grâce was an appearance at one of Lord Hugo Hartley’s rare dinner parties, where Mr. Chauncey and Lady Caroline Bellamy had been persuaded to join the company. Although a few sticklers might (and did) note that the couple’s daughter and niece were otherwise engaged that evening, there were very few people who cared to be regarded as higher in the instep than Lady Caroline. The new Lady Storrington’s acceptance was assured.

  Among the younger and more dashing, Jacobin was seen as a heroine and amassed an entertaining circle of friends. She’d even conducted a pâtisserie lesson for a group of young married women. They’d spent an enjoyable afternoon making French pastries and a terrible mess in the kitchen. She and Anthony had to dine out for the following three nights to let the servants recover.

  The single most superb thing about being a rich countess was the earl. It was time, she decided, to issue her daily forgiveness for getting her into the condition that had cut short the season in London and made her so wretchedly ill every morning that she had to remain in bed. He would, to do him justice, have gladly stayed at her side, mopping her brow with cool cloths and holding a basin at the ready. But she’d snappishly sent him on his way when he’d woken to find her retching and offered sympathy.

  She would, as always, make it up to him.

  Pondering the probable whereabouts of her husband, she climbed out of the ancestral bed, pulled on a lace-trimmed robe, and wandered over to the window for a good stretch and a look at the weather.

  The weather was fine and the garden urn exceptionally well dressed. Around its slender neck it sported a starched linen neck cloth tied in a perfect waterfall.

  Excellent.

  He met her at the door. “Recovered from the journey, I see. Unless it was something else that made you so charming this morning.”

  She cast him a nasty look, and he laughed.

  “Come in,” he said. “I have a present for you.”

  “Diamonds?” she said hopefully.

  “I think you have enough jewels for the moment. Something better.”

  Instead of leading her into the saloon, he opened the door on the other side of the vestibule into what had been an unused storage room.

  “Oh, Anthony!” It was perfect. It had a long marble table with an ice trough built in beneath it to keep the surface cold; a huge ice closet; the most modern range and oven; copper pans and molds in every shape and size hanging from hooks. Everything, in fact, that a well-equipped pastry room demanded.

  “How did you do it?” she asked, hugging him tightly enough to squeeze the breath from a weaker man. “How did you know what to buy?”

  “I didn’t, of course. I left it all up to Jean-Luc. He arranged the whole thing before returning to France.”

  Jean-Luc had been in England recently when his employer, the Duc de Clermont-Ferrand, and his household had made a month-long visit. Jacobin had tried to persuade him to come and work for them, but he refused, he said, ever to spend another winter in the brutal English weather. Jacobin’s protest that the climate of northern France was little better fell on deaf ears. Jean-Luc was happy with the dessert-loving duc and his friend Michel, the duc’s maître d’hôtel. He’d dined à trois with her and Anthony one night, and escorted her to a masquerade when Anthony had to attend an all-male political dinner. But Jacobin knew, despite her husband’s indulgence, that their old friendship would be forever circumscribed by the barriers of rank.

  “I’m hungry,” she said. “I’m going to cook something right now.”

  “Am I allowed to make a request?” Anthony asked.

  “You don’t need to. I know what you like.”

  “Splendid. I’ll leave you to it,” and he left the room.

  She happily explored her new domain, discovering flour, sugars, spices, and other dry goods in a cupboard, while the ice chest had a compartment for eggs, butter, and cream. She set water to heat on the stove and assembled the ingredients for choux pastry. But after a while she felt lonely. He might have stayed to talk while she cooked. What was he doing, anyway?

  She heard a noise upstairs, and her lips curved.

  He was lying on the bed when she entered.

  “That was quick,” he said.

  “I have a new recipe for profiteroles. It omits the pastry.” She held up a bowl of whipped cream, then produced two strips of cloth from her pocket.

  His eyes darkened with the intent look that never failed to make her hot all over.

  “I do believe,” he drawled, “that I’m about to realize one of my deepest fantasies.”

  “No,” she said, approaching the bed with purpose. “This one’s mine.”

  Author’s Note

  I’ve always been fascinated by culinary history, especially old cookbooks. There’s nothing more fun than finding a really disgusting recipe and wondering “How could they eat this?” The oldest known cookbook was written by a Roman, Apicius. A highly concentrated fish stock was a staple of ancient Roman cookery and sounds completely vile.

  The Regency period gave the world its first “celebrity chef” Antonin Carême, the Wolfgang Puck or Marco Pierre White of his day. Carême cooked for Napoleon, the Bourbon kings, the Tsar of Russia, Talleyrand and the Prince Regent. He also published several bestselling books. His works on pastries and desserts, confections as they were more generally called, laid down the foundation of classic French pâtisserie. When I read Ian Kelly’s superb biography Cooking for Kings I had to include Carême’s tenure at the Brighton Pavilion in a Regency novel.

  In the end the demands of the plot prevented the great man’s actual appearance in my book. He gets sick so Jacobin is called to pinch hit for him. Carême did in fact suffer from chronic respiratory problems, made worse by the extreme conditions of heat and cold he worked in and constant exposure to charcoal fumes.

  I tried to make my description of life in the Prince Regent’s kitchens as accurate as possible. The huge Brighton kitchens were Prinny’s pride and joy and he liked to show them to his guests. A picture of the main kitchen may be found on my website although, sadly, the crazy palm fronds decorating the pillars were added after my story takes place. As Jacobin discovered, Carême didn’t like working with women and he became unpopular with the Prince Regent’s staff for not sharing the income from the sale of surplus food. In fact his time in England was an unhappy period in his life and lasted little more than a year.

  I wanted to include some of Carême’s recipes in Never Resist Temptation and had a great time combing through his books. Along the way I found some of the oddities I enjoy. What do you make of a recipe that calls for “about one hundred middle sized lobsters’ tails” but gives you the option of substituting carrots? Carrots? The dish is called Chartreuse à la Parisienne, en Surprise. Surprise indeed, and not a good one, to get a mouthful of carrot when you’re expecting lobster.

  Since Carême’s English staff complained about the differences between English and French measurements, I compared some recipes in French with their translations in the English edition. In one place the original called for a piece of butter the size of a walnut which in translation became a turnip. Either turnips used to be much smaller or the English liked a lot of butter. Yet classic French cuisine has a reputation for excessive richness.

  I’ve been asked whether I tried any of the recipes in my book. Well, I’m not the greatest baker myself, and Carême’s directions lack the exact measurements we’re used to in modern cookbooks. How much, for heaven’s sake, is a “plateful” of cream? What size plate?

  I did think I should attempt choux pastry since it features promi
nently in the story. And I’ll admit that though the technique appears not to have changed, Julia Child’s recipe was a lot easier to follow than Carême’s. You may find an account of my attempt to make “little puffy things” on my website www.mirandaneville.com together with additional Carême recipes for dishes mentioned in the book. If you try them please let me know how they turn out.

  Miranda

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to my fabulous critique partners and beta readers—Susan, Kathy, Sophia, Cathy, and Madame Sophie. To my wonderful agent, Meredith Bernstein. To Esi Sogah and all the brilliant people at Avon, for guiding me through the publication progress. And to my daughter Becca for being a drama queen.

  About the Author

  MIRANDA NEVILLE grew up in England before moving to New York City to work in Sotheby’s rare books department. After many years as a journalist and editor, she decided writing fiction was more fun. She lives in Vermont. For more about Miranda please visit her website, www.mirandaneville.com.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  Romances by Miranda Neville

  NEVER RESIST TEMPTATION

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  NEVER RESIST TEMPTATION. Copyright © 2009 by Miranda Neville. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.