“Please do,” Tessie replied with a gracious dip of her head. There was something so unexpectedly proper in her bearing that Charlotte dipped a curtsy as she took her leave; her own elevated rank seemed a thing from another world entirely. Apparently feeling his duty had already been done, Noir showed no signs of departing with her. He did not even lift his head from Tessie’s lap.
Back outside, Charlotte blinked against the brightness of the afternoon sun. The little cottage—a hut, really, although she could not bring herself to call it that—was a place out of time: cool and dark and entirely apart from this warm spring day. It was just the sort of hideaway she had once envisioned for herself.
Somewhere she would not be recognized. Somewhere she could be alone.
But when she considered Tessie’s situation, the idea of being alone lost some of its appeal.
Startled by a flash of movement in the trees ahead, Charlotte realized her feet had already carried her almost to the Rookery. Not wishing to be caught spying once more, this time she stepped boldly toward the house, expecting to see Mari or perhaps Garrick employed on some errand.
Edward, who had been bent over the pump handle, straightened as she approached, but not because he saw or heard her. Water still trickled from the pump onto the stones beneath. Stripped to the waist, he scrubbed his hands over his face to wash up, to cool off, or both. A thin, silvery-white scar snaked over the top of one shoulder. His arms and chest were tanned and layered with muscle—as she had known they would be, based on the strength and agility he had displayed in rescuing her.
But knowing a thing, and seeing it, were quite different. She could not seem to keep her eyes from traveling along those curves of muscle dusted with dark hair, down the flat plane of his abdomen, to the place where the hair formed a thicker line that disappeared beneath the band of his breeches.
It was not as if she had no familiarity with male anatomy. She had diapered her uncle’s children, and she had once come unexpectedly upon her cousin Roderick in his smallclothes.
But she could not remember ever before feeling curious about what a grown man would look like in the all-together, how it would feel to run her fingers down his chest, along his . . .
Recalling suddenly that she was meant to be a worldly-wise widow, she dragged her gaze back to his face.
As if trying to persuade himself that she was not really standing before him, he shook droplets of water from his hair and blinked his eyes, then snatched his shirt from where it had been hanging and jerked it over his head with a grunt of surprise. The fine linen clung to his damp skin, and quickly grew transparent, revealing whorls of hair and the small brown peaks of his nipples.
He seemed too stunned by her unexpected appearance to speak. Not waiting for him to recover, Charlotte gave a very proper nod of greeting and began to hurry on her way, back to the relative security and familiarity of Ravenswood. She didn’t know how many more shocks to the system she could stand.
“Miss—Charlotte. Wait. I—”
“Please don’t,” she spoke over him without turning back to face him, fearing he would offer either an apology or a scold. She wanted neither. “I am sorry for intruding.”
“You didn’t intrude.”
The obvious falsehood lured her back from the edge of the woods. It was almost as if he did not want her to leave.
“I was hoping for a chance to thank you. For this morning,” he added in hurried explanation.
Charlotte knitted her brows together. “This morning?”
“You . . . stepped in. Between me and Garrick. Not that it was necessary. I—I meant what I said. I wouldn’t have struck him.”
From the look in his eyes, she could see he was trying to reassure himself. Recollecting what Mari had told her, she said simply, “I know. It was Mr. Garrick’s temper I doubted. I merely wanted to give him a moment to . . . reflect.”
Her response seemed to catch him off guard. One of his sun-browned hands brushed along his damp sleeve, precisely where she had laid her fingertips earlier, as if chasing away the ghost of her touch. “Ah. I see. I—I thought perhaps . . .”
“You and Mr. Markham have been hard at work today, I suppose?” she asked, hoping to direct the conversation onto less muddy ground.
“No. When I left the house this morning, I first walked into town, as I planned. On my way back, I decided to inspect the lower farms instead.”
“And what did you find?”
