Seduced by a Stranger

by Eve Silver

  Catherine took such assurance as hopeful, though she could not help but wonder how many bright tomorrows Madeline had waited for, only to have her hopes dashed. Through the years, Catherine had faced her own despair again and again, a rock-strewn path that ended in a dark and tangled wood. Trapped there, she had known the deepest desolation, but somehow, she had spied the dancing flame and followed it back into the light.

  Always, the flame gave her comfort.

  Her gaze slid to the last embers that glowed in the hearth, then away. “Tell me—”

  “I want to sleep,” Madeline interjected, forestalling Catherine’s questions. “I want so badly to sleep and dream. Sweet dreams, not the nightmares that haunt my rest.”

  Curiosity swelled.

  “Read to me, Catherine.” Madeline turned her face away. “A happy tale.”

  Looking about, Catherine spied the nearest stack of books and selected the one at the very top. She lifted the tome and blew on the cover to dispel the dust from the leather binding, then opened to the first page and began to read. She knew not what she recited, her thoughts swirling with the many questions she had about Cairncroft Abbey and Madeline and St. Aubyn… about the nightmares that spilled into Madeline’s waking hours. But this was not the moment to ask. No good could come of questioning Madeline at a time when she was disinclined to answer.

  Long years of practice at veiling her thoughts kept Catherine’s tone even and controlled as she read, the words flowing in a smooth stream. After a time, Madeline’s lids drooped again and again, though she fought her exhaustion and roused herself more than once. In the end, her eyes closed and she slept.

  Careful to make no noise, Catherine exited the chamber, snuffing candles as she went. Taking up the last one burning to light her way, she walked through inky blackness, the small flame a timid soldier in the face of the fallen night. She glanced about trying to recall exactly which chamber Mrs. Bell had said was to be hers. There were many doors along this corridor.

  Sounds filtered through the quiet. A windowpane shaking in the wind. The creak of wood, perhaps a stair or a beam. Unease was a many-legged bug creeping up her spine. She paused and looked about.

  “Hello,” she called, not really expecting a reply, and none was forthcoming. Still, wariness crept across her skin, raising gooseflesh and setting her pulse racing.

  Walking on, she found the chamber that had been assigned to her, recognizable because the door was the only one ajar along the entire corridor. She pushed it fully open and stepped inside. To her surprise, the velvet draperies were pulled back, the window flung wide. A gust of wind swirled through the space, making the flame of her candle plunge this way and that, sending the shadows shifting in a menacing dance. Then the flame guttered, snuffed, leaving her in near-complete darkness, for the moon was obscured by a thick cloud that allowed only a thin gray glow to bleed through the night.

  Another gust ruffled her skirt and the curling tendrils that had escaped her pins.

  A faint shush came from behind her.

  The fine hairs at her nape prickled and rose, and her heart slammed hard against her ribs. She spun fast enough that she nearly lost her balance, expecting to see St. Aubyn there, in all his golden and menacing glory.

  But she was alone.

  Her breath hissed through her teeth as she pressed her open palm to the base of her throat, annoyed with herself. She knew better than to let such things unsettle her. There were true monsters in the night. The wind and shadows did not qualify.

  Keeping her pace slow and careful lest she bump against furniture in this unfamiliar place, she moved to the window and pulled it closed, shutting out the cold wind. Then she eased back against the wall, feeling for the bell-pull that would summon a maid to bring a candle and a fagot to light a fire in the grate. Her fingers closed on nothing more than air. She made a slow circuit of the chamber, and her hand brushed against a long, narrow ribbon dangling in the corner. With a sigh of relief, she took hold of it, her thumb pressing on the embroidered surface as she gave a tug. Now there was nothing to do but wait.

  Turning, she drifted back toward the window and stood looking out at the empty drive. The cloud cover of the stormy day had carried over into the night, obscuring stars and moon alike. Purple tinged and cool, what little light eked through was just enough that she could discern the grim outline of the encroaching forest, a dark mass that threatened to swallow the abbey whole.

  Blackness before her and behind.

