The Ravishing One (2 page)

When Janet could no longer hide the truth from
herself she confronted Carr. And he, with no more guilt than he’d felt upon betraying the McClairens, pitched her from the island’s cliffs, claiming her death a terrible “accident.”

In truth, murder came so easily to Carr, and the rewards from it were so substantial, that twice more he wed and killed wealthy heiresses. At which point his once-grateful sovereign heard of Carr’s new habit and forthwith unofficially banished Carr to Scotland on penalty of death should he ever return to London and flaunt his ill-gotten gains.

For the first time Carr knew desolation. London had been the motive for his murders, his triumphant return to London the single goal to which he’d aspired.

But desolation shriveled and became the black seed of a tenacious resolve. He would return to London in splendor and power. He turned Wanton’s Blush into a gaming hell and made a career of collecting debts both monetary and otherwise, blackmailing, pressuring, and slowly accumulating enough wealth and power so that no one dared gainsay him his objective. The people he collected at Wanton’s Blush were the powerful, the wealthy, and the decadent.

And thus these were Fia’s tutors.

Indeed, she would have reached adulthood without even the most rudimentary academic skills had not, in the beginning of her seventh year, a disfigured, hunched Scotswoman with a black veil draped over half her face presented herself at the kitchen door. She came seeking employment, asking only for room and board in return for caring for Carr’s three children. Thus for the first
time in two years Carr was reminded of his children’s existence.

Carr’s aversion to ugliness warred briefly with his greed, and greed—as was ever the case with Carr—won. The woman, Gunna, was hired. To Ash and Raine, well on their way to becoming the hell-spawned reprobates the locals deemed them, the old woman was a curiosity to be tolerated, ignored, and finally reluctantly respected. But to Fia, the ugly old woman was a revelation.

Gunna not only taught Fia the rudiments of reading and writing, but all her vast knowledge of Scottish lore and folk wisdom. But most important, Gunna, unfailingly honest in her acceptance of her own deformity and her own weaknesses as well as strengths, taught Fia to be honest with herself, to never turn from a truth, no matter how painful.

Gunna’s broken appearance had separated her from her fellow man just as Fia’s exalted status and otherworldly calm had set her apart. Perhaps ’twas the natural affinity of opposites, perhaps some sense of unspoken kinship, but the girl and the twisted old woman forged a deep, abiding bond.

Unfortunately the same providence that had supplied Fia with a caring counselor also drew her father’s attention to her.

For in being reminded of his daughter, Carr noted how pretty she was. If she kept the promise of her childish beauty, one day she would be a prize. It would be a waste not to spend the necessary time cultivating her, ensuring she was a willing accomplice in the future
Carr envisioned for her—that future being in London, wed to power. He could not browbeat, belittle, or deride her as he did her brothers, for they were simply cubs to be driven from the pride,
his
pride, but she … Instead, Carr set about wooing his child.

Fia never stood a chance.

Wise though she was, she’d never learned to withstand loneliness. Gunna was a teacher and counselor and custodian. Carr offered something Fia had never known, a flattering companion.

He began to ask for Fia, to command her presence after dinner, to display her on his arm at milder entertainments—always careful to remind her that her manner and her purity must remain unimpeachable. And Fia, for so long ignored and overlooked, drank up his attention like parched earth drinks the rain.

Carr became Fia’s confidant, her adviser, and her witty guide in the ways of the ton. And she became his familiar, eagerly accepting whatever he said as truth, his opinions as gospel. And all the while, he molded and shaped her to become his creation.

His whispers taught her whom to emulate and whom to despise. She learned her famous smile from an ancient French courtesan, her graceful, liquid walk from a Russian ballerina, the art of banter from a Hungarian princess. But when she was not following her father’s amused suggestions, practicing the wiles he insisted she would someday need, mastering the arts of seduction, she retreated behind a smooth, watchful mask, and that, her stillness and unassailable self-containment, was uniquely and specifically her own.

On one hand, her sense of self was bloated by her father’s constant flattery. On the other hand, the hard core of watchfulness and honesty central to her character whispered skeptically. In the end she saw far more than Carr wanted her to see.

One day a young man named Thomas Donne came to Wanton’s Blush. He was purportedly a Scotsman cast off by his clan for his cowardly refusal to fight for Bonny Prince Charlie. He did not look cowardly to Fia. He looked magnificent.

It was not only that he was tall and dark-haired with gray eyes and a suave manner—handsome, urbane young men were endemic to Wanton’s Blush. No, it was his character that set him apart. He was as different from the other guests as Carr insisted that he and Fia were.

Oh, he gamed and drank and lounged and trifled with various women, but Fia had the distinct impression that none of it meant anything to Thomas Donne, that it was simply a way to pass time until … Until what?

His eyes were as watchful as Fia’s own and his hands as still. His manner was courtly; his bearing was impeccable. But most important, he treated the fifteen-year-old Fia with consideration. When he gazed at her, he was not gauging the depth of her décolletage or counting the gems adorning her person, he was looking at her. And he spoke to her. Simple conversations without innuendo. He asked her questions about what she liked, what she did not, whom she’d read, what she thought.

Fia fell in love. From a font of self-containment she became a nervous, adolescent girl. Not that anyone at the castle—most especially Thomas Donne—noticed. To them she appeared as cool and serene as ever.

Love made Fia vulnerable and miserable. When Donne next came to Wanton’s Blush she noted his attentions to a young woman named Rhiannon Russell whom her brother Ash had brought to the castle. She was consumed by jealousy. So much so, that when Donne escorted Rhiannon into the garden on a cold, blustery day, she followed.

She crouched, trembling with self-loathing, on the far side of the stone wall, preparing to hear him make love to the woman. Instead she heard words that would change her life.

“This isn’t simply a nasty family,” Thomas said. “It’s evil. Carr
killed
his first wife and then killed the next two. No one says it, especially those dependent on him for their gambling. Who would dare? But in London everyone knows, accepts it as fact—including the king.”

The wind took the next words.

“—what your guardian is, Miss Russell! He left his sons to rot in God knows what form of hell rather than spend any of his precious money to ransom them.”

More lost words, but by that time Fia could not tell if ’twas the rushing in her ears or that of the wind that shred them.

“His brother raped a nun! He is as bad as his sire. They all are. Fia is nothing more than Carr’s whore,
groomed to fetch the largest marriage settlement possible!”

She’d staggered to her feet and fled to the castle, her mind whirling, intent on one thing. Finding proof. Though she did not need it. All of her suspicions had finally found a voice.
His
voice.

In Carr’s library, hidden in the mantel cache she’d seen her father opening, she found a thick packet of material. She did not find proof Carr had murdered her mother but she found other things, horrible things, more than enough to substantiate Thomas Donne’s claim that the Merricks were a cursed family.

She forced herself to face the truth. She was the daughter of an evil man. Evil blood ran in her veins. Carr had cosseted, pampered, and groomed her to be sold to the highest bidder. And he’d made her complicit in his plan.

Overnight Fia changed. A weaker girl might have continued on in the role fate and blood had chosen for her. But Fia was not weak. The hard core of her hardened further. When Donne left a few days later after betraying her brother Ash and nearly costing him Rhiannon Russell’s love, Fia noted it with newly born cynicism but no surprise.

She set about making her own plans, keeping her own counsel. She did not create an open breach with Carr but subtly challenged and derided him when she could. Perhaps deep within she’d hoped to see some evidence that her perfidy hurt Carr. It didn’t. It only amused him. He’d used her from the beginning.

She vowed she would be used no more. Not by Carr. Not by anyone.

She’d intended to wait longer to realize her plans but when her brother Raine secretly returned to Wanton’s Blush set upon an ill-fated course, she found she could not stand by and watch his destruction. Unbeknownst to Carr, she accepted a couple’s precipitous invitation to journey with them and be their guest in London.

It was a desperate move. Carr would pursue her, if not himself then through any of a hundred agents, and drag her back. Once more, providence interceded. While Fia fled, Wanton’s Blush burned and Carr, trapped inside retrieving his blackmail material, was seriously injured.

By the time he’d recovered, Fia had already accomplished her goal. Having taken society by storm, she’d culled from her herd of suitors a wealthy Scot, a lowland widower decades her elder, Gregory MacFarlane, and eloped with him to Scotland. MacFarlane was a bluff, unimaginative man who in wedding an English earl’s daughter had achieved his lifelong ambition to gain entry to the upper echelons of English society.

Fia’s intention in wedding him was just as cold and clear and simple. She needed only to wait until her husband died, at which time she, as his widow—as his
Scottish
widow—would inherit his estate. Finally she would be independent. And in the meantime, she was out from under Carr’s thumb.

Things might have gone according to Fia’s plan from there out except for one simple matter. Upon arriving
at MacFarlane’s home in the lowlands Fia discovered that Gregory had neglected to tell her that he had two children.

And thus, two heirs.

Once more life had handed Fia a two-edged sword.

If Gunna’s arrival in her life had been a revelation, MacFarlane’s children were an epiphany. Each day something new, something astounding, confronted Fia. A few days after their arrival she discovered something that so confounded her that she could not help but question Gregory about it at breakfast.

“The tutor is teaching the girl Latin,” Fia told him.

“Oh? Oh, yes,” Gregory responded absently, chipping away at his hard-boiled egg. “He said the chit had a knack for languages.”

“You mean you
knew
about it?” The notion that anyone would pay someone to instruct a
girl
dumbfounded her.

“Oh, yes. Rather resourceful of me, getting the education of both me brats for the price of one, eh?” Gregory continued eating as though he’d said nothing untoward, which only gave credence to Fia’s growing suspicion that she had no real concept of what the world, the world outside Wanton’s Blush, considered … normal.

“You mean Cora is being educated in the same disciplines as her brother?”

“Yes. Let’s see … history, geography, and mathematics. I believe the fellow wants to throw in a smattering of philosophy, too.” Gregory popped a bit of biscuit in his mouth.

“I see,” she murmured. But she didn’t.
“Why?”

“Why?” Gregory paused in spreading soft cheese on his bread. “Because. Because that’s what one does. One educates one’s children. Just as your father had you educated and my father had me educated. I can’t see that it did either of us any lasting harm and it keeps them occupied, but if you rather they didn’t—”

“No! No, of course you are right,” she said.

An idea occurred to her. She pondered it a moment. Then, in a voice that shook with fear that her plot might be discovered and she herself exposed as the half-bred monster posing at humanity that she was, she said, “I suppose that it is my duty as their … their stepmother to sit in on their lessons and make sure they are … they are properly attending them?”

“If you wish,” Gregory responded calmly. “Do try the creamed haddock, m’dear. It’s delicious.”

He studied her as he chewed, a frown slowly forming on his face. “Tell me, Lady Fia, do you have a particular
modiste
you utilize? Because upon our return to London I insist you contact her about creating a new wardrobe for you.” He dabbed at the bits of creamed haddock sticking to his lower lip, beaming munificently.

She blinked at him uneasily. She considered the gowns she now owned far and away sufficient for what her life would be from here on in. “Thank you, sir, but I have no need of more gowns. I’ve a surfeit of gowns, as you will see, for Gunna should soon be arriving with them.”

“Who’s Gunna?” Cora asked.

Fia turned to stare at MacFarlane’s youngest child.

“Your nurse is coming to live here?” Kay’s voice chimed in, drawing Fia’s bemused glance. Kay was Gregory’s nine-year-old son—and heir.

Children. At the dining table. Speaking without first being addressed. None of the few books she’d read made much mention of children, and certainly none of them described a child taking its meal with its parent. Why, even as Carr’s doted-upon daughter, she’d never actually sat down at table with him and his guests.

“Why would you need a nurse?” Kay continued.

“I don’t.”

“Well,” Kay said, “I hope, then, that she’s coming for Cora, because
I
am too old to have a nurse.”

Fia frowned. “No. She won’t be nurse to either of you.”

“Then why is she coming?” Kay demanded.

“To help me,” Fia said, befuddled at finding herself answering the demanding inquiries of a nine-year-old boy. “Gunna arranges things and sees to things—”