Seduced by a Stranger (11 page)

Ghosts and memories wove a dark spell, making her tremble, making her feel as though she was once more that cowering girl who had no hope, no family, no friends. No way to escape. Horror seized her. She was determined to help this unfortunate maid, to save her from whatever vile thing St. Aubyn meant to visit upon her. But first, she must determine exactly what that was and so she held her place and her silence, her fists clenched by her sides.

He turned toward the maid then and asked, “Is this the man?”

She was crying so hard she could not speak. St. Aubyn stepped toward her and she shrank away. Without thought, Catherine insinuated herself between them, her back to the girl, her entire body shaking as she faced him down. She was dimly aware that the two footmen stood silent, and the man in the faded finery snorted in derision.

St. Aubyn pinned her with a gaze that was barely human, so cold and
knowing
that she felt sick from it.

“Step aside, Miss Weston.”

An order.

She held her ground, feeling the weight of his stare and the stares of the maid and the men who stood a short way down the dim passage.

“Please, miss,” the maid whispered, and sidled around her to face her fate. “I don’t want you to take my trouble as your own.”

“Is this the man?” St. Aubyn asked again, his frigid gaze turned to the maid once more.

“Yes,” she said, so low that Catherine could barely hear her. Then the girl raised her head and stared down the hallway, fear and loathing glittering in her gaze.

“What? You going to believe her?” the man asked with an ugly laugh. “A lightskirt like her?”

St. Aubyn was before him in three short strides. Without preamble, he took the man’s left hand in his and snapped his baby finger. The man cried out, a short, ugly sound that echoed in the narrow hallway, along with the maid’s gasp.

Catherine jerked forward, then froze in place, her world tilting as she tried to make sense of what she had witnessed here.

There was violence in the air. She could taste it, smell it. She looked at St. Aubyn’s face and realized it came from him, barely leashed. He
wanted
this man to defend himself. Wanted a reason to unleash the full fury of his rage. He wanted to hurt him.

And in the instant, she finally understood exactly what transpired here. Justice. Or at least, St. Aubyn’s definition of it.

The fellow stood rigid, cradling his injured hand, cursing and snarling like the beast he was.

“Be glad I broke only one,” St. Aubyn said. “You broke three of hers. Get off my land. Do not return.” He bared his teeth in a terrible smile. “Take an unwilling woman again, and I will hear of it. Touch anything of mine again, and I will kill you.”

The man’s mouth opened and closed, his eyes wide with fear. The two footmen grabbed his elbows and dragged him away down the passage, while the maid slumped against the wall, sobbing wildly.

St. Aubyn turned toward her and stared at her in silence, his expression utterly blank. It was not marked in his features, not expressed by any means, but Catherine could swear that in the face of the maid’s tears, he was befuddled. He reached out, paused, drew back, and then finally took the maid’s hand at the wrist, not touching her damaged fingers at all as he looked at her injury.

The maid cried all the harder.

“You cannot work in the scullery,” he said, letting go his hold.

Her sobs froze, and Catherine’s own breath caught. What would this girl do if he turned her out with her hand broken and battered? How would she survive?

“Until your hand heals, you will—” His lips drew taut and he stared straight ahead, as though pondering what instruction to offer. Then he gave a quick shake of his head and in what could only be described as an exasperated tone, continued, “You will
dust
. Every book in the library. You will take each one down from the shelf and dust it thoroughly.”

“There are so many books, sir,” the maid said, ending on a hiccupping sob.

“Quite,” St. Aubyn replied with a sardonic edge, and the glance he cast her told Catherine that that was exactly the point. “Come along. We will find Mrs. Bell.”

He stalked away, tossing over his shoulder, “Not you, Miss Weston. You may return to whatever it was that had you skulking about in the shadows before you stumbled upon our little melodrama. I would in no way wish to inconvenience you.” Three steps more, and he stopped, glanced back, and said in a strangely gentle tone, “Come along, Peg.”

“Yes, sir.” She gave a mighty sniff. “I’m sorry, sir.” The maid scurried after him, leaving Catherine alone in the gloom, only now fully realizing that Gabriel St. Aubyn had just played the role of Peg’s knight in shining armor.

She recalled the way he had snapped the man’s finger, utterly without emotion, seemingly without effort. Judge and executioner.

