Married to a Stranger

by Louise Allen

  ‘No.’ Sophia shook her head. ‘I am the hostess, I have to be seen or it will cause more talk. I do not know how Callum can stop those dreadful women spreading the truth—and what they believe I have done, which is even worse—but for now I must just pretend nothing is amiss.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Alistair. ‘Right. The three of you spread around and keep the practical-joke story going—with plenty of emphasis on how shocking it was for the Hickson and Piercebridge party to explain their outrage. I’ll walk around with Sophia for a bit of moral support.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said through a smile that felt in creasingly precarious. ‘Thank you so much.’

  *

  ‘Well, of course I knew about it,’ Cal said, passing glasses of brandy to Mr Hickson and Lord Piercebridge while Will dispensed Madeira to their fulminating wives. ‘Sophia is extremely talented and I was intending to show her work to my brother in the hope he would ask her to do a portrait of Lady Julia. The fool of a footman got in a muddle and thought the portfolios were something we needed urgently.’

  ‘You knew your wife was a professional artist?’ Cousin Georgia demanded.

  ‘A few drawings anonymously for an Ackermann memorandum book is hardly professional, Cousin.’

  ‘But this is!’ Lord Piercebridge brandished a sketch under Callum’s nose. Lady Piercebridge, Cousin Georgia and a number of other ladies were perfectly recognisable in a flock of starlings pecking at a huddled female in a fashionable gown. Speech bubbles issued from their beaks. The whole thing was very much in the style of the vicious caricatures on sale in every print shop.

  Callum tilted the drawing and began to read the words. ‘It is entitled “Some Country Nobody Without Even Youth to Commend Her,”‘ he said. ‘Now, what are these birds saying? It is deeply regrettable that young men so close to the earldom should have gone into trade in the first place … The earl is betrothed, most suitably, so there is probably no risk that the inheritance might go in that direction, my dear Lady Piercebridge. That is one mercy … This gangling nobody can only pull him down. Callum cannot even plead the momentary insanity of a love match.’ He looked up and studied the appalled faces of the two women. ‘I wonder where Sophia heard those words spoken?

  ‘My wife—whom I love very much, for your information—was so hurt by your vicious attacks that she retaliated in the only way she could without confronting the ladies who were so cruel and causing a public rift. I imagine she felt a lot better having drawn this, which is for her own relief and to share with me, not for public consumption.’

  ‘She draws disgusting things!’ Lady Piercebridge interjected. ‘There was a naked man—’

  ‘Myself. I am sorry you find it disgusting, I thought it rather flattering,’ Cal said calmly.

  ‘Maud, did you say these things?’ Lord Piercebridge had picked up the drawing and was staring at it.

  ‘Well, I might have intimated that I did not approve of the match—’ she stammered.

  ‘Mrs Chatterton is a charming young lady, very pleasant to talk to. Most interested in my gout,’ the baron snapped. ‘Don’t blame her if she was upset to be attacked like this, anyone would be. We’ll say no more about it, do you hear me, my lady? Good evening to you, Flamborough, Chatterton. Good party. Very good party, but I think we’ll be off now.’

  He hustled his wife out, leaving Cousin Georgia pink in the face and attempting to bluster at Will, ‘I have never been so insulted!’

  ‘No, my sister-in-law has never been so insulted, Cousin. If you wish to explain to your acquaintance why you are no longer welcome in my home, or those of my friends, then all you have to do is spread this malicious nonsense.’

  ‘And if anyone were to suggest that my wife is responsible for satirical prints of any kind, then I would have to resort to the law,’ Cal said, turning to Mr Hickson, who was tugging urgently at his wife’s sleeve and being ignored. ‘I suggest that what so shocked you was a naughty drawing by one of our young relatives spread around for a prank, was it not?’

  ‘Of course, of course it was,’ he gabbled. ‘Georgia, we were quite mistaken, you must see that.’

