Читать книгу Married to a Stranger - Louise Allen - Страница 12

By three o’clock the next day Sophia was hard put not to range up and down the parlour like a caged animal. Where was Callum? There was no sign of him, not so much as a note. Had he changed his mind and decided that after yesterday when she had slapped him, insulted him, stolen his horses and abandoned him in the middle of the woods that she was impossible, duty or no duty?

When the clock struck the half-hour she could stand it no longer. ‘I must go out for a walk, Mama,’ she said. She stuffed the half-hemmed pillowcase that she had been mangling into the workbasket and almost ran out of the room. She snatched up a straw villager hat, jammed it on and was out of the front gate before she could think where she was going, or why.

She stepped straight out into the little lane, aiming for the stile into the field opposite and the footpath through the woods. The sound of hoofbeats only registered when the horse was almost upon her. No one cantered down here—Sophia spun round and the rider wrenched the animal to one side, but not before it caught her with its shoulder and knocked her to the ground.

Sophia sat in the mud at the edge of the lane, her hat over one eye, and tried hard not to scream. It was too much. This was her best afternoon dress, worn in the expectation of receiving a proposal of marriage. Her bottom hurt where she had landed on it, her heart was thudding like a steam engine and she wanted to give in and weep.

Instead she found herself being hauled to her feet by a man who was becoming all too familiar. ‘What the devil do you think you were doing? Don’t you ever look where you are walking? You could have been killed!’ He looked as furious as she felt.

‘You were going too fast, Mr Chatterton,’ Sophia snapped back. ‘Or perhaps you cannot control your horse any better than you control your lusts?’ She pushed her hat straight and glared at him.

Callum stared back, his eyes narrowed, his mouth grim. He looked dangerous, irritated and impatient. ‘Where were you going?’

‘Out. For a walk, if it is any of your business.’ He was still holding her with a big hand wrapped around each arm, just above the elbows. ‘Will you kindly let me go?’

He ignored her demand. ‘Out? When you were expecting me?’

‘Expecting you, Mr Chatterton? Why should I be? I assumed you would not make another assault on my virtue in my own home.’ As she said it she felt something contract inside. Was this really the man who had made her drunk with desire, so incoherent that she could not think? Yes, it was and being this close brought back an unsatisfied ache to add to her discomfort.

‘You should have been expecting me to come and finalise the arrangements for our marriage,’ he said, his voice even. It was infuriating that she could not get him to raise his voice and show some emotion, even if it was anger.

‘Oh. You still intend to marry me?’ Thank goodness.

‘Do you mean to be deliberately provocative, Miss Langley?’

‘Yes,’ she said, lifting her chin. I might have to marry him—I do not have to like him.

‘And what are you attempting to provoke, I wonder?’ he said, his voice silky smooth. A quiver of something that was not quite fear and not quite desire went through her and she knew he sensed it from the way his eyes narrowed and his mouth curved.

‘Some genuine emotion,’ she flashed. ‘Not cold duty, not manipulative lust, not sarcasm. The truth. Do you truly want to marry me or not, Mr Chatterton? I should warn you, I meant it when I said we have considerable debts. And Mama will need support; I do not expect my brother to be able to do that.’

The question hung there in the warm air. Then Callum smiled. ‘Yes, I want to marry you, Sophia. I think it is the right thing to do. I think we can deal well together. I cannot pretend that I love you, that I ever will love you. And I do not ask that you will love me—how can I expect you to be so fickle as to forget Daniel that easily? And, in any case, I suspect love to be a much overrated emotion. That does not mean I will not do my utmost to be a good husband to you. And I understand about the debts.’

She tried to block the surge of guilt at his mention of Daniel. It was easier to think how he had made her feel yesterday. How, shamefully, she wanted him to make her feel today. The desire to touch him, to feel those muscles shifting under her hands, to smell his skin again, to taste him against her lips … She was going to marry him, so those sensual promises would be her reward for doing her duty. She only hoped that if the need to provide for her family had not been so great she would have had the strength to refuse him and that she was not doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

She twisted away, but something must have shown in her face, for Callum caught her by the shoulder and turned her back to face him as he untied her mangled bonnet strings and removed the crumpled hat. His hand as he brushed her hair back from her face was gentle and she closed her eyes against the intent in his, breathing in the smell of horse and leather and the spicy scent she was coming to know as Callum.

‘I wish to marry you, Sophia Langley, because I believe it is the best thing for both of us. I also wish to marry you because I promised my brother I would look after you if anything happened to him.

