To Seduce a Stranger

by Susanna Craig

  And he knew himself well enough to realize he should leave before he did something he would regret. “Good night, Charlotte,” he said, stepping away from her and toward the door.

  In the dusky shadows of the yard, he met Dobbs.

  “Ah, Mr. Cary, sir,” the driver said, hurrying toward him. “I was jus’ comin’ to find you. Miss Mari gave me some sort o’ potion for Prince’s fetlock, and it looks good as new. Can you be ready t’ go first thing?”

  Some would have called Dobbs’s announcement providential. The perfect excuse for Edward to absent himself from temptation and focus on more pressing business.

  Of course, his tenants would not see it in that light. For one thing, he had promised Markham his assistance in putting in more crops.

  Behind him, a square of light fell across the ground, a candle shining in the window of the butler’s room. Charlotte’s room.

  Whatever the truth of her story, he had no doubt she was hiding from something.

  Gloucestershire was, on the whole, not a bad place to hide from trouble. The undulating landscape and thick forests had provided him an occasional refuge when he was a boy. So, of course, had the old house, medieval at its core but with hundreds of years of haphazard additions that had left nooks and crannies, rooms within rooms, known only to a few.

  He thought with no particular pleasure of setting out on the journey to London. Maybe he was still hiding in Gloucestershire, at Ravenswood.

  And maybe a part of him was glad not to be hiding alone.

  “I’m obliged to you, Dobbs,” he said with a tip of his head as he turned toward the Rookery. “But my plans have changed. I’m staying here.”

  Chapter 7

  When Charlotte awoke the next morning, the aroma of frying bacon lured her from her bed. Did dreams have scents? Surely, not even Mari could manage to conjure such a breakfast out of thin air.

  Just as she entered the kitchen, Garrick stepped through the doorway opposite, carrying two buckets brimful from the well. “Good mornin’, Mrs. Cary,” he said, although his eyes never left Mari, who was bending over a skillet near the fire.

  Before she could reply, Edward rose from the table. “You’ll have half the village here for breakfast if you’re not careful, Mari,” he teased. Yesterday’s strain had eased. With a nod of greeting for Charlotte, he moved to take the buckets from Garrick’s hands and carried them to the cistern to fill it. Relieved of his burden, Garrick sat and took up his fork in preparation.

  “Well, I only invited Mr. Markham, seeing as he was the one who supplied us with the eggs,” Mari tossed back, never taking her eyes off her task.

  That piece of information produced a sharp clang of tin against copper, as if Edward had almost dropped the bucket. “You saw Markham? When?”

  “Yesterday afternoon. Where there’s a farm, there’s seed for a garden. And chickens,” she added, at last turning away from the fire with a steaming skillet of coddled eggs. “And, once upon a time, a pig.”

  “Markham spared you all that?” Garrick asked in open amazement, shoveling food from the pan onto his plate before Mari had even set it down.

  “My cooking always could work wonders.” A smile twinkled in her brown eyes.

  Charlotte hid her surprise by busying herself with the coffeepot. So, the hearty slice of pie had not been destined for the Rookery after all. “Where is Mr. Dobbs this morning?” she asked.

  “Went back t’ London at first light,” Garrick answered around a mouthful.

  “Oh!” Mari turned to Edward. “I thought you meant to go—?” “Two dozen eggs, a flitch of bacon. I suppose Markham gave you the coffee, too?” Edward spoke across her, avoiding the question.

  “No. That was among the supplies Mrs. Corrvan sent.”

  “Mrs. Corrvan?” This time, at least, he did not stumble over her name. But Charlotte could see by the sudden tightness in his shoulders how he disliked having to speak it.

  “That’s right,” Mari confirmed, an edge of defiance in her voice as she turned her attention to dishing up the bacon.

  “Ah, yes. Now I remember. Mrs. Cary told me of it yesterday.”

  Feeling Edward’s eyes on her, Charlotte poured four cups of the hot, dark liquid and put one at each place, wondering whether he would prove willing to drink it now, given its origins.

  But by the time he joined the other three at the table, he seemed to have put his feelings about Mrs. Corrvan behind him. Again, however, he eschewed the sugar bowl; when it came around to Charlotte, she guiltily dropped a lump into her cup, feeling only slightly better when she saw Mari take two.

