Seduced by a Stranger

by Eve Silver

  Catherine proceeded down the remaining steps and said, “Very well, thank you, Mrs. Bell. And you?”

  The housekeeper huffed a breath before mirroring Catherine’s reply. “Very well, thank you.” She glanced toward the open door of the breakfast room. Sunlight streamed through the portal and danced toward them across the slate floor. “The day is fair and bright.”

  “So it appears. I have not been outdoors as yet,” Catherine offered warily, unable to discern the conversation’s purpose. That thought led to recollection of Gabriel St. Aubyn and his disdain of pointless polite discourse. She did not like to think of him, to recall the way his lips shaped words, or the way his amber gold eyes watched her so intently. But for some inexplicable, perverse reason, she had been unable to completely expunge him from her mind, and since his departure, such recollections had occupied far more of her thoughts than she liked.

  She focused her attention on Mrs. Bell and continued. “I thought perhaps to take Madeline into the garden.”

  The housekeeper nodded, but her expression tightened at the mention of Madeline’s name. “The south garden has a stone bench overlooking the lake.”

  “Oh…” The lake was a shallow, greenish swamp that smelled like something dead. But perhaps the bench was not very close to the water, and the change of scenery from their usual spot might do Madeline good. “Thank you for the suggestion.”

  Mrs. Bell pursed her lips. “I am sure this is no concern of mine, Miss Weston,” she said, then leaned back a bit and glanced first to her right and then to her left, as though to make certain they were alone. There was a footman standing by the door to the breakfast room, but he was far enough away that he would not overhear if Mrs. Bell kept her voice low. Apparently satisfied, she straightened and blurted in a tense whisper, “I wonder if you are aware of the nature of this place, the dangers you may encounter…”

  “Dangers?” Catherine kept her voice low as well, but did not bother to hide her incredulity.

  “Softly!” Mrs. Bell admonished with a quick glance at the footman who stared straight ahead, his expression blank. “What do you know of the St. Aubyns?”

  “Very little. Their affairs are none of mine,” Catherine replied carefully. She had expected a verbal assault, either veiled or outright, but Mrs. Bell’s dialogue was neither. Catherine was ever wary of the unexpected.

  Again the housekeeper glanced about, a quick, darting look. “The St. Aubyns are a family cursed.” She held her hand up to stay Catherine’s objection. “Oh, say nothing to deny it before you hear the tale. I myself have no belief in curses and such. Nonsense, really. But in this case, it is a word apt and true, for the family has known only ill luck and hardship passed from father to son.

  “They have never flourished. For generations they have been plagued by malady and madness. I can tell you what passed in the time of Sir Gabriel’s great-grandfather. First, the youngest son died. Drowned. Then the oldest. And finally, the middle son, leaving the children without parents or proper guardians, without anyone to ensure that they grow straight toward the sun rather than bent and crooked.”

  “Mrs. Bell,” Catherine said, wedging her opposition into the brief silence. “I have no fondness for gossip.”

  The housekeeper clenched her fists and drew a fortifying breath, and Catherine could clearly see that this conversation caused her discomfort.

  “Nor do I. Nor do I. This is not tittle-tattle, Miss Weston,” she continued, urgent and low. “There is a history here, do you see? The house… it is slowly crumbling about us. The lake is dead. No fish swim there now. And the gardens are filled with nettles, though the groundskeeper tends to everything as best as he can. There is a terrible malady to this place, and to the people who live here.

  “When none of them were in residence, the lake was clear and the woods green and welcoming. The tenants flourished. But no longer. They have returned.” She shot a glance over her shoulder. “They have all returned, the living and the spirits of the dead, and their curse has returned with them.”

  “Spirits of the dead? Are you saying the abbey is haunted?”

  Mrs. Bell’s leaned closer. “They are doomed. The St. Aubyns are doomed. Do you see?”

  Catherine saw quite well. Mrs. Bell was unhinged.

