Married to a Stranger (Danger and Desire 3)

‘I know. I swore I would love him. I meant to. But I fell out of love, I suppose.’

‘My God.’

Sophia looked up, her eyes swimming with tears she was somehow holding in check. They were very lovely, blue and wide in the candlelight. ‘You are disgusted with me for being so fickle, I realise that.’

‘No, I am not. Of course not. I always thought the betrothal was wrong—you were both too young.’

‘You told me I would fall in love again, properly, when I was grown up. How angry that made me!’ She managed a smile. ‘I thought you were pompous and condescending.’

‘I probably was, pontificating on the subject of marriage at that age,’ he admitted. Hell, all those years of nagging Dan to write, feeling guilty about not making him come back and marry and all the time …

‘Why didn’t you write and break it off?’ he asked.

‘And jilt Daniel? After the promises I had made? But I didn’t realise, not for years, that was the trouble. If I had, early on, I would have written. Instead I settled down into being comfortably betrothed, I suppose. It gave me a little freedom that other girls did not have. I had my art and that absorbed me.’

‘Art?’ She was surely not still spending her time with those endless scribbles and daubs, was she?

‘Oh, yes.’ Sophia’s mouth curved into a smile and the tears were gone. ‘That is the most important thing in my life. Except my family. And you now, of course,’ she added. He hoped that was not an afterthought.

‘And there was no other man?’ Callum could have laughed at the surprise on her face at the question, but he kept his own straight. Deep down he had no idea how he felt about this revelation, other than a fixed resolve not to reveal his suspicions that Dan had fallen out of love even faster.

‘No. Honestly, I was faithful to him,’ Sophia said with an earnestness that shook him. Dan had not been faithful, not at all. But then, no one expected the man to be under those circumstances. The idea of Dan embracing almost ten years of celibacy was impossible to contemplate.

‘I am sure you were.’ Callum discovered that he had put one ha

nd over hers. The twisting fingers stilled and after a moment threaded confidingly into his. ‘But you have grown into an attractive woman. Other men must have noticed.’

‘Which other men? We could not afford for me to have a Season—and anyway, why should we? I was betrothed. Local society, with the exception of William at the Hall, is very confined. My friends are in St Albans, but that is also a small society; people knew I was spoken for. And I never saw anyone I was tempted by,’ she added with a shy glance from under her lashes.

‘Hmm, very virtuous.’ Did that look mean that he would have tempted her? No, if she had fallen out of love with one twin, she was not going to fall for the other. ‘When did you realise?’

‘When I got the letter telling me that you were both coming home. It came the day the wreck happened, I calculated afterwards. Daniel sent it by a faster, smaller ship that had left Calcutta a few days before yours.’

Callum looked back over almost a year and remembered the conversation at a party in Government House when he realised that Dan had not warned Sophia of his return. He had nagged and his brother had gone off guiltily to scrawl a note.

‘That night, with his return so close, I realised that I did not want to marry him, that I had fallen out of love.’

‘Would you have told him?’

She looked appalled. ‘I do not know! How awful, I never thought of that. I just knew that I had left it far, far too late to break it off and that anyway, we were so desperate for the money I did not dare.’

‘It was that bad even then? I did not realise.’

‘Oh, yes. It was bad, although our creditors were holding off because of the betrothal, they knew they would be paid eventually.’

‘So when you realised what had happened you knew it would plunge you into serious financial difficulties?’

No wonder she had been so distressed even though she had not loved Daniel. She had behaved with great control and dignity, but the stricken look in her eyes had penetrated even his own black grief.

‘Yes. I felt—I feel—so guilty about worrying over that at such a moment. I tell myself there is no value in fretting over what might have been, regretting what I did not do—that helps no one.’

‘You should have asked William for help. We would have done something,’ Cal protested. The slender fingers interlaced with his tightened. ‘Pride?’ he asked.

Sophia nodded. ‘And guilt, I suppose.’

‘Then what were you going to do? What would you have done if I had not come back and asked you to marry me?’

‘I told you. Find paid employment,’ she said. ‘I think we would have had to sell the house as well. Mama would have lived with Mark when he was ordained and had a parish.’