Married to a Perfect Stranger

by Jane Ashford

  “I’ll have to give in my notice,” Kate added. Steam had curled stray strands of her blond hair about her face, and she pushed one back.

  Mary tried to look suitably regretful, though it would be a positive pleasure to replace Kate with someone who was glad of the position and better at it.

  “I figured I’d stay a month, so’s you can find someone else. And I can train her up, like.”

  So her staff troubles weren’t completely over, Mary thought, foreseeing many rough spots in that process. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s very thoughtful. But if you would like to go sooner, I would not wish to…”

  Kate took the gratitude as her due. “The rooms above the shop need a deal of fixing up,” she replied, revealing a more likely reason for the delay than goodness of heart. “We’ve all sorts of plans for the place.”

  “Indeed.” Mary’s heart sank a little at the prospect of a month’s perturbations. Kate would be preoccupied with the details of her new life and probably more difficult than ever over her household tasks. Though it was, of course, nice to see her happily settled.

  “I’m installing a double-sized closed range in the back premises of my shop,” put in Mr. Jenkins. “Plenty of space for Kate’s work.” He gazed at his fiancée with pride.

  “No more taking up space on my stove,” said Mrs. Tanner. She looked as pleased as her pinched features could manage.

  “We’ll have a distiller as well,” replied Kate. “Our shop will stock only the best.”

  If Mr. Jenkins noticed the changed emphasis, he gave no sign. “I must get back. I don’t wish to miss any customers. And the carpenter is working in the upstairs rooms.”

  “Make sure he sets that new window just where we marked,” Kate commanded.

  With a nod, Mr. Jenkins took himself off. He showed no signs of realizing that a new power ruled in his household and that the days of his sovereignty were ended. Or perhaps he knew and was glad of it. Mary hoped so.

  Eighteen

  Mary stood in the darkness of the garden in the middle of the square and pulled her cloak more tightly around her. The night was cold, but she had a thick shawl under her cloak as well as a wool scarf tied about her head and fur-lined boots and gloves. The chill was endurable. Her determination made it easier to ignore.

  As the minutes dragged into an hour, and part of another, she rubbed her hands together to keep her fingers supple. She knew John wouldn’t like what she was doing. But she’d thought and thought about it and considered the risks. She’d planned it all out very carefully.

  She leaned down and checked the dark lantern sitting on the ground beside her. It had taken her some effort to procure it, and she had spent time learning exactly how to work it as well. All she needed was the opportunity. She knew she would only have one. If she botched it, there would be no other chance. She strained her ears in the silence.

  At last, when she had begun to shiver with the cold, she caught the sound of footsteps coming along the lane that led into the square. Silently, Mary bent and picked up the lantern. After a moment, she spotted John walking briskly along with his own simpler light swinging at his side. Mary looked away to avoid being dazzled by the beam of his small lantern. Her eyes had fully adapted to the darkness.

  John moved across the square and paused before their door, getting out his key. He unlocked it and went in.

  Now was the moment. Mary scanned the darkness. She’d posted herself near the place where the shadow following John had crouched the last time she’d seen it. She stood perfectly still, staring and listening. There was no sound. Wait. There was a tiny scrape of boot on the cobbles. It she hadn’t been motionless and straining her ears, she wouldn’t have heard it. Mary took hold of the dark lantern’s catch. Scarcely breathing, she waited.

  A shadow left the shelter of the street leading into the square, slipped across, and stopped not too far from her hiding place. All its attention was on the house as John passed the lighted parlor window. Mary took a breath, made sure her lantern was centered on the spot, and pulled back the panel. Light erupted, sending a shaft of illumination through the bars of the fence and washing over the watcher. Startled, the figure turned. Mary blinked away dazzlement and got a good look. Not tall. Cloaked. But clearly the shoulders of a man. From within the cloak’s hood, an Asian face snarled at her.

  Mary willed her hand not to shake. She kept the light on the man and stared, determined to memorize every detail of his face.

  With a spring like a great cat, the man rushed at her, crashing against the wrought iron spears of the fence. Mary stumbled back a step. The lantern beam wavered. She steadied it on him. He leaped, but the spiked tips were still three feet above his clawing fingers, well out of reach. Landing in a crouch, he gripped the bars and shook them violently, but they didn’t yield. He glared at her again, then turned and hurried away.

  Mary shifted the lantern’s beam to follow him across the square and over to the street entry. She held it there, waiting to be sure he was really gone, listening with all her might. He was making no effort to be silent now. Rushing footsteps receded without pause. She waited a bit longer to be certain he was gone, before letting herself out of the garden and running to the house. All the way, she kept the lantern open, scanning the empty street.

  She’d barely gotten the front door open when John pounced. “Where have you been? I looked everywhere. No one knew where you were!”

  “John, I saw the man…”

  He gripped her shoulders and shook her slightly. “How could you go out alone, at night? Haven’t I told you…? Where have you been?”

  “I have to draw him!”

  “Draw who? Now? What are you talking about?”