‘And I believe that you know you will marry me and, not surprisingly, you are angry and frustrated at having your hand forced by someone else telling you what is right for you. Especially when that other person was somewhat clumsy yesterday.’

‘I—’ He had summarised it perfectly. So efficient, Callum Chatterton. ‘You have left me very little to say, sir.’

‘That was my intention. You could say, yes,’ he suggested.

‘Yes. Yes, I will marry you.’ Surrendering to the inevitable was an odd sensation. A sort of dizzy relief mixed with fear.

‘Excellent.’ Callum bent his head. She held her breath, closed her eyes. He kissed her, lightly, on her cheek.

Sophia gave a strangled gasp of disappointment, relief, surprise, but his hands still held her upper arms. She opened her eyes to find his face already far enough away for her to read the cynical amusement in his eyes. He knows I want him to kiss me properly. How humiliating.

‘Later, Sophia,’ Callum murmured.

‘You know how to tease, do you not?’ she asked, almost tempted into smiling at his effrontery. There was a noise behind her, some kind of disturbance, but Callum continued to hold her. ‘Sometimes it makes the conclusion sweeter,’ he murmured.

‘Sophia Grace Miranda Langley!’

‘Mama.’ It sank in that she was standing—or perhaps sagging—in a man’s arms in the middle of the public highway, her skirts mired, her hat gone and her hair a tumbled mess.

‘Thank heavens! Oh, how wonderful!’

‘Mama?’

‘Come inside, both of you, before someone comes along.’ Mrs Langley flapped her hands as though rounding up chickens.

Callum stooped to hand her the bedraggled villager hat, tossed his horse’s reins over the gatepost, replaced his own hat—which, of course, he had safely in his hand—on his head and opened the gate for her. Elegant, controlled, serious. If he so much as let his lips twitch she would … No, he would not make such a tactical mistake. No giving way to smug triumph or foolish passion for him.

‘Thank you, Mr Chatterton,’ Sophia said with as much frigid politeness as she could manage.

‘My pleasure, Miss Langley.’

‘I fell in the lane, Mama. I will go and change.’ She whisked upstairs, leaving her suitor to break the news to her mother. With any luck Mama would be over the worst of her transports of joy by the time Sophia rejoined them in the parlour.

‘Here you are at last.’ Her mother beamed at her when she finally came down, some composure restored along with a fresh gown and tidy hair. ‘Well! There are many details to arrange, but I am sure we can work everything out over the next month or so.’

‘I intend us to marry in two weeks’ time,’ Callum said, perfectly polite, perfectly implacable.

‘But that is no time at all!’ Sophia gasped.

‘I would have thought you had already waited long enough,’ he said with a lift of one eyebrow. He swept on without waiting for her reply. ‘I will go to London tomorrow, deal with various pressing Company matters and make sure the house is readied for your arrival. I will speak to the butler and have him find a maid for you. I must do some shopping. Then I shall return to the Hall for the wedding.’

Was there no hesitation, not even for a second? Sophia wondered, watching the hooded eyes, the long fingers lying apparently at rest. This is your marriage you are talking about, she wanted to say to him. Our future. How can you be so calm?

But Callum swept on. ‘The wedding will be by common licence and, under the circumstances, very quiet. Six months has passed, Sophia is in half-mourning, there should be no adverse comment, but I would not wish to attract gossip. I trust two weeks will be sufficient time for your cousin to join you, Mrs Langley? Sophia said that was the plan for a companion.’

‘Yes. Dear Lettice can come at any time; she will be delighted, I know. But Sophia’s bride clothes—’

‘She may shop all she likes in London,’ Callum said. He did not shrug, Sophia thought, but he might just as well have done.

‘So romantic,’ she muttered and saw by the lift of an eyebrow that he had heard her. She raised her voice. ‘And if I do not like the house you have in London, or the servants?’ Of all the arrogant, cold, practical men! ‘I thought we were going to live at Long Welling. I like Long Welling,’ she added rather desperately. Her friends were close, St Albans was a familiar and friendly little town that she knew her way around. How was she going to cope, all alone in London with just a virtual stranger of a husband for company?

‘My business requires me to be in London for the present,’ Callum said in a tone of finality. ‘It will take time for Long Welling to be got into a state to be our country home. If you dislike the London house, we will move to another. If the staff fail to please you, you may dismiss them.’

But we cannot dismiss each other, she thought. Yet would it have been any better with Daniel? He would have been almost as much a stranger as Callum and there would have been the disillusion of acknowledging that their love had evaporated with time and distance. Here, at least, there were no illusions to begin with.

