Married to a Stranger

‘I would have thought you had already waited long enough,’ he said with a lift of one eyebrow. He swept on without waiting for her reply. ‘I will go to London tomorrow, deal with various pressing Company matters and make sure the house is readied for your arrival. I will speak to the butler and have him find a maid for you. I must do some shopping. Then I shall return to the Hall for the wedding.’

Was there no hesitation, not even for a second? Sophia wondered, watching the hooded eyes, the long fingers lying apparently at rest. This is your marriage you are talking about, she wanted to say to him. Our future. How can you be so calm?

But Callum swept on. ‘The wedding will be by common licence and, under the circumstances, very quiet. Six months has passed, Sophia is in half-mourning, there should be no adverse comment, but I would not wish to attract gossip. I trust two weeks will be sufficient time for your cousin to join you, Mrs Langley? Sophia said that was the plan for a companion.’

‘Yes. Dear Lettice can come at any time; she will be delighted, I know. But Sophia’s bride clothes—’

‘She may shop all she likes in London,’ Callum said. He did not shrug, Sophia thought, but he might just as well have done.

‘So romantic,’ she muttered and saw by the lift of an eyebrow that he had heard her. She raised her voice. ‘And if I do not like the house you have in London, or the servants?’ Of all the arrogant, cold, practical men! ‘I thought we were going to live at Long Welling. I like Long Welling,’ she added rather desperately. Her friends were close, St Albans was a familiar and friendly little town that she knew her way around. How was she going to cope, all alone in London with just a virtual stranger of a husband for company?

‘My business requires me to be in London for the present,’ Callum said in a tone of finality. ‘It will take time for Long Welling to be got into a state to be our country home. If you dislike the London house, we will move to another. If the staff fail to please you, you may dismiss them.’

But we cannot dismiss each other, she thought. Yet would it have been any better with Daniel? He would have been almost as much a stranger as Callum and there would have been the disillusion of acknowledging that their love had evaporated with time and distance. Here, at least, there were no illusions to begin with.

‘You will not object if I do that?’ she asked, curious at this willingness to accommodate her. Obviously his emotions were not at all engaged with any of this, not even the house he had been living in for six months.

‘The home will be your concern.’

Well, that was plain enough. It sounded lonely, though. Oh, pull yourself together, Sophia, she scolded. There will be balls and parties when the Season starts and exhibitions and libraries before then—the whole of London to explore. You will make friends soon enough. She was shaken by yesterday’s experience and today’s fall and her resilience was low, worn down by months of worry, that was all it was.

‘It all sounds wonderful,’ she said with a polite smile. Callum stared back at her, his gaze steady and unreadable under level brows. He made her a slight bow. Acknowledgment of her compliance? A genuine desire to marry her—or just a cynical satisfaction at getting his own way?

Sophia felt a little shiver run through her and the smile stiffened on her lips. Opposite her, the man sitting at his ease in the wing chair lowered his lids over the clear hazel eyes and she realised she could not read his thoughts in the slightest. Then he looked up again, directly at her, and she saw the heat and the desire in his look and knew she could interpret one thought at least: he was thinking about yesterday afternoon. Was desire to be the only heat in this cool marriage? She shivered.

The falling notes of the hymn died away. The choir, who a moment ago had looked like a flock of cherubs, their innocent, well-scrubbed faces turned up towards the stained glass window of the east end of the church, became once more a group of freckled village boys, nudging each other as they sat down in the ancient oak stalls.

No doubt they had mice in their pockets and catapults hidden under their cassocks, Cal thought, amused by the normality of their barely disciplined naughtiness. Beside him Will cleared his throat and on his right hand Sophia closed her hymn book.

In a moment they would leave the high box pew and walk down the aisle to shake hands with the vicar who would be marrying them in three days’ time.

And Will and I can both get dead drunk tonight, Cal hoped. He was tired. Beyond tired, he thought, contemplating restless nights, hectic days and miles of travel.

Now all he wanted was sleep and to get this wedding over with. He had done everything that was needful, he thought. At the East India Company offices he had consolidated his position in a post that brought status, a doubling of what his salary had been in India and the opportunity for endless profitable investment in return for his total commitment to the Company’s interests.

He had reorganised his house in fashionable Mayfair to receive its new mistress. The rent was high—twice what he would have paid in the City—but they were going to move in the best society, not mingle with the cits. He had given his most superior butler carte blanche to appoint a fashionable lady’s maid and to make all ready for his return and he had come back here and endured Mrs Langley’s endless list-making and insistence on discussing every aspect of the wedding in wearisome detail.

Then there was a rustle of silk beside him as he walked up the path between the leaning gravestones and he looked down at Sophia, silent in lavender at his side. He held the lych gate for her and then offered his arm as they waited for the carriage to draw up. It was necessary to stand there and shake hands with some of the congregation who had gathered round, to agree that after such a terrible accident, such a tragedy, that it was a blessing that he was comforted by the support of Miss Langley, who had so bravely put aside her own grief to marry him.

No one appeared to think it strange that she should marry the wrong brother. It was the most logical solution, several people opined and, they added, when they thought they were out of earshot, very gallant of him to step in and prevent Miss Langley being left a spinster.

Cal was quite certain she had heard those whispers. Sophia’s chin was up, there was colour in her cheeks and her eyes were sparkling with what he strongly suspected was anger, not chagrin.

‘Don’t take any notice of them,’ he said when they were at last free to walk across to the carriage.

‘I do not like to be pitied,’ Sophia said.

‘Nonsense, they are jealous,’ Cal retorted. ‘At least, the ladies are. They all wish they could marry me.’

‘Why, of all the conceited men!’ She cut him a sideways glance. ‘You are jesting? Aren’t you?’

‘Certainly not. You have only to eavesdrop a little. I’m a son of the Hall—and Will has not yet produced an heir; I must be as rich as Golden Ball if I am in the East India Company and, according to Mrs Whitely, I have powerful thighs. Now what do you think she means by that?’

‘That your breeches are too tight,’ Sophia flashed back. ‘Mrs Whitely is a very foolish woman.’

‘She is certainly an outrageous flirt.’ The Whitelys had been amongst Will’s dinner guests last night and Cal had enjoyed an interesting passage with her in the conservatory. The lady certainly exhibited both experience and a willingness to demonstrate it, but even with the lingering frustration of controlling himself with Sophia, he had felt disinclined to oblige her amongst his brother’s potted palms.