Married to a Stranger (Danger and Desire 3)

‘She is there?’ Cal asked, puzzled.

‘Yes, sir. I believe the ladies have been exchanging items from their wardrobes, sir. Chivers took a portmanteau round.’

Something cold and clammy settled in his gut. Callum recognised fear and told himself not to be a fool. She would not—

He stood on Averil and Luc’s doorstep, his heart pounding, and made himself breathe. ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ The d’Aunays’ butler opened the door. ‘The ladies are in the drawing room. I will announce you—sir!’

On a wave of relief Cal strode into the room and stopped dead. There were only two ladies: Averil and Dita seated side by side on the sofa regarded him with expressions of identical apprehension. It occurred to him, in the part of his brain that was still functioning properly, that he had never seen Dita show fear before, even during the wreck.

‘Where is she?’ he demanded, ready to shake it out of them if that was what it took.

‘We do not know,’ Dita said. She stood up and handed him a letter. ‘She said she was going somewhere peaceful and warm.’

‘Warm?’

‘I did not understand it either. She asked that we make sure you understand that she is not leaving you, that she will come back if you want her to. Only not just yet.’

Cal looked at the letter in his hand and then at the two women.

‘I swear that is all true,’ Averil said.

He turned on his heel and left without a word, pushing past the butler, out and along to his own home. Home? Not without Sophia. Without Sophia it was just a house.

He stood in the hall and broke the seal with an impatient thrust of his thumb under the wax. It shattered, blood-red drops across the black-and-white marble of the floor. My heart’s blood. What was he going to do if she would not come back? Dita’s words were like the rudder of the overturned boat he had clung to after the shipwreck and he held to them with as much fervour, She is not leaving you.

Callum, the letter read in Sophia’s elegant, artist’s hand.

Please forgive me. I am not leaving you, only going away for a little while to regain my courage and my balance. I was wrong to have married you, I know that. I cannot thank you enough for your gallant kindness in offering for me, in insisting against my ungracious refusal. I have betrayed the trust you placed in me by giving me your name, I know that. When I come back I will make you a good wife, if you will let me, I swear it.

But I need warmth. I know you cannot give me that, especially now, and I do not reproach you for it. I am going somewhere where I will find that comfort, I think. Just for a little while. Then we can begin again and I will try my best to be everything you ask of me, and nothing that you would not want.

Thank you for protecting and defending me last night.

Your Sophia

His Sophia. He had to bring her back, had to tell her he loved her and forgave her. He had to find a way to let her into his thoughts and his feelings and show her the warmth she craved. She said she had betrayed his trust. A splinter of hard wax cut into his finger and he almost welcomed the sharp pain.

He had expected her trust, thought it his right. But he had not earned it, seen it as something that would come with time and nurturing. Sophia had not turned instinctively to him to share her hopes and dreams and fears, and why should she? He had begun to tell her his, because she had teased them from him as a patient woman might untangle a knotted ball of thread. And she had done that because she cared and had wanted to share his pain and to heal it. Was that not a thousand times more meaningful than her error of judgement, her withholding of trust over this one thing?

He had to find her, bring her home safely, tell her this and pray she would understand. But where was she? He doubted she had gone to her family home. She loved her mother, but he had sensed that they were not very close and he thought Sophia was unlikely to want to worry her with fears that the marriage was in trouble. Certainly she would not go to her brother, he would lay money on that.

Flamborough Hall? But Will was here, in London. Warmth. The word nagged at him, chasing a thread of memory. A good memory and then it had turned sour …

Long Welling. Sophia had stood in the hall of the old house with her hand in his and said I love it. It feels warm as though it wants to hug us. Would she have gone back there, even after the way their visit had ended? It was the only place he could think of, the only dice he could roll. If she was not there, then—No, he would not contemplate that.

‘Hawksley, did Chivers return?’

‘No, sir. I believe her to be with Mrs Chatterton.’

‘I see. It appears that my wife has taken it into her head to go down to Long Welling on a whim.’ He forced a smile, a man amused and tolerant of his wife’s little fancies.

‘Indeed, sir?’ Behind the bland expression the butler obviously did not believe a word of it.

‘Indeed. Have Andrew pack for me—a week in the country. No formal functions. And have Michael go round to the livery stables and secure me a chaise and four immediately.’

‘Sir.’ Hawksley effaced himself and Cal took the stairs two at a time to his study. There was money enough in the safe. He stuffed notes into the breast of his coat then sat down to write to Leadenhall Street, a note of apology for landing Pettigrew with extra work, enclosing a letter to the Court of Directors excusing himself on the grounds of family ill health.

As he got into the post chaise Cal wondered if their lordships would take exception to his abrupt departure and then found he did not much care. If he did not find Sophia, then what was he working for? Ambition and position and wealth meant nothing if they were not to please her, to support her and their children, to lay whatever she wanted at her feet.