  “Garrick,” Mari asked, passing him the bacon, “is there a hen house here worth the name?”

  He waved one hand in the direction of the window and the dilapidated wooden structure beyond it. “Aye, after a fashion.”

  “Once you’ve plowed the kitchen garden, see that it’s repaired,” Mari ordered. The man harrumphed noisily, but at last gave a reluctant nod.

  “With any luck,” explained Mari, “I’ll persuade Mr. Markham to part with a few chicks next time.”

  “I doubt that.” With his fork dangling from the fingers of one hand, Edward looked nothing short of mischievous. “You’re out of ammunition. I finished the beef pie last night.”

  “There’ll be something else he’ll need, don’t you worry,” was Mari’s tart reply. Their banter this morning was more amiable than the day before, but still nothing like mere master and servant. “Haven’t I always found ways to take care of my kitchen?”

  “That you have, Mari. That you have. So,” he said, pushing back his empty plate, “that’s your day sorted, and Garrick’s as well, it would seem.” Garrick mumbled something around a mouthful of food but made no clear objection. “What of you, madam wife?”

  The address made her jump, and her cup rattled in its saucer. “I—I thought I might . . . work a bit on straightening up the house. The family rooms.”

  Mari paused, a forkful of yellow egg suspended in the air as she looked from Charlotte to Edward. “The family rooms?”

  Rising, Charlotte began to collect the dishes from the table. “If Mr. Cary does not object.”

  Edward stood, too, fixing her with blue eyes that still laughed, though some of the openness had left them. “Would it matter if I did?”

  A wheeze of laughter came from behind Garrick’s cup. “You ain’t been married long, sir, if you’re askin’ such a blame fool question as that. A woman’s like a horse. Can’t give either one a free rein and ’spect not to get runned away with. Gotta keep the bit firm and the crop handy, if you catch my meanin’.”

  The analogy was hardly surprising coming from a stable hand, but Charlotte sensed it nevertheless did not sit well with Edward, whose summery gaze seemed to darken as it shifted to the other man. “I do not believe in whipping horses,” he said flatly. “Or women. Or servants—fortunately for you, Garrick.”

  Undaunted by the thinly veiled threat, Garrick slid one grimy nail into the gap between two teeth and sucked on whatever he had dug loose. “Jus’ slaves, then?”

  Charlotte hardly knew what came over her. She only sensed that these two men were about to come to blows in Mari’s newly spotless kitchen, and instinct told her that if Garrick went down, it would ultimately be Edward who would struggle to rise again. Mari had been right—he could not afford to earn the censure of the people he meant to help.

  Stepping between them, she laid a hand on Edward’s forearm, feeling the flex of muscle as his fingers curled into a fist. “And what of you, my dear?” she asked, looking up at him, willing his eyes on her. They were intimacies she had never intended to invite, but she could think of no better way to distract him. “How do you mean to spend the day?”

  She knew she had succeeded before he spoke. There was surprise in his eyes, but something like gratitude as well, and the coiled spring beneath her hand began to unwind. “I’m bound first for the village to see about ordering some supplies,” he said. Wi
th his free hand he patted hers where it lay on his arm. Long fingers. Neatly trimmed nails. A gentleman’s hands, despite their sun-browned color. “Is there anything you require?”

  “Turpentine,” she said in her most businesslike tone. “Beeswax. Lye soap.” Many years spent in the company of servants had given her knowledge not only of the necessary items but also how to use them.

  Squeezing gently, he lifted her hand from his sleeve and turned it palm upward, tracing his thumb carefully around the evidence of yesterday’s blisters. The gentle touch, skin to skin, felt more intimate than being held against his body. “You needn’t do this, Charlotte,” he insisted, his head bowed. For a fleeting moment, she thought he meant to kiss her hand.

  She stepped backward, sliding her fingers from his grasp, but not before she felt her pulse quicken and knew he must have felt it, too. Curse her wild imagination! Hadn’t she cautioned herself just yesterday about such familiarities?

  Oui. Right after the stroke of his warm palm had sent a bolt of lightning through her body, once, twice, forcing her to fight a tremor of longing that he might do it a third time, for good measure.

