Page 83 of To Seduce a Stranger

Over the next hour or more, he did just that, and through his words, she met her mother—no, not met. She had known her through her poems, first, without realizing it. Poems that had spoken of love and joy and beauty and all the other things Charlotte had discovered in them, and only in them, when she was a child.

“I had traveled to Paris with friends, serious about nothing but wine and vingt-et-un,” he told her. “Then early one drizzly morning, I was staggering home and I stumbled right into your mama, who was just leaving mass, as it happened. She gave a nervous giggle, then tried to hide it.” While her father spoke, she let her head drift until it was resting on the edge of the chair. His hand passed over her hair. “Do you believe in love at first sight, Charlotte?”

Her first impulse was denial. But at the question, her mind had conjured an image of Edward as she had first seen him, damp curls plastered to his forehead, gazing down at her with those blue eyes that drove away the rain and the cold. “I think, perhaps, that I do.”

“Then you understand. When I saw her, I knew. I couldn’t just let her go. I tried to apologize, but she hurried after her family. So I went back to that church every morning until I saw her again. Father Biet must have thought he had made a convert. Once I found her, I was determined to win her.”

She had to swallow twice before she could get a sound past the lump in her throat. “But you lost her instead.”

“No, my child. No. I won her. For a time, I had her love. And so much more. I would only have truly lost if I had given up.” She felt him shift as if he would rise. “I should leave you to your rest. I hope this will not be our only opportunity to talk. I should like the chance to know my daughter.”

Though she longed for him to stay and talk now, another part of her heart tugged her in the opposite direction, to the place where Edward waited. She pictured him at Ravenswood with his mother, shocked by the joy of their unexpected reunion. Yet somehow, he had torn himself from her side to follow Charlotte. Until this moment, she could not have understood the strength it had required. Until now, she had not fully understood what it meant that he had attempted to do it at all.

“And I should like to know you better . . . Papa.” But she got to her feet as she spoke.

He caught her hand. “Tell me, where were you bound?”

Instinctively, she scrambled for a story to cover the scandalous truth. “I hadn’t quite decided—”

“Charlotte,” he chided. “Do not prove your aunt right.”

“Gloucestershire,” she whispered. “Ravenswood Manor.”

“The name of the place is not familiar to me,” he said, lifting one shoulder. “Would I be safe in assuming it has some tie to the Earl of Beckley?”

When an answer would not come, she merely nodded.

He nodded, too, then rose and limped to the door. “The inn is full tonight. We are lucky to have beds. Some who arrived later were not so lucky. I believe at least one young man was obliged to make do with that hard bench in the public room.”

There could be no doubt as to the guest to which her father referred.

“Bound to be uncomfortable,” he added. “And lonely. Well, good night.”

“Good night, Papa.”

Before the door had fully latched, she was gathering the quilt and pillow from her bed. Before the door to her father’s room had closed, she was halfway down the stairs. When she glanced over her shoulder, his door opened a fraction wider as he looked out into the corridor.

Surely it was a trick of the light, the single candle flickering in the sconce, but she could have sworn she saw him wink.

Chapter 22

As darkness fell, the public room emptied of its few remaining patrons: two local gentlemen who had been playing chess, a scattering of coachmen who reluctantly made their way to the stables for the night, and the guests whose limited coin had not secured them a private dining room. Before she retired, Fanny snuffed all the candles but one.

“Be there ought else I can do for ye, sir?”

Wary that if he said yes, he might be presented with another slice of the worst beef-and-onion pie in the history of beef-and-onion pies, accompanied by another mug of ale unequal to the task of washing it down, Edward shook his head. “I’ll be fine, thank you.”

At least the massive settle—around which he suspected the inn must have been built a hundred or so years ago—was wide enough to accommodate his shoulders. Time was, the exhaustion he felt would have been sufficient to ensure a good night’s sleep almost anywhere. But if he spent this night tossing and turning, he did not think the hard wooden bench would be even a little bit to blame.

He lay with his head closest to the empty hearth, his feet pointed toward the wide entrance to the room, debating whether to use his greatcoat for pillow or blanket. When the stairwell just beyond the doorway beckoned to him, he closed his eyes. But when closed eyes invited his mind to wander to Charlotte, he opened them again.

The image that seemed to be seared into his memory did not disappear, however.

She stood in the doorway, her face a pale oval shining out of the gloom, her expression hidden in shadow. She looked as polished and proper as he had ever seen her, nary a speck of mud nor wayward lock of hair in sight. Easier, now, to imagine her a duchess.

But she was not more beautiful, for all that. He had grown accustomed to the other Charlotte.

His Charlotte.