Page 22 of To Seduce a Stranger

“’is lordship’s chief tenant—almos’ ’is only tenant.”

“Only? But who takes care of all this land?”

“Most of it lies fallow, missus. Guessin’ it’s yer man’s job to change that.”

“But . . . Why, that’s—”

“That’s exactly the sort of work at which Mr. Cary excels,” Mari interjected smoothly, shooing Garrick and Dobbs out of the kitchen. Charlotte could have sworn she heard the woman mutter something about achieving the impossible under her breath. “And Mr. Garrick?” she called after them. “When you’ve got that plow ready, turn over the kitchen garden first.”

“Have we seeds?” Charlotte asked.

The corners of Mari’s mouth lifted. “Not yet. But there will be a way to get some. I think I’ll take a little walk,” she said, cutting a wedge of the pie, laying it on a plate, and covering it with a cloth.

Bound for the Rookery, Charlotte supposed. “Let me go for you,” she offered, although part of her argued that she could surely put her time to better use than having another circuitous conversation with Edward Cary. “It cannot be easy for you to walk so far.” All expression seemed to slide from Mari’s face. “I only meant—your leg.” She stumbled over an explanation. “Is it a recent injury?”

“No.”

The single word fell like a slap to the face, setting Charlotte back on her heels and leaving her cheeks flaming. Without sparing her so much as a glance, Mari left with the food in a basket carried over her arm, the only sound the scrape of her lame foot across the floor.

Was there anyone at Ravenswood who didn’t have a secret to keep?

Chapter 6

Alone in the house for the first time since their midnight arrival, Charlotte left the kitchen and servants’ wing to explore. Perhaps because she suspected Edward would not approve if he knew she was snooping through his employer’s home, the grate of the heavy oak door against flagstone sent a thrill of trepidation down her spine.

Retracing the path along which Garrick had led them last night, she entered a long gallery, seeing clearly for the first time what darkness had then hidden. Filthy windows overlooked an empty terrace and dense woodland beyond. On the opposite wall hung a row of mirrors, a few cracked, all mottled with age, reflecting the hazy view. To her right, another door opened onto a dark-paneled dining room, awaiting service of the meal whose remains they had found in the kitchen. Someone, or something—then, or in the years since—had toppled a few chairs, and delicate china and crystal lay in shards on the flagstone, crunching beneath her feet as her hems traced feathery patterns in the dust on the floor.

Back in the gallery, her footsteps echoed in the emptiness. At the midpoint, she crossed the back of the wide central hall and glanced up the staircase, which rose to upper floors cloaked in obscurity. Later, she promised herself.

At the far end of the gallery, a second curved door stood ajar, and she slipped into the dimly lit room beyond. The gasp that rose to her lips seemed loud in the high-ceilinged room. Here, too, everything was in disarray. Formerly elegant furniture had been overturned, scattered, and broken. A musty miasma of old paper and books, the odors of a decaying library, settled into her lungs and made her cough. Sun-rotted draperies partially covered a tall bank of windows that once must have offered a spectacular view of the formal gardens, now overgrown and gone to seed. Beyond this receiving room and slightly offset from it, clearly added at some later date, an empty ballroom awaited dancers who seemed unlikely to grace Ravenswood ever again.

Perhaps every creaky old house exuded a bit of mystery, but it was impossible for Charlotte not to wonder what had happened here. What sort of nobleman decided on a whim to quit his estate and, apparently, never return? Even though she had no particular attachment to the place, she felt a certain grief at its abandonment. How could someone simply leave this once lovely old place to rot? Did he imagine a home was easy to come by?

She knew better.

As she wandered around the room, her fingertips left a trail in the thick dust on tables and the curved backs of chairs. From time to time, she paused to set a chair on its feet—until she disturbed a family of mice who had made their nest in the straw and stuffing of one, and they squeaked and scattered to safety. Lifting her skirts almost to her knees so that none of the pests would be tempted to take refuge beneath them, she looked about frantically for Noir. No wonder his fur was so sleek and thick. He hardly had to lift a paw to find a meal in this old wreck of a house. But the cat was nowhere to be seen.

Perhaps Noir and the mice had the right idea. She, too, was tempted to scamper away. What business had she meddling with someone else’s house, feigning a marriage with a perfect stranger? She had—whatever Langerton claimed to the contrary—her own house to manage and a real marriage to defend. She had only to ask Edward for enough money to get her to London, and she could . . .

Could what? Ah, that was the rub. Run afoul of the man who had been hired to spy on her? Challenge her stepson and be publicly humiliated? Beg her aunt for assistance and be turned down flat? She had desired only the power to make her own choices. A return to London would likely strip away what little power marriage to the late duke had earned her.

Better to lie low in rural obscurity. Perhaps her disappearance would disrupt Robert’s plan. And Ravenswood was an ideal place to disappear. Isolated, abandoned. No one here to raise eyebrows or ask questions. Except Mari, whose interest clearly lay in protecting Edward, not exposing Charlotte.

She understood that impulse. He was strong, steady—certainly worthy of a woman’s devotion. Everything he did demonstrated his determination to take care of others. In his hands, she would be . . .

His hands. Awareness chased along her skin where he had brushed off her dress.

Holding herself rigid, she managed to stave off the memory. Those sorts of impulses were the unfortunate complement to an unruly imagination. No one here knew anything about that side of her, the nature she had inherited. She would just have to make sure to do nothing to reveal her secrets, nothing to turn the perspicacious Mari against her, and all would be well.

Suddenly restless, she resumed her examination of the room. A good top-to-bottom cleaning would certainly improve its condition, she thought as she glanced around, although there was damage that cleaning could not fix. Some of the furniture looked to be beyond repair, too, and the only solution for the rotted draperies would be to pull them down.

When she tugged one of the velvet panels, it ripped away easily in her hand, collapsing at her feet and cloaking her in a cloud of dust, from which she emerged blinking, coughing, and filthy. Her third—and last—clean dress was clean no longer. Well, there was nothing for it now but to keep on. It had never been in her nature to sit idle, and contrary to Mari’s taunt, she was no lady. She jerked down the next panel and the next and the next, until dust billowed through the room like fog, motes turned to prisms by the last rays of the setting sun.

Smoothing a dirty palm over her hair, she gave a satisfied nod. Already, the place looked better.

“What in God’s name are you doing?”

Edward’s voice came from somewhere over her shoulder, but the dust in the air obscured him from view. As she had feared, he did not sound happy to have found her there. Forced to wait until the dust settled to face him, she gnawed on her lip, stifling a nervous laugh.