To Seduce a Stranger Read online

  By Susanna Craig

  To Tempt an Heiress

  To Kiss a Thief

  To Seduce a Stranger

  Susanna Craig

  LYRICAL PRESS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  Historical Note

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Teaser chapter

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  LYRICAL PRESS BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2017 by Susan Kroeg

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Lyrical Press and Lyrical Press logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  First Electronic Edition: April 2017

  eISBN-13: 978-1-60183-619-9

  eISBN-10: 1-60183-619-8

  ISBN: 978-1-6018-3619-9

  To my daughter:

  may you never outgrow your love of stories

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  While writing this book, I have been backed by an amazing group of people: my agent, the marvelous Jill Marsal; all the folks at Kensington who help turn my stories into books and get them to my readers, including Kimberly Richardson, Rebecca Cremonese and her team, and especially Esi Sogah, whom I am blessed to have as my editor; my university colleagues, who have shown enthusiastic personal and professional support for this new venture; Randi Polk, who supplied the lovely French turns of phrase in this book (any errors are my own); Amy, who never lets me panic; and finally, my family, especially my husband, who is my inspiration for everything.

  Prologue

  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 sunlight 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 pirate’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 anyone 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 gentleman’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.

  Chapter 1

  Bath, May 1797

  Despite a gift for spinning stories and building castles in the clouds, Charlotte Blakemore had never gone so far as to imagine that her late husband would leave her a fortune.

  It soon became clear that her stepson had not imagined it either.

  Robert, the new Duke of Langerton, stepped forward and twitched the will from the bespectacled solicitor’s hands, as if he suspected the man of fabricating. Neither of them actually said anything, however.

  The incredulous squeak—“Vraiment?”—could have passed only Charlotte’s lips.

  “Yes, truly,” said Langerton, lowering the parchment and fixing her with a hard stare.

  It was not as if Langerton had been left nothing. As heir to the dukedom, with all its properties and a considerable income attached, Langerton was now one of the wealthiest men in England. Still, it was quite clear he objected to the fact that his father’s substantial private fortune—whatever was not entailed or otherwise bequeathed—was to be divided among him, his sisters, and Charlotte. And not equally, either. Charlotte was to receive half.

  Without saying anything more, Langerton returned the will to the solicitor and resumed his seat. A feeble ray of morning sun poked between the dark curtains covering the library window and picked out a few silver threads in his dark hair. Although he was not yet forty, the strain of the past few weeks, beginning with his vocal disapproval of his father’s second bride, had aged him.

  The remainder of the will’s terms—gifts to the servants, sundry personal effects to those who would treasure them—passed by without comment. Charlotte hardly heard them. Sitting stiffly beside her, Langerton no doubt imagined she was calculating the interest on her inheritance. The thoughts flitting through her head were actually closer to a disjointed prayer of thanksgiving, however.

  Thank God she would not have to return to her aunt.

  Not that her father’s sister, Baroness Penhurst, had been cruel, exactly. But no one who knew the woman would call her kind. Bad enough that James had to sow his wild oats with a Frenchwoman, Charlotte had overheard her lamenting more than once. Did he have to saddle me with the baggage? “The Earl of Belmont’s natural daughter,” people called her when they were inclined to be polite. Which they rarely were.

  “That’s far more than you would be entitled to receive by dower rights alone.” Langerton’s voice broke through her ruminations. The solicitor was stuffing papers into his worn leather case. “You must be pleased.”

  Charlotte drew herself up. “Nothing about your dear father’s death has brought me pleasure, Robert.”

  His lip curled. Did he really expect her to address her stepson as Your Grace?

  “Next you’ll claim you were madly in love with him.”

  George Blakemore, fifth Duke of Langerton, had been gentle and caring, and Charlotte might honestly have answered yes. She had loved him, in the way one loves a sweet, grandfatherly man—fitting, since she was just four-and-twenty and he had been well past seventy when he had proposed. No one had been more taken aback by his offer than Charlotte, not even her aunt, who had done her best to dissuade her old friend from this act of madness—kindness, he had corrected when he and Charlotte were alone.

  Lady Penhurst always was a right dragon, George had told her with a laugh. No need for you to live under her thumb forever, Lottie.

  No one had negotiated marriage settlements on her behalf. Aunt Penhurst had refused to attend the ceremony. Perhaps it was an inauspicious beginning for wedded bliss—but bliss had been beyond Charlotte’s expectation. It was enough that the exchange of vows in Bath Abbey just a few days after Easter had ushered in six weeks of the closest thing to peace she had ever known. Six weeks, broken by his heart seizure. Not the first he had suffered. Sadly, however, the last.

  “Where will you go?” Robert asked, taking up the position behind the desk once the solicitor had vacated it.

  “London.” A note of wariness crept into her voice. “Your father’s will—”

  “Blakemore House is a residence of the Duke of Langerton.” As he spoke, he began to rearrange various items—the inkstand, a paperweight, his father’s seal—with a possessive hand. “And I do not intend to share it with the fortune-hunting daughter of a French whore.”

  Long years of practice had taught Charlotte how to disguise what she felt—fear, dismay. Even joy. Although her feet itched to fly from the room, away from her stepson’s smir
k, she refused to give him the satisfaction. “Fortunately for you, you needn’t. Your father specified the house was to be mine.”

  “You have at best a lifetime interest in the property, to be clear,” he corrected, crossing his arms behind his back and looking her up and down. “But if I were you, I would not put a great deal of faith in the promises of that particular piece of parchment.”

  Her hard-won composure deserted her. “You mean to—to—?” As sometimes happened when she was distressed, the English words flew from her head, leaving only French, and that she would not speak before him again.

  “Fix my father’s mistakes?” Robert supplied in a mocking attempt at helpfulness. “As best I can. There can be very little doubt that he was not thinking clearly when he married you. To say nothing of his state of mind when he rewrote his will.”

  Her lips parted on a gasp. “How can you be so . . . so cruel?”

  “To you? Nothing so easy, ma’am,” he said, making the last word sound like an insult.

  “To your father,” she corrected. “To the memory of a decent, generous man. You would have him called mad merely to serve your own selfish ends?”

  A dismissive flick of one hand. “The damage is already done. Since your hasty marriage, he’s known far and wide as a crazy old fool. The words are whispered behind every drawing room door in Mayfair, tossed about like dice in a gaming hell. How you must have plotted and connived to pull off that marriage,” he said with a shake of his head, as if reluctantly impressed. “But the world knows it for a farce, Charlotte.”

  “A farce? How dare you suggest—?”

  “I suggest nothing. You convinced a doddering old man to sign his name in a parish register. Can you prove he knew what he was about? No,” he said, answering his own question. “Because he did not. Then you persuaded him to leave an exorbitant sum to some person he believed to be his wife,” he continued. “But given his mental state, your marriage was invalid from the start. Now it’s up to me to restore the natural order of things.”