To Seduce a Stranger

by Susanna Craig

  Especially as there was now no one left alive who could help him prove it.

  Chapter 12

  When tangling her fingers together in her lap did not stop them from shaking, Charlotte sat on them instead. The illusion of security she had felt in this place had burst.

  Beckley. Beckley. Had she ever heard the name before meeting Edward? Might the earl be an acquaintance of Aunt Penhurst’s? Worse, a friend of the Duke of Langerton—either father or son? Would he recognize her, reveal her secret?

  “Excuse me, missus.” The earl’s coachman stood in her doorway, shouldering a large trunk. “I don’ suppose you could direct me—?”

  “To the earl’s chambers?” Beneath her, she curled her fingers more tightly into the tattered upholstery of the chair, then forced herself to rise. She could not hide in this room forever. “Yes, of course.”

  It had not been easily said, and was not easily done. Because the horrifying wreckage of the upstairs sitting room had blunted her enthusiasm for exploring the rest of the house, she was not entirely sure which rooms were which.

  As she preceded him down the passageway and up the stairs, the man grunted his way behind her. His struggle gave her a moment to decide where to lead him next. Skirting the only familiar room, she peered through the next few doorways, heart thumping and eyes half-closed, more than a little wary of what she would find. Curiously, the rest of the rooms into which she looked were in far better shape than those downstairs. Dusty, yes. And damp. But it did not appear as if someone had turned loose a pack of wild dogs in any of them.

  With a quick perusal, she was able to determine that fully half of the first floor of the house was taken up by a suite of rooms nested together like a rabbit’s warren. The ruined sitting room was connected to a lady’s bedchamber, and beside it was a second, larger bedchamber that must belong to the earl. Within that room, another door led to a dressing room, with quarters for his lordship’s valet. It was there that she directed the driver to deposit the trunk.

  “Much obliged, missus,” he said, tugging a ragged handkerchief from the inside of his waistcoat and mopping his brow with it. “There’s another like it to fetch, yet.”

  After he had gone, she stood at the window, trying to collect her thoughts.

  The once bronze-colored draperies were thick with dust, but still sound, not having been exposed to the wind and rain like those in the sitting room, or to the sunlight that poured through the windows at the front of the house. Even now, at midday, this room was cool and dim, sheltered by the woodland behind. From this vantage point, she could almost see beyond the trees’ uppermost branches: the hint of the roofline of the summer house, the sparkle of water in the pond. She flicked the hasp and pushed open one of the casements to let fresh air into the stale room.

  The same wind that swept through the window stirred the bright new leaves on the trees and set them aflutter. Eventually their multiple shades of green—emerald and chartreuse and lime—would blend and mix to become the deeper, more uniform verdure of summer.

  Every room, even the view from every room, brought with it a sense of sadness at the estate’s neglect. But for the first time, that vague melancholy was heightened by the awareness that she might never know what would become of Ravenswood. As the earl’s arrival had so forcibly reminded her, she could not stay here forever, and once she left, what excuse would she ever have to return? She would never see it restored and full of life. Would never gaze from its windows on the warm ochres and reds of an autumn landscape, or the bright promise of a snow-covered wood at Christmas.

  Would not witness Edward’s triumph at bringing this place back to life.

  As she turned away from the window, her eyes trailed over the room’s stately furnishings. Heavy, old-fashioned, but evocative of an ancient heritage that connected generations of one family to the land, this land, this house. Some man who had served bravely at the side of Henry V at Agincourt might once have slept in this massive bed. Someone strong and noble. Would the man who would be sleeping there tonight be lost in its proportions, indifferent to its history?

  Ridiculous, she supposed, to think it would ever be otherwise. The earl had never known a different life; it was to be expected that he would take his surroundings for granted. Did she imagine her stepson, Robert, retired each night impressed with the weight of his forefathers’ achievements, welcoming their ghostly presence into his bed? Of course not. If he cared one bit for the true legacy he had inherited, he would not be attempting to have his father declared mad.

  There was a certain irony in the fact that only Edward seemed to revere this place and what it represented. His shoulders were broad enough to carry the weight of such illustrious ancestors. His frame would not be dwarfed to insignificance by such furnishings.

  Treacherous to imagine him there, bare-chested as she had seen him once, his arm flung possessively across the bed’s width, strong even in sleep.

  Treasonous too, perhaps. This was not his birthright to claim. He was a mere steward. A nobody, like herself—

  “You must be Mrs. Cary.”

  At the words, she jerked around to locate the speaker. A handsome stranger with a warm complexion stood just inside the doorway. He was slight of build, and half a head shorter than Edward, at least.

  But he could only be the Earl of Beckley.

  “Your lordship,” she said, dipping automatically into the sort of curtsy that had been required of her in Aunt Penhurst’s household.

  But her previous fears were quickly put to rest. This man was too young, and too fashionable, to move in the circles of old men and women. She felt certain she had never seen him before.

  “I am glad of the chance to meet you, ma’am. And to express my gratitude for your care of Ravenswood Manor in my absence.”

  “You are most welcome, my lord. It was nothing at all,” she lied, still aware of her aching arms and back as she bent her knee once more.

