Married to a Perfect Stranger

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Married to a Perfect Stranger Page 27

by Jane Ashford


  “Can’t you just direct me…?”

  “Mrs. Bexley, I cannot do anything unless you tell me what this is about.”

  “I could just go upstairs and march into the first office I see,” Mary threatened.

  “No, you couldn’t, actually.”

  Seeing that he was adamant, and right, Mary gave in. “I have some drawings of a man…a Chinese man, who has been following John when he returns from the slums.”

  Conolly appeared to be digesting this. “Drawings,” he said finally.

  “Yes,” Mary answered defiantly, “drawings.” The scandal over Lady Castlereagh trembled between them. “It is very important that someone see them and institute a search for…this man. Because of what happened…before, I do not wish to…embroil John.”

  “You cannot think to exclude…” Conolly hesitated, then said, “You will have to tell me the whole.” He drew her farther away from the attendants at the door.

  Seeing no alternative, Mary told the story of how the drawing had been created.

  When she finished, Conolly was thoughtful. “They must be shown,” he said at last. “But Bexley should be the one…”

  “I won’t have him blamed for my drawings again!”

  Conolly gazed at her, then sighed. “I would not give in, but I think you’re right. This could be important. And urgent.” He considered. “Lord Amherst’s secretary would be best, I think.”

  Relieved, Mary tightened her grip on the sketchbook she carried. “Which way?”

  “I’ll take you up.”

  “I can go alone. I don’t want you to be blamed either.”

  “You can’t go upstairs without an escort,” Conolly replied. “Come along.”

  He took her to an anteroom and spoke to the clerk occupying the desk there. Mary couldn’t hear their quiet exchange, but it was clear the man objected to this unheralded visit. Conolly finally convinced him, however, as he told Mary when he returned. “You will have to wait a little while. But then you will be allowed in.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I shall stay here with you.”

  “No, you needn’t…”

  Conolly held up a hand. “It’s best I do, to make certain you’re admitted. And…” He smiled wryly. “I don’t want to go back to my office and have your husband asking me where I’ve been.”

  They sat in a pair of chairs in the corner and settled to wait.

  * * *

  John rode back even faster than he’d gone. At the livery, he threw his horse’s reins to the ostler and hurried to the Foreign Office headquarters. He had a foot on the stairs when he thought to ask the door wardens a few questions. The answers sent him to the opposite side of the building from his office.

  And there was Mary, with the sketchbook in her lap. “What are you doing here?” he said.

  The clerk at the desk glared at him. John was peripherally aware of Conolly edging toward the door.

  “You mustn’t be here,” Mary said. “I’m going to tell them you had nothing to do with this. It was all my idea to bring the drawings.”

  John reached for the sketchbook. “No! I’ll show them. I was just at home searching for them. You must leave at once. I won’t have you worried…”

  She jerked the book out of reach. He lunged, caught a corner, and yanked.

  They pulled back and forth in a desperate tug-of-war, each protesting.

  “What is the matter with you?” exclaimed the clerk. “Stop at once.”

  “What the deuce is going on out here?” asked a deep, cultured voice.

  John stiffened and turned. Lord Amherst’s secretary stood in the doorway to the inner office, gazing at them with frowning amazement. “Sir!”

  “Bexley?” The secretary frowned and looked at Mary.

  “And Mrs. Bexley,” said the clerk, a picture of disapproval.

  “I’ve brought some…” Mary began.

  “I have something to show you,” said John at the same moment.

  “No, it was my idea,” Mary insisted. “John is not…”

  “My wife was just leaving…”

  “I’m not… You will not be blamed this time…”

  “Perhaps you had better come in,” their host interrupted. His commanding tone silenced them. They followed him into a book-lined office and stood before his desk as he sat.

  “I suppose you know my name,” Mary blurted out. “Because of my drawing of Lady Castlereagh.”