For answer, he gave a slow shake of his head. “Nothing cheering. I helped one of the tenants, a man named Weston, free a ram that had got himself stuck in a stile. That’s how I came to be—” His eyes darted down and away, a sort of apology for his state of undress. For the first time, she noticed his dirt-streaked buff breeches and scuffed boots. “Weston’s too old to manage that farm on his own. The sheep pens were sties, and the ewes haven’t been sheared yet this spring. But I . . .” As the words faded, he shook his head again. “That is, I’m not sure how to . . .”
For some reason, the defeated dip of his shoulders reminded her of how she had felt when she had first arrived in England, surrounded by jabbering voices that spoke a language she had imagined she knew. In private, she had wept while puzzling over whatever strange sounds she had managed to catch. But in public, she had always claimed confidently that she understood what she had been told. Aunt Penhurst had never caught her in that lie.
Sometimes, a lie told often enough became truth.
Charlotte squared her gaze. “I do not recall you ever making mention of sheep in your letters, Mr. Cary.”
“My . . . letters?”
“The ones you wrote to me from Antigua, of course. Surely you have not forgotten?”
His eyes sketched across her face, a mixture of incredulity, amusement, and something very like relief in their clear blue depths. “How could I forget, Mrs. Cary?” he said with a small smile. “No, the climate of the West Indies is not favorable to the production of wool.”
“In time, you will learn what is required here,” she insisted, more quietly. His momentary indecision could not erase his usual air of assurance. “Until then, put Garrick to the shearing.”
When he tilted his head and gave an almost devilish grin, sunlight caught his damp hair, a tumble of waves she longed to smooth, its darkness only accentuating the brightness of his eyes. Aunt Penhurst had been firmly of the opinion that only gentlemen could be called handsome. Edward Cary gave the lie to her words.
But perhaps part of his appeal was that he was not, properly speaking, a gentleman—a distinction of dubious merit, in Charlotte’s experience. After all, her father, wherever he was, was a gentleman—an earl, like the owner of this derelict estate—and he had abandoned both her and her mother. Then there had been Mr. Sutherland and his grasping, groping hands. And of course Robert, now Duke of Langerton.
The only gentleman who had ever lifted a finger to help her had been her late husband. And for that his peers had been ready to cull him from their ranks, if Robert’s stories were to be believed.
No, she would rather not think of Edward as a gentleman. Just as she was obviously no lady. Ladies did not have to keep their gazes from wandering down the deep vee of a man’s open-necked shirt.
As if aware of her distraction, he crossed his arms over his chest, blocking her view. “By the way, I ordered those cleaning supplies you wanted.” She nodded somewhat hesitantly, caught off guard by the reminder of her last-minute request. “They should be delivered tomorrow or the next day.”
Hadn’t he insisted he did not want her to meddle with the house? What had changed his mind?
She bowed her head and forced her knees to dip in a parting curtsy. “Very good. I shall set right to work.”
“You needn’t do this, Charlotte,” he said again.
For a moment, she could not muster a reply. “Anyone may see that the condition of Ravenswood pains you, Mr. Cary. I am happy to do what I can to help.”
It wasn’t precisely true.
Frankly, she was no longer eager to explore the rest of the house. Would she find more rooms in the condition of that sitting room?
But even as she turned away, she knew she would do it. For however long she chose to stay at Ravenswood, she would need to find something here with which to occupy herself.
Something other than Edward Cary.
* * *
“G’ mornin’, missus.”
When Charlotte opened the door, a girl with lank, dark blond hair stood expectantly on the kitchen step, carrying a basket. “I’m Peg. Mr. Cary ordered these things yesterday. For the house.” Each piece of information was punctuated with a pause, as if the speaker hoped to prod Charlotte’s wayward memory. Only the last detail offered the necessary illumination, however.
“Ah, yes. The cleaning supplies.” Charlotte reached for the basket, but the girl, Peg, seemed determined to carry it inside herself. Her head swiveled to and fro, trying to take in every detail of her surroundings. She was no doubt expected to report back to those who had sent her on this mission.
The girl set her basket on the servants’ dining table and turned a full circle. “Lor’ bless us, missus.” Under Mari’s direction, every surface gleamed, and Charlotte could guess by the girl’s awestruck expression that the space must dwarf the kitchen in any other dwelling in Little Norbury.