  “Vous êtes française.”

  Unlike Edward, this man spoke with the accent of a native. Although his eyes were heavy lidded, almost drowsy looking, she could tell he missed no detail of her appearance. She had had too many men look down the lengths of their Roman noses at her to have any doubt on that score. Steeling herself against the judgment that typically accompanied those words, she nodded. “Half-French, my lord. Yes. Your driver brought up your things,” she added quickly, hoping to divert his attention. “I had him put them in the dressing room. Your valet—”

  “Haven’t brought one.” He crossed the room as he spoke, inspecting its dusty furnishings, drawing closer to her with every step. Carefully, she eased her back away from the window and sidled along the edge of the bed. Once he reached the window, he paused to look down at the landscape. “The steward’s house is in better condition than this one, I hope?”

  “Worse, I’m afraid,” she said, shaking her head. “In fact, the condition of the Rookery is such that my husband felt it would be best if I stayed here—”

  “In the manor?” His head turned sharply to look back at her.

  She hesitated. “In the servants’ quarters, yes.”

  Interest piqued, he grew suddenly still, like Noir when his prey was in sight. “Without your husband? I must say, it would take something worse than a bit of chipped plaster and shabby furniture to keep me away from my beautiful wife.”

  She backed another step toward the door, thankful he had not closed it when he entered. “I shall make other arrangements immediately. I would not wish to impose.”

  “Please,” he said, tilting his head, “stay.”

  Something about the way in which the offer was tendered made her even more eager to leave. She did not know him. But she knew his type. Before she could pass into the corridor, however, he raised a hand to halt her. “Though I wonder if I might impose upon you in turn? Would you—? No, I cannot ask it . . .”

  Expecting that he would find the words to make his request, despite his supposed reluctance, she held
her tongue. And her breath.

  “Might you be willing to tidy up my chambers and unpack my things? You have done such an excellent job downstairs.” His voice was warm and rich, almost a purr.

  How many women had he persuaded to do his bidding with it?

  How could she refuse?

  If she denied the earl’s request, it might anger him, might even jeopardize Edward’s position here. What would become of Tessie, Peg, and the others then? In the face of Ravenswood’s desperate need, her own dignity was a matter of little significance.

  Before she could make an answer, however, the coachman came in, huffing under the burden of the second trunk. Lord Beckley’s eyes flicked toward him. Seizing the opportunity provided by this momentary distraction, she curtsied once more and left without a backward glance.

  In the kitchen she found Mari and told her what Lord Beckley had asked. “It will be the merest nothing,” she insisted, ignoring Mari’s skeptical glance. “The work of an afternoon.”

  Mari laid aside the pestle with which she had been grinding some aromatic seed into powder and dusted off her hands. “What would Mr. Edward say to that?”

  He would tell her to refuse, of course. Would insist that she was not now a maid—if she ever had been.

  For that reason, she had no intention of telling him anything about it.

  * * *

  Edward threw open the door to the Rookery and stormed inside, desperate for some means to vent his spleen, a part of him wishing he had had the time to set the little house to rights merely to give himself something to tear to pieces now.

  As his father had done at Ravenswood Manor.

  Horrified that his own frustration could have taken such a turn, he instead slapped his hat on his head and set out in the direction of Markham’s farm. He would put his energy into something productive rather than destructive. A warm spring wind whipped at his duster as he strode across the field. “Put me to work,” he shouted as soon as the farmer was within sight.

  For a long moment, Markham said nothing, and Edward imagined he had not heard his words clearly across the distance and over the rattle of the horses’ harness and the plow. But when Edward had come within a few rows of newly overturned ground, he stopped the team. “I thought you meant to be off today.”

  “A visitor arrived this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  “Claims to be Lord Beckley. Not the man I expected,” Edward added hastily, avoiding Markham’s gaze. “Not the man your father would have known.”

  “An heir? But his son disappeared years ago.”

  “So they say.”

  After looking Edward up and down, Markham slipped himself out of the loop created by the reins and held them out. “Plow, then, if you’ve a mind to. I’ll follow along with the seed.”

  Gratefully, Edward took up the leather and slung it over his own shoulder, chirruping to the horses, whose ears turned forward and backwards as they investigated the change. Together, the two men made one pass across the breadth of the field without speaking.

  Already, he could feel the strain of the task in his back and his legs, and he welcomed the discomfort, though it did little to distract his mind. Two more rows, and the field would be done. “Looks like rain.” Edward nodded toward the horizon, where clouds were gathering.

  “Aye.”

  “It won’t flood the fields?” Where he had come from, the rains often were not gentle, and they could not afford the loss of the seed.

  “Just a spring shower,” Markham reassured him. “It’ll pass and the sun’ll be shining again before you know it.”

  But rather than brightening, the sky grew increasingly gray.

  “It speaks well of the man that he came back to Ravenswood after his father abandoned the place all those years ago,” Markham ventured.

  “I . . . suppose.” Edward knew better than to reveal too much, to encourage Markham to speak badly of the man he believed to be his landlord. But surely it would do no harm to inject a note of caution into the conversation. “I imagine he had some particular motive in doing so. Perhaps he hopes to investigate Ravenswood’s income.”

