Married to a Stranger

‘He would not have exerted himself if you did not merit it,’ Sophia said. ‘I am glad you will stay in England. I certainly do not wish to bring up children in the Indian climate; I have heard too many stories of the illnesses they succumb to.’ For a long time she had told herself that was why she had not pressed Daniel about marriage; now she knew it had been an excuse.

‘Ah, we are discussing children now?’ Sophia looked sideways and found Callum was smiling. Faintly, it was true. She realised she was staring at his mouth and switched back to looking straight ahead. ‘Should I take that as a promising sign?’

‘Not necessarily,’ she said, wary that this was going too fast again. ‘I am merely considering all aspects of your proposal.’

‘But if you are convinced I am not returning to India you will marry me and if you think I might go back, you will not have me.’

‘Callum Chatterton, you are harassing me! I said no such thing and this is not a matter to be bargained over.’

‘Very well, let me be clear then. I need an heir; I would like several children, in fact. But I would not expect you to live in India and certainly not bring up a family there.’

‘And I would not wish to spend long periods separated from my husband.’

‘Flattering,’ he remarked and she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, suddenly the small girl again.

‘I did not mean that!’

‘I can assure you, that eventuality is highly unlikely to occur.’ When she did not reply he added, ‘I am prepared to promise you that I will not take a posting in the Far East again without your express approval. You see how convinced I am that you will suit me?’

‘Why, thank you, sir,’ Sophia muttered and caught sight of that elusive smile again. But would you suit me? Does that really matter?

‘Here is the turning to Wellingford village.’

‘And Daniel’s estate,’ Sophia said, pulling herself together. This is where she would have lived if she had married Daniel.

‘Yes. It is years since I’ve been there. I have no idea why Grandmama left this one to Dan and the other to me. She used to reside here and Great-Aunt Dorothea had Long Welling. There have been tenants in until recently, so they should both be in good repair, but as for decoration, I have no idea.’

‘Paint and fabrics are easily dealt with. The question is, which feels best to you.’ But her heart was beating a little faster at the prospect. A home of her own, finally. I am deciding on marrying a man, not a house, she reminded herself. There were any number of changes one could make to a house, but not to a grown man, not one as single-minded and stubborn as Callum Chatterton. But she must stop thinking about this as a marriage of love, or even affection. This would be a marriage of convenience with most of the convenience on her side. It would be up to her to accommodate herself to him, not the other way around.

‘There.’ Callum reined in the pair at the crest of a small hill. The valley opened up before them, green and lush; the fields were interspersed with coppices and a larger beech wood crowned the opposite hill. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the village and on the slope directly across from them sat a neat brick house.

‘What do you think?’

‘It looks smug,’ Sophia said instantly, startled out of her reverie by the force of her reaction. ‘So symmetrical and tidy.’ Two windows either side of the front door, five on the floor above, five peeking out from the roof behind the parapet. The drive swept round at the front in a perfect circle with a central flower bed. Service buildings flanked the house in carefully balanced order on either side. It was like a doll’s house or a child’s drawing.

‘And that is wrong?’ Callum was studying it with his head on one side. ‘Everything looks so different after India, I am still not used to it. Except the Hall, of course—that just feels like home.’

‘Shall we look at this one inside?’

‘Isn’t that rather shocking?’ Callum kept his face perfectly straight, but she guessed he was teasing her.

‘I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,’ she said. ‘Driving around in the curricle is rather fast, going into an empty house alone with a man is shocking. But I have come this far; I may as well give you my opinion on the inside as well if you think it would help you make a decision about the house. Your house.’

Callum moved the horses into a walk again and they wended their way down the hill, along the village street where they were much stared at, and up the opposite slope to the gates.

Close to, the air of immaculate formality was reduced somewhat by a rather ragged garden, a drive in need of weeding and dull window glass. Callum drove round to the deserted stables, tied up the pair and offered her his arm as they walked back to the front door. ‘The last tenants left two months ago,’ he said. ‘Will did not re-let because he knew I’d want a free choice.’

‘This feels like intruding,’ Sophia said with a shiver as they stood in the front hall. ‘I half-expect someone to appear and demand to know what we are doing.’

‘Yes.’ Callum threw open the doors on either side. ‘Odd, is it not? When Grandmama lived here it always seemed a friendly enough place. The rooms are well proportioned and the view good.’

Sophia followed him. ‘I suppose we should look at the kitchens and servants’ quarters.’

Those proved to be perfectly satisfactory. Callum did not, to her relief, suggest they look at the bedrooms. ‘It is a very good house,’ Sophia said as they returned to the front door.

‘And you do not like it.’

‘It is not for me to say,’ she responded, earning a sideways look from those penetrating hazel eyes. ‘Do you?’

‘Not much. It is … dull. I cannot imagine us living here.’

‘What are houses in India like?’ Sophia asked, steering the conversation away from marriage as they went back to the stables.

‘The Europeans live in single-storied houses called bungalows, with a wide and shady veranda around the sides. You spend a lot of time out on the veranda. When I was holding court I would sit there and the petitioners would assemble in the courtyard in front. In the evening that is where we would all sit and talk and drink.