“Thank you for bringing these things, Miss—?”
“Jus’ Peg, if you please. Though your Mr. Cary would have that it’s properly Margaret.” A skeptical laugh shook her narrow shoulders. “I ain’t got no other name. Folks call me Eakins, since it was the Widow Eakins what took me in. But I ain’t hers, neither. Ain’t nobody’s, an’ that’s a fact.”
“An orphan, are you?” The revelation put Charlotte in charity with the girl.
Peg shrugged. “If’n you mean t’ ask if me ma and pa are dead, can’t say. Someone left me at the poor house, and Widow Eakins needed a helpin’ hand at the Rose and Raven, so she took me up.”
“The Rose and Raven—that’s the pub, isn’t it? What do you do there?”
“Clean, mostly. Wait tables, on occasion. An’ take care o’ the pigs.”
“Oh.” Were the pigs actual swine or particularly disagreeable customers?
To hide her confusion, she turned her attention to Peg’s basket, which contained a round tin of beeswax and a glass bottle filled with turpentine, wrapped in a checked cloth to prevent them from knocking against one another in transit. Well, it would do to start. Absently, Charlotte set the two containers aside and began to fold the worn square of fabric.
A shadow fell across it as Peg backed up until she struck the edge of the table, jarring the items she had brought and nearly knocking them onto the floor. Charlotte looked up to see Mari entering through the kitchen door with a sandy-haired man she did not recognize. He carried his hat before him, filled to the brim with peeping chicks.
“Why, Mari. I didn’t hear you come in. Is this—?”
“Matthew Markham, ma’am. At your service.” His bow of greeting was slight and awkward, so as not to tumble the contents of his hat onto the floor.
“The pleasure is m—” Charlotte began.
But Peg gasped over her. “Lor’ bless us! It’s true!” Her gray eyes searched Mari’s face with open incredulity. “There really are black folks. I’ve seen pictures of ’em on those plaques,” she added in an explanatory whisper to Charlotte, as if she imagined Mari could not understand her words, “the ones again’ slavery—with the fellow all bundled up in chains. Mr. Toomey has one behind th’ till. But I never—”
“Peg Eakins.” Mr. Markham’s voice was firm, though he did not raise it. “Mind yourself.”
“No need to speak harshly to the girl, Mr. Markham. Her surprise is understandable.” Mari half smiled and lifted the upturned hat from his hands, then added in a quiet voice, “You would not like to have witnessed my reaction the first time I saw a white face.”
Her speech effectively cut short Matthew Markham’s scold. “What are you doing here, Peg?” he asked, more gently.
“Mr. Toomey asked me to deliver some things Mr. Cary wanted.”
“Ah. So Toomey’s back. I’ll tell Cary when I see him. He’ll be glad to hear it.”
While Mari filled a chipped saucer with water for the chicks to drink, Charlotte began lifting the yellow balls of fluff into a larger basket that could serve as a makeshift coop. “Thank you for the cleaning supplies, Peg,” she said when she was done, turning as she wiped her palms on her apron. The girl bobbed a curtsy and slipped out the door, one cautious, curious eye still on Mari.
When she had gone, Mari sighed. “I never thought my coming here would cause Mr. Edward trouble.”
“What do you mean?”
“You saw how the girl looked at me. She is afraid, both of what she does not know, and what she imagines she does. The people here have already made assumptions about the kind of man Mr. Edward must be, based on where he has been. The presence of an African woman, a former slave, only adds fuel to the flames.”
Charlotte thought of Garrick’s accusations, even her own uncertainty about the nature of the relationship between Mari and Edward. “You may be right.” With a nod of conviction, she went to the door. “Peg! Come back here, if you please.” After a moment, the girl sidled into the house. “We’ve a great deal of work to do. Could you be persuaded to come back tomorrow with more cleaning supplies and help us put them to use?” Charlotte asked her. “If Mrs. Eakins can spare you, of course.”
