‘I am sure it will.’ Sophia gestured to the footman to pour more coffee for both of them. Callum had been used to a bachelor existence with Daniel. No doubt their servants had improvised to cope with whatever their young masters wanted and the brothers would not stand on too much ceremony. England was quite another matter and no doubt his comments would find their way back to Mrs Datchett’s ears before long. Diplomacy would be called for.
‘Madam’s cards have arrived, sir.’ Hawksley proffered a salver and Callum picked up the rectangle of pasteboard on it, nodded his appro
val and passed it to Sophia.
‘There you are. We must be married, it says so there.’
Mrs Callum Chatterton
Half Moon Street and Long Welling Manor, Hertfordshire
The card was stiff, gilt edged and elegant. ‘Oh. Thank you.’ How daunting. These were for when she made calls without her husband. At home her name had been on Mama’s card, so this was the first time she had had her own. But who on earth was she to call upon? She knew no one in London.
‘Right. I’ll be off, if you will excuse me. I’ll leave you to get on with your letters.’ Callum rose and came to bend over her shoulder. Sophia turned to say goodbye and was surprised by a kiss on the cheek. Against her skin his was smooth, with just the faintest hint of bristle after his morning shave. Castile soap, a trace of sandalwood, virtually no trace of the warm smell of heated male skin. Even so there was a tug, low in her belly, as her newly awakened body responded to the closeness of his.
‘Goodbye,’ she said, with an attempt at cool composure and hoped her thoughts did not show in her voice. ‘Have a good day in the City.’
His grimace made her smile and then he was gone, leaving her alone in her own house, with her own servants. Her first day as a married woman.
Sophia finished her coffee and bread and butter as she listened to the sounds of her new home. Carriages in the street, snatches of conversation as people passed, the clatter of booted feet running down the stone steps into the narrow area at the front of the house and then more voices as someone in the kitchen opened the lower door. Callum’s voice talking to Hawksley in the hall, the bang of the front door, the slight sound of Michael shifting his stance as he stood by the buffet waiting for her next order.
All she had to do was to make this household run like clockwork. Her husband was a hard-working man with a lot on his mind; he must come home to domestic perfection, a home that ran so smoothly he never even noticed. That was not so hard, she told herself, even if she had no idea what Callum’s likes or dislikes were yet. And by the time she had managed that, then perhaps she would have made some acquaintances, begun to create a new life for herself. ‘Michael, please give my compliments to Mrs Datchett and ask her to join me in my sitting room in half an hour.’
That had sounded confident enough; she only hoped the woman was easy to deal with. She had rehearsed everything they needed to settle in her head and was waiting, a list to hand, when the cook-housekeeper entered. She seemed a pleasant, competent woman, Sophia decided after a few minutes. She suggested things that needed to be bought for the kitchen and scullery, announced that the staff quarters and service area were most satisfactory, nodded agreement to the housekeeping allowance that Sophia proposed and then asked, ‘And will you be entertaining much, ma’am?’
‘I expect so. In the meantime my husband may well bring colleagues home to dine at very short notice. He does not expect a formal dinner on those occasions. Is that likely to be a problem?’
‘No, ma’am. If we agree the menus for the week I’ll make sure we have enough food in the larder to add extra dishes as required.’
That was a relief. ‘Can you cook Indian food, Mrs Datchett?’
‘No, ma’am!’ She frowned. ‘No, but there’s a receipt for a curry in one of my cook books. That’s Indian, I think.’
Mrs Datchett bustled off back downstairs and Sophia set herself to explore her new domain. Her bedchamber and dressing room were well appointed; they just needed a fresh coat of paint and some new hangings, as did the rooms on the ground floor and the hall, stairs and landings.
Which just left Callum’s study and bedroom. The doors were unlocked and he had not said he did not want them disturbed. Even so, it was with the sensation that she was entering Bluebeard’s chamber that she turned the handle on the bedroom door.
Chapter Eleven
His valet had unpacked and tidied the room, but Callum had somehow managed to imprint his personality on the space far more than Sophia felt she had in her own chamber. Wilkins had gone out on an errand to the bootmaker so she could explore without fear of interruption.
There were silver-backed brushes on the dresser, a silver dish with tie pins in it, a few small boxes, everything with the cat’s mask from the family crest. He must have taken things from the Hall, she guessed, to replace those lost at sea.
In her room was the trunk filled with the trousseau she had embroidered with this very crest. Fortunately she had not followed her mother’s suggestion of adding an entwined D and S to the cat’s mask, so everything was usable and if she did not draw attention to it perhaps Callum would not think about who they had originally been intended for.
She moved around the room, touching the books heaped on the dresser, on the floor beside the bed, uneasy about picking them up. There was a pencil and a pile of paper on the nightstand as though thoughts might come to him in the middle of the night and have to be recorded immediately. An oil painting of the Hall hung on one wall, on the other a smaller version of the triple portrait of the brothers that hung over the fireplace in William’s study.
Daniel’s charming, boyish smile was vivid, even in this copy, contrasting with Callum’s steady, thoughtful gaze. That was the Daniel she remembered, but was it the man he had grown into? The adult Callum she could see clearly in the youth, but he had a harder edge now that this serious boy had been lacking. Sophia reached up and touched Daniel’s painted cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Daniel. Sorry I fell out of love with you, sorry you are gone.’
There were Indian objects too, she found as she wandered around the room. Callum must have sent them home over the years. She picked up a small soapstone carving of a god with the head of an elephant, an ivory panel carved deeply with swirling vines, fruit, birds and a tiny lizard, then a set of boxes, vivid with enamelled colours, so light that they must be papier maché.
The slippers by the bed were backless embroidered leather with curling toes, the robe at the foot of the bed was not the plain red one she had seen last night, but a gorgeous weave of blues and black in heavy cotton. Callum would look like an exotic Eastern prince wearing those, she thought with a sensual shiver.
On impulse she turned back the covers and ran her hand into the bed. No folded nightshirt: he must sleep naked. Feeling as though she had been caught watching through a spy hole, Sophia jerked back her hand and straightened the bed.
Still, she couldn’t drag herself away. It was as though this exploration would reveal the man she had married, answer questions she dare not ask. The bottles on the dresser were coloured glass and each, when she removed the stopper and sniffed, held a different perfumed oil. Sandalwood in one, a musky, disturbing fragrance in another, a third filled with something that teased her nostrils with the warm scent of spice.
The clothes press held the sombre coats and waistcoats of a gentleman who had been in mourning. The woollen cloth was of the highest quality, the dark waistcoats were silk. What was his normal taste? Would he buy more flamboyant waistcoats now, more dashing coats?