No surprise then to find the village in a condition nearly as dire as the manor’s.
On the edge of town sat the vicarage—empty, as Markham had warned him it would be. Beside it stood the church, too stark and ancient an edifice to have been much bothered, at least externally, by a few years’ neglect. As he walked past, his eyes scanned the churchyard, its moss-covered stones shaded from the early morning light. With a quickening of breath, he entered, passing through a rusted wrought-iron gate whose hinges protested mightily against his touch.
Near the back of the graveyard stood a few taller monuments, divided from the others by another low fence. His feet carried him over the uneven ground, through the narrow spaces between markers that had been skewed and tilted by shifting earth and the passage of time, until he reached that separate space. The family plot.
Cary. The name seemed to press on him from every side. Men. Women. Children—their parents’ hope, extinguished like the flame of a candle. The eleventh Earl of Beckley, his grandfather, whom he knew only from the stern-faced portrait in the gallery. Even a pampered spaniel, whose presence there no one had ever been able to explain. Had some clergyman really allowed a dog to be buried in consecrated ground?
At last his eyes rested on the stone he had not realized he had come there to see.
LAETITIA HOWELL CARY
COUNTESS OF BECKLEY
BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER
DEPARTED THIS EARTH
JULY 18, 1775
“Beloved wife.”
In the silence of the cemetery, the sound of his own voice startled him. How had his father mustered the nerve to give such an order to the stone carver? Of course, it might have been the vicar’s suggestion, old Mr. Henderson’s final attempt to prick his father’s conscience. Or perhaps it had merely been the carver’s fancy.
The date struck him next. His mother had survived little more than a month after he had gone. Time enough, he supposed, for the smallpox to have struck its devastating blow. What must she have endured in those days between his departure and her death? The realization forced him to shift his gaze.
If there had been an outbreak of smallpox at Ravenswood, would not the churchyard be filled with stones bearing a similar date? Was it possible the disease really had been a rumor fabricated to explain his mother’s death? The panic would have been real enough, emptying the village, leaving none behind to ask difficult questions. And if his mother had not died of disease, then . . .
When his hands began to tremble like those of a palsied old man, he turned away, fearing he might either weep noisily or vomit if he stood there a moment longer. It would have been easier to have found his own gravestone in the churchyard. After all, the boy who had left Little Norbury had in truth died long ago. The man who had returned bore him only a superficial resemblance.
By the time he reentered the lane, he had brought himself under control. While there was much here to dismay any onlooker, nothing ought to surprise him now. In the village, he found the general merchant’s windows shuttered. The only door standing open was that of the pub. So it was to that venerable establishment Edward turned in search of information.
Almost to the threshold of the Rose and Raven, he could hear someone within, humming a ditty. When he stepped through the door, he saw a thin, fair-haired young woman bending over a bucket, scrubbing tables and floors with the same dirty water. The driving rhythm of her song kept her rag moving at a brisk clip.
“Excuse me,” Edward said at last, when she showed no sign of looking up from her task.
She gave a little shriek of surprise at the sound of his voice. “Lor’ bless us, what a fright you gave me!” The rag fell into the bucket, splashing her skirts with gray water.
“I beg your pardon, miss. I was wondering if you could tell me where I might find Mr. Toomey?”
“Toomey?” With the crook of her arm, she brushed damp hair from her brow.
“Does Mr. Toomey still own the shop next door?” he asked.
“Ah, you must be Mr. Cary.”
“I am.” He had not considered how much his question revealed about his familiarity with the place.
“Garrick said you had some tie to the fam’ly,” she said, confirming his suspicion that the man had been gossiping about Edward’s arrival. Stepping forward, the girl dipped in a clumsy curtsy. “Pleased t’ meet you, sir.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m Peg.”
“You mean Margaret,” he corrected automatically. Peg . . . Lottie . . . Why must all these young women ruin perfectly lovely names in favor of coarse familiarity?
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“Your given name must be Margaret. Peg is only a shortened version of it, a nickname.”
As he explained, she regarded him curiously, her head tipped to one side. “Is it, now?” The girl considered for a moment longer, then shrugged and took up her rag again. “Well, ain’t nobody ever called me aught but Peg. Margaret sounds a bit high an’ mighty, now, don’ you think? People would say I was givin’ meself airs if I took t’ callin’ meself Margaret.” Each syllable of the name received an equal share of weight, like a word pronounced in a foreign tongue.
“You may well be right.” He tipped his head, partly in acknowledgment, partly to hide his expression of annoyance, mostly with himself. Why did he care what name the girl used? After all, he had once been glad enough to answer to Neddy, when spoken in his mother’s soft voice. The fond name had been their little secret; his father would never have allowed him to be called anything but Ravenswood, of course, and frequently had behaved as if a little boy were made of the same stuff as a stone manor house.
So comfortable had the nickname felt, in fact, that when he had left home and found a ship to carry him far away, he had even told the captain his name was Neddy.
Hearing “Neddy” in the captain’s drunken, wheedling tone had stripped the name of its appeal. On the rare occasions when the man had been sober, the more ominous “Ned” had proved no better. Worse had been the orders to which his name had been appended. And worst of all, the punishments that had inevitably followed, when he had refused to do the man’s terrible bidding.
