She knew better.
As she wandered around the room, her fingertips left a trail in the thick dust on tables and the curved backs of chairs. From time to time, she paused to set a chair on its feet—until she disturbed a family of mice who had made their nest in the straw and stuffing of one, and they squeaked and scattered to safety. Lifting her skirts almost to her knees so that none of the pests would be tempted to take refuge beneath them, she looked about frantically for Noir. No wonder his fur was so sleek and thick. He hardly had to lift a paw to find a meal in this old wreck of a house. But the cat was nowhere to be seen.
Perhaps Noir and the mice had the right idea. She, too, was tempted to scamper away. What business had she meddling with someone else’s house, feigning a marriage with a perfect stranger? She had—whatever Langerton claimed to the contrary—her own house to manage and a real marriage to defend. She had only to ask Edward for enough money to get her to London, and she could . . .
Could what? Ah, that was the rub. Run afoul of the man who had been hired to spy on her? Challenge her stepson and be publicly humiliated? Beg her aunt for assistance and be turned down flat? She had desired only the power to make her own choices. A return to London would likely strip away what little power marriage to the late duke had earned her.
Better to lie low in rural obscurity. Perhaps her disappearance would disrupt Robert’s plan. And Ravenswood was an ideal place to disappear. Isolated, abandoned. No one here to raise eyebrows or ask questions. Except Mari, whose interest clearly lay in protecting Edward, not exposing Charlotte.
She understood that impulse. He was strong, steady—certainly worthy of a woman’s devotion. Everything he did demonstrated his determination to take care of others. In his hands, she would be . . .
His hands. Awareness chased along her skin where he had brushed off her dress.
Holding herself rigid, she managed to stave off the memory. Those sorts of impulses were the unfortunate complement to an unruly imagination. No one here knew anything about that side of her, the nature she had inherited. She would just have to make sure to do nothing to reveal her secrets, nothing to turn the perspicacious Mari against her, and all would be well.
Suddenly restless, she resumed her examination of the room. A good top-to-bottom cleaning would certainly improve its condition, she thought as she glanced around, although there was damage that cleaning could not fix. Some of the furniture looked to be beyond repair, too, and the only solution for the rotted draperies would be to pull them down.
When she tugged one of the velvet panels, it ripped away easily in her hand, collapsing at her feet and cloaking her in a cloud of dust, from which she emerged blinking, coughing, and filthy. Her third—and last—clean dress was clean no longer. Well, there was nothing for it now but to keep on. It had never been in her nature to sit idle, and contrary to Mari’s taunt, she was no lady. She jerked down the next panel and the next and the next, until dust billowed through the room like fog, motes turned to prisms by the last rays of the setting sun.
Smoothing a dirty palm over her hair, she gave a satisfied nod. Already, the place looked better.
“What in God’s name are you doing?”
Edward’s voice came from somewhere over her shoulder, but the dust in the air obscured him from view. As she had feared, he did not sound happy to have found her there. Forced to wait until the dust settled to face him, she gnawed on her lip, stifling a nervous laugh.
* * *
Charlotte’s dark eyes glittered in the fading light of the room, but every other inch of her looked as if she had lost a battle with a tin of wig powder. Even her eyelashes were pale. As she worried her plump lower lip with her upper teeth, clearly trying to look serious, even contrite, some of that ghostly layer was scraped away to reveal pink flesh. The bitter taste of the dust—it filled his mouth, too—made her sputter.
Despite the grim mixture of horror and despair churning in his gut, the faintest smile rose to his own lips. “If this is your idea of assistance,” he said, not stepping toward her, not offering to brush her off again, “I believe I should reconsider your offer.”
When she had suggested repaying his help by cleaning house, he had been somewhat skeptical of her intentions, to say nothing of her abilities. He had not considered the possibility she might actually make things worse.
Maybe she and I are two of a kind, he thought, recalling Markham’s words.
In his childhood, the place where they now stood had been known as the Great Room, all things to all people. How many times had he been shooed from this room so his father could talk without interruption to men of local importance; played endless scales on the pianoforte as his mother watched over his shoulder; peered unseen around the doorframe while brightly clad couples whirled and bowed across the dance floor?
But the room’s days of greatness were long past. Edward’s mother was believed to have died of the smallpox, Markham had told him, and gossip suggested his father’s grief had been given vent on his surroundings: They say his lordship wrecked the house and swore never to return. Edward suspected at least parts of that rumor were unfounded. His father was unlikely to have succumbed to grief.
Had disease taken his mother? Or had the wrath that had been released in this room also been turned onto her? If it had, she would have had no more chance of surviving it than the now-shattered instrument upon which she had once played with such grace, or the landscape in oils above the fireplace, which hung in ribbons as if some ravening beast had raked sharp claws across it. Either way, he would likely never know the truth.
“Are you all right, sir?”
He jerked his attention to the figure by the windows. The light of the setting sun streaming in from behind combined with the dust in the air to sketch a hazy glow around her. “Why do you ask?”
“You look pale, and I thought perhaps . . .”