  John hated to see her cheeks redden as Lord Amherst’s secretary nodded. “Mary, let me…”

  “Then you know it was thought to be a striking likeness.” She opened the sketchbook. “I have some others, of a man who has been following John.” She laid the page before him. “It was all my idea to bring them,” she repeated.

  John saw a new resolution in her face. When she’d spoken of her portraits in the past, there had been a shyness, almost an expectation that they would be belittled. Now she presented them…with determined confidence. He felt as if something turned over in his chest. But he had to say, “I intended to bring them to you, sir. Mary should not be dragged into this.” Before the other man could answer, he launched into the story of his explorations in Limehouse and of being followed. “Mary noticed the person first,” he acknowledged.

  “So I waited behind the fence in the square and caught him with a dark lantern,” she said. Her voice quavered slightly. She pointed to the drawing on the desk. “This is the man.” She swallowed. “It is a true likeness. I…I am very good at capturing faces.”

  “Indeed,” said their host.

  John listened for sarcasm in his tone. He didn’t think it was there, but he said, “Astonishingly good. My wife is extremely gifted.” He saw her blink and prayed it was not tears he glimpsed in her eyes.

  They all examined the pages. Lord Amherst’s secretary bent closer, eyes narrowed. “I believe this man was on the ship coming back from China,” he said.

  “But…we did not hire on any Asian crewmembers,” John said. He looked closer.

  “After the Alceste went down,” said the secretary.

  With this hint, John was suddenly flooded with memories. “Yes! Yes, I saw him on Lyra, when we were pulled from the sea. I thought I must have encountered him in Limehouse. I didn’t think…”

  “Interesting.” The secretary turned the pages, examined Mary’s other studies of the figure. “A curious coincidence.”

  “You think he might have had something to do with the wreck?” The idea was startling. There had been high seas and rocks.

  “Impossible to say. There are certainly many in China who want no diplomatic contact with the Western ‘barbarians.’” He straightened. “We must find this fellow, as soon as possible.”

  John leaned forward. “I could go…”

  But the secretary was shaking his head. “Not you. From what you say, your face has become too well known in Limehouse. We will send others there and into the surrounding areas. We can use these portraits.” He turned to examine Mary. “Could you produce a few more likenesses, rather quickly, Mrs. Bexley?”

  “Of course.”

  “Today, that is.”

  “In an hour,” she answered.

  “Splendid.” His examination grew more acute. He shifted his gaze to John and then back, seeming to consider something. “As you know, Bexley, this is a rather delicate time in our trade relations with China.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lord Amherst’s secretary looked at Mary, evaluating. He started to speak, thought about it, then went ahead. “The East India Company has begun to cultivate tea in Assam,” he told her.

  Mary felt the weight of his regard. This felt like a test somehow. “So that someone besides China can sell it?”

  Their host nodded with what looked like approval. “Indeed, they intend to
break the Chinese monopoly.”

  “And we would prefer that China not discover this new venture,” Mary replied.

  He smiled like a man who has proved a budding theory. “Precisely.”

  After that, matters moved very briskly. Mary was given a seat at a desk and a handful of pencils. She used the blank pages of her sketchbook for more likenesses of their quarry. John was closeted with others to review the routes he had frequented in Limehouse. By the end of the afternoon, men were fanning out through the slums to find John’s shadow, and Lord Amherst’s secretary was bidding his visitors a cordial farewell. “Thank you, Mrs. Bexley. You have done us a service. Good work, both of you.”

  Gazing into Mary’s eyes, John saw his pride and affection perfectly mirrored there.

  * * *

  In the street outside the Foreign Office John found a hackney cab. His horse was to be retrieved by a trustworthy fellow named Simmons, who would take the animal to its customary stable and then keep watch on their house for any signs of the man they were looking for.