She supposed that made him more a knight in tarnished armor.

The following morning, Gabriel sipped his coffee and glanced through an outdated copy of the
Times
.

“Oh!” A soft exclamation dusted the silence and he looked up to see Miss Weston frozen in the doorway of the breakfast room. The hour was early, barely past dawn. No doubt she had timed her arrival with care, intending to finish her meal before he came, and thus avoid him altogether. He found it entertaining to confound her. And
that
confounded him.

“You are an early riser,” she observed, stepping inside and crossing to the sideboard. Her voice betrayed no emotion whatsoever, though he suspected she silently cursed him to Hades.

She filled a plate, then joined him, hesitating almost imperceptibly as she selected a seat. Finally she opted for the same one she had chosen the previous day, though she might have moved to the far end of the table and taken a place there.

“It is customary to rise when a lady enters a room,” she observed primly.

“Do you chastise me for my appalling manners, Miss Weston?”

She stared at him with cool aplomb. “Someone must.”

And that made him laugh, though he had no idea why. The sound startled her. Her brows rose, giving her away before she mastered her responses and turned her attention to her meal.

In truth, the sound startled him, as well. Something about her freed a more primitive part of his nature, a part that was less controlled and rigid.

The silence wove about them like smoke, interrupted only by the nearly absent scrape of silverware on china, the rattle of a cup being set on a saucer, the crinkle of paper as he turned a page of the
Times
.

He thought she must be ruffled by the tension that hummed, vivid and alive, in the air. But she betrayed that not at all. She was cool and poised. Lovely.

He wanted to shake her composure.

Why? Such an uncharacteristic urge.

She had witnessed the episode yesterday by the servants’ stairs. For some reason, that made him…uncomfortable. He was unaccustomed to anyone gainsaying him. But Catherine Weston had done just that, insinuating herself between him and Peg when she thought the girl was in danger. From him. That, too, made him uncomfortable. That even for a moment, she had thought him capable of brutalizing someone smaller, weaker.

She had seen the violence surge through him, witnessed the cold brutality of his actions. He’d broken the bastard’s finger.

As though she sensed the direction of his thoughts, she murmured, “Why did you do it? Break his finger? You might have simply chastised him and sent him on his way.”

No, he could not have done that.

Slowly, she raised her gaze to his, a world of knowledge shimmering in her dark, lovely eyes.

“It was less than he deserved.” That was explanation enough. But for some reason, he could not let it be, he felt compelled to answer more fully. Peg was a servant girl with no protection, and no way to fight back. “I despise inequity.”

“Yes,” she said. Only that. Nothing more.

It was enough.

They began to converse, stilted at first, then more easily. Almost comfortably. They discussed philosophy and literature and science.

She was unexpectedly well read, but when he asked her about that, she evaded and danced about the topic, an expert at avoidance. He let it pass. For now.

He had lent her his copy of Mary Shelley’s
Frankenstein
, and they spoke of that as well, though she had only read the first bit to date, constrained as she was by her need to care for Madeline.

When she rose and took her leave, he was not pleased to see her go.

The following morning, she came to take her meal a full two hours late. A new tactic, the truce of the previous morning having been destroyed by the passage of time.

He delighted in the complete lack of surprise she evinced at finding him waiting for her, drinking yet another cup of coffee. His third? Fifth? She was composed and controlled, her mask perfectly in place. She presented such a wonderful challenge.

“I trust you slept well,” he said.

“Very well, thank you,” she replied. Her eyes narrowed as she assessed him, likely wondering why he engaged her in pointless discourse. He wondered that himself. “And you?”

Watching the sway of her hips as she made her way to the sideboard, he murmured an appropriate reply. He kept the
in
appropriate reply to himself, saying nothing of how, with the night a dark cave around him, he had lain between his cool sheets and tossed and dreamed. Of her. Naked. Of her lustrous hair fanning loose about her porcelain-pale shoulders, and her dusky pink lips open to accept him into her mouth. Of her dark eyes, slumberous with need; of her cries, high and loud, as she found her release.

What would she think to know that each night since his return, he had dreamed of her? Restless, wild dreams, sensual and vivid.