He laughed, then, because to allow himself to do otherwise might reveal much more than Charlotte ever needed to know. “Pale? You should see yourself,” he said, at last holding out one hand to help her over the mountain of moldering velvet at her feet. “But you still haven’t answered my question. What are you about?”
“I intend to give this room a proper cleaning,” she said, brushing dust from her shoulders and shaking out her skirts.
“By yourself?”
Her chin jutted forward. “If I must. I have lived in many places, with varying degrees of comfort, but never in filth, and I do not intend to start now.”
“Are you not comfortably accommodated in the kitchen wing?” She nodded stiffly, obviously reluctant to agree with him. “Then stay there. Don’t wander about making a mess of things that aren’t yours to touch.” An edge crept into his voice as he gestured toward the draperies.
“The mess, sir, was made already,” she said, ignoring his hand and stepping past him.
“And I cannot think your employer would wish to find—”
“I’ve reason to believe Lord Beckley knows the condition of the estate and chooses, for reasons you and I may never fathom, to . . . leave things as they are. We must accede to his wishes.”
“Why then did you bother to meet with Mr. Markham?” she challenged. “Why would he hire a steward at all if he meant to allow everything to continue in ruin?”
“He did not—” Edward began, cutting himself off before he could blurt out the truth. “My position is to manage the farms. Not this house.”
One day, Ravenswood would be profitable again, capable of supporting the surrounding community, as it had been when he had left it. Already, his plans were blossoming following his conversation with Markham. New seed, new tools, oxen if he could find them. If they managed to get a crop in, afterward he would go to work improving the tenants’ cottages, which would better their lives and attract new tenants as well. Once the farm was up and running—and he had met with his father, of course—then he could turn his attention to the manor.
“I can manage the house, if
you will let me,” she said.
It would certainly keep her busy, out of his way. Nevertheless, he shook his head. He did not want her poking around these rooms, although he could not exactly say why. Perhaps because it felt too much like inviting another person to sift through his own memories.
“But I must do something,” she insisted.
“Why?”
She shot him a nervous glance. Clearly she imagined herself in his debt. Did she think that if he declined her offer of help with the house, he meant to demand some other form of repayment?
“Let be,” he insisted, ushering her impatiently toward the door.
“Please,” she said as he closed the door behind them. “Leave it open. Like so.” She held up both hands in front of her, palms facing, about six inches apart. “There are mice, and I hoped Noir might, er, dispose of them.”
“Noir?” Edward arched one brow, but he left the door ajar as she had requested.
“The black cat that hangs about. I took the liberty of naming it. I ’ope zat is all right?” She was tired. Her French accent peeped out like the hem of a petticoat, all the more tantalizing when it refused to be concealed any longer.
He shrugged and turned toward the back of the house. If the cat belonged to anyone, it must be Garrick’s, for there was no one else to claim it. And he could not imagine the former second stable hand thought of it as a pet.
“Have you eaten? There should be more of Mari’s excellent beef pie left. If Mr. Garrick has not got to it already.”
His stomach rumbled out an answer. Realizing the necessity of sparing Samson after yesterday’s ride, he had spent the day walking the upper farms. Upon his return to the Rookery, he had meant to find something to stave off the pangs of hunger, but he had lost himself in figures instead—times were hard, and everything was dear. Truth be told, he was surprised to find he still had an appetite after that, but his bodily needs demanded to be satisfied, even though his head ached and grief lay like a stone in his chest, pressing his heart beneath its weight.
When they reached the door to the kitchen, he pushed it open and stepped back for Charlotte to enter ahead of him, a part of him reluctant, despite his hunger, to see yet another ruined room overflowing with childhood memories.
But here all was neat, a fire crackling on the hearth, every pot and plate where it ought to be. He might have guessed that Mari would have set the place to rights already. She had always taken a certain pride in a well-run kitchen.
He was not, however, prepared for the realization such a discovery brought with it: It was worse, somehow, to find himself in a place that looked much as it had twenty-five or so years ago, when he had been in the habit of sneaking out of the nursery, past his sleeping nurse, in search of some forbidden treat.
Mari was nowhere to be seen. Charlotte washed her hands, then put the kettle on the hob. After scrubbing his own hands and face, he took the chair at the head of the servants’ table—the butler’s place—and allowed his eyes to follow her, merely for the pleasure of looking at something that brought back no uncomfortable rush of memory. Or at least, no memory older than a day.
Having cleaned herself up as best she could, she now moved efficiently to prepare him some sort of supper. As he watched her work, he could almost believe she had spent time in service, or at least in a household where she had not been spared her share of domestic duties. Had she waited on her husband—if indeed there had ever been such a man—in just this way?
Charlotte set a plate before him, poured two steaming cups of tea, and then took the seat nearest him, at the end of one of the long benches lining either side of the table.
“Sugar, Mr. Cary?” she asked, lifting the tongs.
He shook his head. “No, thank you.”
“I should think you could not bear to do without it,” she said with obvious surprise. “I understood it to be common as air where you have been.”
“It is.” He would never be able to look at sugar the same way he once had, knowing what he knew now about how it was made. And by whom. Every snowy crystal seemed to him steeped in blood. “But its sweetness leaves an aftertaste I would rather do without.”
