Seduced by a Stranger

by Eve Silver

  Then he turned his face toward her, and she shrank back. He had small eyes, mean eyes, narrowed in contemplation. She knew what sort he was right off.

  “Fancy some company?” he asked with an ugly grin, offering the greeting she usually used.

  She shivered and backed up a step. She was a smart girl now. She’d learned after a broken bone or two how to be a smart girl. Some men liked it rough, and she had no doubt he was one of ’em.

  “Not tonight,” she murmured. She spun on her heel and hurried off, skidding and sliding along the wet street, anxious to be away.

  Heart racing, she rounded the corner and let one shoulder sag against the wall. He had not followed.

  “Hello.” The voice came from behind her, low and rich.

  With a squeak she jumped and turned, her eyes widening in amazement. A swell stood there, looking at her questioningly. A real swell such as one never saw here, for the whores on these streets were not the sort a gentleman would deign to touch. But there was no question. He was a gentleman with a fine coat and polished boots and spun gold hair that framed a truly wonderful face.

  “Hello,” she managed to reply.

  “Had a fright?” he asked with a small smile.

  She pressed her palm to her chest and nodded. “I have.”

  For an instant, she felt shy, an odd, overwhelming emotion that she hadn’t known in years and years, an emotion she had thought never to know again. Then she summoned her courage and grabbed hold of her opportunity and asked, “Up for some company, sir?”

  He studied her in silence, his gaze traveling leisurely from her crown to her toes, and back again. His perusal made her feel both terrible and wonderful. She held her breath, waiting.

  Then he smiled, and she thought the sun had come out, though the night was black as Old Mag’s rotting toe before they hacked it off.

  “You’ll do,” he said, still smiling. With a twirl of his fingers he offered her a gleaming gold coin. “Come with me.”

  And like a lamb, Martha followed where he led.

  * * *

  Cairncroft Abbey

  A week after her arrival at the abbey, Catherine sat with Madeline on a cold stone bench in the south garden. The sun peeked from between the clouds and the breeze made stray wisps of her hair dance. With her face tipped down, she watched the hem of her dress lift and billow, then settle once more as the gust died. There was little else to watch here at Cairncroft, where time moved at a languid pace.

  Madeline’s mood had improved with the passing days. Catherine wondered if it was St. Aubyn’s absence or her own presence that contributed to the lightening of her friend’s spirits. Probably it was some combination of the two, but she did not ask. She had no wish to hamper Madeline’s progress or distress her in any way, for Madeline had become almost reasonable. No longer did she turn her face aside when food was brought to her, but instead ate a bite or two, providing that Catherine sampled the fare first and assured her of its palatability.

  On Catherine’s first morning at Cairncroft, Madeline had refused to eat. With the memory of the previous night’s torment—the way her stomach had knotted and cramped, the pain a jagged knife slicing through her—fresh in Catherine’s mind, she had been hard-pressed to fault her. In the clear light of day, she had assessed the matter of her nocturnal illness and determined that it was the horrid meal at the coaching inn that had made her unwell rather than the tart she had taken from the tea tray. Nonetheless, that afternoon the sight of a plate of small crumpets and cakes had made her wary. She had thrust aside her qualms, convinced the stomach pains had been mere happenstance, and she had sampled an iced cake, thrilled to detect no hint of almond.

  Madeline had followed her lead.

  But Catherine had avoided the tarts on the tea tray that afternoon and the next, and the following day, Mrs. Corkle left them off entirely.

  Madeline had noticed their absence. “My cousin despises raspberry tarts,” she had said. “I wonder that Mrs. Corkle does not know it, that she serves them when he is here and leaves them off when he is not.”

  Her observations made Catherine conjure an image of Gabriel St. Aubyn’s expression of revulsion when she had offered him the plate that first day in Madeline’s chamber. As though he had known there was something off about those tarts. The memory continued to nag at her like a stone in her boot.

  “Are you very bored?” Madeline asked now as a cloud drifted across the sun.