  She drew a slow breath, measuring every possible response to such revelation, and deciding a question was best. “And why tell me this now?” she asked, making no effort to conceal the suspicion in her tone. Mrs. Bell had originally greeted her with hostility, then set about avoiding her for days. Now she wished to confide the deepest, darkest secrets of the St. Aubyn family.

  Catherine could not imagine putting her trust in any confidences the woman shared. But more than that, she knew far too much of rumors and whispers and gossip of all sorts. There was always a story beneath the story, one that might be far different than what was whispered about with vicious titillation. And if one cared to dig deeper, there would be yet another story underlying the others.

  Layers upon layers.

  Lies upon lies.

  Unbidden, a vicious memory leaped out to bite her. They whisper about you, you know. Catherine knew. Mrs. Northrop saying it had not make it any better or worse. They whisper about you and wonder if you did it. If it was your candle that fell over first… if you killed him…

  Did it matter whose candle had done the deed? Whose hand had begun the disastrous events? The Right Honorable Lord Sunderley, Jasper Hunt, was dead and buried, and with him, her vile secrets.

  But not her culpability. That, Catherine could never bury.

  “I tell you this now,” Mrs. Bell said, “because you show every indication of remaining here for some time. I thought perhaps you would stay a week. But now the week has passed and you make no preparation to leave, and so it falls upon me to warn you.”

  She pressed her lips together and wrapped her arms across her apron-swathed belly, as though to hold parts of herself together. Catherine recognized that posture. She had used it herself for months and months after the fire, but her best efforts had failed her. She had not held the jagged bits of herself together. Instead, in the end, she had shattered into a million razored shards.

  Then, with no choice left to her, she had picked up all the jagged fragments and forced their poorly fitting edges to approximate in a new self, or rather, a reflection of a self that others could bear.

  She had been forced to go on, to live, for she was too much of a coward to take her own life, though she had pondered it more times than she could count. Or perhaps she had been too brave to give up. Either way, the end result was the same. She was here, hiding within herself, behind the person she allowed others to see.

  “And I tell you this because I have seen him,” Mrs. Bell continued. “He has come back to wreak his vengeance, or perhaps to drive us mad, those of us who let events unfold as they did.”

  Him? Catherine stared at her in confusion, a horrid thrill of alarm chasing through her. For an instant, she thought Mrs. Bell referred to Sunderley—or his ghost—and then she realized that was impossible. The breath she had not even known she was holding expelled in a rush.

  “Whom have you seen?” she asked. “What events do you speak of ?”

  “I have already said more than I should.”

  “But you have said nothing useful.” Or coherent.

  Mrs. Bell stepped closer still, the scents of starched apron and sweat tickling Catherine’s nose. The housekeeper lowered her voice even further. “No good thing can come of living in this place. You would be wise to see yourself away from here with all haste.”

  “You live in this place,” Catherine pointed out, fairly certain now that Mrs. Bell had been destined for a career as an actress and instead had been waylaid to her position here.

  “Yes, I do live in this place.” Mrs. Bell made an ugly sound that might have been a laugh. “And who ever said that any good came from that?”

  “Then why do you not leave if Cairncroft is so abhorrent
to you?”

  “There are ghosts that follow no matter where one runs and hides.” The housekeeper’s harshly voiced words made Catherine’s blood chill, for she had secrets and ghosts aplenty. Were they bared for all to see?

  No, of course not. The woman spoke of her own regrets and torments.

  Distress gave way to curiosity, but she could see no way to question Mrs. Bell without opening herself to similar unwanted query. She was saved from any reply when the housekeeper continued, “Go to the graveyard. Then ask your Madeline about the stone. You’ll know the one when you see it.” She nodded. “We shall see how tranquil you are then.”

  With that last, provocative sally, the housekeeper excused herself to see to her duties.

  Catherine watched her go, completely baffled by the exchange. She could not fathom what possible outcome Mrs. Bell had anticipated. Her shared secrets had been all intimation without substance, oblique references to ghosts and curses and terrible things. What was Catherine to do with that? Run screaming down the drive in her nightdress?