Without question, Edward’s dislike of nicknames could be traced to the day he boarded the Pearl.
He cleared his throat. “About the merchant . . . ?”
“Oh, aye. Mr. Toomey’s out. Took his wife somewhere near Kingscote t’ stay with her mother,” the girl explained. “For her lyin’-in. Ain’t no midwife hereabouts.”
Lying-in? The Toomeys had been far past the age when more children could be expected twenty years ago. How could—? It took only a moment for him to realize that the Mr. Toomey in question must be the son of the man Edward remembered. A child who had been in leading strings then was now a man with a family of his own.
Yet another soul who could not be expected to remember, to say nothing of identify, the lost heir of Ravenswood.
“’Spect him back tonight or next day, latest. Summat I can do for you?”
Edward shook his head, stifling his frustration at the delay. He needed to order seeds and other materials if they were to get this crop in, but he could hardly begrudge Toomey his absence under the circumstances. What possible difference could another day or two make in the grand scheme of things?
“Nothing urgent,” he said, touching the brim of his hat as he turned to go. Then he remembered his promise to Charlotte. “When Mr. Toomey returns, could you ask him to send some cleaning supplies to the manor, and have the bill directed to me?” he asked over his shoulder.
Another quick bob signaled her agreement. “I hear it’s a frightful old mess,” she added, slowing his footsteps. “Haunted, they do say.”
From somewhere, Edward mustered a smile. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”
After all, almost everyone he remembered from his childhood there was now a ghost.
Himself included.
Chapter 8
Charlotte stopped on the landing and peered both
ways down the dark corridor, wishing she had thought to bring a candle, although it was midday. Every door was closed. The creak of a floorboard made her heart leap into her throat, although only her own footstep could have made the sound. What was there to fear? Just empty rooms in an old, empty house.
Turning and walking to her left, she laid her hand on the knob of the first door to which she came. It yielded readily to her touch, revealing a sitting room with a large bow window flanked by faded velvet drapery. A place where the lady of the house had likely received callers, or gone over menus with the housekeeper. The feminine furnishings were modern beneath their layers of dust—a high-backed sofa, two chairs, a small escritoire. A bright room, despite the grime on the windows.
Which made the blood spattered across the walls quite impossible to miss.
Streaks and smears, rusty-brown with age but unmistakable, created a feathery pattern that looked for all the world like a macabre substitute for wallpaper. On a small oval table, the remains of a delicate glass lamp lay overturned, its crystal pendants smashed against the marble tabletop. A shattered and blood-stained mirror hung above the hearth, looking as if something had been thrown against it with violence.
Downstairs the rooms had been upended, but here it looked as if murder had been done.
What a ridiculous thought. Just her fertile imagination, that was all. Of course there was some rational explanation for the room’s condition.
In one corner, the decaying remains of the curtains stirred lazily. Squaring her shoulders, Charlotte smoothed her palms down her borrowed apron, steeling herself to investigate. As she crossed the dusty carpet, her foot settled on a small sharp object that pressed through the bottom of her shoe, into her tender sole, pushing a little yelp of pain past her lips.
Her fingertips sought and found a small metal object. A tiny figure of a man, formed in lead, its painted clothing long since worn away. A toy soldier, of the sort with which boys waged great wars in miniature. What on earth was it doing here? But of course there must have been children here once. Generations of them. It had not always been an old mausoleum of a house.
The curtains rustled again. Absently, she dropped the toy soldier into her apron pocket and stepped closer, reaching out to brush the rotten fabric aside. The soft spring breeze passed into the room through a jagged opening, a broken window pane.
Further exploration found what was left of the culprit behind the sofa: a bird, and not a small one, either. Perhaps one of the ravens for which the place was named. Its feathers had long since disintegrated, leaving only its hollow-boned skeleton.
“Oh, le pauvre!”
The sound of her own voice made her jump. What was it about this little room that sent a chill scuttling down her spine even on this sunny day? No grisly crime had been committed here. Just a bird, misdirected by its own reflection, trapped and struggling to escape, beating its head against the glass as it searched for liberty that seemed everywhere promised, always denied.
Intending to pick up the carcass and dispose of it, she bent closer. But her hands would not obey. What was wrong with her? She had never before been squeamish—had never had the luxury.
Colors spun before her eyes and her breath fluttered shallowly in her chest. She, too, had been lured into a bright and shining world—As my duchess, my dear Lottie, you’ll be free to do as you wish—mistaking it for something better than the one she left behind. Once Robert’s intentions had become clear, however, she had been as desperate as this bird to fly from what had turned out to be nothing more than a splendid-looking trap.
For now, she had found a place to rest, to recover her senses. But that didn’t mean she had found a way out—or that she would survive her attempt to escape.
Hurrying down the stairs, she soon found herself in the long gallery, and in another moment, she emerged into the sunshine, lifting her face to its warmth, feeling the spring air caress her cheeks. Gradually, her breathing returned to normal.
