Page 14 of To Seduce a Stranger

Another deep breath, and this time, he swore he could almost smell the scent of Charlotte’s hair, as if it still teased his nostrils. Could almost feel the curve of her waist, as if his arm were still wrapped tightly around it.

He shook off the sensation.

He would not allow himself to be tempted into a dalliance with a beautiful stranger. God knew what might come of it. Mrs. Cary? No. That could never be. Marriage—with any woman—was out of the question, even if it meant the Beckley title would die with him.

From the looks of things, it was already as good as dead.

* * *

It was only a few steps to the housekeeper’s rooms, but far enough for Charlotte to realize that the woman accompanying her, although young and otherwise apparently healthy, had a dreadful limp. As Mari dragged one foot along the stone floor, Charlotte wondered how she had ever managed to surprise them all with her silent appearance in the doorway of Mr. Garrick’s dank cell. Regardless of her physical limitation, however, she carried herself like a queen.

Who was this woman whom Edward addressed so familiarly? A servant? A slave? Or had Garrick’s guess been right? Was she something else to him entirely?

Mentally, Charlotte scolded herself. She had been on the receiving end of assumptions often enough to know how they could wound. And in any case, their relationship was no concern of hers.

She expected to find the housekeeper’s room as derelict as the rest of the house, with dust coating every surface and cobwebs festooning every corner. But a candle gleamed from a still-tarnished candelabra, revealing a freshly swept floor, a clean table, and a small, roll-armed sofa with a blanket masking its no doubt tattered upholstery. Through a partly open door on the far side of the sitting room, Charlotte glimpsed another chamber and a bed freshly made with linens that must have been brought in the luggage with which the woman had traveled. How long ago Mari had arrived, Charlotte did not know, but she had certainly kept herself busy in the interim.

As soon as they were through the door, Mari released her arm and turned to face her, sweeping her gaze over Charlotte’s muddy gown and tangled hair. She did not speak. Aunt Penhurst was the sort of woman who loved the sound of her own voice, and over the years, Charlotte had grown used to the hum of constant criticism.

She had forgotten how much disapproval could be communicated through silence.

“I am Charlotte,” she said after another awkward moment, then extended her hand in greeting. “Charlotte Blake.” For of course, whatever her relationship to Edward, the woman must know Charlotte was not Mrs. Cary.

Mrs. Cary. Why had he said it?

Hardly had the question crossed her mind, when the candle’s flickering light caught her wedding ring and gave her the answer. It was only an old-fashioned posy ring, a narrow gold band engraved with a pattern of vines and the motto amore digna: worthy of love—words that had been meant for some other bride, of course, three hundred or so years ago when the ring was made. Nonetheless, its simplicity had gladdened Charlotte’s heart far more than any lavish bauble could have done.

Mr. Cary must have spotted it and sought to explain its existence to Garrick, and anyone else who noticed. An impulse born of misguided chivalry, she supposed—an attempt to preserve her reputation. But why had she not contradicted his ridiculous assertion? Worse, what had possessed her to embellish upon it, as if they had some history together? Her aunt had often warned her that her stories—her lies—would lead her into trouble.

But no. She thought of the decay and disarray that lay beyond the walls of this room, recollected Langerton and his spy looming somewhere in the distance. I am in trouble already.

“Mari Harper,” the woman said evenly in an accent at least as pure as Charlotte’s.

Although Mari did not take Charlotte’s outstretched hand, she did unbend enough to sit down on one of the rather rickety-looking chairs flanking the table, and she did not protest when Charlotte joined her. The black cat, which had followed them down the corridor, wound its way around Mari’s legs with a plaintive mer-re-row that echoed eerily in the half-empty room.

Eager to fill the silence that followed, Charlotte tried to explain her presence. “I was stranded at an inn near Chippenham due to a—misunderstanding. Mr. Cary came to my aid. When he described where he was headed, I confess the remoteness of the situation appealed to me.” Certainly that aspect of Ravenswood Manor did not disappoint. No one would think to look for her here, in the middle of nowhere. “I had hoped to secure some employment in the neighborhood, although now that I see how things stand . . .” She allowed her voice to trail off. Despite Mari’s obvious disapproval of her presence, Charlotte was going to have to make the best of things here.

With . . . her husband.

“You must have come from the West Indies,” she said after an awkward moment had passed. “With Mr. Cary.”

A guess. A good one, she decided when Mari nodded.

“I suppose Mr. Cary often spoke of returning to England.”

“No, ma’am. Never. Not until she did.”

“She? Mrs. Corrvan, you mean?”

Another nod. No further information seemed to be forthcoming, however. The questions crowding Charlotte’s mind were far too indelicate to be asked, and she suspected she would get no answers even if she could find a way to frame them. Feeling suddenly choked, she loosened the tie of her cloak, then brushed absently at the mud on her dress until she realized dried flakes of it were scattering onto the freshly swept floor.

“This Mrs. Corrvan,” she ventured at last, darting her gaze to Mari with apology in her eyes, “she owns the property in Antigua where . . . where . . . ?” Where Edward was an overseer? Where you were enslaved? Where you and Edward—?

“She does.”

“I do not suppose she is an elderly widow, by any chance?”

“No.” Something wry, not quite humor, lit Mari’s eyes. “She is young. And very beautiful.”