  With a shake of her head and a perplexed sigh, she proceeded to the breakfast room. The footman stood silent and still by the door, not even blinking when she passed. His presence was a familiar thing, for she had spent many years in a home filled with unobtrusive servants. She wondered if he had heard anything of her exchange with Mrs. Bell, despite their caution. It was a distinct possibility, for she was certain that he and the other servants of Cairncroft Abbey saw things… knew things.

  She thought again that she had not done well to alienate the little maid, Susan Parker, that first night, that she would have been better served to cultivate her association to some small degree. And her conscience would have been better served had she been kinder.

  Stepping inside the breakfast room, Catherine was greeted by the tantalizing aromas of breakfast fare that wafted from the covered silver servers on the sideboard. Eggs. Meats. And… coffee. Odd. This was the first morning that coffee was offered.

  She crossed to the large windows at the far end of the room. The gold brocade draperies were tied back to let the sunlight stream through the clear panes, and the warmth of it on her face was lovely. Mrs. Bell had been right. The day was fine and clear.

  An expanse of lawn and a portion of the drive were visible from this angle. The gardens did look rather overgrown and scruffy, though the occasional worker pruned and trimmed—Mrs. Bell was correct in this, as well. Perhaps they simply lacked a firm, guiding hand, with Madeline so ill and unable to see to even the most rudimentary duties of the lady of the house. Even the daily menus proved too much for her. She left everything to Mrs. Bell.

  Catherine’s gaze traveled to the dark and tangled forest that grew at the northern edge of the manicured lawn, threatening to creep forward and swallow whole the abbey and its civilized surroundings. There were woods to the south, as well, though half the trees there were gray and ghostly, burned at some point in the past. She had learned from Madeline that to the southwest of them was Huntingdon and to the east, Thetford, though she was not exactly certain how far either of them lay. Probably too far to walk, though the prospect of an outing was beginning to appeal.

  She was about to turn and fetch her breakfast when something at the edge of the woods caught her eye. Did she see a flash of movement there? A glimpse of something pale? A shadow shifting?

  Or had the housekeeper’s talk of ghosts and curses conjured an imaginary specter?

  The shadow moved between the trees and then disengaged altogether. In the spill of sunlight, the shadow became a man, dressed in black, tall and broad, fair of hair.

  Was it Gabriel St. Aubyn, returned from his journey?

  He turned his face to her and she thought he saw her here at the window, that he watched her with intense concentration.

  Distance and the angle of the sun made definitive identification impossible. It could be St. Aubyn, or any other blond man. But something in the way he watched the house, watched the window where she stood, made the fine hairs on her forearms prickle and rise.

  Wrapping her arms about her waist, she backed away from the glass. Her heel caught the edge of the rug, and she glanced down, then up once more.

  He was gone.

  Her gaze darted all along the dark line of the woods, but there truly was no one there. So what had she seen? A fantastical conjuring? An illusion summoned from the depths of her mind by Mrs. Bell’s sinister intimations?

  Silly, to let her imagination run wild.

  Gathering herself, she refused to allow unfounded suppositions to surface, certain that it was a restless night’s sleep combined with boredom and isolation that sent her mind wandering in the direction of ghostly threat.

  She turned from the window, crossed to the sideboard, and helped herself to a plate. Eggs. Buttered toast. That was a luxury. Mrs. Corkle warmed the bread in the fire until it was golden, then slathered it with butter. The aroma was delicious, and Catherine was thrilled that this invention was included daily with the morning fare. She chose a seat in the band of sunshine that splashed through the window and set her plate on the table. After fetching a cup of tea, she settled in the chair—a heavy mahogany affair that required the strength of both her hands to draw it from beneath the table. The warmth of the sun bathed her even through the glass panes as she began her meal. She had taken only a few bites when a faint sound from the doorway made her look up.

  Her heart slammed against her ribs.