  “Not at all,” Catherine replied with a smile. She was both surprised by Madeline’s perceptiveness—she seemed far too buried in her own misery to notice aught around her—and dismayed that she had lowered her defenses enough to allow Madeline to peek through. “I am very pleased to be here with you, Madeline. These past days have been restful, and your companionship a balm to my soul.”

  She was pleased to be here. She owed Madeline a debt she could never repay and she was grateful to have the opportunity to offer her a kindness, even if it was only the hand of friendship. Besides, the alternatives to Cairncroft Abbey were few, so in effect, Madeline was doing her a service.

  Madeline made a face. “I know you are pleased to be here, but you are so careful with your words, as though you fear overexciting me. I do wish you would tell me something. Anything.” She paused. “What was London like? Certainly more exciting than this.” She made a vague gesture toward the looming gray face of the house. “What was your life like before?”

  For an instant, Catherine could not speak, the question triggering a moment of horror. Before. Before her parents died. Before the horrors of the years that followed their loss. Before the fire.

  Memories surged in a sickening, swirling tide that grabbed hold of her and threatened to pull her deep. With rigid determination, she gathered the frayed strands of her control.

  “My life was…” Her life had been a type of death, cold and dark and bleak, and each time she had been raised up with hope, she had been dashed back against the ground. How many times could hope be squashed beneath a heavy, booted heel before it raised up no more?

  But Madeline would not wish to know of that. What was your life like before?

  She did not mean before the fire, she meant after… in London, before coming here to Cairncroft Abbey.

  “My life was busy,” Catherine continued in a carefully modulated tone. “My employer, Mrs. Northrop, spent a great deal of time at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital ministering to the less fortunate. As her paid companion, I was expected to spend my time there, as well. And she was very involved in the opening of a lodging house for the deserving poor in St. Giles. The hours we did not spend at Bart’s, we spent working toward the opening of that house.”

  “And was that a great success? Were there speeches and crowds and baskets of food handed out, all with much fanfare and glee?” Madeline asked, her eyes sparking with uncharacteristic animation.

  Catherine had not the heart to squelch her excitement. The venture—in Mrs. Northrop’s opinion—was a wretched failure. More than once after the house had opened, Mrs. Northrop had bemoaned the fact that there were only disreputable creatures in St. Giles and not a single deserving soul in the bunch. But Catherine was a far less rigid judge. She understood that desperation could force one to make all manner of horrific choices.

  Had she herself not been poised on the razored edge of just such a sword?

  “And do you mean to say you actually went to St. Giles?” Madeline continued.

  “I did, almost every day. And I met some lovely women there. Strong women and kind.”

  “Other women of good works. I recall you mentioned one woman in your letters… she runs a school, does she not?” Madeline murmured.

  “Yes.” Among other pursuits, for in St. Giles, running a school was not something that put food in one’s belly or a roof overhead.

  “But what terrible wretches you must have seen, as well! Fallen women who are surely bound for Hell.”

  Catherine cast her a glance through her lashe
s, and saw that Madeline’s pale cheeks were bright with two spots of color, her eyes sparkling and clear. Religious fervor? She had not expected such. But perhaps it was only simple conversation that brought liveliness to her words.

  “Is there a Hell that is worse than what those women have endured?” she asked, thinking of the girls who were pale and broken, dying of vile disease, their every word and action laced with clear regret that ever they had been born.

  Did their transgressions truly destine them for damnation? If so, then she shared their fate, for her crimes were far worse.

  Madeline’s brows rose at Catherine’s somewhat heretical question. “Do you not believe in Hell?” she whispered, leaning close to peer into Catherine’s eyes, her expression intent.

  For an instant, Catherine recalled an enormous, bright fire, smelled burning wood and flesh, heard the screams that carried, high and piercing, through the night. She had seen a version of Hell, felt its heat, known the endless despair that surely those wretches thus consigned felt. All the more reason to grab what she could of life, to make what she could of any circumstance.

  “I do not know,” she temporized. “Perhaps death is all there is.”