  Mary was still vibrating with triumph as they climbed into the vehicle. Her drawings had been received more enthusiastically than she could have dreamed. John had been praised, too. His superiors clearly valued him. She felt they’d erased the last stigma of their earlier disgrace. She wanted to bounce in the seat and crow or hang out the window and declare her happiness to pedestrians on the pavement. She settled for smiling at her husband as he sat beside her.

  John put an arm around her and pulled her against him. Mary nestled close, reveling in the feel of his strong body along the length of hers. The lines and hollows of his muscular frame were familiar now but all the more thrilling because of that, it seemed. Bursting with love and kindling desire, Mary turned a little in his embrace, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him.

  His response was all a woman could want. His lips took up her kiss and deepened it until she felt as if she was drowning in a sea of sensation. His hands moved under her cloak with possessive tenderness. One found its way inside the bodice of her gown and teased taut flesh. Afire, Mary let her fingertips drift down over the buttons of his waistcoat, and farther, until they encountered unmistakable evidence of his arousal.

  John groaned and drew away, breathing hard. “We must stop, Mary, or we will arrive home in a scandalous state.”

  She let her fingers roam a bit.

  “My darling…”

  She loved the way his breath caught on another groan. With John she had learned the intoxication of the power to give pleasure. She exercised it again.

  “Ahh. Really, Mary…Ohh. No.” His hand closed over hers and drew it gently but decisively away. “Simmons cannot catch us climbing out of a cab half-dressed and panting.”

  Though the image this conjured made her laugh, Mary had to concede. Simmons had planned to ride with all speed and reach the square before them if he could. She would not embarrass her husband before his colleague. “Later,” she whispered, inches from his ear.

  “You may count on that,” came the murmured reply.

  * * *

  Moments after they unlocked the front door at home, Arthur popped up from the kitchen stair. “It’s both of them,” he called down it. “All safe and sound.”

  A rumble of complaint traveled upward in response.

  “Cook’s mad as fire about the dinner,” the boy added. “Nobody told her you’d be late, and the fish has dried to shoe leather, she says.” He regarded them hopefully, keen for information about where they’d been.

  “Let her serve us whatever chewable bits remain,” declared John in a voice that was only too likely to carry between the floors.

  Mary was not surprised to hear an indignant reply from Mrs. Tanner. “My dinner is not spoiled! Drat that boy.”

  Mary took off her cloak. When Arthur reached out, she gave it to him. “Is Kate…?”

  “Off someplace with her fee-an-say,” Arthur said.

  “Ah.” That meant Arthur would be serving at dinner, which he should not be obliged to do. Unless Mary wanted to carry the dishes up herself. Not for the first time, she counted out the days until Kate’s wedding in her mind.

  The boy waited and took John’s coat and hat as well. “I’m going to fetch that bottle of champagne,” John said. He’d started a small wine cellar in a corner of the storeroom. “We’re going to celebrate.”

  “Celebrate what?” asked Arthur, who showed no sign of moving even though he was nearly buried in cloth. “Have you been…?”

  “Life,” John said, heading for the stairs.

  Mary took pity on Arthur, who so clearly wanted to go after him, and retrieved the coats. She took them upstairs and left them, along with her bonnet, before tidying her hair and freshening up. Dinner was on the table when she returned, and the door to the kitchen stairs was closed. John was twisting the cork in a fat bottle. It gave with a pop. He filled two glasses. “A toast,” he said as he handed her one.

  She raised it and waited, warmed by the admiration in his gaze.

  “To a marvelously talented artist,” he said. “And all her gifts have brought us.”

  Mary felt her face heat with gratification. She sipped, then raised her glass again. “To one of the leading lights of the Foreign Office,” she proposed, “and his certain continued success.” She watched John’s cheek flush as he drank.

  He held out the bottle and refilled the goblets. “To the ‘managing’ woman I found when I came home from China. Thank God.” He looked at her with shining blue eyes.

  “To the masterful man who returned to me. Thank God.”

  They drank.

