Temptation and Surrender Read Online Free PDF

reticule on the table they’d gathered around. “Mind you, it turned out that the Mr. Tallent who’s presently in charge is the son, not the father, but he—Mr. Jonas Tallent—was perfectly gentlemanly.” Seeing that that news hadn’t allayed Henry’s concerns—quite the opposite—she smoothly added, “He’s not young. I’d say he’s somewhere in his thirties.”
    Barely thirty would be closer to the mark, but the mention of the figure thirty—to Henry at fifteen an unimaginable age—was sufficient to dampen his worries.
    Hopefully by the time he met Jonas Tallent, Henry would have realized that their employer posed no threat to either her or Issy. That, indeed, Jonas Tallent was a far cry from some of their uncle’s friends.
    His effect on her aside—and that hadn’t been his fault but a product of her own unprecedented sensibility—she was entirely confident that Jonas Tallent was the sort of gentleman who played by society’s rules, when it came to ladies probably to the letter. There was something about him that, despite her unsettled nerves, had made her feel entirely safe—as if he would protect her from any threat, any harm.
    Unnerving he might be, but he was, she judged, an honorable man.
    Freeing Tallent’s folded note from her reticule, she brandished it to attract her siblings’ attention. “I have to give this to the man behind the bar—his name is Edgar Hills. The only other person currently employed at the inn is the ostler—John Ostler by name. Now”—she looked pointedly at the twins—“please behave yourselves while I sort things out.”
    The twins dutifully sat on the bench alongside Issy, who smiled in wry if cynical amusement. Henry sat quietly and watched as, again carrying her reticule, Em walked to the bar.
    Edgar Hills looked up as she neared, faint curiosity in his face. He’d heard the twins’ exclamations, but wouldn’t have been able to make out anything more. He nodded politely as she halted before the bar. “Miss.”
    Em smiled. “I’m Miss Beauregard.” She handed Tallent’s message across the bar. “I’m here to take charge of the inn.”
    Not entirely to her surprise, Edgar received the news with subdued and relieved joy; in his quiet, rather lugubrious way, he welcomed her and her siblings to the inn, smiling at the twins’ exuberance, then showing them over the entire inn, before putting himself at their disposal for moving their trunks and boxes upstairs.
    The next hours went in cheery, good-humored bustle, a much brighter and happier end to their day than Em could ever have dreamed. The upper rooms of the inn were perfect for her siblings—Issy, Henry, and the twins divided up the attic rooms surprisingly amicably; there seemed an ideal spot for each of them.
    Somewhat to her bemusement, she found herself installed in a private set of rooms. Edgar shyly led her to a narrow door at the top of the stairs that led from one end of the common room up to the first floor. To the left of the stairhead, a wide corridor ran the length of the inn with the guest rooms giving off to both sides, overlooking the front and back of the inn. The door Edgar opened stood to the right of the stairs, facing down the corridor. It gave onto the innkeeper’s domain—a generous parlor, leading to a good-sized bedroom, with a dressing room-cum-bathing chamber further back. The latter was connected by a very narrow set of stairs to the back hall beside the scullery.
    After showing her through the rooms, Edgar murmured that he’d fetch up her things, and left her.
    Alone—she was so rarely alone she always noticed and despite her fierce love for her siblings, she savored those moments of solitude whenever they came her way—she walked to the front window of the parlor and looked out.
    The view was to the front of the inn. Across the road, the common was already bathed in purple shadow. Up on the ridge, the church stood starkly silhouetted against the still sunlit western