Married to a Stranger (Danger and Desire 3)

Drawers revealed piles of white shirts in fine linen, muslin neckcloths, handkerchiefs. All new and good quality. She touched things, ran her fingers over them, inhaling the scent of starched linen and masculine leather. There was a pile of hat boxes from Lock’s and more boxes revealed gleaming boots and evening slippers. Callum had not been averse to shopping for himself, she realised.

Sophia scanned the room. Had she left everything as it had been? Yes, she was sure of it, he would never know she had been in here.

Next door the study was quite incredibly untidy in contrast to the bedchamber. Obviously Wilkins had no control here. Books had been unpacked from chests and were stacked all around and in piles on the shelves. A drawing slope had been set up and boxes on it revealed pens and rulers, inks, chalks, a box of watercolours, the squares of paint dry and brittle.

Sophia stood for a while looking at the pristine white sheet pinned to the board, her fingers itching for a pencil, a stick of pastel, anything to draw with.

She turned away before the urge to mark the clean surface overcame discretion.

A pile of papers was on one end of the desk under a piece of marble with a carving of a tiger on it. Folders were heaped at the other end, bristling with markers. There were letters, too, stacked on the leather desktop, already annotated on their wrappers.

She stood by the desk and looked around. Here she did not dare touch anything. The desk needed a blotter. She must add checking the inkwells and the blotting paper to the footmen’s routine.

Callum knew people, many people, here in London, she realised, looking at the amount of correspondence. His work would bring him into contact with them, every day. He would not be lonely and he would doubtless soon make friends, and so would she.

Now she would have luncheon and go out shopping with a dress allowance beyond her wildest fantasies, and in shops that she had dreamed of visiting. It would be feeble of her indeed to feel sorry for herself with that prospect in view.

*

Cal sat back in the hackney carriage and willed himself to relax for however long it took to negotiate the evening traffic between the City and Mayfair. Strange that a musty, battered carriage represented the peaceful neutral ground between two battlefields—the East India Company headquarters and his own household.

The Company he could deal with, given hard work and careful tactics. Already he could see his path clearly there. They had sized him up in the first weeks, considered the reports he had worked on, the way he had reconstructed what he could of the information lost in the wreck, both his work and Daniel’s. They would have listened to the senior company officials who had survived and, eventually they made him the offer of a post that was all he had hoped and more.

It had been a strain, focusing on the work, the discussions, while he was still physically and mentally wounded from the wreck. Perhaps his sombre demeanour and total focus had been what had convinced them. He would probably never know.

But now he had a shared office, a clerk and a challenge to reform an area of the business that was very much to his taste and he knew he would find it, quite legitimately, highly profitable. It would be pleasant to be rich. He smiled, amused at himself. He was not badly off now—it would take a foolish or unlucky servant of the Company not to make money—but to be in the position to develop the two estates into something fine, buy all the bloodstock he fancied … Perhaps exert enough influence that a title came his way. Yes, tempting.

The other campaign was his marriage and that promised to hold far more damaging skirmishes. Sophia’s confession coming so soon after the culmination of their lovemaking had left him almost dizzy. She had not loved Daniel. Part of him resented that on his twin’s behalf, but he knew it was unjust. He had healed enough to be able to see Dan again just as clearly as he ever had. His brother had fallen out of love with Sophia—it would be hypocritical to blame her for doing exactly the same thing.

Except for one small detail—of the two of them, she was the one who could have broken the engagement with honour. And she had not. If she had, he would never have thought to offer for her, let alone press the matter. He should be angry with her, but he was not and a small glow of satisfaction that he could not analyse kept disturbing him. Surely he was not glad that she had fallen out of love with Daniel? That would be absurd, it was not as though he was in love with her himself.

This morning she had been poised and pleasant, apparently happy to be with him. But she had not seemed in the slightest bit concerned that he was leaving her alone all day, and when he had kissed her cheek she had stiffened. For a mad moment he had been tempted to pull her from the chair, kiss her hard and possessively on the mouth, there and then in front of the watching servants.

It occurred to him that perhaps he had been too demonstrative in his lovemaking last night. She was very innocent and shy. Now the memory of that little shiver when he had touched her was lodged in his mind as well. Last night had been the first time for her and he knew he must have hurt her. It would be his duty, and his pleasure, to make certain that every time from now on was better.

Never had the contemplation of duty been so arousing. The images his brain was conjuring up stirred his body to the point of discomfort. Grimly Callum began to calculate compound interest in his head. By the time he was delivered to his own front door his unruly body was under control, but he was still achingly aware of it. It did not help that he recognised it was entirely his own fault. She is almost a virgin, he reminded himself.

‘Madam is in the drawing room, sir.’ Hawksley took hat, gloves and cane. ‘Dinner is at eight, if that is satisfactory.’

‘Whatever Mrs Chatterton says. Please send up hot water and Wilkins. I will bathe and shave.’

Callum paused on the threshold of his room. It looked just as it had when he’d left it that morning and yet he had the feeling that someone had been there. One of the maids, no doubt, dusting. And Wilkins would have tidied up, too. Yet he could not quite shake off the sensation of a presence that lingered on the edge of his perception.

He turned and opened the door to his study. Again, just as he had left it. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. England smelt strange after years of the dust and strong scents of India. Ah, yes, just the faint hint of the rose perfume that Sophia wore. How strange that he had sensed her presence so quickly. That teasing hint of perfume must have been what had alerted him—he had no idea his sense of smell was that acute. And there, in the rug about three feet from the desk, were the prints of two small heels. She had stood, and looked, for several minutes to leave those deep little dents.

Unaccountably disturbed, Callum began to prowl around. Nothing was touched. The heel marks were indented beside his drawing slope, too; she had studied that also. What had she said last night about her art? That it was the most important thing to her? He had forgotten all about the way she had been smudged with charcoal and chalks as a girl.

He went to his room and bathed and changed with his mind only half on what he was doing. ‘I must speak to the maids,’ Wilkins said, tight-lipped as Cal considered the neckcloths he was proffering, draped over his arm. ‘They have been rummaging.’

‘Rummaging? Where?’ Cal selected a length of muslin and began the intricate business of tying a knot of his own invention.

‘Amongst your shirts and other things, sir. I know to a fraction just how I leave them. And every drawer is always left completely closed. Someone has been touching them and replacing them with care, if not total precision.’

‘Nothing is missing, I hope.’ The valet shook his head. ‘Then I would not mention it. Mrs Chatterton may well have been checking over my linen.’

Wilkins appeared to be restraining himself with an effort. His thoughts on wives interfering in his domain were quite obvious, but training held and he said nothing.

How very intriguing. Cal inserted a diamond tiepin and gave his cuffs a final twitch. Sophia was curious about him, it seemed. It made him realise that he had hardly given her, as a person, a thought except insofar as her thoughts and actions affected him and his plans. There was the woman he had made love to and the well-behaved young lady whom he had married and the woman who had fallen in and out of love and lost his twin—but what was going on in her head? What was important to her now in this marriage?