TO
SEDUCE A STRANGER
by
Susanna Craig
Pub
date: 4/11/2017
Genre:
Historical Romance
Desire
waylays the plans of a man with a mysterious past and a woman with an
uncertain future, in Susanna Craig’s unforgettable series set in
Georgian England.
After
her much older husband dies—leaving her his fortune—Charlotte
Blakemore finds herself at the mercy of her stepson, who vows to
contest the will and destroy her life. With nowhere to turn and no
one to help her, she embarks on an elaborate ruse—only to find
herself stranded on the way to London. . .
More
than twenty years in the West Indies have hardened Edward Cary, but
not enough to abandon a helpless woman at a roadside inn—especially
one as disarmingly beautiful as Charlotte. He takes her with him to
the Gloucestershire estate he is determined to restore, though he is
suspicious of every word that falls from her distractingly lush lips.
As
far as Charlotte knows, Edward is nothing more than a steward, and
there’s no reason to reveal his noble birth until he can right his
father’s wrongs. Acting as husband and wife will keep people in the
village from asking questions that neither Charlotte nor Edward are
willing to answer. But the game they’re each determined to play has
rules that beg to broken, when the passion between them threatens to
uncover the truth—for better or worse. . .
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Chapter 1
Ravenswood Manor,
Gloucestershire June 1775
For some time now, the parlor maid had been
neglecting to sweep into the nook between the bow window and the high-backed sofa
in her ladyship’s receiving room. The wide beam of afternoon sun- light was
thick with dust motes that settled softly on the floor, dimming the luster of
the damasked furniture and coating the hems of the rose velvet draperies.
The maid’s shortcomings suited the boy just
fine. In the dusty, narrow crevice, he had built a world he did not wish to
have disturbed. An entire battalion of soldiers stood perpetually at the ready,
apparently unconcerned at their precarious field position; flanked on two sides
by the wall and the sofa’s back, they could only advance or retreat, and as
they were English soldiers, retreat was never an option.
On this day, however, they faced a new enemy.
Just yesterday, the boy had begged for a ship
that he might expand into a navy, although he knew his father thought him too
old for such playthings. Hardly had the request been out of his mouth before
Father had erupted, insisting that no son of his would become . . . well, he
wasn’t sure quite what his father had said, but it had begun with “arse,” a
sure insult and one never to be spoken in front of a lady, which was probably
why Mama had very nearly swooned when she heard it.
A heated exchange between his parents had
surely followed, but the boy had been spared from it by being sent to his
lessons. He ought to be there again now, but he had played truant instead and
sneaked back to his favorite hideaway as soon as he could manage it. To thwart
his father’s prohibition, he had pinched his mother’s sewing basket from the
table as he passed, thinking it would make a fine pi- rate’s ship. Next, he set
to work scraping the painted uniforms off three soldiers whose leaden
expressions made them the most likely candidates for notorious men of fortune.
With a flourish, he drew a wavy line in the dust on the floor to mark out the
shore and positioned the ship with its broadside facing his unsuspecting
troops.
As the pirate captain knelt to touch off his
cannon, the boy heard his mother’s light footsteps, followed by a tread he
could not immediately identify.
“So kind of you to drop in, Mrs. Henderson,”
Mama said
.
Mrs. Henderson was the vicar’s wife, a
heavyset woman with a prominent nose and hair the color of a mouse’s hide. But
she always smelled of gingerbread and was kind to him and the other boys
tutored by Mr. Henderson’s curate, Cummings
“Will you take tea?”
“It’s very kind of you, I’m sure, but I can’t
stay, my lady. I only called to see if young Ravenswood was unwell. He wasn’t
at his Latin lesson today, and Mr. Cummings seemed to think that he wasn’t
quite himself yesterday.”
“Oh, that!” Mama laughed, a shade too
brightly. “He was petulant because his father forbade him a new toy.” Her words
made him bristle. “Boys will be boys, Mrs. Henderson. But I’ll see to it he
does not miss another lesson.”
A long pause. “And you, my lady—are you quite
well?” It seemed Mrs. Henderson was not content to let sleeping dogs lie.
“I? Why, yes, of course,” replied Mama.
The boy heard the click of the door latch, and
before he could wonder who had dared to close a door that Father never allowed
any- one to close but him, he heard Mrs. Henderson say, “My lady, I know it’s
not my place. But that’s an ugly-looking bruise.”
When Mama had come in last evening to say goodnight,
he had seen the bruise at her hairline near her temple, only partially hidden
by her lace-edged cap. He could picture her slender hand rising now to shield
her face from the other woman’s sight. “It’s nothing. I—I tripped and—”
“No need to make excuse, my lady. But perhaps
a poultice—?”
“Oh, no, no.” She brushed the suggestion
aside. She did not like anything that drew attention to her supposed
clumsiness, he knew. Neither did his father.
He heard Mrs. Henderson’s footsteps cross the
carpet quickly and when she spoke again, her voice was low.
“I know we mightn’t have much time to speak
freely, my lady. Isn’t there anything a body can do to help you? Perhaps if Mr.
Henderson spoke with his lordship?”
“Oh, God, no. Please, Mrs. Henderson. Say
nothing more.”
“I will speak, my lady. I can’t do otherwise.
It’s abroad in the village what’s become of your parlor maid.” His mother gave
a hiccup of surprise. “You dared to speak on her behalf, I suppose.”
Someone stumbled to the sofa and sank down
upon it—Mama, by the sound of it; the bulk of Mrs. Henderson soon followed.
Their voices were quieter still, but now, only inches from his ear, he could
not help but hear them. “I thought perhaps I could persuade him to let her stay
on—in the village, of course, not here—at least until the child is born . . .”
“But he wants no evidence of his crime
hereabouts?”
The sofa creaked as one of the women shifted.
“What would you have me say, Mrs. Henderson? I cannot speak ill of my husband.”
“No, of course not.” Mrs. Henderson managed to
sound at once wry and sympathetic. “Isn’t there somewhere you could go?”
“How could I leave my son?”
“Do you fear for his safety, then?”
Mama laughed again, but the sound was suddenly
strange to him. “I fear for his life, Mrs. Henderson.” The boy crouched lower
in his hiding spot, careful not to disturb the orderly ranks and files of
soldiers at his feet.
“Dear God in Heaven! Do you mean—?”
“I mean that if left to his own devices, my
husband will raise his son in his image. So now, while I can, I intervene. His
mother’s influence may be the only stay against a violent nature.”
A violent nature? Did Mama believe he was
fated to turn out like Father? People seemed to delight in telling him how he took
after the man. In looks, certainly—he was big for his age, and dark where his
mother was fair. Mr. Cummings insisted that must be where his quickness came
from, too. Neither Latin nor algebra required much effort. But what if—the boy
glanced down at the soldier still clutched in his hand—what if that is not all
I have inherited?
“When he’s sent to school, however,” Mama
continued, “I will leave. A visit to my sister’s—an extended holiday, we shall
say.” He had never heard his mother use that tone of voice. It was something
more than angry, more than stubborn.
“Oh, my lady.” Mrs. Henderson clucked her
tongue. “But in the meantime . . . ?”
Mama rose to her feet and crossed to the door,
opening it wide. The sudden gust of air through the room swirled the dust on
the floor at his feet. A sneeze threatened, tickling deep in his nostrils, but
he pinched the bridge of his nose to keep it at bay. “It was kind of you to
call, Mrs. Henderson.”
The sofa protested once more as the vicar’s
wife stood, and he heard her shuffle into a curtsy. “I am at your service, your
ladyship.” They left, and the boy was alone again in the dusty silence. He
rubbed his thumb back and forth over the figure he held, as if it were some
sort of talisman. When the other boys had teased little Molly Keating about her
freckles, Mr. Cummings had told him it was a gentle- man’s duty to protect a
lady.
How he wished he were a pirate captain! What
wouldn’t he do then to keep his mother safe? He would whisk her away across the
seven seas, take her somewhere his father could not harm her again.
Alas, he had no ship, no cannon, not even a
cutlass. He shoved angrily, impotently at the sewing basket, which plowed into
the soldiers lining the shore, breaking their ranks. She could leave when he
did, she had said. But he would not be going away to school for more than two
years. Terrible things might happen in that time. If only it were in his power
to leave now.
He studied the pirate’s painted face. Father
was fond of saying that every Bristol merchant was a pirate at heart. And they
had ships, the boy knew. He had seen them once when Mama had taken him to the
harbor on an outing. If there were pirates so near as Bristol, he could run
away and join them. He supposed Mama would worry about what had become of him.
Mothers did worry, he knew. But she would forgive him if she were able to leave
this place.
Away from his mother’s gentle guidance, he
risked becoming more like his father. But what choice did he have?
His shoulders rounded under the weight of his
decision, the boy began to pack up his soldiers. Perhaps his father had been
right all along, for he suddenly felt far too old for such playthings. At the
least, he would try very hard to be grown-up enough not to long for the day
when he could come home.
A
love affair with historical romances led Susanna Craig to a degree
(okay, three degrees) in literature and a career as an English
professor. When she’s not teaching or writing academic essays about
Jane Austen and her contemporaries, she enjoys putting her
fascination with words and knowledge of the period to better use:
writing Regency-era romances she hopes readers will find both smart
and sexy. She makes her home among the rolling hills of Kentucky
horse country, along with her historian husband, their unstoppable
little girl, and a genuinely grumpy cat
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