Page 24 of To Seduce a Stranger

“The black cat that hangs about. I took the liberty of naming it. I ’ope zat is all right?” She was tired. Her French accent peeped out like the hem of a petticoat, all the more tantalizing when it refused to be concealed any longer.

He shrugged and turned toward the back of the house. If the cat belonged to anyone, it must be Garrick’s, for there was no one else to claim it. And he could not imagine the former second stable hand thought of it as a pet.

“Have you eaten? There should be more of Mari’s excellent beef pie left. If Mr. Garrick has not got to it already.”

His stomach rumbled out an answer. Realizing the necessity of sparing Samson after yesterday’s ride, he had spent the day walking the upper farms. Upon his return to the Rookery, he had meant to find something to stave off the pangs of hunger, but he had lost himself in figures instead—times were hard, and everything was dear. Truth be told, he was surprised to find he still had an appetite after that, but his bodily needs demanded to be satisfied, even though his head ached and grief lay like a stone in his chest, pressing his heart beneath its weight.

When they reached the door to the kitchen, he pushed it open and stepped back for Charlotte to enter ahead of him, a part of him reluctant, despite his hunger, to see yet another ruined room overflowing with childhood memories.

But here all was neat, a fire crackling on the hearth, every pot and plate where it ought to be. He might have guessed that Mari would have set the place to rights already. She had always taken a certain pride in a well-run kitchen.

He was not, however, prepared for the realization such a discovery brought with it: It was worse, somehow, to find himself in a place that looked much as it had twenty-five or so years ago, when he had been in the habit of sneaking out of the nursery, past his sleeping nurse, in search of some forbidden treat.

Mari was nowhere to be seen. Charlotte washed her hands, then put the kettle on the hob. After scrubbing his own hands and face, he took the chair at the head of the servants’ table—the butler’s place—and allowed his eyes to follow her, merely for the pleasure of looking at something that brought back no uncomfortable rush of memory. Or at least, no memory older than a day.

Having cleaned herself up as best she could, she now moved efficiently to prepare him some sort of supper. As he watched her work, he could almost believe she had spent time in service, or at least in a household where she had not been spared her share of domestic duties. Had she waited on her husband—if indeed there had ever been such a man—in just this way?

Charlotte set a plate before him, poured two steaming cups of tea, and then took the seat nearest him, at the end of one of the long benches lining either side of the table.

“Sugar, Mr. Cary?” she asked, lifting the tongs.

He shook his head. “No, thank you.”

“I should think you could not bear to do without it,” she said with obvious surprise. “I understood it to be common as air where you have been.”

“It is.” He would never be able to look at sugar the same way he once had, knowing what he knew now about how it was made. And by whom. Every snowy crystal seemed to him steeped in blood. “But its sweetness leaves an aftertaste I would rather do without.”

“Oh.” She seemed, somehow, to follow the direction of his thoughts. “Some years ago, the abolitionists began a campaign to boycott sugar. We were encouraged to use honey instead. My aunt only laughed and said she thought it would be rather hard on the poor bees.”

As she spoke, she fiddled with the handle of her cup, though he could not help but notice she did not drink from it. She had no doubt been about to sweeten it, and his sanctimonious little speech had stopped her. Wordlessly, he took the tongs from her grasp and dropped two lumps of sugar into her cup. “Perhaps it would be,” he acknowledged. “Who can say?”

She couldn’t be expected to understand the reality of life on a West Indian sugar plantation. He was not even certain he would want her to—in his experience, innocence was a virtue too little cherished. Why inflict on others his knowledge of a horror that their meager sacrifices would do little to abate?

Still, she did not drink.

“Will you not join me?” he asked, noticing for the first time that she had brought only one plate of food.

“The tea will suffice.”

He hesitated a moment longer, but in the end, his hunger prevailed, and as usual, Mari’s cooking did not disappoint. In what he feared was a most unmannerly display, he had soon cleaned the plate. “How did Mari—?”

“Mrs. Corrvan sent some household supplies with her.”

“Ah.”

He still could not accustom himself to thinking of Mrs. Corrvan as anything but Tempest—though he should not be thinking of her at all. But this time, at least, the sharp pang he associated with hearing her married name had been dulled by hot tea and good food—and perhaps just a bit by the soft accents of the one who spoke it.

“Was your conversation with Mr. Markham enlightening? How do things stand on the farms?”

“From what I’ve seen, almost as bad as in the house, I’m afraid,” he said, sipping his tea. “Just a handful of downtrodden tenants. It’s going to take a great deal of work to make this place function as it ought.”

“And money,” she added frankly. “Has your employer given you some sort of advance, or at least a line of credit, so that you may undertake improvements here?”

He tipped his chin in a sort of nod. “In a manner of speaking.”

Tilting her head to the side, she studied his expression. His indirection had not gone unnoticed. “I have heard stories of those who returned from the West Indies wealthy men. But surely you cannot mean to use your own money to correct the mistakes—the negligence—of this—this—”

“Lord Beckley,” he supplied evenly, before she could insert some far less proper noun in its place. “I have an inheritance, from a man I came to know in Antigua. Thomas Holderin. My . . . mentor.” It was the best word Edward knew to describe the role the man had played in his life, although he found it wholly inadequate. He might have been tempted to call him a second father, if that label had not already been tainted by his first.