Married to a Stranger (Danger and Desire 3)

Callum did come, so soon after she had retired that Chivers had scarcely time to gather up her discarded clothes and take herself off. The moment he came in Sophia dropped the book she was glancing through.

‘Would my company tonight be welcome?’ he asked. ‘I gathered from what you said in the park that it might be.’

‘Certainly,’ she said, watching him through her lashes, her heart pounding with anticipation. As was his habit he snuffed the candles on the tallboy and the dressing table, but when he approached those on the far side of the bed she said, ‘No, please leave them.’

‘On both sides?’ Callum hesitated, his hand still outstretched to the first wick, but when she nodded he said, ‘I thought it would be easier for you.’

‘Easier?’ He must think her embarrassed to see his body, to have him look at hers. She bit her lip; she had not realised he had sought darkness out of consideration for her modesty. ‘No. I like to see … I mean, it is very impersonal in the darkness. You sound like you in the dark, of course, and you smell like you—’ his eyebrows shot up ‘—in a good way! But I prefer to be able to see you as well.’

That seemed to please him. He was certainly aroused, she thought with a tiny wriggle of nervous anticipation, but still he stood there. Not so much hesitating, she thought, but thinking something through.

‘Please, Callum.’

He did smile at her then. He is a different man when he smiles, Sophia decided. No more or less attractive, but younger somehow, more open. ‘Light them all again,’ she said, greatly daring, and he did as she asked until the room was glowing and the warmth reflected off his tanned skin as he took off coat and waistcoat and shirt. And this time he let them fall to the floor, unheeded, his eyes on her.

‘Your skin has held the sun,’ she said, finding her voice catch. ‘I am surprised, after so many months away from India.’

‘I was very tanned when we left. We always swam, year round, where it was safe,’ Callum said. He sat on the edge of the bed, still in evening breeches and stockings and Sophia studied his muscles sidelong through her lashes. ‘And bachelors are careless about lounging around in the heat in shockingly little clothing in their own compounds. Even in the shade the sun is so intense in India that one colours easily.

‘Then on the ship it was hot for much of the voyage and the men were casual in their dress during the day. You see?’ He lifted her hand and traced with her fingertips the darker vee of skin where his shirt must have lain open.

‘And here.’ There was another line just below his elbows. The hair on his forearm felt rough and she turned his hand so she could trace the smooth, paler skin on the inside of his arm. He gave a little shiver, so she tickled the inside of his elbow and made him laugh.

‘Be careful—I might retaliate.’ She stopped and he smiled. ‘Keep touching me, I like it.’

Greatly daring, Sophia transferred her explorations to his chest. The miracle that Callum was relaxing with her, opening himself to her just as she realised she had fallen in love with him, was still too fresh; she felt too insecure to trust it would last.

She flattened her palm against his flat belly and ran it upwards, fingers spread so they raked through the dusting of dark hair to his nipples. They crinkled and tightened as she scratched lightly with her nails, delighted by his sharply indrawn breath.

‘We both have altogether too many clothes on,’ Callum said and stood up, reluctant, it seemed to her, to leave her caressing hands. He unfastened his breeches, pushed them down, taking stockings and garters with them.

‘You swam naked,’ she said as he twisted to toss them onto a chair and she could look at the tight curve of his buttocks, the length of hard-muscled thighs.

‘Of course,’ he said and turned back to her.

Sophia swallowed. Now they were more relaxed together she was looking at him properly for the first time and the reality of aroused manhood so close she could reach out and touch was more disturbing than it had been on their wedding night, somehow. She lifted one hand and hesitated.

‘Touch me,’ Callum said, so she did, stroking down the surprisingly soft skin over the pulsing hardness. When she dared look up into his face his eyes were closed and his jaw taut. A pulse leapt in his cheek as though he was holding himself still with enormous effort and, before she could think about it, tell herself it was wanton and lewd, Sophia leaned forwards and kissed him, her lips lingering. It was shocking, she wanted to take him in her mouth, to lick to—

‘Oh, my God.’ He moved too fast for her to protest. One moment she had been bent over him, her hand hesitating just at his hip, wanting to hold him still, and the next she was on her back, her nightgown bunched around her waist as Callum plunged into her.

‘Sophia, I—’ With what seemed a superhuman effort he stilled, dropped his head until his forehead rested on hers, his breath warm on her face. ‘I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?’

‘No. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop, Callum.’ She tipped her head back so that his mouth came down on hers and held him hard and close as he moved within her and the tension that had been inside her since that first night built to a swirling knot and then broke apart into shuddering delight and she lost all sense of where she was, only that she was with Callum and she loved him.

The fog was swallowing her up. Dark, grey like cold smoke. He had needed her, reached for her and now he was being punished for it. ‘Come back!’ She turned, held out her hands to him, but the fog seemed to pull her, the long tendrils like tentacles around her waist, her throat, dragging her into its depths. And he was in water, his limbs leaden, his shoulders burning with the effort to stay afloat, his vision blurred and he could not reach her. ‘Sophia!’ She was gone.

Cal whistled as he rode up Cornhill to Leadenhall Street. After the first few days in London he had grown tired of rattling to and from the office in a musty hackney carriage and had sought out a livery stables in a nearby mews that provided him with the daily use of a neat bay gelding. With a change of formal clothing kept in his office it meant he could ride when the weather held fair.

Today riding suited his mood perfectly. Sophia had made love last night with a warmth and a responsiveness that had, for a while, chased away the shadows that had been haunting him. But he had dreamed last night, even so, woken in a muck sweat, the bedclothes tangled round his legs, his throat sore as though he had been shouting. Another nightmare, although he could not recall the details, the old one about the wreck and Dan merging into a new one about losing Sophia.

But that was worth it, even if it was the price of their lovemaking. Sophia’s gaze had been clear and open as she had lain in his arms and looked at him. She said his name as it was dragged from her at the height of her pleasure. In the days since their marriage he had done everything in what he knew was a considerable repertoire of technique to make her feel comfortable with him, to relax enough to allow him to pleasure her and, after all, it had simply taken light and openness and giving in to his own rush of desire for her to respond with innocent passion.

There was still something, a reserve that he could not identify, but perhaps he was expecting too much, too soon. All he could ask was that she was happy and content married to him.

For himself, he was very well pleased with his wife, he thought as he reached the East India Company offices and swung down to the pavement. The house ran to perfection, Sophia was a pleasant and intelligent companion and the nights were going to be satisfying. He had not looked for any of that in this marriage of duty, but then it seemed to him that he had hardly been thinking clearly at all.

He had thought he was. He had believed himself healed after Dan’s death, ready and able to move on with his life. One thing had nagged at his conscience—Sophia—and doing the right thing for her chimed exactly with his growing awareness that he needed a wife for his career and to give him his heirs.