He ached to catch her hair in his fist and drag her head back so he could feast on her mouth, her throat, her breasts. He ached to knead the flesh of her sweet, round bottom and watch the pale skin of her buttocks pinken beneath his touch. He wanted to mark her as his.

He wanted her to take her pleasure of him, to lose control for him, to claw and bite and climax for him, again and again. He wanted nothing gentle with her, nothing subject to rigid control.

What was it about her that spoke to him on such a primitive level? He had known many beautiful women. Known many bright women. None had invaded his dreams. But Catherine did.

He tried to dissect her, to understand the allure, but she was something more than the sum of mere parts.

And so they met at breakfast each morning after that. He offered no clue of his private thoughts and lascivious dreams; he only sipped his coffee and watched her sip her tea, and listened to her perfect diction and lovely voice.

And each night, he dreamed. Fierce, dark dreams.

Susan Parker trudged along the road making practical use of her half-day free from her duties at Cairncroft Abbey. The master had been back from London for more than a week now, and Susan was glad. It seemed Mrs. Bell worked them all harder when he was away, which made no sense, but that was the way of it.

Her thoughts turned to Peg and the gossip that was flying among the servants. What had happened to her the day after Sir Gabriel’s return? No one knew for certain and Peg wasn’t saying. They only knew that one day, she’d been a scullery maid who’d gone and gotten her hand broke, and in the week since, she had been dusting books.

Susan snorted. Easy work, that. Maybe
she
ought to go and get her hand broke, as well.

The sun was high in the sky, beating down hotter than Susan had a liking for. She wore her heavy cloak over her plain brown dress. When she had set off promptly at noon, the day had been overcast and there had been a nip in the air. The cloak had seemed like a fine idea. The walk to the village had been pleasant, the spring breeze stroking her skin, the birds chirping in the adjacent woods.

Now, with the clouds burned away and the full heat of the day upon her, she saw that the cloak had been a terrible idea. She was hot and sweaty, her hair hanging lank against her forehead, itching where it lay plastered to her skin.

And her toes and the backs of her heels pinched.

That was the whole reason she was on the road at all. She had put her half-day to good use, walking to the village to be measured for new shoes. When that business was done, she had left the shoemaker, turned right around, and begun the trek back to Cairncroft Abbey, for she meant to return in time for supper, and the walk was almost two hours each way.

Her thoughts wandered, revisiting the events of that morning. She’d been tasked to deliver a letter to Miss Weston. She had carried it up on the silver tray, bobbed a curtsy, and mumbled a brief reply when Miss Weston had tried to engage her in conversation. She thought Miss Weston felt bad now for her threats about carrying tales to Mrs. Bell that first night, and her pleasantries were a way of making amends.

Well, Susan was having none of it.

Though she had managed to avoid conversation with Miss Weston since the night she had first arrived, she hadn’t been able to avoid tidying the woman’s chamber. Duties were duties, after all. She didn’t like her. Didn’t trust her. What sort of nasty woman wielded threats just to ferret out information?

A smart, nasty woman, that’s who.

Susan shook her head, annoyed with herself as she recalled the way she had rambled on about the master and the time they’d found that highwayman dead by the road. What had she been thinking? There was fodder enough to see her dismissed if Miss Weston had had that in her mind.

Shoving a hank of hair off her face, she wiped the back of her hand across her brow as she walked. Truth was…she knew Miss Weston wouldn’t have ratted her out. Not because she was so very nice, but because she hadn’t said anything to anyone about the things Susan had divulged. At least, not that Susan knew of. Besides, she didn’t like Mrs. Bell any better than Susan did. And Mrs. Bell seemed to loathe Miss Weston.

Susan knew she’d been duped by the threat, and she’d spilled all in a rambling surge, terrified that if she didn’t, she would lose her place. Which made no sense when she thought about it later. She would have been wiser to keep her mouth closed tight if she meant to protect her position. Well, she’d learned a lesson from that. She’d bite her tongue clean through before she would make the same mistake again.

She closed her eyes, recalling again the letter she’d delivered just this morning and Miss Weston’s reaction to it. The interesting thing, the bit that made Susan think on it again and again, was the look on Miss Weston’s face when she’d flipped the letter over and seen the name of the person what sent it. Whoever it was, Miss Weston clearly had not expected them to write. She’d been gripped by surprise. Her raised brows and open mouth had betrayed her, doubly so because Susan had come to notice that it was not her usual fashion to show any emotion at all.