‘There are wide windows covered with slatted shutters to let in the breeze, and each room has a big fan in the ceiling that is moved by the punkah-wahllah, a man who sits outside in the passageway and pulls the string with his toe. The bathroom has a door to the outside so the water carrier can come and fill up the tanks and take away the waste. The kitchens are separate because of the heat and the risk of fire. Servants are very cheap so one becomes lazy easily,’ he added.

‘How?’ Sophia asked. Callum, she thought, would not take to a life of indolence. Now, recovered physically from his ordeal, he gave her the sense of suppressed energy. Or perhaps it was simply impatience with her indecision.

‘Oh, you could be carried everywhere if you wanted. You reach out for your glass and someone puts it into your hand. You forget something and a bearer scurries off to get it the moment you frown, apologising as though it was his fault and not yours. Some of the mem-sahibs—the European wives—had constant battles with their cooks, wanting them to make English dishes. If you get used to Indian food it is much easier.’

‘Would you want Indian food in England?’ she asked, seized with trepidation at the thought of explaining dishes she did not understand to a temperamental English cook or, worse, a French one. Stop thinking like that! It is not my problem. Not yet.

‘I could always employ an Indian cook, I suppose,’ he said.

‘Of course,’ she said, politely, and then saw the amusement in his eyes. ‘You are teasing me, are you not? Seeing how far I would be prepared to accommodate your whims.’

‘Whims? A man’s dinner table is almost the most important priority.’

‘What is more important?’ Sophia asked. ‘No, do not answer that! I walked right into it.’

‘I cannot imagine what you mean.’ Callum sounded all innocence. But the man had a sense of humour, thank heavens, even if he was using it to bait her with.

Sophia tried to recall the brothers nine years ago. Daniel was usually laughing and joking. He rarely took anything seriously, except when they were together. Callum, as he had grown up, had become quieter, more intense. More private, she supposed. Or perhaps he was simply being tactful and not intruding on his twin’s courtship.

At least, he had kept out of it until that last day when he had tried to stop her tying herself to Daniel. Why had he done that? At the time she had been too hurt and indignant to puzzle over it, too distressed at Daniel’s departure to worry about what Callum thought. He had been perceptive, it seemed, and had had his twin’s best interests at heart. The love had not lasted—at least, not on her part. She could not guess at Daniel’s feelings.

She brought her mind back to the present and found Callum was taking a back lane through the woods. ‘This is charming. And mysterious,’ she added as they came out of sunlight into shade. The great beeches soared on either side; their smooth grey trunks rose like pillars in an outdoor cathedral, and the tracks that led off on either side wound their way deep into the wood.

‘I came this back way because I wanted to see if the house is still as I remember it, and this is the way we came when I was a child,’ Callum said. ‘You are going to love it or hate it, I think. It is not possible to be indifferent.’

The lane became a track, swung round to the right and opened up into a wide clearing. To the left there were views over the valley and a decent metalled carriage drive heading off to the valley road. To the right stood the house. Or, rather, there it grew, for it was hard not to think about it as anything but organic, rooted in the earth. It was built mainly of soft pinkish-red brick with a section of white stone that looked as though it might have been robbed from a ruined castle, and here and there were the signs of an oak frame, twisted with age. The roof was of clay tiles, moss-covered and irregular, and chimneys sprouted in profusion.

‘I love it.’ Sophia stared, enchanted, not realising that she had put out her hand until she found she had covered Callum’s bare fingers. He did not move away, and after a moment he curled his fingers into hers. She wished she was not wearing gloves, could feel the texture of his skin, whether he was cold or warm, sense his pulse. She gave his fingers a little squeeze, needing to share the moment.

‘I like it, too. I have only a vague recollection of it; we did not come here very often, for Great-Aunt had fallen out with Grandmama and was a trifle eccentric.’ He freed his fingers and jumped down to tie the reins to a branch. ‘Shall we see if it is as welcoming inside?’

‘You feel it? The welcome?’ That was good: they seemed to be in agreement over it. I am thinking as though I have decided. Too fast … I need more time. He is a stranger after all these years.

Callum reached to lift her from the seat, his hands hard at her waist, and she caught her breath as his eyes darkened. He let her down, slowly. Her toes brushed against his boots, her hems must have touched his thighs. Her heart thudded and she was uncertain whether it was more with nerves or desire. ‘I am down now,’ she said after a moment when he still held her.

‘On terra firma?’ His thumbs just brushed the underside of her breasts and a strange aching shiver ran through her.

‘I am not certain I have been on that since you walked back into my life,’ Sophia confessed and Callum laughed and released her.

He opened the door with a huge old key that had been left under a stone by the path and stood aside for her to enter. The house was not musty exactly; rather it smelled of old wood and fabric, faded lavender and the ghost of wax polish and wood smoke. It creaked a little as they stood there.

Somehow it swept away her jittery nerves. ‘I love it,’ Sophia repeated as they stood in the hall. ