Tempted By the Night by Elizabeth Boyle Read Free Book Online

why.
    She glanced down at her hand, where the culprit sat wound around her finger. Charlotte’s ring!
    Hermione froze, on the brink of nausea and something else. Curiosity. Undeniable, unbearable curiosity.
    Wherever was the Earl of Rockhurst going in such a hurry?
    And whether it was the ring nudging her forward, orher own desire to discover his secrets, she rushed to the door and slipped through it. Pulled along, the ring thrumming happily on her hand, she made her way down a narrow hallway, which she discovered led to the kitchens in the back, where the chaos of the evening was in full swing.
    It was one thing to gracefully navigate a crowded assembly room—even when one was visible—but to get through a raft of servants bearing great collections of cups and trays of Almack’s infamously stale offerings, when one was unseen, was an entirely different matter.
    Yet there was her quarry, dashing out the back door and into the alley, and Hermione could not resist the compelling and undeniable need to follow him.
    She dashed and darted and weaved her way through the room and almost made it to the other side when a large man, laden with an enormous tray of cups swung around, another man sidestepped him but in the process bumped into Hermione, sending her skittering into the tray. She caught her balance by catching hold of the tray, tipping it and sending the cups flying in all directions.
    “Why you idiot, look what you made me do!”
    The accused turned a black-eyed gaze on his fellow server. “I dinna come near ye. Dinna be blamin’ me for your clod-handed ways.”
    “Oh, dear,” Hermione whispered, as the two men came close to fisticuffs. She was going to have to learn to be more careful, she realized as she found her way the last few feet through the kitchen and out the back door.
    The alley was a far cry from the grand entranceway of Almack’s, and in the dim gloom it was nearly impossible to discern a path. She grimaced, that is until she looked ahead and spied at the end of the byway, silhouetted in the streetlamp, the narrow figure of a wolfhound.
    “Rowan,” she whispered, never so glad to see the earl’s grand dog. For if Rowan was there, the earl wasn’t far away.
    And then, as if on cue, Rockhurst stepped from the shadows, his hand reaching over and giving his constant companion’s head a friendly ruffle. The dog gazed up at his master, and the two of them stood there, on the edge of night, not quite stepping into the light beyond, still clinging to the safety of the shadows.
    This time her breath froze in her throat for other reasons. She couldn’t shake the notion that the two of them had stood thusly many times—countless nights—watching the darkness fall upon the city before they ventured forth.
    And she had to imagine it had nothing to do with spooning broth to orphans or aiding war widows. A chill ran down her spine as she crept toward them, drawn by a desire she didn’t even understand.
    Didn’t know if she wanted to…
    Just then, a curricle pulled up to the curb, the driver hopping down from the high perch. “My lord,” the man said, bobbing his head.
    “Evening, Tunstall.” Rockhurst said.
    “Evening, my lord,” the driver replied. “I heard a fine one just a bit ago—”
    Hermione continued to draw nearer still, for she couldn’t make out all of what Lord Rockhurst’s driver was saying. That is until her slipper squished into something. In the meager light she couldn’t tell how bad it was, but she had to imagine that in the morning, her slipper would be beyond repair.
    And she certainly wasn’t about to take it off and see the damage for herself, for she’d most likely ruin her gloves, and they were her best pair—why it had taken her weeks to find just the right shade of silk, then another week to find the right embroidery pattern—
    Rockhurst’s deep laughter drew her attention back to the matters at hand. “You say Trent and his wife were thrown out of the British