This letter had caught Miss Weston unawares, and that made Susan curious as a cat.

Maybe one of the other maids would have heard something by the time she got back. Susan was doubtful of that. Miss Weston was a private type, talking about the weather and such to the other girls, but never anything more than that. And though they’d quickly looked through her things a time or two, there hadn’t been anything interesting to find. Oh, except the pretty red tin with the gold crest, but Susan had no idea what those twisted papers inside were for. She’d carefully set the tin back where she’d found it, placing it exactly where it had been so Miss Weston wouldn’t see it had been touched.

Susan trudged on a bit, the discomfort of the heat and her shoes and the long walk so tedious, made worse by the growing need to piddle.

With a sigh, she paused and peered about. The road had curved, and to her left was a narrow river. The sound of the water rushing over the rocks made the pressing urgency that had plagued her for the past mile even worse. She was close to Cairncroft. Less than another hour to go. But, oh, she did need to piddle. She had thought to wait, but now decided against it.

To her right were the woods, the trees budding and green. There wasn’t another soul to be seen, and there was privacy enough to satisfy. Lifting her skirt, she left the road and scooted behind a thick tree trunk, hidden from any who might pass as she did what nature demanded.

There. That was much better. She thought even her pinched feet felt better now that the other discomfort was relieved. Settling her skirt, she then stepped around the tree and was about to resume her walk when she heard the pounding of hooves approaching.

Loath to step directly into the path of a racing horse—hadn’t she seen that child trampled before her very eyes five years ago at the Newmarket Fair?—she held her place until horse and rider rounded the bend. She waited there, thinking the rider would simply continue past.

But he did not.

He saw her and reined in the great black beast. It stood, sides heaving, head tossing, and she watched it warily, for horses frightened her.

The sun was at his back, and she squinted up at him, unable to make out his features. A strange disquiet trickled through her, and she took a step back. He eased the horse forward, one step, two. Clop. Clop. The jingle of the bridle seemed so loud in the quiet.

The movement shifted his relation to the sun, and she saw his face now, her unease evaporating like dew.

“Oh, sir, ’tis you.” She pressed her hand to her breast, and gave a nervous laugh. She blinked, unable to fathom why he had stopped to speak with her at all. Other than a directive to her duties, he had never said a conversational word to her. Not a single word.

“Did I give you a fright?” He offered a warm, slow smile. She’d never seen him do that. Not in the three years she’d been at Cairncroft.

“A bit,” she admitted shyly, staggered that he bothered to stop and speak with her, that he paid such attention to her.

He studied her at his leisure, his gaze raking her from crown to toes. It left her feeling oddly flustered, like the time Tom the footman had winked at her and tugged on her plait.

“You can’t mean to walk in this heat. Let me take you up behind me.” Leaning forward, he held out his hand.

She gawped at him, mouth open, thoughts muzzy. He meant to take her up behind him? To have her ride back to Cairncroft with him?

Well, that was something to tell the other girls. Wouldn’t they be amazed?

Scrambling forward, she looked up and reached for his hand, the sun in her eyes once more, blinding her.

Slapping his brown leather gloves against his thigh, Gabriel strode across the slate tiles of the entry hall. Despite his lengthy outing earlier in the afternoon, he was filled with an uncharacteristic restless tension. Because, as happened more and more of late, his thoughts were filled with her—Catherine Weston—and he had no desire to put a halt to where his imagination took him.

“Sir Gabriel.” Her voice came to him now, drawing him from his musings. Her words echoed in the vast empty hallway, crisp and precise. She was slightly breathless, as though she had hurried to catch him.

“Catherine,” he returned her greeting, pausing to look up, finding her at the top of the stairs, framed by the open arch.

He wondered if she was debating whether to chastise him for his unseemly forwardness, for she had never invited him to use her given name. In the end, she let it pass. It told him much, that acquiescence. Catherine Weston chose her battles with care, and he suspected she had sought him out to fight one of greater import than his unauthorized use of her given name.

She stood on the top step, unmoving. Her dress was the color of smoke, the color of sadness, of mourning. She ought to have looked plain. Instead, the hint of lavender in the gray made her skin gleam like one of the pearls on the strand she wore about her neck.

