Married to a Stranger (Danger and Desire 3)

‘So, Callum is second-best. How bravely you are facing marriage to a stranger, Miss Langley.’

‘I did not say that. Callum is not … Comparisons are odious, Mr Masterton. One cannot go back to what might have been. We are very happy and I hope the family feels the same.’ He was tactless and provocative, but somehow it was refreshing after the polite evasions and the poorly veiled speculation, like a mouthful of tart lemonade after too much cream cake.

He smiled at her heated response. ‘I am not family, Miss Langley, only the most distant of connections and a godson of the late earl. But you certainly have my approval.’ The emphasis was unsettling.

Sophia managed a tight smile as the butler appeared in the doorway. ‘Excuse me. I believe we are going in.’

Callum came across the room and offered his arm and Masterton strolled off.

‘It must be a comfort to have the family all here,’ Sophia ventured.

‘Not really.’ Callum barely dropped his voice as they walked through to the dining room. ‘Don’t forget, I haven’t seen most of them for nine years, except at the funeral. And we were never close in the past.’

That was disappointing. ‘Oh. I had been hoping that these people would be visitors to the London house, that I was making a head start on knowing your London acquaintance.’

‘No, these are the country mice on the whole, not the town ones. Are you daunted by the prospect?’

‘A trifle,’ she confessed. ‘But you will introduce me to the town mice first, not the rats, won’t you?’

That made him smile, but he soon sobered again. Dinner was a formal meal and she felt distanced from it and the other people around the table. Sophia made stilted conversation with Callum, wishing she could recapture the confiding intimacy of Sunday, and then turned with some relief to Lord Atherton, his uncle by marriage, on her other side.

r /> ‘And what do you think of this new post of Chatterton’s, then?’ he enquired.

‘I do not know, I am afraid,’ Sophia had to confess. ‘We have had no time to discuss it.’ How little she did know! She knew her new address, but not a thing about its location, size or even the names of the servants. She knew Callum had a position which caused his relatives to nod gravely and with approval, but how he filled his days was a mystery. What would her role in his life be? She did not even have the slightest idea how they would be financially. A fashionable address argued wealth, but Callum might well be spending money on visible show to bolster his new position, and she couldn’t forget that she had handed him a pile of debts to settle. She must be prudent with the housekeeping.

The conversation veered off to Lord Atherton’s description of his recent trip to Edinburgh and there, at least, she was able to take an intelligent interest until Lady Atherton, acting as hostess, rose and led the ladies out.

The polite inquisition that followed was what she had expected. Sophia was able to maintain her poise while engaged in the chitchat that barely disguised questions about her family and her connections. She had been betrothed very young and her father had died soon after Daniel had left for India, plunging her into mourning.

Somehow, as she emerged from that she had never begun to mingle with Daniel’s wider family. If Will had been married it would probably have been different, but a bachelor earl kept a very different household from a married one and there were no house parties to be invited to.

Having dissected her connections, family and background to their satisfaction the ladies moved on to her ability as a housekeeper and—more difficult to cope with—her feelings about the Chatterton brothers. It felt like being pecked by a flock of starlings. She wished she had a pencil and paper to draw them with their sharp noses, nodding plumes and avid eyes. She had resisted the urge to tuck a pad and pencil into her reticule; this was hardly the kind of party where she could creep away and sketch from the shelter of a curtain as she so often did at dull receptions.

‘Yes, I am sure we are doing the right thing,’ she was saying through gritted teeth in answer to the rather more direct question put by one of the elderly Misses Hibbert as the gentlemen came in to join them.

‘And where is Callum?’ Lady Atherton asked. ‘I want to know about this house he’s taking his bride to. Poor dear Sophia knows nothing about it.’

‘He has a headache,’ William said. ‘And begs to be excused.’

Sophia doubted he had any such thing. He had simply walked away from the stifling atmosphere of rampant curiosity disguised under banal socialising. But he might have said something to her, taken his leave, she thought with a flash of resentment when Mrs Lambert shot her a pitying look. She did not like being poor, dear Sophia who must be pitied; it was hard enough holding her own in this company as it was.

‘The gardens are very fine here,’ Mr Masterton remarked, taking the cup of tea she offered him. He seemed less brittle and dangerous now. Or perhaps resentment at Callum’s abandonment of her made another man seem more attractive.

‘Yes. The new terraces overlooking the South Lawn are delightful,’ Sophia agreed.

‘I was forgetting you will know the Hall a lot better than I,’ he said, putting down the cup and turning to the window. ‘There is still a little light and it is intolerably stuffy in here. Perhaps you could show me what has been done?’

It was a tempting suggestion and she was tired of being dutiful. Sophia loved the gardens, and, although she had been careful never to presume on Will’s invitation to use them as her own, she would often come and draw here when the stress of home and the debts became too much.

‘Yes, of course.’ She caught up her shawl from the back of the chair and went out through the door he held open for her.

‘How fresh the air is. The summer is coming to an end, I fear!’

‘You are not cold?’ He took her arm and began to stroll along the broad terrace.

‘Oh, no, Mr Masterton. There is hardly any breeze. Here is where the old terrace ended …’

‘Donald, please. We are about to be family, after all.’