Never Marry a Stranger

by Gayle Callen

  Mr. Smythe bobbed his head even as he bowed, looking rather like a bird.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you at last, Captain. You’re a rather famous war hero in these parts.”

  “Mr. Smythe is new to Cambridgeshire,” Emily confided.

  “And what do you do here, Mr. Smythe, besides meet with my wife?”

  Though Matthew spoke pleasantly, he saw Emily’s smile fade a bit as she blinked at him.

  Mr. Smythe never stopped grinning. “I’m the local parish curate, sir, assistant to Mr. Wesley, the vicar.”

  Matthew nodded. “I remember Mr. Wesley, a favorite guest at Madingley Court.”

  Emily squeezed his arm, grinning up at him as if his sudden recollection was such a good thing. He blinked down at her, distracted from his curiosity by her loveliness.

  “Mr. Wesley is in London this autumn,” Emily said, “preparing for his upcoming wedding. So Mr. Smythe came up from London to assist the parish. We’ve been so grateful for his help.”

  “And how do you help?” Matthew asked Emily.

  Emily grew pink, and Matthew could not miss the way Mr. Smythe regarded her with fondness.

  “You had so much to deal with when you first arrived home,” she said softly. “I didn’t want to overwhelm you with things that weren’t immediately important.”

  Mr. Smythe cleared his throat. “She is being far too modest, Captain Leland. Her work is very important to the village. And to think, these children had to go clear to Cambridge for any sort of education. Most didn’t, you know,” he confided solemnly. “How would their families have taken them there? It was all Mrs. Leland’s idea to make things easier for the children.”

  “The children who just went running past?” Matthew said, beginning to understand.

  “Those are some of our students,” Emily said with pride in her voice.

  “You’re their teacher?” Matthew asked in disbelief.

  “Only until I can convince the village justices that there is enough interest to have our own national school here in Comberton. More children than ever are attending. Few came today because they thought I would be too busy at Madingley Court with your homecoming. But I had enlisted Mr. Smythe’s help to teach when I couldn’t.”

  “This is an interesting school,” Matthew said, glancing again at the dining parlor.

  “She rents the space herself,” Mr. Smythe said, grinning at Emily.

  Emily gestured about the parlor. “It costs little, and it is so important for boys—and girls—to have access to schooling. Everyone needs to better themselves.”

  “I saw the books on your desk,” Matthew said.

  She nodded happily. “You didn’t ask about them, so I wondered what you thought.”

  “I wish you would have told me. I’ve been curious what you did while I was gone.”

  She slid her hand into the crook of his elbow. “It is not so important a thing as defending your country,” she said, smiling. “I thought it could wait.”

  Mr. Smythe cleared his throat. “I’ll be off, Mrs. Leland. When I hear word about the new schoolmaster, I’ll let you know.”

  When he was gone, Emily told Matthew, “The village is close to hiring a schoolmaster. They’ll decide after they interview him. And next I shall convince them to find space for a permanent schoolroom.”

  So she and Mr. Smythe had been discussing a schoolmaster while he’d eavesdropped like a jealous fool.

  Now that the curate had gone, Emily gathered a stack of books, glancing over her shoulder at him, saying nothing.

  He took the heavy books from her—she’d carried these on her walk?—and set them back down. “Do you have somewhere you need to be?”

  “No, of course not,” she said slowly.

  “The innkeeper can watch over your books. Today is Market Day. Many villagers are here. As you saw earlier, I can’t remember everyone’s names. Would you walk with me and reintroduce me to them?”

  She brightened with pleasure. “I would love to!”

  Why was she so happy in this little village, teaching children, escorting her amnesiac husband? It just didn’t make sense.

  “Perhaps you have friends here you’d like me to meet,” he continued, still open-minded about a fellow conspirator, but beginning to think that Emily’s plans and motives were all her own.

  But she didn’t respond to his interest in her friends.

  As they walked back toward the market stalls, she gestured toward the year’s appointed constable, and once she said the name, Matthew recognized him.

  “The constable, eh? I remember Blake as being a rather angry young man.”

  He noticed that Emily seemed nonchalant about the man’s profession and its implicit threat to her activities—but then, he knew she was very good at hiding any guilt she might be feeling.

  “How wonderful that you remember such things!” she said, squeezing his arm. “Surely the more you’re home, the more your memories will return. That might be sad for me, because then I won’t feel as useful. I like helping you.” She wore an almost wistful expression. “Blake has been a good constable. He’s the local miller now, and he’s married, with a second child about to be born.”

  As they walked down the street, many people stopped to welcome him home. All of them seemed to know Emily. She continued to tell him people’s names, and several times it honestly helped him. As a young man he’d always enjoyed London more than Cambridgeshire, and once he joined the army four years ago, he’d seldom been able to come home. Now, he was flattered by how many people were glad to see him and happy for his recovery.

  At the mercer’s shop, he impulsively bought ribbons to decorate Emily’s hair. Next, he purchased paper and pencils for her students. By the soft expression in her green eyes, he might have been buying her jewels.