  Strange, that she was not afraid of the dark. She had been before that terrifying day when the embankment came down on her and buried her alive. But not after. After that day, she had come to think that the darkness was the least of all possible threats.

  Pity that time and experience had proved her right.

  Almost did she turn from the window then and go to sit on the corner of the bed to await the maid, but something stilled her steps, and she stood, rooted in place, aware of some subtle change. The clouds shifted and the moon broke free as a faint sound, rhythmic and even, carried to her through the glass, growing ever louder.

  A moment later, a groom led a horse onto the drive and a second man came out the front door to meet him, moving with lithe, easy grace. He was garbed all in black, and the horse was dark as well. Man and beast blended with the shadows, both blowing white puffs of warm breath into the cold night.

  She knew it was he. Gabriel St. Aubyn. He was hatless, and his lovely pale hair caught the moonlight that drizzled now through the shifting clouds.

  Conflicted, she stood by the window as he spoke with the groom. She wanted to turn away. But more than that, she wanted to watch him. Because he was beautiful. Because he was dangerous. Both elements caught her interest, for vastly different reasons.

  Warm candlelight spilled through the room then, making her glance back over her shoulder.

  “Miss, I am so sorry,” came a mumbled apology from a newly arrived maid. A quick inspection revealed that she was the same girl who had brought both the tea and— later—the bowl of apples to Madeline’s chamber. “I should have had the fire started and a lamp lit. Mrs. Bell never said…” She shook her head and hurried forward to set her candle on a low table.

  So the lack of a fire was no oversight. The housekeeper had orchestrated the paltry discomfort of a chilly, dark room. A gauntlet thrown down. Catherine’s lips turned in an ironic smile.

  “You are here now. A little moonlight never harmed anyone,” she replied as the maid moved to the fireplace with the glowing fagot she carried. Catherine frowned as she watched the girl kneel to her task. “How did you know I needed a fire? I rang, but I could have wanted anything…”

  “Oh”—the maid glanced back over her shoulder—“did you ring, miss? I never knew. Probably, I was already on my way. It was the master who bid me see to things. I passed him near the library moments ago. He said he had just come down and that your hearth wanted a fire.”

  Unease stirred. Moments ago. Yet St. Aubyn had left Madeline’s chamber some time past. Had he lurked in the hallway, listening to their conversation? Or had he gone off and then returned to stand and watch her? Had her instincts been true when she had turned expecting to see him behind her only to find darkness and shadow?

  The possibility was both infinitely disturbing and utterly absurd.

  Turning her face to the window once more, Catherine leaned close and gazed out while from behind her came the scraping and scratching of the maid’s efforts to light the fire.

  Below, on the drive, St. Aubyn mounted the great, black beast, his movements elegant and spare. The horse tossed its head and lifted one massive hoof before clopping it down once more, but St. Aubyn settled it with a practiced hand, leaning forward a bit as he spoke to the animal. Whatever he said, the horse appeared to like the sound of it.

  Abruptly, St. Aubyn twisted in the saddle, looking up, his face tipped to her window. She felt the weight and intensity of his gaze. The irony of that did not escape her. A moment
ago, he would not have seen her standing here, for the chamber behind her would have been completely dark, making her form in the window only shadow on shadow. But now the maid had come with her candle, leaving Catherine backlit by the glow. Vulnerable to his gaze.

  She knew St. Aubyn saw her here, watching him.

  He made no overt sign of that, did not incline his head or raise a hand in a farewell wave. But he did see her. How confounding that the thought both rattled and pleased her.

  Holding her place, she watched him ride away.

  “Sir Gabriel takes his leave of the abbey at a late hour,” Catherine murmured, turning from the window at last.

  “Yes, miss.” The kindling had caught under the maid’s deft hand and a small blaze already flared to life. The girl stoked it expertly.

  Catherine stared at the flames, entranced. She wanted to move closer, to hold her fingers outstretched until the fire danced toward them, but not close enough to singe. She had no desire to court injury. Dragging her gaze away, she smiled at the maid as she rose from the place she knelt.