  Desire—so unwelcome—felt like a betrayal.

  “Someone should,” she said sharply, conscious that both Garrick and Mari were watching. How much had Charlotte just revealed?

  She expected Edward to argue with her, but he nodded. “I’ll have the things sent. I’m for Markham’s farm, after that. He and I hope to put in another field of barley. Don’t wait dinner, Mari.” And he was gone.

  Garrick followed a few paces behind, a triumphant if tuneless whistle on his lips, leaving the two women alone in the kitchen. Determined to behave as if nothing had happened—for nothing had happened, except perhaps in her mind—Charlotte bustled about collecting the rest of the dirty dishes.

  Mari’s eyes had followed the men out the door, some unreadable expression in their depths. She had not taken another bite of her breakfast since Garrick had uttered that terrible word.

  Slaves.

  Putting aside a stack of plates, Charlotte hesitantly resumed her place at the table and took a sip of her coffee, though it had grown cold. She thought of Garrick’s charge, Edward’s claim. She thought of Edward’s hands, their obvious strength, despite the shocking gentleness of their touch. We can never really know another person, he had warned her. But she needed, suddenly, to know what else those hands had done.

  “Was he a good master, Mari?”

  The words jarred the woman back to the present, and she leveled a sharp glance at Charlotte. “He was never my master, ma’am.”

  “Not your—?”

  “Miss Holderin—Mrs. Corrvan, I should say now—managed the domestic servants, of course. Her father saw to the plantation itself,” she said. “He was a gentle soul.”

  Charlotte sent her a skeptical glance. “I was under the impression these so-called ‘benevolent planters’ were only to be found on the pages of fiction.”

  Mari conceded the point with a nod. “You would find very few in the world of facts. But then, Mr. Holderin was not a planter. Harper’s Hill belonged to his late wife’s father. Because we were not his, it was not in his power to set us free. But he did the best by us he could—including grooming Mr. Edward to take his place when he died. In all the years I’ve known Mr. Edward, he’s never raised more than his voice to anyone—and that was mostly to Miss Holderin, truth be told.”

  Charlotte pushed her shoulders down, trying to make herself relax. There was reassurance in Mari’s response. Still, she sensed that something remained unsaid. Perhaps something in Edward’s past he would rather not reveal . . . ? But how ridiculous, given her present situation, for her to expect to learn it.

  As if Mari intuited her curiosity, she said, “You asked about my limp.”

  Charlotte nodded uncertainly, taken aback by the sudden change in subject.

  “It is an old injury. Acquired when I was a child—in Africa,” she began, not meeting Charlotte’s eye. “One night, men from a neighboring tribe raided my village. They captured as many as they could find, and claimed us as prisoners of war to be sold as slaves. I clung to my mother and she to me for as long as we could. Until she was killed. One of the men caught me by the ankle and dragged me away from her body. It felt like being torn in two. Something went pop inside me, and I fainted dead away.” The breath left Charlotte’s lungs in a rush, leaving her light-headed. But she did not make a sound. “When I came to, I was chained together with those who remained and marched to the coast. Days upon days. My hip grew worse and worse. When I was at last taken aboard a ship, the surgeon tried to put my leg right again, but by then, it was too late. I have not walked properly since.”

  “I am sorry,” Charlotte whispered, and she was, although she knew that mere words could mean very little, could do very little to heal that injury or any other. “What a painful memory . . . But what made you decide to tell me now?”

  “Because I was not ready to tell you before,” Mari said simply, and a little sharply. “I have never told anyone that story. But I have been thinking about you . . . and Mr. Edward. You seem worried about the sort of man he might be, having spent so much time in such a terrible place.”

  Charlotte could not even bring herself to nod.

  “I could tell you many stories to reassure you,” said Mari. “But know this: He saw me, the day I arrived in the West Indies. Just a boy himself, a few years older than I. He turned to the man with him—Mr. Holderin, although I did not know it then—and said something with such earnestness. I knew no English. But I could guess he was urging my purchase.”