  After they wandered through the market stalls, he purchased them each a meat pie, and they sat on a bench near the covered well to eat them. Soon, her students began approaching to meet the man returned from the dead. Emily gently corrected their impertinent questions, listened intently to each child’s plans for Market Day, and behaved like the kind schoolmistress everyone would wish to have. A person who didn’t love children would never have chosen teaching to pass the time, he reflected. She was working hard at something that people were only beginning to realize was important.

  What did Emily really want?

  When they at last had a moment to themselves, he quietly asked, “Did we discuss children before our marriage?”

  She gave him a shy smile. “You mean in that whirlwind two weeks?”

  “The two weeks when you were in mourning for your family,” he added, then regretted his words, not wanting to bring her attention to his suspicions.

  Her smile turned rueful. “I imagine that to a man who isn’t involved in the immediacy of our courtship, it can seem—unbelievable.”

  But as he looked at her, her champagne hair glinting from beneath her bonnet, the sun bringing a lovely blush to her cheeks, he knew that desiring her was very believable. He felt it now, the simmering tension, the way he thought too much about the coming night, when he could be alone with her and take their intimacy another step further.

  “My heightened emotions surely played a part,” she continued quietly, watching the villagers mill randomly through the stalls. “But you were also preparing to depart, and the fear of never seeing each other again was…pervasive. But to answer your first question, no, we did not discuss children. We didn’t need to. We were so…in tune with each other, wanted the same things out of marriage, that…”

  Her voice faded, and to his surprise, she turned her face away and dabbed at the corner of her eye. Was that a tear? He waited for her to explain, but she said nothing, and he sensed her uneasiness.

  “You do not need to be uncomfortable,” he said at last. “I know that my mother had hoped you were with child when you arrived. Did you want a baby so much?”

  Emily could not believe that they were
having this discussion on the village green, her students running nearby, their parents wandering through the Market Day stalls.

  “Yes, I wanted your baby,” she whispered, lying, yet not, for she did want children. But now she could not stop thinking of the threat to this idyllic marriage she planned to give him.

  He put his hand on hers, where it rested in her lap. “Now you have another chance for a child, a lifetime’s worth of chances.”

  Oh God, her eyes were stinging again. What was wrong with her? This was what she wanted! “Matthew, I guess I didn’t tell you about my work with children because I was worried you might disapprove.” She held up a hand as he began to speak. “Most men do not look kindly on their wives working, and even though I was not earning wages, I was doing something Society would frown upon for a lady. After all, we have the standards of a dukedom to uphold. You and I never discussed such things early in our marriage. Yet today you accepted my work, and even offered your help. Thank you.”

  “It was only the purchasing of supplies.”

  “You have me as your wife, yet you’re willing to share me, to allow me to do something I feel strongly about. It is a very open-minded way of thinking.”

  And even though they were surely being watched, he hugged her briefly to his side. But as they rode back home together on his horse, and she was nestled sideways across his lap, a more demure way of riding through the village, she could not help dreading what he would think if he knew that the woman he thought of as his schoolmistress wife had done something worthy of blackmail.

  A day had passed since she’d received Stanwood’s threatening letter. Worried about what he’d do, she almost hadn’t come to the village today. But Stanwood wasn’t the sort to openly confront her and risk jail rather than a reward. And she could not cower within Madingley Court. She needed to meet this threat head on, see what he wanted, and deal with it.

  The life she wanted was within her grasp; more and more, Matthew was believing in their marriage, willing to accept it. She was determined to make it happen.

  Chapter 12

  When Emily set her school books on her desk, she saw a sealed letter tucked beneath the ink bottle. She frowned, remembering that Matthew had been writing letters just that morning. But there was no address, and the wax was a blob without a proper seal—just like the one that had arrived for her yesterday.

  She frantically tore it open, her heart beginning to pound.

  My Dearest Emily,

  Have you been looking for me? I have been watching you, waiting for the perfect time for our little talk. First the schoolchildren were in the way today, and then Captain Leland. They can’t protect you from me for long.

  S.

  Oh God, Stanwood had written again, but this time he hadn’t used the post. Someone had set it here on her desk, not that long ago. If it had been hand delivered to the front door, at least her name would be listed, but there was nothing.

  How could a stranger have possibly gotten into the house, with hundreds of servants everywhere?

  Or…could Stanwood have persuaded one of the servants to his side? She shuddered, remembering his talent for coercion.

  Was she supposed to be afraid now, in this house where she’d always felt safe? No, she wouldn’t live like that. Harming her would gain Stanwood nothing. He wanted her fearful so that she would succumb to whatever he demanded.

  She would wait, as he wanted her to, but she would not do so idly. Someone within this house had put the letter on her desk.

  Emily went to look for her maid, Maria, who could not remember seeing anyone near Matthew’s suite. Emily knew she even had to suspect Maria, so she casually questioned the other maids who looked after the women of the family. No one had seen anyone unusual. Dozens of servants had permission to be in the family wing.

  This kind of questioning would get her nowhere, she realized with frustration.

  Before dinner, Emily waited for Matthew to return to change his clothing. He’d gone shooting with his father for several hours. She listened at the closed door to the dressing room, and when she heard him enter at last, pressed her ear to the wood, waiting what she thought was a suitable amount of time for him to change. She did not hear the voice of his valet, which no longer seemed so strange for Matthew. He was a man used to caring for himself.