  “If I hadn’t been called away, we never would have…”

  “Fallen in love?” whispered Mary, her heart hammering in her throat.

  “Fallen in love,” her husband repeated, holding her gaze with the promise of forever.

  Mary held up her glass one more time. “To perfect strangers,” she said.

  John grinned. They drained the goblets. And Mrs. Tanner’s dinner was left to congeal on the plates.

  Twenty-two

  Despite all the Foreign Office’s resources and efforts, the man in Mary’s drawings was not found. Days passed with no word of him. John heard from the agents who were combing Limehouse that they believed some people recognized the portraits, but none would give information. Fear and uncertainty seemed to seal their lips. Watchers saw no sign of him near the Bexley house either.

  “You won’t go looking for him yourself, will you?” Mary asked him one evening when he had shared this news of failure.

  “I might have…” At her anxious gesture, he shook his head. “If I thought I could do better. But I can’t. I’ve contacted Shen and every other source I cultivated. None of them had substantive news. The fellow knows he was seen and has gone into hiding. Very effectively. Perhaps he’s even left the country.”

  “I hope he has!” Mary refused to be sorry for alerting him. Who knew what he might have done if she hadn’t? John could be dead in a slum alleyway or before their front door. She prayed he was gone. The storm of scandal had passed. John was more valued than ever at his office. All had ended well. She needed no more excitement of that kind.

  Thus, when John brought home an invitation to an afternoon reception at the Castlereaghs’ country house, Mary didn’t feel the triumph that the first such gesture had roused. On the one hand, it seemed the crown and justification of all that had occurred, a mark of favor that John fully deserved. On the other, there was the risk of new disasters. Not that she would draw for anyone’s entertainment! Lord Castlereagh himself could beg on bended knee, and she wouldn’t touch pencil to paper before the ranks of society.

  “It is a large party,” John told her. “Not exclusive, and we are not invited to stay.”

  “They expect people to drive down and back on the same day
?”

  “It can be done. It’s a matter of twelve miles from Charing Cross. I shall hire a chaise. If we leave very early…”

  “And return in the dark?”

  “There’s a full moon that evening. They planned it so, I believe. And there will be a number of carriages on the road. Quite safe.”

  “It is a great effort and expense for a few hours,” Mary grumbled.

  “If you don’t wish to go…”

  “No, no. It is an honor for you. Of course we shall go.” She shook off her lingering reticence. Old habits tended to return, she’d found, even when you no longer wanted or needed them. They were like oak roots twisted deep into internal crevices. “Is William Conolly going? Perhaps we could ride together.” That would make the journey, and the party, easier.

  “I suggested it,” John replied. “But I’m not certain he’s invited. He was…oddly evasive.”

  “That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “Indeed, it’s not. He’s been a bit strange lately. But he swears nothing is wrong. I’ve been rather preoccupied myself.”

  Mary was too taken up with thoughts of the coming, not ordeal—she mustn’t think of it that way—say rather pleasant duty, to do more than nod.

  * * *

  On the day, they left at dawn, warmly dressed, with hot bricks at their feet in the chaise and drove southeast into Kent. The driver kept the pace brisk but steady, so that there would be no need to change horses. The team would rest during the party and take them home again later on. More than once, Mary wished that William Conolly and Caroline were with them in the coach. Not that she didn’t enjoy the sole company of her husband, but their assurance and familiar presence had been comforting at the last Castlereagh gathering. Until Caroline’s unfortunate idea had set her drawing, Mary thought. And she decided the present arrangement would do very well.

  They arrived at midmorning to find a line of carriages already pulled up before the facade of Waletts, the Castlereaghs’ country retreat. Guests stepped down and were ushered inside to be plied with mulled wine or hot tea. Mary welcomed the latter, cupping her chilled hands around the cup. Strangely, no one offered to take their cloaks and gloves. Mary examined the chattering crowd, hoping to see someone she knew.

 

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