Married to a Stranger (Danger and Desire 3)

‘This is a good spot. We will come here one day and I will try again with watercolours and you can sketch—or perhaps learn from my daubs.’

‘I would like that. Thank you.’ It felt as though a barrier had been breached between them.

Callum set his high-crowned hat on the seat beside him and leaned closer, his attention fixed on her right cheekbone.

‘What is it? Do I have an insect on my face?’

‘No. Speaking of art has made me study the nearest lovely thing more clos

ely.’ She shook her head at the arrant flattery, but he continued to look at her face. ‘Only the faintest little heart-shaped freckle. Just … there below your lashes.’ His fingertip touched her skin, then trailed a quivering trace of sensation along the top of her cheek. ‘Are there any others? I haven’t noticed any, but by candlelight they may not be so easy to find as in the daylight.’

‘I don’t know. I used to have freckles, but Mama made me use Denmark lotion and I thought they had all gone.’ Her voice was shaking and she tried to steady it, but to do that she must control her breathing and that was all over the place and he was leaning closer now. It was the first time he had ever caressed her during the day and they were in the open, in public.

‘A pity. Poor little orphaned freckle.’ Callum’s lips pressed against the place where his finger had touched. His hair, almost as dark as hers, tickled her face and she put up a hand to steady herself against his chest.

‘It might not be the only one. You could look,’ Sophia suggested, greatly daring.

‘I could. What a provoking suggestion, my dear.’ His voice was growing husky and he moved, just enough to bring his mouth to hers, so close his breath brushed her lips and made her laugh. ‘I have missed you.’

‘That tickles!’ He laughed too and her wariness was gone, replaced by a new, strange sensation that was making her tense, but in the most delightful manner. Was this desire? ‘I missed you too,’ Sophia ventured. If only she had the courage to reach out to him, not to make love, but for closeness and companionship. But if she did, and he found that intrusively familiar, it would hurt too much. She must wait for him, it seemed. Married couples were not supposed to be demonstrative, Mama had warned her about that. Coward, she told herself.

Behind Callum’s head she saw movement and pulled back. ‘Someone is coming.’

‘Damn. I had hoped to kiss my wife in sylvan solitude for a while.’ He sat back a little, just enough for propriety, but he did not turn and his expression held wicked promises for when they could be alone. ‘Who is it? A picnic party or a governess with a swarm of infants?’

‘Neither, just another couple, strolling. I expect they will pass us soon enough.’ They looked a very happy pair, about the same age as Callum and her. They walked arm in arm, his head bent close, she looking up into his face and smiling. ‘No, they are stopping, she is adjusting the ribbons on her villager hat. I do like that style.’

‘Then you must buy one.’

Sophia dimpled a smile at him. ‘I had one and you knocked it off in the lane.’ She went back to studying the other couple. The breeze was getting up and the woman was having trouble setting the wide, flat hat with its low crown back on her head. Her companion reached to help her. ‘Oh, no! She has accidentally stabbed him with a hat pin—she’s dropped it—now the breeze has caught the hat—he is giving chase.’

With one hand holding his own hat in place the man set off at a run after the disc of straw plait as it tumbled over the cropped grass. The woman watched for a moment, smiling, and then walked on. She was aiming, it seemed to Sophia, for a bench just past the one she and Callum occupied. ‘Oh, now he has lost his own hat.’

The hatless lady laughed, a clear, bright peal of laughter and Callum froze. ‘Averil?’ He turned on the seat and stared. ‘Averil!’ Then he was up and running to her. He caught her in his arms and she flung her own around his neck, clinging as he bent his head and kissed her.

Sophia stumbled to her feet and stared. There was passion in the way the two figures held each other. This was no peck on the cheek between close friends, this was something more, a lot more. A sickening jolt went through her and she almost moaned aloud with the pain of it. Jealousy, anger, loss all jumbled together. He had forgotten her, had not even troubled to pretend to her—his wife—that he did not know this woman.

She stood rooted to the spot in a paralysis of unhappiness, her hands fisted at her side. To stay? To leave? But her feet would not move. There was a shout and something—someone—hurtled past her. The other man, she realised, as he fell on the entwined couple and took Callum by the shoulder.

He was going to hit him. Good, she thought, furious and shaken that he could kiss another woman like that, minutes after those intimate caresses. The other man was taller, broader and utterly menacing. Excellent.

‘Chatterton!’

‘D’Aunay!’ No, they were not about to fight, they were embracing and the lady Callum had kissed was beaming with pleasure. ‘When did you get back to town?’

‘Just yesterday.’ The other man was striking. Not good-looking, not with that aggressive beak of a nose and stubborn chin, but he had a commanding presence. ‘Our honeymoon was interrupted by the demands of their Lordships at the Admiralty a couple of times, but it served its purpose: Bradon has recovered from his fit of chagrin over losing his betrothed to a half-French adventurer—his words—and we can mingle in society without risk of gossip distressing Averil.’

‘I am sorry, we burst in on your private conversation. I am the Countess d’Aunay. Miss—?’ Sophia turned to find the woman at her side.

‘Mrs Chatterton,’ she said icily. ‘You were kissing my husband.’

‘Your husband? You are married to Callum? But he was not betrothed, Daniel was.’

‘Daniel is dead,’ Sophia said, staring at the stranger. This was a madhouse. ‘I am Sophia Langley.’

‘You are Daniel’s betrothed?’ Averil Heydon stared at Sophia, her face stiff with what must be disapproval.

‘Yes.’ Sophia felt her chin lift; she was not going to be criticised, not by a stranger.