The Temptation of the Night Jasmine Read Online Free PDF

nose to her cousin’s faintly blue lips. ‘I don’t know about the ale, but there’s plenty of hot, spiced wine to be had, and a very warm fire besides.’
    No one needed to be asked twice. The gentlemen trooped gratefully into the entrance hall, where a fire crackled in one of the two great hearths. The other lay empty, waiting for the Yule log, which would be ceremonially dragged in later that evening. The dowager duchess kept to the old traditions at Girdings. The holly, the ivy, and the Yule log were always brought in on Christmas Eve and not a moment sooner.
    Robert looked ruefully at the red ribbons Charlotte had tied around the carved balusters on the stairs. ‘We hadn’t meant to intrude on Christmas Eve.’
    ‘Can you really intrude on your own house?’ asked Charlotte.
    ‘Is it?’ Robert said. His eyes roamed along the high ceiling with its panorama of inquisitive gods and goddesses, leaning out of Olympus to rest their elbows on the gilded frame. His gaze made the circuit of the hall, passing over the vibrant murals depicting the noble lineage of the House of Dovedale, from the mythical Sir Guillaume de Lansdowne receiving his spurs from William the Conqueror on the field of Hastings, past Charlotte’s favourite hero of Agincourt, all the way up to the first Duke of Dovedale himself, boosting a rakish-looking Charles II into an oak tree near Worcester as perplexed Parliamentarian troops peered about nearby. ‘I keep forgetting.’
    ‘It is a bit overwhelming, isn’t it?’ Charlotte automatically reached out to touch his arm and then thought better of it. Letting her hand fall to her side, she tilted her head back to stare at the familiar figure of Sir William Lansdowne, who really did look remarkably like Robert, if he had been wearing gauntlets and breastplate and waving a bloodied sword. ‘I felt that way, too, initially.’
    ‘I remember,’ Robert said, looking not at the murals but at her. And then: ‘I was sorry to hear about your father.’
    Charlotte bit down hard on her lower lip, willing away a sudden prickle of tears. It was ridiculous to turn into a watering pot over something that had happened so very long ago. Eleven years ago, to be precise. By the time her father died, Robert had been five months gone from Girdings, far away across the sea.
    ‘It was a very long time ago,’ Charlotte said honestly.
    ‘Even so.’
    Lieutenant Fluellen looked curiously from one to the other, his brown eyes as bright and inquisitive as a squirrel’s. Fortunately, Charlotte was spared explanations by the intrusion of a rumbling noise, which became steadily louder.
    Both Penelope and Charlotte, who recognised it instantly for what it was, stepped back out of the way as the noise resolved itself into the synchronized rhythm of four pairs of feet. The four sets of feet belonged to four bewigged and powdered footmen, who bore on their shoulders a litter covered with enough gold leaf to beggar Cleopatra. On a thronelike chair in the centre of the litter, draped in purple silk fringed with gold, perched none other than the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale, the woman who had launched a thousand ships – as their crews rowed for their lives in the opposite direction. She inspired horses to rear, jaded roués to blanch beneath their rouge, and young fops to jump out of ballroom windows. And she enjoyed every moment of it.
    The skimpy dresses in vogue had struck the dowager duchess as dangerously republican. The dowager preferred the fashions of her youth, so she had never stopped wearing them. In honour of Christmas Eve, she was garbed in a gown of rich green brocade glittering with gold thread. Her hair had been piled into a coiffure reminiscent of the work of agitated spiders, crowned with a jaunty sprig of mistletoe.
    As the duchess rapped her fabled cane against the side of the litter, her four bearers came to a practiced halt.
    ‘Good evening, Grandmama,’ said Charlotte primly. ‘You do remember Cousin