“Oh.” She seemed, somehow, to follow the direction of his thoughts. “Some years ago, the abolitionists began a campaign to boycott sugar. We were encouraged to use honey instead. My aunt only laughed and said she thought it would be rather hard on the poor bees.”
As she spoke, she fiddled with the handle of her cup, though he could not help but notice she did not drink from it. She had no doubt been about to sweeten it, and his sanctimonious little speech had stopped her. Wordlessly, he took the tongs from her grasp and dropped two lumps of sugar into her cup. “Perhaps it would be,” he acknowledged. “Who can say?”
She couldn’t be expected to understand the reality of life on a West Indian sugar plantation. He was not even certain he would want her to—in his experience, innocence was a virtue too little cherished. Why inflict on others his knowledge of a horror that their meager sacrifices would do little to abate?
Still, she did not drink.
“Will you not join me?” he asked, noticing for the first time that she had brought only one plate of food.
“The tea will suffice.”
He hesitated a moment longer, but in the end, his hunger prevailed, and as usual, Mari’s cooking did not disappoint. In what he feared was a most unmannerly display, he had soon cleaned the plate. “How did Mari—?”
“Mrs. Corrvan sent some household supplies with her.”
“Ah.”
He still could not accustom himself to thinking of Mrs. Corrvan as anything but Tempest—though he should not be thinking of her at all. But this time, at least, the sharp pang he associated with hearing her married name had been dulled by hot tea and good food—and perhaps just a bit by the soft accents of the one who spoke it.
“Was your conversation with Mr. Markham enlightening? How do things stand on the farms?”
“From what I’ve seen, almost as bad as in the house, I’m afraid,” he said, sipping his tea. “Just a handful of downtrodden tenants. It’s going to take a great deal of work to make this place function as it ought.”
“And money,” she added frankly. “Has your employer given you some sort of advance, or at least a line of credit, so that you may undertake improvements here?”
He tipped his chin in a sort of nod. “In a manner of speaking.”
Tilting her head to the side, she studied his expression. His indirection had not gone unnoticed. “I have heard stories of those who returned from the West Indies wealthy men. But surely you cannot mean to use your own money to correct the mistakes—the negligence—of this—this—”
“Lord Beckley,” he supplied evenly, before she could insert some far less proper noun in its place. “I have an inheritance, from a man I came to know in Antigua. Thomas Holderin. My . . . mentor.” It was the best word Edward knew to describe the role the man had played in his life, although he found it wholly inadequate. He might have been tempted to call him a second father, if that label had not already been tainted by his first.
Certainly Edward had never expected to have to use Thomas Holderin’s generous bequest to shore up his own family’s estate, to right the wrongs his father had committed. Last year, he had given the better part of it to a ship’s captain, bribing him to take Tempest—Holderin’s daughter—away from the dangers of the island. But just a few days ago, in London, that small fortune had been returned to him, Captain Corrvan seeming to feel he had got a better prize out of the voyage.
“And you mean to invest that inheritance here?” Charlotte asked. His explanation had done nothing to budge the skeptical look on her face.
“I have every reason to believe that any investment of mine will be returned with interest.”
Charlotte pulled the empty plate across the table and swept her forefinger across the scattering of crumbs. “I hope Lord Beckley knows how fortunate he is to have you in his
employ. I understand very little about the management of property, but I do know that honest, hardworking men are in regrettably short supply,” she said.
He did not even know this woman’s name, yet somehow she seemed to know him, or claimed to. It was flattery, he reminded himself. Even flirtation. She hoped to ingratiate herself so that he would not turn her away.
In what was either a calculated display, or a totally un-self-conscious act—and damn him if he could tell the difference—she slid her crumb-speckled finger between her lips and licked it clean, then rose to carry the empty plate to the drain board.
“Was Mr. Blake a scoundrel, then?” he asked.
At his question, her gait hitched, but she did not turn. “My husband was . . . naïve. No—that is too strong. He did not always see people for what they truly were.”
“And what did he see when he looked at you, Charlotte?”
“That, I could not say.” The lift of her shoulders was almost imperceptible in the dimly lit kitchen. “I think, perhaps, he did not see me at all.”
The chair scraped across the stone floor as Edward rose, and in the stillness that followed, his boot heels rang as he crossed to stand behind her. At this distance, nothing escaped his eye, not even the way her knuckles whitened where they gripped the plate.
I see you.
The words begged to be spoken, but he would not part his lips and set them free. Were they even true?
Along the back of her neck, a streak of grime marked the place where she must have rubbed her hand in a moment of uncertainty, or to ease an ache. Dust still coated her hair. Surely, the gentlemanly thing to do would be to offer to fetch her water for a bath.
But even the thought of making that offer brought with it a host of other, far less gentlemanly, ideas. If he were not careful, he was going to find himself seduced by a perfect stranger. Or seducing one.
“We can never really know another person,” he said instead. His breath stirred a loose tendril of hair that brushed her cheek. “At best, we can hope to know ourselves.”
To Seduce a Stranger Page 8
