Page 29 of To Seduce a Stranger

COUNTESS OF BECKLEY

BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

DEPARTED THIS EARTH

JULY 18, 1775

“Beloved wife.”

In the silence of the cemetery, the sound of his own voice startled him. How had his father mustered the nerve to give such an order to the stone carver? Of course, it might have been the vicar’s suggestion, old Mr. Henderson’s final attempt to prick his father’s conscience. Or perhaps it had merely been the carver’s fancy.

The date struck him next. His mother had survived little more than a month after he had gone. Time enough, he supposed, for the smallpox to have struck its devastating blow. What must she have endured in those days between his departure and her death? The realization forced him to shift his gaze.

If there had been an outbreak of smallpox at Ravenswood, would not the churchyard be filled with stones bearing a similar date? Was it possible the disease really had been a rumor fabricated to explain his mother’s death? The panic would have been real enough, emptying the village, leaving none behind to ask difficult questions. And if his mother had not died of disease, then . . .

When his hands began to tremble like those of a palsied old man, he turned away, fearing he might either weep noisily or vomit if he stood there a moment longer. It would have been easier to have found his own gravestone in the churchyard. After all, the boy who had left Little Norbury had in truth died long ago. The man who had returned bore him only a superficial resemblance.

By the time he reentered the lane, he had brought himself under control. While there was much here to dismay any onlooker, nothing ought to surprise him now. In the village, he found the general merchant’s windows shuttered. The only door standing open was that of the pub. So it was to that venerable establishment Edward turned in search of information.

Almost to the threshold of the Rose and Raven, he could hear someone within, humming a ditty. When he stepped through the door, he saw a thin, fair-haired young woman bending over a bucket, scrubbing tables and floors with the same dirty water. The driving rhythm of her song kept her rag moving at a brisk clip.

“Excuse me,” Edward said at last, when she showed no sign of looking up from her task.

She gave a little shriek of surprise at the sound of his voice. “Lor’ bless us, what a fright you gave me!” The rag fell into the bucket, splashing her skirts with gray water.

“I beg your pardon, miss. I was wondering if you could tell me where I might find Mr. Toomey?”

“Toomey?” With the crook of her arm, she brushed damp hair from her brow.

“Does Mr. Toomey still own the shop next door?” he asked.

“Ah, you must be Mr. Cary.”

“I am.” He had not considered how much his question revealed about his familiarity with the place.

“Garrick said you had some tie to the fam’ly,” she said, confirming his suspicion that the man had been gossiping about Edward’s arrival. Stepping forward, the girl dipped in a clumsy curtsy. “Pleased t’ meet you, sir.” She wiped her hands on her apron. “I’m Peg.”

“You mean Margaret,” he corrected automatically. Peg . . . Lottie . . . Why must all these young women ruin perfectly lovely names in favor of coarse familiarity?

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“Your given name must be Margaret. Peg is only a shortened version of it, a nickname.”

As he explained, she regarded him curiously, her head tipped to one side. “Is it, now?” The girl considered for a moment longer, then shrugged and took up her rag again. “Well, ain’t nobody ever called me aught but Peg. Margaret sounds a bit high an’ mighty, now, don’ you think? People would say I was givin’ meself airs if I took t’ callin’ meself Margaret.” Each syllable of the name received an equal share of weight, like a word pronounced in a foreign tongue.

“You may well be right.” He tipped his head, partly in acknowledgment, partly to hide his expression of annoyance, mostly with himself. Why did he care what name the girl used? After all, he had once been glad enough to answer to Neddy, when spoken in his mother’s soft voice. The fond name had been their little secret; his father would never have allowed him to be called anything but Ravenswood, of course, and frequently had behaved as if a little boy were made of the same stuff as a stone manor house.

So comfortable had the nickname felt, in fact, that when he had left home and found a ship to carry him far away, he had even told the captain his name was Neddy.

Hearing “Neddy” in the captain’s drunken, wheedling tone had stripped the name of its appeal. On the rare occasions when the man had been sober, the more ominous “Ned” had proved no better. Worse had been the orders to which his name had been appended. And worst of all, the punishments that had inevitably followed, when he had refused to do the man’s terrible bidding.

Without question, Edward’s dislike of nicknames could be traced to the day he boarded the Pearl.

He cleared his throat. “About the merchant . . . ?”

“Oh, aye. Mr. Toomey’s out. Took his wife somewhere near Kingscote t’ stay with her mother,” the girl explained. “For her lyin’-in. Ain’t no midwife hereabouts.”

Lying-in? The Toomeys had been far past the age when more children could be expected twenty years ago. How could—? It took only a moment for him to realize that the Mr. Toomey in question must be the son of the man Edward remembered. A child who had been in leading strings then was now a man with a family of his own.