Page 63 of To Seduce a Stranger

In the meantime, however, there was one parting gift she could give.

“And go to the hermitage,” she shouted to Garrick. “Tell Tessie that the one she has been waiting for has finally come home.”

Chapter 16

Abeam of morning light slanted across the room, chasing away the last fragments of Edward’s dream. In it, he had been fifteen or sixteen again, listening with half an ear to Tempest practicing her conjugations, the rest of him lost in some book her father had lent him.

“To love. Aimer.” A giggle, which he had ignored. “J’aime. Il, elle, on aime. Nous aimons. Vous . . . vous aimerez?” She rattled through the forms quickly, with little regard to accuracy or accent.

“Vous aimez,” he had corrected automatically.

“No, no. You misunderstood. I was asking. Do you think you will ever fall in love, Edward?”

The question had succeeded in capturing his full attention. Snapping shut his book, he had dropped to one knee beside the chair across which she had carelessly draped herself, caught up her slight, girlish hand, and said, with exaggerated passion, “Mais oui, ma chérie. Je t’aime.”

And, as he had hoped, she had squealed in protest, jumped up, and left him to his reading.

A dirty trick, of course. One of many they had played on one another, growing up together as they had. It would be years before the thought of anything more than brotherly love would cross his mind in regards to Tempest Holderin, and when it had, she had rebuffed his overtures just as thoroughly as she had that day.

Je t’aime. I love you. The words every young man with a passable command of French dreamed a beautiful woman would someday speak to him.

But why had that particular memory come back to him this morning?

As he brushed his hair away from his face and rubbed the heel of one hand against his eyes, he remembered. Charlotte.

He shifted on the lumpy mattress, half turned, expecting to find her still curled beside him. But the other half of the bed was cool and empty. Bright light flooded the room. It must be an hour or more past dawn. For the first time since returning to England, he had slept like the dead. She must have woken early, grown restless, gone out.

Not back to the manor? Hurrying to his feet, he found his scattered clothes and tugged them on. Surely she knew better than that.

When he could see no sign of Charlotte around the Rookery or walking in the nearby wood, he made his way to the manor house, entering through the kitchen, expecting to find it unoccupied. Instead, Mari was within, lighting a fire. A lithe black cat—Noir, had Charlotte called it?—was playing at her feet, swatting a balled-up piece of paper.

It was on the tip of his tongue to scold Mari for returning, but this was not the time. “Have you seen Charlotte?”

“This morning?” Mari turned away from the hearth, a curious slant to her head. “Yes. I met her just leaving the Rookery, and we walked back here together. She’s in her room, resting, I believe.” Something like a smile played around her lips. “She looked . . . tired.”

Before he could muster a reply, Jack stumbled into the room, looking—and smelling—the worse for a night of drinking. He rubbed a hand over the back of his head as he sat down heavily on one of the benches and grunted, “Coffee.”

Stone-faced, Mari shot a look at Edward before moving to follow the surly order.

“She’s gone,” Jack mumbled, half slumped over the servants’ table. “Sykes was meant to take the coach back to Town this morning. I ’spect you’ll find she was on it.”

“Gone? Town?” Unable to restrain himself, Edward grabbed Jack by the hair and lifted the man’s head high enough that their eyes met.

Jack winced. “Hey, now. Easy. She gave me quite a knock already.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

One dark eye squinted closed, as if he struggled to remember. “Now that I think on it, she only gave me a shove. Must’ve hit my head on the wall when I fell.”

“And what did you do to her to earn that shove?” Edward ground out.

Jack only laughed.

Letting the man’s head drop back onto the tabletop with a thud, Edward strode out of the kitchen and down the corridor. Though his feet, and his heart, wanted to race, he would not give in to the impulse. He would find her safe and sound in her room. He would.

But his knock received no answer; the old butler’s room was empty. With quicker steps, he moved back through the kitchen and out the door. In the stable yard, he could see the grooves of carriage wheels and the rounded outlines left by the hooves of Sykes’s horses, though the mud was too soft to hold much of an impression. In the stable itself, Samson whickered softly at him. Garrick was nowhere to be seen.

Back in the kitchen, Edward reached across the table and caught Jack by the cravat this time, yanking him to his feet. The bench tipped behind him and clattered to the floor. “Mind telling me what happened here this morning to drive her off?”