  Gabriel St. Aubyn had returned. He stood framed in the doorway, dressed in a dark blue coat and white shirt, the cut and quality of which proclaimed his place in the world. The cost of that coat would probably feed a hundred hungry toddlers in St. Giles for a month.

  A slurry of thoughts swirled one into the next. Mrs. Bell’s oddly verbose behavior earlier undoubtedly had something to do with the baronet’s return. His sudden appearance made her wonder if it had been this man she had seen step from the woods. She thought so. But how had he gone from there to here with such speed? He was not disheveled or out of breath, so he could not have run, and the distance was too great for him to have traversed it at a leisurely pace and arrive here, in the doorway of the breakfast room, so quickly.

  “Good morning, Miss Weston,” he said, and offered a bland smile, his lips curved in perfect symmetry baring just a hint of white teeth. A welcoming and pleasant expression. She trusted it not at all.

  “Good morning, Sir Gabriel.” She kept her greeting crisp and brief.

  “Gabriel, or St. Aubyn if you prefer,” he said, echoing the words and tone he had used the day they took tea in Madeline’s chamber.

  He crossed to the sideboard and poured himself coffee. So here was the reason for its inclusion this morning. Apparently, Gabriel St. Aubyn preferred coffee to tea.

  His eyes met hers as he turned back, the morning light turning them more gold than amber brown, unutterably beautiful. She found his splendor disconcerting; she had no liking for attractive men.

  No, not so.

  She had no liking for men in general, least of all a confounding, enigmatic man who treated his own cousin with such shabby disregard. Though she had spent over a week in Madeline’s company, subtle prodding had not revealed the reason for the discord between the cousins, and Catherine had not wished to disturb Madeline by escalating gentle query to outright inquisition.

  St. Aubyn stared at a spot above her left shoulder, and she glanced up, wondering what it was he studied with such interest. The dust motes dancing in the sunlight?

  He set his coffee on the table.

  “Your trip was pleasant?” she inquired, and immediately realized she ought not to have bothered.

  His brows arched up and she caught a flicker of amusement as he turned away without offering a reply. She supposed that was a reply in itself. He deemed the topic purposeless and, hence, unworthy of discourse. It seemed that St. Aubyn was nothing if not consistent.

  Catherine took a bite of toast, chewed, swallowed, tasting no
thing, her movements mechanical. She watched from the corner of her eye as he filled a plate.

  He moved back to the table, choosing the seat out of direct light, at right angles with hers, too close for her pleasure. The effort of an exchange of small talk with a man who refused to participate was an unappealing prospect. She would have preferred he seat himself at the far end, away from her, and that he read a newspaper while he ate, holding it up to form a wall between them.

  On the pretext of eating a meal she no longer desired, she looked down at her plate and sliced a bit of ham.

  “Why did you come here?” he asked with neither finesse nor veiled words. He wielded inquiry like a precisely honed blade.

  Catherine almost choked, managing to chew and swallow only by dint of will. Gathering herself, she decided to proceed in exactly the tone he set.

  “I was invited.”

  “Yes, of course. But I inquire about your motivations, your thoughts”—he paused, sipped his coffee, then finished in a low tone—“your desires.”

  His voice touched her like a caress and for the span of a heartbeat she could form no reply. Annoyance surged. At him. At herself. With a sampling of words, he roused a place inside her that she had felt certain was dead.

  She would not allow him such power over her.

  “My motivation was a letter I received,” she said coldly. “It was importunate in nature, desperate, as I am certain you already know. Madeline, a dear friend of my youth, cried out to me in her melancholy and despair. Was I to deny her? To decline her invitation? I am not so cold as that.”

  “Are you not?” His inquiry slapped her.

  But that was his intent. She had no doubt he wished to unsettle her, though she could not begin to imagine his reasons. His gaze slid over her at his leisure, rising to her hair—twisted in a loose knot at her nape—then dropping to her eyes, her nose, her lips, and finally dipping lower.