  At last she knocked, and when he called for her to enter, she hurried in, smiling at him. He was partially dressed in his evening clothes, wearing his trousers and shirtsleeves, feet still intimately bare.

  He looked up at her, cravat in his hand. A slow smile lit his eyes, distracting her from her troubles, making her feel warm all the way to her toes.

  “I saw you riding with Professor Leland,” she said, surprised at her breathlessness. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

  “Shooting defenseless birds is always a pleasant time.” He grinned.

  She waved a hand. “You are teasing me. I am sure Cook appreciated whatever you brought back. But did you and your father have a chance to really talk?”

  “About what? About you?”

  She gave him a wry smile. “I don’t know—do men talk about their wives with their fathers? Oh, don’t answer that. I was with your mother this afternoon, and she, too, was glad that the two of you spent time together.”

  “We spoke of Lady Rosa.”

  He blinked at her, as if he were surprised by what he’d revealed.

  “He has long ago forgiven her for her disbelief in him,” Matthew said. “Even now he feels very guilty that they came so close to divorce. But the improvement in their relationship has been a great comfort to him. He said a scientist does not make a very proper husband for the daughter of a duke.”

  He walked slowly toward her, and just his impending nearness seemed to take the air away that she needed to breathe.

  “Just like you’re not a proper wife—”

  She tried not to stiffen.

  “—or so you’ve told me.”

  Her knees went weak with relief. He was standing so close that if she took a deep enough breath, her breasts would touch his chest. It made her feel…languid, sensual.

  “Would a proper wife know how to tie a cravat?” Matthew continued with a sudden grin.

  He was so very large, so intimidating, so…male. Different than her in every way. She liked the feeling.

  And then she realized that he’d asked for her help. “Where is your valet?”

  “I have not used one in several years. I can draw my own bath, and dress myself…or at least I could.” He looked at the starched cloth in his hand. “And I used to be able to tie one of these. But the ability is gone.”

  Before he could be bothered by his memory lapse, she touched his chest, palms flat against the heat of him, even as she looked deeply into his eyes. “Allow me to help.”

  When he only handed her the cravat, she tried not to show her disappointment. But then his large, firm hands settled on her waist. She slid the cravat about the high starched points of his collar and gathered it together to form a loose bow.

  “And where did you learn to tie a cravat?” he asked.

  His breath on her face was soft and warm, and her reaction felt so very…intimate, deep within her body. She straightened the white bow, then slid her hands down his chest, smoothing the creases—feeling the curve of hard muscle.

  “I had three brothers and few servants. There was not money for personal valets.”

  “But was there money for tutors?” he asked.

  Surprised, she raised her face to his. “Yes. They were gentlemen, after all.”

  “But you were not tutored with them.”

  “No, I wasn’t.” She smiled. “I was taught the things a lady needed, like reading and arithmetic, and of course needlework, drawing, and—”

  “Not skills that would have enabled you to work as, say, a governess when your entire family died.”

  A frisson of unease went down her spine. “No, I didn’t have to worry about such things. I had c
ousins I could have lived with. I would have been safe.”

  “But you fell in love with me.”

  His hands slid up over hers, where they rested against his chest.

  “And I took care of you,” he continued.

  Somehow that annoyed her, and she spoke without thinking. “And I took care of you.”

  “Did you?”

  Her palms were growing unnaturally hot against his chest, and she could feel the beat of his heart, so solid, so normal, unlike hers, which raced with nervousness and excitement.

  “I know you’re caring for me now,” he continued, before she could speak. “I am a rather helpless man, my memory full of holes. But how did you care for me when we were first married?”

  “You didn’t marry me only because you thought I needed to be rescued.” She tossed her head.

  He laughed. “You will no doubt say that I loved you, that I needed you.”

  She found herself shuffled backward until she was up against the wall. He leaned his hips into her.

  “Were you always so spirited?” he asked.

  “Always. It’s one of the reasons you fell in love with me.”

  Abruptly, she pulled his head down and kissed him with all the passion he aroused in her. She invaded his mouth, tasted the essence of him, and wanted more. She wanted to show him the kind of woman she was, wanted him to see that he could not do without her. He needed to see her as his wife.

  He pushed his thigh between hers, spreading her legs within her skirts. The feeling was shocking and too pleasurable. He didn’t stop there, but kept moving against her with his thigh, almost rhythmically, his hips thrusting into hers. His hand slid down over her right hip, down the back of her thigh, only to lift it so he could fit better against her body.

  If there were no clothes between them, how much better this would feel…

  She gasped as his mouth left hers to trail down her neck. She wore her evening clothes already, and his lips were able to find a path down to the valley between her breasts. She unabashedly held his head against her, her hips arched forward wantonly, taking deep pleasure in his movements against her. Her rising need grew into hot, sharp urgency. He suckled the upper curve of her breast, taking her skin into his mouth. It should have hurt—but it felt provocative and wild. She wanted to pull the gown down her body, bare herself, have his mouth where his hands had been just last night, when she’d been in her bath.