  “I am sorry, miss,” the girl said again. “Sorry there was no fire. Of course, the master knows of it, but he’ll forget by the time he returns. He’s like that. His mind ever on other things. But Mrs. Bell is one who never forgets.” Reaching up, she adjusted the skewed mopcap on her limp brown hair. “Please, say nothing to Mrs. Bell. I won’t let it happen again. I promise.”

  “What is your name?”

  The girl gnawed at her lower lip, then said, “Susan, miss. Susan Parker.”

  “There is no reason for me to mention it to Mrs. Bell, Susan.” Especially since Catherine suspected that the housekeeper had planned it this way and would take particular glee in Catherine’s acknowledgment of any inconvenience.

  Susan sagged with relief. Taking up her candle, she held the flame to the wick of the one Catherine had set down after the wind snuffed it. The wick caught and flared. With her free hand, she again fixed her cap and chewed anxiously at her lower lip, then said, “Thank you, miss. Mrs. Corkle—she’s the cook—she’ll make a supper tray for you and I’ll bring it up straightaway.”

  “That would be lovely. Oh, and do you have a key to this room? There was none in the door.”

  The maid frowned, and reached for her apron. She had a small ring of keys similar to Mrs. Bell’s larger one. Carefully, she toyed with one, then hesitated and reached for another. “Mrs. Bell don’t like to come to this wing, so she gave me the keys to all the rooms... Is it this one? No... this one? One of them’s the master key for this wing,” she said, and frowned down at the two. “Not this one”—she let the key drop and lifted the first—“this one”—then she dropped it and lifted the other once more to slide it free of the ring as she gave a decisive nod—“this is the one for your door.”

  Catherine accepted the key and offered her thanks, then waited until the girl was nearly to the door before she spoke again. “Where does Sir Gabriel go at this hour of the night?”

  The maid paused but did not turn. “I couldn’t say, miss.”

  A twinge of guilt speared Catherine as she contemplated her next words, but she ignored it and said in a gentle voice, “I could ask Mrs. Bell. I am certain she would enjoy a chat.”

  The unspoken implication sent the maid spinning back to face her, the candle dish trembling in her hand. Catherine felt low indeed for perpetrating such a foul trick. Of course, she would never report the girl to the housekeeper. And of course, the girl had no way to know that.

  “Tell me,” Catherine said softly. “Where does he go?” Even as she repeated the question, she could not say why she felt such urgency to know the answer.

  Susan made a moan of distress. Her eyes were wide, her brows raised. Catherine noted that the right one was bald in the center, bisected by what appeared to be an old scar.

  More lip chewing, and then Susan blurted in a rush, “To London. He goes to London, miss. He says he likes to travel at night. I heard Mr. Norton, the butler, say once that the way is not safe and is riddled with thieves. Sir Gabriel laughed. I remember it clear as day because the sound of it was off. Harsh and ruthless. Sir Gabriel said he would like to meet a thief on the road, that it would justify any actions, and Mr. Norton went white in the face and said nothing more.” Susan dropped her gaze, and Catherine thought that was the end of her story, but then she whispered, “There was a man found dead by the road the following day. People say he was a thief.” She shook her head. “’Course, it’s all talk. No one hereabouts ever saw the body. It was all just talk.”

  Catherine stared at her, amazed by such an outpouring of information. She had wanted only to know where St. Aubyn went. She had not expected such panoply of fact and opinion.

  “Thank you.” She smiled, and felt lower still when the girl did not smile in return, but stared at her with frightened dark eyes, and said bitterly, “Does that buy your silence then, miss?”

  “Yes.” Catherine wanted to say more, but could summon no appropriate words, and so she held silent as, with a huff of despair, Susan scooted out the door and away.

  Interesting that Susan Parker thought her master ruthless. Catherine had heard some similar gossip in London. That Gabriel St. Aubyn had run to ground a thief who had dared to pick his pocket and dragged him to the gaol himself. At the time, she had thought the story exaggeration, but having now met the man, she wondered if the outlandish tale held a kernel of truth.

