Page 43 of To Seduce a Stranger

Instead, a man—his own age, not his father’s—turned from inspecting the books on the shelf and stepped toward him without offering his hand. “You must be the steward.” His hair was dark, a shade darker even than Charlotte’s, and his olive complexion belonged more properly to some Mediterranean clime. In a few short strides he came to a stop before Edward and stood, as if waiting for something. When Edward did not bow, the man said, not a little impatiently, “I am Beckley.”

No, no, no, thumped Edward’s heart, while a single word—how?—screamed in his brain. “I was expecting . . . someone else. An older man.”

“M’ father, I suppose,” the other said in an affected aristocratic drawl. “He died in early February.”

Numbness crawled along Edward’s limbs. Shock, not sadness. The stranger’s words joined the others pulsing through his body. Dead, dead, dead. Was it true? It certainly fit with Markham’s story about the change in the collection of rents.

“Ah,” he managed to say. “And so you are . . . ? That is, I understood the heir to be—”

“Missing? For many years, yes. In fact,” the man said, throwing himself easily onto the sofa in the center of the room, “I did not always realize I was he. When the late earl died, the story of his son’s disappearance so many years ago began to circulate again. Abducted as a boy, they said. Hidden away. The more I read, the more I began to realize the child they described had been me.”

With the scream still echoing inside his skull, Edward struggled to make sense of the man’s words. He was a fraud, of course. Masquerading as . . . “Edward Cary.”

The man tipped his head in acknowledgment. “Although the name is strange to me now. A child is a malleable thing, you know. Can be made to forget, or made to believe, almost anything. For the last twenty-two years, I’ve been called Jack.”

“And did you—?” Edward stopped himself. He must proceed with caution. “You have assumed the title, then.”

“Well . . .” Jack ran one hand through his overlong hair, disordering it. “Not exactly. I require more proof before I can make a claim. I thought perhaps if I came back to the place of my birth, I might find it.”

“We were given no warning of your return, sir.”

“No,” he said, rising to resume his restless inspection of the room. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I knew m’ father left here a good many years ago, you see. I was not sure what I would find. It looks as if things have been left to rot.”

“Conditions are less than ideal,” Edward conceded.

“You’re a younger fellow than I expected, Mr.—”

Edward hesitated. “Cary.”

Jack’s head jerked upright, and he twisted about to fix him with a curious stare. “Are we related?”

Meeting the man’s dark gaze, Edward lifted one shoulder. “Perhaps.” What was the best course of action? To continue his charade as steward until he could sort out what was going on? “This post was promised me by the late earl,” he found himself reassuring the stranger who claimed to be he. “You’ll find I have a great deal of experience with the management of property. I am recently returned from the West Indies, where for several years I had sole responsibility for a sizable estate.”

“Ah.” As it had done with Charlotte, that revelation about his past seemed to convey far more than the mere facts of his situation. The man looked him up and down, a mixture of emotions on his face. Disdain, and a hint of uncertainty. “And are those skills . . . transferable?”

“Some of them.”

With one long-fingered hand, the man jerked the bell pull and waited. Nothing happened. Edward suspected the cord had long since been disconnected. Or had deteriorated into nothing. “The old place is rather thin on servants, it seems.”

“There are no household servants. Only Garrick. A groom by training, although he has proved to be a fine man of all work.” Edward felt no guilt at the slight exaggeration of Garrick’s abilities.

“You have been doing your own cooking, then?” Idly, Jack swiped his index finger along the edge of a nearby table. “And cleaning?”

“I have a cook. She traveled with me from Antigua.”

“A Negress?” Something more than mere curiosity edged his voice.

“Mari is African, yes.”

The statement earned him another speculative look. “An African cook. Well, I suppose your time in the islands gave you a certain appreciation for a . . . well-spiced dish.”

The implication could not have been clearer. Edward locked his jaw. “As for the cleaning of this house,” he added when he had reined in his temper enough to keep it from his voice, “that was done under the direction of... my wife.”

By rights, that lie ought to have been more difficult to tell. After last night, he ought to be especially reluctant to repeat it. Yet it was growing increasingly natural to think of Charlotte as a part of his life. Until he had seen the results, he had not realized how her efforts at restoring Ravenswood Manor would affect him. It was as if she had known what he most needed. She had returned to him something he had begun to think was lost forever. His home.

Some thanks he had given her.

“You are a married man, eh? Better you than I.” Jack glanced around the cavernous room. “Well, well. Mrs. Cary has been quite industrious. I hope I shall have the opportunity to meet her, to thank her in person.”