  Madeline recoiled as though struck, and Catherine immediately regretted allowing their conversation to travel this thorny path. She cast about for some other topic to introduce, but Madeline unexpectedly filled the breach.

  “Tell me, then, about your time in the hospital,” she urged. “You tended to the sick at… Bart’s, was it? Oh, how awful that must have been.” She shuddered. “I had imagined you accompanying Mrs. Northrop on rounds of afternoon visits and walks in Hyde Park. Perhaps a carriage ride or a shopping excursion…”

  “No.” Catherine laughed in a short burst of genuine humor. “That would have been awful. I enjoyed working with her at the hospital.” She had not liked Mrs. Northrop, with her sour demeanor and ever-woeful predictions, but she had liked the way the woman ensured that Catherine’s hours were consumed by the needs of the desperately poor and ill. It gave her less time to dwell on her own sorrows, and she preferred that. What value was there in bemoaning the past?

  Madeline was silent for a long moment, two faint, vertical lines drawn between her brows. Finally, she whispered, “Did you see many people die in that hospital? Were you there by their bedsides when they breathed their last?”

  There was something dark and desperate in her tone.

  “No. Never,” Catherine lied, determined not to distress Madeline further. Yes. Far too many times. And each time, in her mind’s eye she had seen different faces, different deaths, ones that would haunt her until she herself went to her grave.

  With her chin dipped down, Madeline cast her a sidelong glance, then looked away quickly as her gaze met Catherine’s. She bit her lip and plucked at her skirt. “I have seen death. A girl. Killed not far from here.”

  “Killed? How?”

  “I do not know.” Madeline shook her head, her expression one of confusion. “My cousin took me away so quickly…” A shudder shook her. “He did not want me to see. But I looked back. Like Lot’s wife. Only I am not turned to a pillar of salt.” She paused, frowned, as though she had lost what she meant to say, then her brow cleared and she continued. “There was blood, so much blood, and I saw that she was cut open... or did I only hear that after, from one of the maids?”

  Catherine stared at her, appalled. “Madeline, who was the girl who died? A servant? A friend?”

  “No... no... I don’t think so. I don’t know.” Her voice rose in agitation and she began anew to pluck at her skirt. Then she grabbed Catherine’s hand and held it tight between both of her own, drawing it to her breast. “I am so very glad you came here. You have done me a service. You will probably never know the magnitude of what you have done for me.”

  There was such sincerity in her tone that it took Catherine aback.

  Before she could form a rejoinder, Madeline whispered, “And I think you are safe here, for you are not…” She stared into the distance, her expression blank as a marble slab. “Well, I believe he likes to play with a different sort entirely. But have a care…” A sigh escaped her and she released Catherine’s hand. “Try not to be caught alone or unawares.”

  Catherine recoiled, the implication of those words knifing through her. Did Madeline refer to the fate of the dead girl and express her concern that there lurked some danger? Her admonition did not make it sound so. Her word choice implied something else. Did Madeline dare to voice aloud St. Aubyn’s preferences in female companionship? The first possibility horrified, while the second mortified. But what else could she mean by such an odd observation? The inflection on the word play sounded almost… sinister, and the warning could be construed as nothing else.

  “Madeline, do you—” Catherine hesitated. Do you believe your cousin killed that girl? No, of course such fancy was ridiculous. Whatever ill feelings hounded her relationship with Sir Gabriel, Madeline could not mean to imply that he was a murderer.

  Rubbing her palms along her upper arms, Catherine mastered her confusion. She knew well that monsters hid behind any façade, but she must not let her own memories color the meanings she heard in the words of others.

  Madeline sat unmoving for a moment, and then she whispered, “Do nothing to draw his attention.” She took a shuddering breath. “I cannot say more.”

  “I see,” Catherine murmured, though she did not see at all. But she did know that she had no wish for St. Aubyn to turn his attention to her. No wish for any man to notice her in that way. The very thought made a greasy sickness roll in her belly.