Waiting and watching, he held his place as she descended the stairs and approached, grace and beauty, each step measured to the last. Perhaps—no,
assuredly
—a true gentleman would have gone to her. The thought amused him.

“If you have a moment, I wish to speak with you about Madeline.” She paused, as though waiting for some reaction. He offered none. He merely watched her in silence, letting her have her say. As always, her composure was impeccable, but some small detail of her appearance was left in disarray. Today, as it had been the very first time he saw her, it was a lock of hair that had come free from her twist, curling over her shoulder and along her breast.

“Your cousin is poorly,” she said, the mistress of understatement. “I wonder what means have been employed in the past to encourage her from her melancholy.”

“Do you?”

A fleeting frown creased her brow. “Do I what?”

“Wonder.” He slapped his gloves against his thigh, once. “Or do you obliquely inquire if I have coaxed her and coddled her in the past? If you have a question, ask it outright, Catherine.”

She sent him a glance that might have held annoyance. Or disdain. He would prefer the former.

“Have you coaxed and coddled her in the past?”

“I have hired staff to do exactly that.”

“Why do you not visit her?” she fired, her expression tranquil once more, her tone sharp as a blade. “Why do you do nothing to help her?”

“I do not visit her because she despises me as I despise her. We mix as well as oil and water.” There. Let her mull on that. “And how do you know what I do and do not do to help her? Or what I have done in the past. You do not know me at all, Catherine.” He took a step closer, letting the subtle rose scent of her wash over him, letting his action say what his words did not.
We could remedy that. We could know each other as well as you please
.

Only in that moment, with her scent filling him, did he think to regret that his afternoon’s activities had left him smelling of horse, with dust on his boots and a splatter of mud on his sleeve.

She did not step away. Not his Catherine. She would not give an inch. Instead, she tipped her head back to glare at him and said, “I do know you, sir. I know that you have a brilliant mind and a cold heart. You have shown me that much of yourself. You answer questions with questions or with answers so oblique they have no value at all. At times, you offer only silence. What else would you like me to know?”

She was so close, he could see the beat of her pulse just beneath the pale skin of her throat.

Clearly, they applied different definitions and nuances to the concept of
knowing
.

He bent his head a little. She froze, the rise and fall of her breasts belying the cool gaze she leveled upon him. He affected her. There was no question of it. But she was poised, icy, her demeanor cultivated and planned to project a very specific impression.

“I did not seek you out to speak of nonsense,” she said in her frostiest tone, the sound of her voice only serving to stoke the heat in his loins. “I believe a visit from the doctor is in order. Your cousin has eaten almost nothing in days, and she does not sleep. I fear for her health.” She pressed her lips together, contemplating her next words, perhaps debating whether or not to set them free, and then she finished, “I fear for her sanity.”

“Ah.” And how was he to respond to that? There was nothing to fear. Madeline’s sanity had fled years past. And his own, as well. He imagined that if he said so, Catherine’s ire would be raised. She might turn and walk away. He was not ready to let her go, and so he settled for the less objectionable observation, “Madeline despises Dr. Graves.”

“Then send for someone else.”

“There is no one else capable within a day’s ride, and the afternoon is nigh over, evening drawing near. Unless you would have her seen by Dr. Jayne. He is close by, but he is a drunk. Last year, he performed an amputation. Quite proud he was, bragging that he’d done it in three minutes flat. Unfortunately, he’d cut off the wrong limb.” He let a heartbeat pass for her to digest that, then asked, “Shall I summon him? He could arrive within the hour, unless he is too inebriated to walk.”

She stared at him, and he saw a flicker of anger before she composed her expression into one of calm. “Do not make light of this. She needs help. She needs something to steady her nerves.”

“She has laudanum.”

Catherine shook her head, and the scent of her hair carried to him. A hint of roses. He inhaled, and held it, savoring the moment.

“She has none. I suspect she used what she had some time past. Or perhaps she spilled it. Either way, the bottle is empty.” She met his gaze full on, the light hitting her in such a way that the thick, straight veil of her lashes painted faint shadows on her cheeks. “I dislike laudanum. I believe it is a poison,” she continued. “At the very least, it does as much harm as good, but in this I feel the choice is clear. She is overset. Frantic. I cannot think what else to do for her.”