  The internal struggle was plain on Cousin Georgia’s face, but after a moment she said with glacial dignity, ‘No doubt we were misled. I have been greatly shocked, but I will disregard it out of respect for Flamborough as head of the family. As for you, Callum, I am gravely disappointed, but my lips are sealed. Come, Mr Hickson.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Will waited until the door closed and then flopped into the nearest chair. ‘Hell’s teeth, Cal!’

  Cal went to stand beside the chair and dropped a hand on to his brother’s shoulder. Now that was over he found it an effort to uncurl it from a fist. ‘Thank you for your support.’

  ‘Did you know?’

  ‘No. I did not know she had been to Ackermann. I had not seen half of those sketches, certainly not the nude.’ The sense of betrayal was like acid in his stomach. He turned and spread the drawings out on the desk. How could she draw him, so intimately, so tenderly, and yet hide it from him? Hide what she had done. Surely she knew how shocking it was for a lady to sell her work for public display?

  ‘Did she need the money?’ Will said. ‘Is there a problem, Cal? If I can help—’

  ‘Damn it, no!’ The implication that he could not support his wife and that she must sell her art for pin money was like a slap in the face. ‘I paid off the family debts, I give her an allowance that made her jaw drop. She isn’t playing cards—I would know if she had got into that sort of company.’

  ‘Her brother? Trouble with a blackmailing female? Racing debts?’ Will shrugged. ‘No, not that idiot. He’s too dull to trip over trouble, let alone go looking for it.’

  Cal splashed brandy into a glass and tossed it back. It did nothing for the pain in his gut. Sophia did not trust him and her art and her ambition were more important to her than he was. That was the only conclusion he could draw from this.

  ‘And you love her, or was that a lie for their benefit?’

  ‘Yes. I love her.’ As he said it he found it was still true. Betrayal and disillusion did not, apparently, make you fall out of love.

  ‘Have you told her?’

  ‘No. She does not love me—as is obvious from this fiasco. I feel no inclination to lay my heart out for her to trample on.’

  ‘So what will you do?’

  ‘Go back out there, circulate until our guests leave and then take my wife home and attempt to find a way to live with her, I suppose.’

  ‘You defended her, you owned your love for her. That is something to build on, surely?’

  ‘Perhaps.’ But the trust was gone and he did not know how to get it back. ‘I had better go out, Will.’

  ‘Come on, then.’ His brother opened the door and he walked out to do battle.

  *

  Callum told her that he had silenced the two women, then they rode home in the carriage in complete silence. When they arrived Callum opened the door into the drawing room with perfect courtesy and followed her in, then he shut the door and leaned against it and just looked at her as though he had never seen her before. Perhaps he was thinking that he never had—not the real her. Oh, my love.

  Sophia walked over to the fireplace and waited. She deserved everything he would throw at her, she knew it. He was furious. It burned in his eyes, it showed in the taut line of his jaw, in the very care he took to keep his hands open and relaxed.

  ‘Well? You sell your work to publishers and do not see fit to tell me?’

  ‘Just one. Just Ackermann. He is very respectable. He will use them to illustrate a memorandum book, anonymously of course.’

  ‘So why did you? Do I keep you so short of money, Sophia? You only had to ask and I would give you what you want.’

  ‘No, you are more than generous and I want for nothing.’ Nothing except the love that I certainly do not deserve. ‘I … I know I married you for security, for position, for a famil
y of my own. But my art has always been important to me, I told you that.

  ‘When Daniel was so long coming home I thought I would have to try to sell it so we could make ends meet. The idea stayed with me—I wanted to see if I was good enough.’

  Callum looked down at his clasped hands. ‘And you did not feel you could tell me about it? Did you not realise how scandalous such a thing is?’

  ‘I know. I know it was wrong as well as deceitful. But my art is so personal to me, so essential, that it did not occur to me to discuss it, to share. I should have done. I should have known you would be interested and support me. When I realised I should have spoken to you first, it was too late.’

  ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’

  ‘Yes. I was going to tell you tomorrow, I promise I was. At first I just wanted to see whether I was good enough. And then he gave me the money and it was done. I thought I would sell some more, save up to buy you something, something with my own money. Then I realised that could take ages and I ought to tell you now.’