‘You will not object if I do that?’ she asked, curious at this willingness to accommodate her. Obviously his emotions were not at all engaged with any of this, not even the house he had been living in for six months.

‘The home will be your concern.’

Well, that was plain enough. It sounded lonely, though. Oh, pull yourself together, Sophia, she scolded. There will be balls and parties when the Season starts and exhibitions and libraries before then—the whole of London to explore. You will make friends soon enough. She was shaken by yesterday’s experience and today’s fall and her resilience was low, worn down by months of worry, that was all it was.

‘It all sounds wonderful,’ she said with a polite smile. Callum stared back at her, his gaze steady and unreadable under level brows. He made her a slight bow. Acknowledgment of her compliance? A genuine desire to marry her—or just a cynical satisfaction at getting his own way?

Sophia felt a little shiver run through her and the smile stiffened on her lips. Opposite her, the man sitting at his ease in the wing chair lowered his lids over the clear hazel eyes and she realised she could not read his thoughts in the slightest. Then he looked up again, directly at her, and she saw the heat and the desire in his look and knew she could interpret one thought at least: he was thinking about yesterday afternoon. Was desire to be the only heat in this cool marriage? She shivered.

The falling notes of the hymn died away. The choir, who a moment ago had looked like a flock of cherubs, their innocent, well-scrubbed faces turned up towards the stained glass window of the east end of the church, became once more a group of freckled village boys, nudging each other as they sat down in the ancient oak stalls.

No doubt they had mice in their pockets and catapults hidden under their cassocks, Cal thought, amused by the normality of their barely disciplined naughtiness. Beside him Will cleared his throat and on his right hand Sophia closed her hymn book.

In a moment they would leave the high box pew and walk down the aisle to shake hands with the vicar who would be marrying them in three days’ time.

And Will and I can both get dead drunk tonight, Cal hoped. He was tired. Beyond tired, he thought, contemplating restless nights, hectic days and miles of travel.

Now all he wanted was sleep and to get this wedding over with. He had done everything that was needful, he thought. At the East India Company offices he had consolidated his position in a post that brought status, a doubling of what his salary had been in India and the opportunity for endless profitable investment in return for his total commitment to the Company’s interests.

He had reorganised his house in fashionable Mayfair to receive its new mistress. The rent was high—twice what he would have paid in the City—but they were going to move in the best society, not mingle with the cits. He had given his most superior butler carte blanche to appoint a fashionable lady’s maid and to make all ready for his return and he had come back here and endured Mrs Langley’s endless list-making and insistence on discussing every aspect of the wedding in wearisome detail.

Then there was a rustle of silk beside him as he walked up the path between the leaning gravestones and he looked down at Sophia, silent in lavender at his side. He held the lych gate for her and then offered his arm as they waited for the carriage to draw up. It was necessary to stand there and shake hands with some of the congregation who had gathered round, to agree that after such a terrible accident, such a tragedy, that it was a blessing that he was comforted by the support of Miss Langley, who had so bravely put aside her own grief to marry him.

No one appeared to think it strange that she should marry the wrong brother. It was the most logical solution, several people opined and, they added, when they thought they were out of earshot, very gallant of him to step in and prevent Miss Langley being left a spinster.

Cal was quite certain she had heard those whispers. Sophia’s chin was up, there was colour in her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with what he strongly suspected was anger, not chagrin.

‘Don’t take any notice of them,’ he said when they were at last free to walk across to the carriage.

‘I do not like to be pitied,’ Sophia said.

‘Nonsense, they are jealous,’ Cal retorted. ‘At least, the ladies are. They all wish they could marry me.’

‘Why, of all the conceited men!’ She cut him a sideways glance. ‘You are jesting? Aren’t you?’

‘Certainly not. You have only to eavesdrop a little. I’m a son of the Hall—and Will has not yet produced an heir; I must be as rich as Golden Ball if I am in the East India Company and, according to Mrs Whitely, I have powerful thighs. Now what do you think she means by that?’

‘That your breeches are too tight,’ Sophia flashed back. ‘Mrs Whitely is a very foolish woman.’

‘She is certainly an outrageous flirt.’ The Whitelys had been amongst Will’s dinner guests last night and Cal had enjoyed an interesting passage with her in the conservatory. The lady certainly exhibited both experience and a willingness to demonstrate it, but even with the lingering frustration of controlling himself with Sophia, he had felt disinclined to oblige her amongst his brother’s potted palms.