Page 40 of To Seduce a Stranger

“Au contraire,” she managed to say, after swallowing twice. “And I’m sure everyone at Ravenswood will be happy to see you return. Bon voyage, Mr. Cary.” With a tremendous effort, she forced herself to dip in a halfhearted curtsy, then walked out the door.

With every step, she felt something heavy in the pocket of his coat bump against her thigh. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw no sign of Edward following her down, so on the landing, she paused to investigate.

The small volume on husbandry nearly filled the pocket. But alongside it was tucked the toy soldier. Possessively, she curled her fingers around the worn metal figure.

A child’s plaything unearthed in a ruined room. That kiss. And now a hasty departure.

What did any of it mean?

Even with her capacity for invention, Charlotte could not put together the pieces of this puzzle in a way that made the picture clear.

* * *

When he could no longer hear Charlotte’s footsteps on the stairs, when he felt certain she was safely back in her bed, Edward allowed himself to leave the room, taking one final look around before he blew out the candle and closed the door.

Had his mother died here?

It would have been unlike his father to strike Mama in her receiving room, whose door had always stood open to visitors, at his insistence—a sign that there was nothing to hide. But deep within the labyrinth of the family chambers, there had been other rooms, of course, more private spaces where he had often made his displeasure known. And if the rest of the house was any indication, something had snapped the thin cord by which the man’s temper had been tethered.

Clearly, the outbreak of smallpox had been a fabrication, a story to cover up the terrible truth. Coming face-to-face with the evidence—her gravestone, her sitting room—forced Edward to confront the dire consequences of his decision to leave Ravenswood. His mother’s blood was on his conscience, if not his hands. He should have been here to save her. Far from saving her, his actions had led directly to her death.

Perhaps, after all, he had turned out to be little better than his father.

Finding himself in the back of the house, he exited through the gallery and strode through the woods to the pond. By the time he had reached the water’s edge, he had stripped off his waistcoat, his cravat, his shirt. Pausing only to toe off his boots and shuck his breeches, he dove headfirst into its depths.

There was a certain irony in coming here now, to the spot where his father taught him to swim. Why had Father insisted on taking that particular task to himself? The curate had tutored him in Latin and mathematics, though his father had excelled at both. His father had been a first-rate horseman, but a groom had taught Edward to ride. The prospect of any sort of lessons with his father, who was almost invariably stern and critical, had filled Edward with quiet dread. But here in this pond they had splashed and laughed together—unless Edward’s memory was as untrustworthy as Charlotte’s.

He did not want or need the reminder that his father was not always a bad man. Despite his sometimes sharp temper, his peers had generally thought well of him, his tenants had respected him, his son had . . . loved him.

Feared him, too. Every time some well-meaning person had insisted he was like his father—in looks, in abilities, in temperament—Edward had felt as if he were being torn in two. Though there had been much in his father to admire, Edward had been too well aware that he also possessed qualities no man ought to want to emulate. Lust, chief among them, although he would not have known to use that word then. Lust for power. And women—Edward’s mother, the occasional housemaid, some girl from outside the village—had been his victims of choice.

It had never been quite as simple as vowing to do opposite of what his father had done, however, because his father’s choices had not always been the wrong ones.

Edward prided himself on never having struck another person, though few would have thought less of him for it—and some had certainly deserved punishment for their actions. In the West Indies, his abhorrence of violence had been regarded as a peculiarity, a weakness, by almost everyone he knew.

With respect to women, Edward’s path had been perfectly clear. He had contented himself with being treated as a brother. A friend. He held himself at a safe distance, because he feared that deep down, he might not be safe. He had grown adept at keeping his desires, his needs, his feelings ruthlessly in check.

But did that mean he had truly triumphed over his father’s nature?

Protecting Charlotte had been the last thing on his mind tonight. The slightest encouragement and he would have rucked up her skirts, pressed her back to the wall, and sheathed himself inside her.

Fortunately, she had offered no encouragement. In his arms, she had been a marble statue, whose coolness had at last brought him to his senses.

She deserved better. Better than a man like him.

What woman did not?

Determined to distract himself from her, he had been working himself to the dropping point every day, until his muscles screamed. But every night, when sleep should have offered him respite, he tossed and turned through feverish dreams, and woke every morning achingly hard. Even now, the icy chill of the water had done little toward wilting his cockstand.

In the West Indies, most men had paid dockside whores to slake their lust, or more often, forced slaves to service their needs.

He was not most men.

Just as he was about to close his hand around his own flesh—though he generally disdained such weakness—he heard a rustle along the pond’s edge. Silently, he slipped back into deeper water, treading slowly, stirring up ripples that made the starry sky reflected on the pond’s surface shimmer and wink.

Mari was returning from her midnight stroll, dragging her lame leg behind her. She had been limping along that way the first time he had seen her, the smallest and weakest in a coffle of slaves bound for sale. By then, he had known enough about the Middle Passage to guess that, while a lame leg might have been the only visible injury slavery had inflicted on Mari, it was likely far from the worst.

Apparently without observing him, Mari passed by and into the house. What incredible strength it had required for her to brave that Atlantic crossing once more. But her disability had never interfered with her getting where she wanted to go. For all the imprecations he had heaped on Tempest’s head for encouraging her to come here, he was glad Mari had made that choice. She was almost his only connection, now, to the world in which he had grown into a man, to the life that had been his for so long. It pleased him to see her enjoying the freedom he had always wanted for her, but which had never been his to give.