  ‘And you drew me when I was asleep, unawares. Were you going to tell me about that also?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sophia whispered. She searched for the honest thing to say, an apology and a truth that would not reveal that she loved him. Love had never been in the bargain, not a one-sided love that imposed emotional burdens on him. To declare it now would sound like moral blackmail. ‘I think you are generous and I am sorry if my actions made it seem that I do not. I trust you to be kind and honourable and to try to do the right thing for me. But I am not sure I trusted anyone to understand me and what is in my heart.’

  ‘Let alone the stranger who has married you.’ It was a statement.

  ‘Why should you understand me?’ she asked, despairing. He never would now.

  ‘Perhaps understanding comes with love? Or would it cloud it, do you think?’ he asked, startling her.

  ‘Lo-love?’ Did he suspect her true feelings? ‘I am married to you.’

  ‘So you are,’ Callum said as he stood up. ‘And you do not love me, do you?’

  ‘Do you want me to?’ she stammered, thrown off balance by the abrupt question.

  ‘Why should I?’ he countered. ‘Love is a painful thing to feel, easily broken, easily betrayed.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I do not think it can ever be broken. Betrayed, yes. What I felt for Daniel was not real love. I know that now. What do we do now, Callum?’

  ‘We go on,’ he said. ‘What else is there to do? We married for better or for worse, did we not?’ He straightened up and held the door for her and Sophia gathered the tatters of her self-possession around her and walked through it and upstairs.

  Sophia sent Chivers away and sat for a long time, drawing the brush through the thick mass that waved slightly from its pins and braids. It was soothing and faintly mesmerising. She was very tired, too tired almost to hurt any more, and her focus blurred until she was almost brushing in a doze.

  It took a moment to realise that the bedchamber door had opened. ‘Callum?’

  He closed the door and came in, took the brush from her lax grip. Her hair crackled, sprang up to cling to his hands. ‘I think this is brushed enough.’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed and got up. Why was he here? He was wearing the black robe, his feet bare on the carpet. As she looked into his eyes, dark green, shadowed, full of emotions she did not understand, Sophia realised she couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘I am so sorry.’ He would go now, she thought.

  ‘I find I want you,’ he said, his voice harsh. ‘I am not sure I understand why. I am angry with you, I am tired, but I want you. Doubtless it is something primitive and I should be ashamed of it. Tell me to go and I will—I’ll not take an unwilling woman.’

  It never occurred to her until he said it that he might force her, or to fear that he would hurt her physically because of what she had done, but she knew many men would. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Stay.’

  Callum stooped and kissed her, drawing her close against the thick fabric. Beneath it she could smell the familiar scent of him, the tinge of spice, the faint remnants of soap, the smell, so arousing, of male. His mouth was hard, demanding, but not brutal. A tear escaped and trickled down her face.

  Callum lifted his head and licked his lips, tasting the salt. He rubbed away the moisture under her lashes with the pad of his thumbs. ‘Don’t cry.’ His harsh voice was at odds with the gesture. ‘It won’t help.’

  ‘No,’ she promised. She would not cry. He still wanted her, his body betrayed that all too graphically. And he was too much a gentleman to punish her for what she had done. All she could give him in return was her passion and her loyalty and her restraint.

  Sophia reached up and pulled Callum’s dark head down so she could reach his lips and kissed him, trying to give him everything he wanted. ‘Make me stop thinking,’ she murmured against his mouth, not knowing if he heard her.

  He lifted her without breaking the kiss and laid her on the bed, then shrugged off his robe. As she expected, he was naked beneath it. She closed her eyes, shielding the raw wanting, waiting for the bed to dip as he joined her. But instead he sat at the foot and began to run his hands over her feet, chilly from sitting without her slippers for so long.

  His strong thumbs massaged under the arches, then moved to her ankles, circling them easily as if shackling her, then he opened his hands and ran his palms up to her knees. Sophia lay still, swallowing tears, trying just to let herself feel.

