Too Tempting to Resist

Too Tempting to Resist by Cara Elliott

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Authors: Cara Elliott
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truth being stranger than fiction. If you remember, we once read Scheherazade’s exotic Arabian tales—”
    “If you are about to tell me that a handsome genie popped out from one of Harry’s brandy bottles and ravished you on the spot, I am going to summon the apothecary.”
    Eliza bit her lip to keep from laughing. “The he in question wasn’t a puff of scented smoke. He was definitely a flesh-and-blood Englishman.”
    Propping her elbows on the table, Augustina leaned in a little closer. “Well, go on. Is he handsome?”
    “As sin,” she confessed. “Tall, with divine muscles and the most beautiful eyes in Creation.” A sigh slipped of its own volition from her lips. “And he has a large dragon—”
    “Is that what you young people call it these days?” interrupted Augustina. “In my time, some gentlemen referred to their privy part as Abraham’s Rod.”
    Eliza’s eyes widened. “How perfectly dreadful. That does not bode well for him believing a female should enjoy the act, does it?”
    An unladylike chortle. Which was one of the reasons she loved her friend.
    “It was also called a pizzle, a prick, a potato finger,” confided Augustina. “And a pump handle.”
    Oh, she liked that. Haddan had quite a lovely pump handle. One that made her wish that she were a wanton tavern maid, whose duties included frequent trips to the trough in order to fill her bucket…
    “You know, I hadn’t really thought of it before, but it is interesting how all those euphemisms for penis begin with the letter ‘P,’” mused her former governess.
    “Very interesting,” agreed Eliza. She cleared her throat. “Um, speaking of which, you seem to be, er, quite conversant in the subject.”
    Chuckling, Augustina gave an airy wave. “Prinny did not invent sexual dalliances, my dear.”
    Eliza joined in her friend’s laughter, but as the mirth died away, she suddenly felt a stab of guilt that she had never thought to ask a certain question before.
    “Were you ever in love, Gussie?”
    “Oh, yes,” replied Augustina softly. “Deeply. Madly. But my family had no money for a dowry, and his family demanded that he marry wealth. We were going to defy them, once James had saved enough from his parish earnings to afford a wife on his own.” She looked down at her plate and carefully rearranged the three remaining slivers of strawberry tart in a neat row. “However, an epidemic of influenza swept through the village, and he refused to stay away from his sick parishioners.” The ivy leaves twining around the window casement fluttered in the breeze, sending patterns of light and dark skittering across the glass.
    “So that, my dear, is why I say there is nothing wrong in seizing the moment when you have a chance. I am at an age where I can say with some authority that one rarely regrets the things one has done. But as for the things one hasn’t done…”
    A silence—comfortable as only one between two longtime friends can be—filled the time it took for Augustina to add hot water to the pot and refill their cups. Eliza stared pensively at the bits of tea leaves settling in the depths of the sherry-colored liquid. Was the future written there, or in the riddles of a Gypsy fortuneteller, or in the runes of some ancient Druid spell book? And if it were, would she want to know it?
    Her sigh dissolved the curl of vapor. “You’re right. I am so sorry that I never asked you more about your life before you came to Leete Abbey,”
    “Oh, pish. I wouldn’t have told you. The time wasn’t right until this moment,” replied Augustina frankly. “Speaking of which, we have somehow strayed from the subject at hand.” She edged forward in her chair and set her elbows on the table. “Do tell me more about the manacles.”
    After gulping down several sips, Eliza gave a halting description of the room and finding the sex toy that Harry and his friends had hung over Gryff’s bed. “I was curious,” she explained. “In a

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