Peg gave another wide-eyed stare, then a sharp nod. “She sometimes gives me leave t’ do aught for Tessie. Don’ guess but this’d be the same.”
“Tessie?”
Both Charlotte and Mr. Markham spoke the name, with differing degrees of surprise.
“Aye,” said Peg, casting a bewildered look at each of them in turn.
“Who’s Tessie?” asked Mari.
“An odd old woman who took up residence long ago in a cottage on the edge of the estate,” said Markham. “A trespasser. I’ve been meaning to speak with Mr. Cary about her.”
“I already have,” Charlotte lied. She could not bear to think of the poor woman turned out of her makeshift little home. “He said she wasn’t doing any harm.” Markham looked skeptical but said nothing more. “But who is she?”
It was Peg’s turn to chime in. “Ain’ nobody knows for sure. Widow Eakins says Tessie jus’ showed up one day, ’bout the time everybody else were leavin’. ’Cause of the smallpox,” she added by way of explanation.
So for twenty years, the woman had simply existed on the fringe of Little Norbury, no questions asked? Charlotte knew enough about village gossip to guess that wasn’t the whole truth. “Hasn’t she any family?”
Peg shrugged. “So far as I ever heard, don’ nobody even know her name.”
“What’s ‘Tessie,’ then?”
“A sort of . . . joke, I suppose you’d call it,” Markham explained, looking sheepish. “I was only a child then, so I don’t remember it, but my pa told me that when she first came, the people who tried to help her thought she put on airs, despite having almost nothing to her name. Said she acted more high and mighty than the Countess of Beckley herself, God rest her soul. So for a time, people called her Countess, and eventually . . .”
“It was shortened to Tessie.” Charlotte could not help but think of Edward’s refusal to tolerate nicknames. Most people, she supposed, thought of them as signs of affection. But as she well knew, and Edward seemed to understand, they could also be marks of disrespect, weapons in a cruel war to keep people in their places.
“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but I have to get back. Widow Eakins’ll be wonderin’ what’s become o’ me.” With a quick curtsy, Peg slipped past Markham and out the door again.
Retrieving his hat from Mari’s outstretched hand, Markham studied its condition before opting not to return it to his head. “I’ll say good day as well, Mrs. Cary. Miss Harper,” he said, with a bow for eac
h of them.
“Thank you for the hatchlings, Mr. Markham,” Mari said.
“It’s nothing.”
Charlotte suspected it might have been the first untruth that had ever passed the farmer’s lips, given the color that sprang into his cheeks when he spoke. A dozen chicks, which would grow into laying hens and cockerels to be eaten, were no small gift, even in the best of times. And these were hardly the best of times.
Once he had closed the door behind him, Mari turned toward Charlotte. “Why did you ask the girl to come back?”
“Widow Eakins would appear to be none too generous. The girl looked as if she could use a few pennies in her pocket,” she said, realizing belatedly that if she intended to pay the girl for her work, she would have to beg the money of Edward first. “Or at least a few meals in her belly.”
“But the gossip—! She’ll be only too glad to tell every soul that enters the Rose and Raven about me, the state of this house, anything that pops into her head.”
“I know.” Charlotte bent over the chicks, touching each soft, sunny head. When she at last straightened, she met Mari’s eye. “I’m counting on it. If the villagers hear that Mr. Cary is bent on improving this place, it will only be to his credit, no matter the source of the information. Peg Eakins can help us persuade the people of Little Norbury that he is a steady and thoughtful man from whom they have nothing to fear.”
Mari considered the explanation, then nodded. “You may be right,” she agreed, somewhat reluctantly, as she began to busy herself with preparations for dinner. After a moment, she added, “I’ll help, too. With the cleaning, I mean.”
Charlotte, who had begun to set the table, nearly dropped a plate when she heard the unexpected offer of assistance. “Why, thank you, Mari.”
The woman gave a curt nod. “With those soft hands of yours, you’ll need all the help you can get.”
Chapter 9
“I’m surprised you refused Mrs. Weston’s offer of dinner,” Markham said, as they trudged across the open field. “You earned it.”
To Seduce a Stranger Page 11