  His hands were calloused from riding. She felt them snag in the hem of her nightgown as he pushed it up a little and she braced herself for his weight to come down over her, but all he did was to explore the hollows at the back of her knees. ‘Soft,’ he murmured and moved to nuzzle into them, nudging her legs apart to give him access.

  Helpless against the need he was stirring in her, Sophia lay there, her legs sprawled wantonly as Callum’s kisses trailed up the sensitive inner surface of her thighs. So gentle. She could feel the restraint he was exercising, sense his need to just take her, punish her with his body. This was a worse punishment, this gentleness when she felt she deserved nothing of the kind.

  Her nightgown rucked around her hips and Sophia arched upwards so he could push it free. As she lowered herself his hands opened her further and his mouth found her hot, moist core, his fingers parted the intimate folds so his tongue could stroke and torment in long, slow strokes that had her moaning out loud, her hands fisted in the covers.

  Callum had done this before, but in the heat of desperate, urgent sex, never like this with deliberate, exquisite patience so she was forced to lie and suffer every lingering touch of his mouth, every gentle scrape of his teeth, every thrust of his tongue, deep inside.

  Sophia reached down and threaded her fingers into Callum’s hair, cupping the elegant bones of his skull in her palms as wave after wave of pleasure seared through her, tightening her arousal almost to breaking point. ‘Please,’ she heard herself saying, ‘please, please.’ He shook his head, just a little. No, he was not going to release her, not until she was screaming. This was a punishment.

  He was cruel, so cruel. She arched, straining, seeking her release as she pressed against his clever mouth and he lifted his head, surged up the bed to hold his weight off her so she could not press up against him as he began to torment her breast with the same ruthless expertise.

  His tongue fretted her nipples into aching knots and then, finally, as she sobbed in desperation, he lowered himself, thrust and possessed her, sheathing himself deep within her needy, aching centre. Sophia felt herself unravel instantly, as though he had touched spark to powder. She convulsed around him, tight, tight as if to stop him withdrawing, leaving her, ever. But he thrust again, stronger and harder. He shuddered and was still.

  The air was cool on her heated breasts. Sophia opened her eyes and found Callum still braced above her, elbows locked, only his hips pressing into her where they were still joined. His hair fell over his sweat-slicked forehead,
his eyes were closed. As she looked he opened them, dark and fathomless, on her face. Still watching her, he slid from her body and rolled off the bed.

  ‘Sleep,’ he said. He lifted his robe from the floor, shrugged into it and left.

  Her body was nothing but boneless velvet. Her heart felt as though it was breaking. The candles flared and guttered round the room. Sophia lay on the bed, dry eyes aching in the light as she stared at nothing and wondered how she could endure this.

  ‘Is Mrs Chatterton at home, Hawksley?’ Cal dropped his hat and whip on the hall chest and began to strip off his gloves. He had come home early, although why, what good it would do, he did not know. He had left before breakfast that morning, broken his fast at a coffee house in the City.

  It had been hectic enough at the office to keep his mind from last night and to energise him sufficiently to overcome the exhaustion of a virtually sleepless night shredded by dreams of the swirling grey fog. There had not even been the figure of his wife vanishing into it. She had gone.

  Last night. He could let himself think about it now. The hurt that Sophia could not trust him, the shock of how close to ruin she had come, the reality of the pain he had dreaded ever since he had found himself in love with her.

  And then in her bedroom. He closed his eyes in denial, but his memory and his body would not let him forget. He had set out to punish her, torment her, prove to her that she was in thrall to him here, and in their marriage. The memory of her softness quivering in his arms; the intimate salt-sweet taste of her lingering on his lips; the feeling of her closing tightly around him, a hot, wet velvet fist; her frantic begging for release and her cries as he gave it to her.

  It had been a hollow victory, the one who was hurt most by it, he knew, was himself. But he had not been able to stay or he knew he would have poured out his feelings for her.