  Feeling the handle of her cup slip in her suddenly damp palms, Charlotte lowered it carefully to the table. How bewildering for anyone, but especially a child, to experience such a thing. A human being, bought and sold like an animal in the marketplace. “Why?” she whispered. “Why would he enslave you?”

  “I was already a slave. Nothing he did or did not do would have changed that. But he knew . . . A girl, with this limp?” She shook her head. “I would not have survived a year on any other plantation in the West Indies. As I came to learn much later, Mr. Holderin had saved Mr. Edward’s life. And by begging Mr. Holderin to buy me and take me to Harper’s Hill, Mr. Edward saved mine. He was not a good master, ma’am. He was, and is, a good man.”

  Who deserves a good woman, Charlotte thought, recalling what Mari had said that first night. So why had he saddled himself, even temporarily, with her?

  “Thank you for telling me this,” she said. “But . . .” Doubt still lingered at the edges of her mind. “Do you never catch a glimpse of something in him, something . . . hard, sometimes?”

  Mari nodded. “Oh, yes.” She lifted her fork and prodded at the cold eggs on her plate. “I think it’s fear.”

  Fear? Of what could a man like Edward be afraid?

  Apparently regretting that she had been so forthcoming, Mari rose suddenly and walked away without speaking. Before Charlotte had recovered from her surprise at the abrupt end to their conversation, Mari returned with a checked apron in a pinafore style, substantial enough that the entire front of Charlotte’s gown would be covered when she put it on. “Seems a pity to ruin another dress,” she said, holding it out.

  “Merci,” Charlotte replied, hardly conscious of her words.

  Mari began to clear their dishes. Plates and silver clattered in the sink as she moved automatically through the familiar tasks of the kitchen, the work she had been doing almost all her life. Charlotte could hear Edward asking her, Is that what you want to do? And what had been Mari’s reply? It’s something to have a choice.

  “Thank you for an excellent breakfast, Mari. We are very fortunate you chose to come here, or else we might all starve.”

  “Garrick wasn’t wasting away when we arrived,” she pointed out as she scraped the uneaten eggs into a bowl and set it at her feet. Noir appeared as if from nowhere and began to eat. “You would have managed. Somehow.”
<
br />   “Perhaps,” Charlotte said, although privately, she had her doubts. Tying on the apron, she stepped to Mari’s side and began to dry the dishes as Mari washed. “I wonder . . . When you set out for England, is this what you thought you’d be doing here?”

  Mari’s hands dropped into the water, scattering bubbles and splattering Charlotte. “I never—”

  “Don’t say you did not have a dream,” Charlotte spoke over her. “Everyone does.” Heaven knew, she had dreamed of something else every time she had been forced to listen to one of Aunt Penhurst’s tirades. If she had not, she might be listening to them still.

  “I had been promised my freedom.” She shrugged. “It felt . . . dangerous, somehow, to look beyond that. Like tempting fate.”

  Charlotte could not help but notice that Mari had not really denied having another dream, although she was reluctant to reveal it, even now. Or perhaps she was still figuring out what she wanted.

  Fair enough. If Mari had asked Charlotte the same question, the honest answer would have been no. Or, more accurately, non. It would be wrong to compare their past struggles, for nothing could compare to what Mari had endured. But when all was said and done, they were both women, caught in a world not of their making, trying to determine the road they would take.

  How strange for their paths to cross at Ravenswood.

  “Will you let me know when the cleaning supplies arrive from the village?” Charlotte asked, folding the linen towel and laying it aside.

  “And where will I find you, Mrs. Cary?”

  Mrs. Cary. Not a slip of the tongue, of course. Quite deliberate. Mockery, then? But, no. Not that either, although she could not put her finger on what it was.

  “I intend to take a look around upstairs, first,” Charlotte said.

  “Are you searching for something in particular?”

  “No, of course not.”

  Mari shot her a look, and guilt pricked Charlotte’s conscience. But how could she seek an answer if she wasn’t yet sure of the question?

  * * *

  Little Norbury—not strictly speaking a part of the Ravenswood estate, although of course it depended on the estate’s prosperity for its own—had always been a small village. The stage did not pass through, so there were few visitors, no inn, little to interest a stranger. A church, a pub, and a couple of shops, all of which drew their business from the tenants on the neighboring farms.