  “You don’t understand. I saw…”

  “No! I don’t. Do you understand how worried I was? Searching the house, not finding you anywhere. The servants with no idea…”

  “The man following you, I saw him.” Mary wriggled out of his grip. She wanted to get to her easel and record the face she’d seen. Impatient, she jerked off her gloves and the scarf around her head and pulled at the fastening of her cloak.

  “Mary.” At his tone, she turned. His face was stony. “You cannot worry me this way. Haven’t I enough to bear with…?”

  “But if we find out who this man is…the one following you…”

  “No one is following me! It’s over, Mary.”

  His voice chilled her more than the night’s vigil. “What is over?”

  John made a throwaway gesture. “Creeping about the slums…playing spy, imagining…adventures like a silly schoolboy. It’s all come to nothing. Tonight, no one would talk to us. They’ve closed ranks.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Even in Limehouse, I am snubbed.”

  “You can try…”

  He shook his head. “You don’t understand. My guide and I were threatened. With knives.”

  Mary put a frightened hand on his arm.

  “Something roused suspicions against us. I don’t know if it was my manner or a stray remark…” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Suspicions are enough in a place like that. The word has spread. I can’t go back to Limehouse—not without a platoon of soldiers at my back, which would rather defeat the purpose. I must face it. My plan has failed. I won’t be uncovering vital information in the depths of London.” He walked into the parlor. Anxious, Mary followed.

  “Not everyone is cut out to shine,” he added, going to stand by the fire. “How could they be? There must be a mass of…others for them to shine against.”

  “You do shine,” Mary insisted. “You’re…brilliant…”

  His answering smile was distant. “And there, perhaps, is the key to contentment. Think of the wives in houses across the city who believe exactly that about hosts of quite ordinary men. Are they not happy with a quiet, undistinguished life?”

  “You are
not ordinary!” Hot now, Mary thrust off her cloak and the shawl beneath and let them fall to the floor. “You can’t just give up. I tell you I’ve seen…”

  “Come over to the fire. We’ll have a glass of wine.” He took her hands and seemed surprised to find that they were not cold.

  “Why will you not listen to me?” In her frustration, Mary pulled her hands free and grasped his coat lapels. She gazed up into his blue eyes. “It must mean something important that you were followed…”

  He captured her hands again, dropping a kiss on one of them. “It’s kind of you to…”

  “I’m not being kind!” Would a sharp blow to his midsection make him pay attention?

  “We’ll sit by the fire a while and talk of more pleasant things,” John replied, as if they spoke entirely different languages. He slipped an arm around her. “And in a little while, do more pleasant things. That should be enough for any man.”

  “John.” Mary let him pull her to the sofa and draw her down, marshaling her thoughts. She must find the right words to get through to him, to convey what she’d seen. Why was he being so infuriating? He almost seemed like another man. Or… Mary looked in his eyes as they sat side by side. He was rather like the earlier version of himself that she hadn’t seen since their honeymoon, she realized. It was as if that mild, distant fellow had returned and was in charge once more. His detached manner was back, the sense that he didn’t really hear, that the deepest part of him would always be veiled.

  She felt a flash of panic. She didn’t want that man! She didn’t want the trivial, unexciting life he offered. She’d fallen deeply in love with the new John, and she intended—longed—to spend the rest of her life with him. She had to get him back. How could she get him back?

  She needed to think, but that was hardly possible when John was drawing her close, murmuring her name, kissing her. In this, at least, he hadn’t lost himself. Her train of thought was disintegrating with the distraction of his touch. She had to push him away.

  He drew back, surprised.

  “After the last time I saw someone following you, I bought a dark lantern,” Mary said. She realized she hadn’t extinguished it; it was sitting on the floor in the entryway. She must do that. “I made sure I knew precisely how it worked.” She spoke slowly, clearly, repeating the experience in her mind, demanding his attention.

  John frowned. As she’d hoped, the minute detail seemed to sink in.

  “I stationed myself inside the garden fence, near where the shadow had been before, and I waited, with the lantern closed.”

  “In the dark…”

  “And the cold. You came home and went in. After a few minutes, the other man crept into the square.”

  John’s gaze was fixed on her face. At last, he was truly listening.

  “He stopped by the fence. I opened the lantern and saw him. He looked Chinese.” Mary shivered a little at the memory of his snarl, the way he’d lunged at her. “He was very angry at being caught in the lantern beam.”

  “Angry?”

  “Furious. He was not someone out for a walk, John. Or lost in an unfamiliar district. He was watching you through the parlor window.”

  John’s eyes narrowed. “But I took great care, each time I left Limehouse, to make certain I was alone.”

  “He was amazingly silent,” Mary told him, “and stealthy. I never would have gotten a look at him if I hadn’t lain in wait. With the lantern.”

  “That was very clever.”

  Mary basked in his approval and in relief at seeing the calculating intelligence back in his face.

  “This could be—must be—the person I’ve been hearing about in Limehouse for some time,” John said slowly. “And he is probably the reason the place is closed to me now.”

  Mary nodded. She didn’t know exactly what he meant, but she was delighted to see him back to his “new” self.

  “Why?” he went on, as if thinking aloud. “Why follow and why shut me out? Because I was about to discover something important?”

  “Yes,” said Mary. She didn’t mind now that he was lost in his own thoughts. The tone of them was completely different.

  “But how to find him again?” John wondered. “I don’t think he’ll come back here, after being caught like this.”

  “I’ll draw him,” Mary said. “I can give you a good likeness.”

  Her husband turned to look at her. “But I thought you saw him for only a few moments.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  He looked appreciative but a bit doubtful. “That would be helpful.”

  Mary was filled with a fierce desire to help and to show him what she could do.

  “He’s been extremely elusive,” John went on. “A ‘presence’ talked of in Limehouse but not seen. Clearly, he’s well able to hide.”

  “We’ll find him,” Mary vowed.

  It had grown very late. Mary put out the dark lantern on the way upstairs to bed. Once there, she put her belief in him, her confidence and love, into the touch of her hands, the pliancy of her lips. She assured him, in every way she could imagine, that he was masterful and desirable and all would be well.

  * * *

  Though she itched to get to her sketchbook, she wanted daylight, not the wavering shadows of candles, to draw the face she’d seen in the garden. This must be the most accurate portrait she’d ever produced.

  And so she forced herself to lie still as the hours of the night passed. She breathed, willing her agitation to ease. And slowly, slowly, it did. The silence of the house, the warmth of her husband’s body next to her, and a dragging tide of fatigue finally combined to lull her. And sometime in the respite of that oblivion she wrapped herself around John, holding him like a rare treasure, so that the first words she heard the following day were, “Mary, let go.”

  She blinked awake and found John gently tugging her arms from his chest and easing his legs from under the one she’d flung over him. He loosed her clutching fingers and pressed a kiss on them before setting her hands on the coverlet. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said.

  But she was glad to be roused. She sat up and reached for him again, touching his stubbled cheek and murmuring his name. He smiled and took her hands briefly again before slipping free. He climbed out of bed, away from her. “I must go.”

  “I’m going to draw the person right away.” He nodded. She threw back the covers and rose.

  An hour later, Mary sat before her sketchbook, pencil in hand, concentrating, demanding inspiration. Drawing was her lifeblood. It came as naturally as her breath. But this morning, that didn’t seem the case. The page remained stubbornly blank. No portrait had ever been so important. Why could she not begin? The fate, the happiness, of the man she loved hung on her skill.

  The hand she’d raised to the page trembled a bit. Mary went still, breathed, and waited for the pencil to move, as it always did. And waited. Time ticked past. Her pulse accelerated; her throat grew tight. She’d never had to try so hard to draw. Her hand could not have lost its innate ability. That wasn’t it. She was anxious. That was all. In a moment, it would come.

  Mary leaned in, put the tip of the pencil to the paper. A small black dot appeared. But nothing followed. Very well, if inspiration wouldn’t descend, she would coax it to life. Mechanically, she laid down the folds of a cloak, sketched the hood with a blank oval within, put in the suggestion of the fence, recreating the general outline of what she’d seen in the lantern beam.

  A knock came on the door, and Kate entered before she could speak. Mary stifled a curse. “I really mustn’t be disturbed…”

  “The servant said this was important.” She held out a folded note.

  Even in her frustration, Mary felt a flash of amusement at the way Kate said, “the servant.” Clearly, she no longer saw herself in that category, and just as clearly, the change pleased her no
end. Mary unfolded the note and found a summons from Eleanor.

  She wanted to set it aside and push on with her work, but her neighbor said she had important news. With a sigh, Mary stood.

  Grudging the precious minutes required to don hat and cloak and gloves, she made ready, then hurried downstairs. She was surprised to find Arthur struggling to open the front door. He had a large, obviously heavy basket hooked over one arm. It seemed almost more than he could carry. “What have you got there?” she asked.

  The boy jumped and cried out. The basket tilted and two apples and a turnip bounced from under the cloth laid over the top.

  One apple rolled across the floor to her feet. Mary bent to retrieve it.

  “Don’t bother yourself with that, ma’am,” said Arthur, his voice unusually high. “I’ll pick them up.”

  Puzzled, and a bit suspicious, Mary stepped over to return the fruit to its place. The basket was piled with various fruits and vegetables, she discovered. And nothing else. She looked down at Arthur. He was always hungry, but these were hardly his favorite foods. “What are you doing?”

  “An…I’m…”

  “Have you taken these from the kitchen?” Mrs. Tanner would make a great fuss. How had he even gotten this haul past her?

  “No!” declared Arthur.

  Mary waited. “You know you can eat as much as you wish,” she added finally. “If you are not getting enough…”

  “Ain’t for me,” the boy interrupted. “They’re…they’re for a charity, like.”

  “Charity?” Mary was utterly mystified.

  “Lady Caroline is sending them to…somebody who needs ’em.” Arthur’s voice strengthened as he went on. “She asked me to help, like. She’s that busy.”

  “A gift for the poor?” Why should Caroline employ Arthur on such a mission?

  “Poor. Right. No money at all.” He nodded and spoke even faster. “Her ladyship was asking about my family, see. And I told her how Pa wanted me to learn my lesson, because of that chicken and all.” He gave Mary a wide-eyed look.