  Markham’s boot stomped the sprinklings of seeds into the ground with a heavy tread. “That’d do for us all.”

  An ambiguous phrase. Markham might have meant that everyone on the estate and in Little Norbury would be benefitted by greater attention to Ravenswood’s profitability. Or he might have meant that if the new landlord was focused only on pounds and pence, they were all doomed.

  It was difficult not to side with the latter interpretation when the skies opened. Rain came down in thick drops, heavy enough that the hedgerow he had been using to guide the horses and plow was little more than a darker blur in the distance. It felt like an ill omen.

  Still, they kept moving. By the time the field was finished, Edward was soaked to the skin and his boots made a sucking sound with each step.

  “Much obliged,” said Markham when, at the end of the row, Edward laid the reins across the other man’s palm, grateful for the ache in his forearms.

  “I would say the same to you.” The exertion had taken the edge off his temper, at least, though his head was no clearer. How had he found himself in such a predicament? Why had he not returned to England years ago, while his father was still alive, when he might have done something to set things right?

  “Might I ask you a personal question, Cary?” Markham asked, waving off Edward’s offer to help with unhooking the plow.

  With more trepidation than he would care to admit, Edward tipped his head in assent. “What is it you want to know?”

  “It’s about Miss Harper, sir.” Nervous fingers knotted and unknotted the harness as he spoke. “Mari.”

  Markham’s unexpected answer succeeded in driving all thought of the imposter from his head. “What of her?”

  “I wondered if she—that is, well . . . is she spoken for, sir?”

  Edward had only just managed to bank the anger that had been stoked by the would-be earl, so Markham’s words were like the puff of a bellows to glowing coals. In less time than it took the other man to blink, Edward faced him, toe to toe. The horses shied in alarm at the sudden movement.

  “Do you mean to ask if she is mine?”

  “I—” The reins slipped from his hands.

  “My . . . mistress? My . . . property?” Stunned, Markham attempted no answer. The man who claimed to be Beckley had just insinuated as much, and Edward knew where his anger ought really to be directed, but he lashed out nonetheless. “Mari Harper is not now, nor ever was, ‘mine’ . . . in any sense of the word. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” Markham dipped to snatch the reins from the muck at their feet.

  Edward had jerked around and started to walk away before he thought to ask what perhaps ought to have been his first question. “Why do you ask?”

  “I—well, she strikes me as a respectable woman—smart, a fine manager, a good cook. I thought I might—”

  “Might what?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Are you suggesting you’d like to court Mari?” When had this happened? How? The two had less than a fortnight’s acquaintance.

  But had not his own experience shown him that a week or two was more than enough time to make one long for things that only a short while ago had been out of reach?

  Where—in his case, at least—they ought to have stayed.

  “I thought you said you could only afford to marry a woman of fortune,” Edward recalled, fixing Markham with a stern look.

  The younger man shifted awkwardly. “There’s all kinds of fortunes, sir. Besides, I—” He broke off, obviously embarrassed. “Well, sir. I should think you’d know how a fellow feels, what might change his mind. Seeing as you’re a married man yourself.”

  The very last thing Edward needed was to be reminded of his feelings where Charlotte was concerned . . . certainly not how she had felt in his arms. At first sight, she had roused his protecti
ve instincts; now, however, she roused something else in him entirely.

  Reluctantly, Edward nodded.

  He could hardly remember a time when he had not been aware of how others looked at Mari. With expressions ranging from indifference to curiosity. Sometimes with hunger, as if she were merely an exotic delicacy to be consumed—a well-spiced dish, in Jack’s phrase. And sometimes with fear, as if she might devour them.

  Anger, frustration, and yes, defensiveness, had blinded him to what was in Markham’s eyes now, however. They held none of those familiar expressions. Just the look of a man who fancied a woman and hoped the feeling was returned.

  “Mari is an extraordinary woman, sir. I only want to do what’s proper by her, but . . . well, she hasn’t—that is, I know it’s not likely she has any notion of what’s become of her family.”

  “No.” She had arrived in the West Indies alone, and if he had to guess, her family was dead.

  “Then is there anyone to whom I should speak—?”

  “Mari’s a free woman. You needn’t ask anyone’s permission but hers. But,” he added, when a smile cracked Markham’s rain-streaked face, “even if she agrees, you will still face opposition.” Though there were no laws here against them marrying if they chose, Markham must know the resistance they would nonetheless meet.

  Markham’s chin jutted forward defiantly and he set his feet apart, the posture of a man spoiling for a fight. “Some, I suppose. But as long as she’s for it, I don’t much care who’s against it.”

  It was difficult to imagine Mari tumbling headfirst into love with Matthew Markham over a few eggs and some seeds for her kitchen garden. He hated to see Mari do something rash, merely for—what? A sense of security? Of home?

  Then he remembered Mari and Markham sitting together at the side of the pond, laughing. Recalled Charlotte telling him about Mari’s late-night strolls.

  Perhaps she had not been walking alone.