Page 49 of To Seduce a Stranger

“Still raining, is it?”

Standing just inside the doorway of the Great Room, Edward felt Jack’s dark, hooded eyes look him up and down, pausing at the boots caked in an aromatic layer of mud that was not solely dirt.

“This late spring has given us a chance to plant another field of barley. I was helping Mr. Markham, Ravenswood’s chief tenant, to see the crop in the ground when the storm started.” He was trying hard not to envision trenches washing through the freshly plowed ground and sweeping away seed they could not afford to lose.

The young man lazily swirled the wine in his glass but did not drink it, instead resting the foot of the goblet against his knee. “I could wish you had consulted with me before making such an expenditure, Mr. Cary. That money might have been needed elsewhere.”

“I used my own money to pay for it.”

Surprise sketched across the other man’s face. “Well, the planting will be for the best in the long run, I don’t doubt,” Jack acknowledged, sitting more upright. “But it doesn’t change the fact that things are deuced uncomfortable in the here and now.”

Edward withdrew a sheaf of papers and a small rectangular book from inside his coat and tossed them on the table between them. “As you requested, I have brought you what accounts I have been able to make of the rents, the expenditures.” He had been tempted at first to refuse, but he knew of no better way to prove to this man that there was nothing for him at Ravenswood.

Jack glanced at the pile. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in them I’ll wish to see?”

When Edward did not answer, the younger man polished off the contents of his glass with an expression half smile, half grimace, then stood and began to pace the room. “The rumors about the state of m’ father’s finances were not promising. I look to you for some good news, Mr. Cary.”

Edward shook his head. “I have none to give, I’m afraid. Things here are as they seem. Decades of neglect can hardly be expected to produce a profitable estate.”

Over the course of the day, he had pieced together what must have happened. More than twenty years ago, his father had left Ravenswood in a fit of pique. The estate was entailed—but that would not have prevented his father from mortgaging to the hilt. After his father’s death, it would have fallen into the hands of trustees, charged with maintaining it in the unlikely event of Edward’s return. But those trustees must have taken one look at how things stood and washed their hands of the whole mess—clearing the way for an imposter like Jack to stake his claim.

“If I weren’t in a bit of a tight spot myself, you see,” Jack said, “it wouldn’t matter so much.”

Edward could not keep his jaw from setting stiffly, though he knew this man who called himself an earl would not think it his steward’s place to scowl at him.

Jack returned to the table to tip the bottle toward his glass once more. Only a few blood-red drops tricked out. Tugging at his cravat, as if the mere mention of his debts had left him parched, he strode toward the bell pull, apparently having forgotten both that it was broken, and that there were no servants to answer it, if it were not. “Do you know, I begin to think there’s something to this notion of our being related.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I fancy there’s something familiar about you. Your eyes perhaps. They remind me of m’ father’s.”

Fighting the impulse to cut his gaze away, Edward held the other man’s scrutiny for a long moment. The color of his eyes had never been the point of resemblance to his father that concerned him.

Would something as simple, as common, as a pair of blue eyes be the undoing of his masquerade here?

Or could it be a piece of the proof he needed?

He ought to have told everyone who he was from the start. Including Charlotte. Instead, he had jumped into this morass without thinking of how he was to get out of it. If he put an end to the charade and claimed his true identity now, it would sound like the kind of tale his supposed wife was prone to telling.

Perhaps he never would get things set straight. Doomed to be a steward on the estate that was meant to be his. Believed to be married to a mysterious marble statue who would never be his to touch.

And perhaps he deserved no better.

Impatient, the pretender threw himself onto the sofa to wait. “There’s one thing I need you to understand, Mr. Cary. I don’t fancy a stay in debtor’s prison. Coming here was my last hope. So you’ll just have to find some way to make Ravenswood pay,” he said, twirling the stem of his empty glass between his fingers. “If you can’t, I’ll be forced to remove you from your post.”

* * *

Late in the afternoon, Mr. Markham had burst into the kitchen with the news that Peg had been injured when one of the pigs she was charged with feeding decided the girl looked more appetizing than the slops she carried. There was no medical man in the village, not even an apothecary. Immediately, Mari had snatched up that little wooden box of hers and offered to help.

Now, several hours later, Mari still had not returned, and Charlotte stood at the sink cleaning up the half-charred, half-underdone remains of the dinner she had prepared for Garrick and Sykes, which they had valiantly pushed about their plates for a quarter of an hour before deciding to return to the stables for the night. Well, she had never claimed to be a cook.

The quiet of the kitchen was broken by something clanging harshly behind her. A little scream of surprise caught in her throat. She jerked around just in time to see one of the bells on the board that hung near the door clatter to rest. For a moment, she watched it, waiting to see if it would ring again. It drooped, still and silent.

Just as she allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief, it jangled again. Squaring her shoulders and wiping damp palms down her skirt, she set off down the corridor to see what the earl wanted, uncertain even to which room the bell was connected.

The dining room was empty, the gallery dark. She glanced up the wide staircase, reluctant to enter his bedchamber again. Then she saw a thin seam of light around the heavy, curved door of the Great Room. She knocked, then pushed it open without waiting for a reply.

The earl was stretched along a sofa, the foot of an empty wine glass resting on his chest. As she entered, he greeted her with a lazy smile and rose. “See, the bell does work, Cary.”