  She must have made some outward show of her musings, for Madeline made a sound of dismay, and cried, “Oh, I never meant… that is… well, he is away now, and that is for the best.”

  For the best, indeed.

  Catherine conjured an image of him in her mind’s eye, Gabriel St. Aubyn, with his perfect features and thick, pale hair, the breadth of his shoulders, his long fingers holding the cup of tea with such perfect grace. Deceptive grace. She had seen the way lean muscle shifted beneath perfectly tailored cloth. He could have shattered the delicate china with those strong fingers. Crushed it in his fist.

  She shuddered, and beside her, Madeline shuddered as well.

  “The sun has gone behind a cloud,” Madeline observed.

  Arranging her expression in a serene smile, Catherine reached over and laid her hand on Madeline’s. She thought that even through the gloves she could feel how cold her friend’s hands were.

  “Come, let us go and have a cup of tea and find a warm fire,” she said, and like a child, Madeline rose and did as she was bidden.

  * * *

  St. James’s Street, London, March 1828

  The position of the moon in the clear night sky left no shadowed niche to cling to. No matter. Gabriel was not here to hide, but rather to be seen by as many as cared to look.

  He stood on the far side of the street, across and a little down the way from his club, studying the moon in all its bright and pale detail. It made him think of her. Catherine Weston. Of her midnight hair and porcelain skin, and the smooth, cool sound of her voice. He was both surprised and faintly annoyed that his thoughts turned to such whimsy, for his was not a nature inclined to contemplate the poetry found in the curve of a woman’s cheek. He was more inclined to the analytical and the focus of the moment.

  The focus of this moment was the need to walk into White’s and pretend interest in gambling and gossip, because that was what gentlemen did. And Gabriel knew the value of doing exactly what was expected. There was no better shield than the mundane.

  His gaze dropped and lingered on the club’s famous bow window. Several men sat there, backlit by the lamps in the room. They were chatting and laughing, their heads turned subtly so that any who passed could not help but recognize them, but more than that, they wanted to watch those in the street, to judge them, betimes poke fun at them. It was a game of sorts, one Gabriel neither
understood nor enjoyed.

  Even from this distance, it was not difficult to place names to silhouettes. Bodley and Ashton and Hale, and two others on the opposite side of the table whose faces were in shadow. A few steps closer and he would know their identities, as well. Those steps were difficult to take tonight, for there were other entertainments he would rather seek out. Still, he could not come to London and avoid the club altogether. That would cause talk, speculation, perhaps even a ridiculous wager to be recorded in the betting book that lay open on the table. He preferred not to draw that sort of attention; he preferred to draw no attention at all.

  As a matter of course, he was careful to blend into the background, smiling and nodding when others did the same, dragging forth an appropriate quip at an appropriate time. Mimicking his peers had become an easy thing, though in the beginning it had taken some attention and care. Over the years he had become quite adept at appearing to be exactly as they were, to share similar thoughts and emotions. They thought him genial enough, if rather dull, a situation that he found amusing.

  He was nothing like them. His thoughts were a twisted maze, what emotions he had a dark, fetid pool.

  He was anything but genial. To know it, they had only to ask the companion he had left a mere hour past.

  But they would never know of his companion, and so they would never ask.

  He was careful about such things. Methodical. No one ever saw past the mask.

  Except he thought that given even a hint of opportunity, Catherine Weston, with her perceptive gaze and quick tongue, might. And here he was, back to thinking about her. Wondering at the workings of her mind. Pondering the mysteries she hid. He half imagined that spending any length of time with her, catching hold of the chance to search out her secrets, might be worth the risk that she would see him for exactly what he was.

  Just then, the front door of the club opened, spilling light across the stairs and cobbles. Two likely fellows sauntered down the steps, Newton and Pratt, a pair of harmless fools. They laughed too loudly and cuffed each other on the shoulder. Pratt’s aim was off and his fist glanced across Newton’s chest, unbalancing him as he stepped down, his foot sliding on the last stair. He spun, tipped to one side then lurched to the other, swaying and laughing, fighting for balance.