  Later, it was a different girl who brought the supper tray, and Catherine regretted how unkind she had been. But she did not regret the information she had gleaned. In knowledge lay safety. That lesson was hard learned.

  She lifted the cover from her supper plate. Roasted beef and cauliflower in cream and a ragout of some sort. The food did not appeal, though it was prettily arranged and aromatic. Catherine left the meal untouched, thinking it was the exhaustion of the journey that stole her appetite and left her with an aching, dizzy head and a dry, tight throat.

  But late in the night, when she awoke with a pain in her belly, so hard and sharp that she gasped and pressed her hands tight against the shock of it, she realized she must have eaten something that was off. She recalled the underdone mutton from the coaching inn, and the recollection of that greasy fare was enough to make her moan.

  Then the pain twisted even tighter and she recalled Madeline’s wild fears of poison and the faint, bitter taste of almond that had flavored the tart. She recalled too the revulsion on Gabriel St. Aubyn’s face when she had offered him the plate.

  Horror chilled her as she lay panting in her bed, unable to believe that Madeline was right, that someone in this house was trying to kill her, but unable to discount it out of hand in the face of her current suffering.

  Mutton or poison.

  As Catherine tossed and turned through the endless night, her head swimming, her belly cramping, she was hard-pressed to choose the more likely culprit of the two.

  5

  St. Giles, England, March 1828

  Martha Grimsby sat alone in a shabby little room in Church Lane, St. Giles. Her tiny chamber was at the very top of a decrepit three-story building that was so ancient and broken it was forced to lean on the building next door to keep from toppling over. There was a window directly across from where she sat, the glass blackened and cracked, with a board nailed over half of it to keep the rain out.

  A piss-poor job it did.

  The sleet and rain beat on the glass sending a frigid torrent through the crack at the edge where the board met the window. The night was colder than it ought to have been at this time of year. Martha drew her patched and mended shawl tight around her shoulders and huddled on the soiled bed that was putrefied with old sweat and damp rot. Her single tallow candle burned low, the flame dancing and swaying, painting silhouettes of monsters and gnomes against her wall. Once, in a time long past, she had fancied the shadows as ponies and swans. She knew better now.

  With a sigh, she tipped her head back and stared at
the candle-darkened ceiling as she pondered the life that was hers. The instant her thoughts swayed toward the dangerous slope of regret, she dragged them back and forced herself to think of nothing at all. A different girl had grown up in Yorkshire where her father was head groom at a nearby estate. A different girl had been foolish enough to run off to London. A different girl lived this hell on earth.

  Not her. She could not think of that rosy-cheeked innocent and imagine it had ever been her. That was a sure path to madness.

  Pushing her palms against the mattress, she heaved herself from the bed. She was low on funds and down to the stub of her last candle and a dry crust of bread. She would have to brave the weather and try her luck at finding a willing gent on the nearest streets, close to home. She had little choice, not if she wanted to eat.

  The decision made, she moved briskly lest she be tempted to change her mind. She left her sad chamber and went down the flights of creaking, rotted stairs to a narrow corridor at the back of the house. The door there was skewed on its hinges and she had to put her shoulder to it to make it open, then turn and put her shoulder to it again to force it shut.

  The wind slapped her, a cold, brutal hand, but the rain had eased to a trickle and she was grateful for that. Head bowed, she made her way to Carrier Street and lounged against a building, glad to see there was only one other girl out, far up the street. Competition on a night like this was unwelcome, for the pickings were slim with people driven indoors by the chill and the damp.

  For a long while, no likely candidate arrived. There was a group of drunken laborers who spewed from the alehouse, but they were the type of laborers who never did much work and so had little coin. Martha suspected that what funds they had had were already spent on drink, so she shrank into the shadows and let them pass.

  Some time later, the rain stopped altogether and a stocky gent sauntered along. He wasn’t a swell. Not by half, for his coat showed shabby at the sleeves with a patch on the elbow, but he looked like he might have a coin or two, so Martha stepped forward with a smile.