The cat nudged her ankle and wound his way between her feet, almost causing her to stumble. “Did you want something, Noir?” she asked, bending to stroke him. As if in answer to her question, he started off in the direction of the Rookery. With a frowning glance at her dust-streaked apron and dirty hands, she reluctantly followed; surely Edward was elsewhere at this time of day.
In the end, it did not matter if he was or not, for the cat bypassed the rear of the steward’s house to continue along an even less-traveled path, and she went after him, braving the grasping thorns and wayward branches. Once or twice, she thought he had led her astray only to abandon her, but then he would stop and wait, or meow, or appear out of nowhere, curling around her ankles. Curious behavior for a cat.
At last a clearing broke before them, and she spied a little stone hermitage with a thatched roof—a folly, intended only as a picturesque object. Upon closer inspection, however, she realized it was inhabited. Smoke rose from the chimney. From within came the sound of someone singing an unfamiliar, strangely mournful song about a bird. Charlotte shivered. Noir abandoned her and slipped past the rustic oak-plank door. The woman broke off her song and greeted him.
Wary of intruding, Charlotte hesitated at the edge of the trees until Noir reappeared, bringing the woman with him, apparently determined that she and Charlotte should meet. With bent shoulders, the old woman moved carefully, like one afflicted with rheumatism. A dark dress hung loosely on her frail figure; it might once have been fine, but now, many years out of fashion, the garment gave her an almost otherworldly appearance, as if she had been frozen in time.
“Who’s there?” When she turned her face toward the woods, Charlotte realized with a rush of compassion that the old woman was blind in one eye.
Charlotte stepped into the clearing and moved closer. “I’m sorry for disturbing you,” she said, trying her best to mask her accent. “I . . .” When had simple introductions become so complicated? Every name at her disposal felt like a lie. Except the one she settled upon, improper though it might be. “I’m Charlotte. The cat—your cat, I suppose—led me here, but I did not imagine . . .”
“Pleased to meet you, Charlotte,” the woman said, in a voice that was not at all frail, despite her appearance. From this distance, Charlotte could see that the woman was not as old as she had first assumed, despite the streak of white in her hair. Her careful movements came from another cause. Her features were blurred, misshapen by scars, and any sign of youthfulness had been erased by whatever long-ago injury, illness, or accident had caused them. With her good eye, she looked Charlotte up and down, but she did not curtsy or hold out her hand—perhaps either gesture was simply too painful. “People call me Tessie.”
The woman’s equally unconventional introduction made Charlotte feel as if she was hiding something, too, but at least that was common ground on which they might stand. At a wave of Tessie’s arm, Charlotte entered the rustic cottage.
Once inside, the woman sat down heavily, fatigued by the effort of greeting her guest. Noir leapt into her lap and curled into a ball, evidently a familiar and welcome visitor. Although a second chair sat facing the first, Charlotte did not take it, uncertain whether she had been invited to do so.
“I was just out for a walk when I stumbled upon your . . .” A glance at the cottage’s rough interior confirmed her suspicion that the building had never been intended for human habitation. But Tessie had managed to make it her own with a few furnishings, neatly kept.
While working on the garden, Garrick had explained to her and Mari that almost everyone who had had the means to leave Ravenswood and Little Norbury had done so many years ago, when an outbreak of smallpox, or at least the rumor of one, had swept through the village. Perhaps Tessie really had been afflicted with the disease and had sought out the empty folly as a place to hide, to recover, to die. Perhaps she simply had nowhere else to go.
“Does anyone know you’re here?”
“Some do.” One corner of Tessie’s mouth lifted in a crooked
smile; scars rendered the other side of her face immobile. “Some don’t.”
“Oh.”
What lay outside Ravenswood Manor seemed no less mysterious than what lay within it.
“It is pleasant to have company, though,” Tessie said, stroking Noir’s glossy fur with one claw-like hand. “The cat is a fine listener, but our conversations are always rather one-sided.”
Charlotte only smiled. To allow her lips to part, to laugh, would have been to release one of those nervous giggles that tormented her at moments like this. Not that she had ever experienced a moment quite like this.
“You are new to Little Norbury?”
“Yes.” Charlotte nodded. “I—my husband is the newly appointed steward at Ravenswood Manor.”
Tessie’s knobby fingers paused in midair. “Is Lord Beckley returned to Ravenswood, then?”
Charlotte did not think she could be imagining the note of anxiety in the woman’s voice. Did she fear being discovered in this little cottage and turned away from her makeshift home? “Oh, no,” she said. “He is in London. I have heard nothing about him coming here.”
“Still . . .” Tessie murmured, clearly not reassured.
“You have nothing to fear, ma’am. My husband’s concern is entirely for the farms.” That, at least, was the truth.
Those words seemed to offer some comfort. “You will not tell him I am here?”
The question felt oddly like a test. How many secrets could Charlotte keep? “Not if you do not wish it.” She could see no harm in allowing a frail, lonely woman one little corner of a great estate.
If only Langerton could be persuaded to do as much for her.
“Shall I—shall I come and visit another day?” she offered impulsively. At the very least, she might find a way to share some of Mari’s fine cooking.
To Seduce a Stranger Page 10
