Page 37 of To Seduce a Stranger

“Just one. And it was he who was responsible for that tumble into the Serpentine.” Her gaze drifted away as she remembered. “His mama insisted that he accompany me on some errand—oh, yes. I recall. To fetch her new hat from the shop. On the way home, he ran off, into Hyde Park. I had no choice but to follow. He jumped at me from behind a bush, snatched the hat from my hands, and threw it into the river. Then he pushed me in as I leaned over to try to save it. The hat was ruined, of course. I had to make excuses to my aunt. She would never have believed anything bad of her son, so I made up the story about a swan.”

“And was she . . . amused?”

Charlotte managed a weak smile. “Not enough.”

He wished, suddenly, for some bit of magic that would wash the hurt of a joyless childhood from her eyes.

“If you stand perfectly still, the minnows will nibble at your toes.”

She shot him one wide-eyed glance before inching her dripping skirts high enough that she could see her feet. “Really? Oh, there’s one. And—oh—another, and . . . Oh!” Her chin lifted as she looked back at him. “It tickles.”

He nodded encouragingly and watched as she wiggled her toes experimentally, trying to coax the tiny fish. The drowsy hum of insects filled the silence between them; in the distance, he heard Markham laugh.

When a cloud crossed the sun and cast the pond into shadow, the minnows once more flashed away. Edward took Charlotte by the elbow, led her back to shore, and sat down beside her as they dried themselves in the warm spring air. “So, your aunt punished you to keep you from telling stories.”

Charlotte paused in the struggle to tug a surprisingly elegant silk stocking over her damp toes. “To keep me from telling lies,” she corrected.

Her aunt’s plan hadn’t worked, of course. If anything, stifling her so-called lies had only forced her to get more creative with telling them.

Balling his stockings in his fist, he stood, stomped his feet into his boots, and strode back to the others, snatching his coat from the ground and stuffing the discarded hosiery into his pocket.

“Is everything all right, Mr. Edward?” Mari asked, springing almost guiltily to her feet. Beside her, Markham rose more slowly.

“Yes. No.” He slapped his hat on his head and bent to pick up the basket, now laden with the used plates. In his haste, he knocked over Charlotte’s half-empty glass. Wine spilled like blood across the ground.

As he passed her on his way back to the house, he nodded sharply. A gesture of apology? Or leave-taking? He could hardly say. He tried to convince himself that the frustration building inside him was due to the heartlessness of Charlotte’s family, who had exploited and distorted what once might have been a gift.

But something else was eating at him, too—something far more dangerous than a few curious minnows.

She’d just handed him more proof that he could never trust what she said. Yet he felt, somehow, as if he’d finally caught a glimpse of the real woman beneath her stories.

And what he’d seen only made him want to know more.

Chapter 10

Charlotte had always been skeptical of the notion of a “good” sort of tired. Exhaustion was exhaustion. But as she eased her body into the silky cool cambric of her—well, technically Jane’s—night rail, she thought she finally understood. Her legs, her back, her hands—everything ached, but the dull pain of strained muscles and chapped skin faded beneath the glow of intense satisfaction that had swelled in her chest as she looked with pride at all she had accomplished in the last few days.

The dining room, the entry hall, the Great Room, and the gallery all gleamed with polished wood and sparkling glass. No more dust, no more cobwebs. No more draperies, either, and considerably less furniture and fewer broken knickknacks. Just the warm, sweet scent of beeswax, and beneath it, the sharper tang of vinegar. Perhaps, when—if—the Earl of Beckley ever returned to his estate, he would be displeased by what he saw. But she rather imagined he would think nothing of it. If her aunt was any indication, aristocrats knew very little about how their houses were kept clean, only demanded that they were.

Once dressed for sleep, she lifted a drowsy Noir from the seat of the chair and placed him on the bed instead. Stretching lazily, he looked for a moment as if he were considering protesting, but instead curled back into a ball, laid down his head, and closed his eyes. Only the tip of his tail twitched to reveal his feelings about the disruption of his nap.

Easing herself into the chair, she took up her hairbrush and peered into the piece of broken looking glass she had rescued from the gallery. Thanks to a few new blisters and her aching hands, her grip on the brush was tenuous, and she dropped it twice before managing to make a pass through just the ends of her hair, from not quite her shoulders to below her waist. Her arms did not seem to want to rise any higher, and when she attempted to make them submit to her command, pain knifed across her shoulders. Halfheartedly, she tried once more before twisting her lips in a grimace of both discomfort and annoyance. Laying the brush on the small table, she was about to give up and go to bed when the reflection of something behind her, the slightest movement, caught her eye. With a gasp, she spun around to see what it was.

She had left the door half open to allow Noir to come and go as he pleased. Now the once narrow gap had been widened to accommodate Edward’s broad shoulders, one of which leaned casually against the jamb. He had been watching her, and nothing about his posture—arms folded over his chest and around a book, legs crossed at the ankles, the toe of one booted foot propped against the floor—suggested the slightest chagrin at having been caught in the act.

A nervous hiccup of laughter bubbled in her chest, and she turned back to the mirror to hide it, covering the handle of the hairbrush with trembling fingertips, as if its smooth ivory curves could be mustered in her defense. “Bonsoir, Mr. Cary,” she said, eyeing his reflection. Days of breathing in dust had parched her throat, turning her words into a ragged whisper. “Did you—did you want something?”

For a long moment, he did not answer. Half shadowed by the door, his face revealed nothing. Nudging the door wider, he stepped into the room. “I have already found what I was looking for, thank you.”

In the mirror, the square set of his jaw looked slightly ominous. At least, it raised her pulse a notch or two. He was fully clothed, of course, but every time she saw him, the mental image of him stripped to the waist seemed determined to interpose itself.

She forced herself to turn and face him, and he held out the small volume to her. Ah, bien sûr. That was all he had sought. A book. Flipping to the yellowing title page, she read, “The Farmer’s Kalendar; or, a Monthly Directory for All Sorts of Country Business: Containing, Plain Instructions for Performing the Work of Various Kinds of Farms, in Every Season of the Year.” Her eyes darted up to meet his. “Are you having trouble sleeping, Mr. Cary?”

The jest caused one corner of his mouth to curve. “A West Indian sugar plantation is not an English farm. But as someone recently reminded me, if I once managed one, I can learn to manage the other,” he said, lifting the book from her hands. A moment of awkward silence fell, then he cleared his throat. “The transformation you have wrought here is nothing short of miraculous.”

“I did not do it alone. Mari helped, as you know. And Peg, the girl from the pub. Even Garrick—”

“Yes, I heard. He told me you stole the ladder and nearly stranded him in the stable loft.” His smile crept higher, into his eyes.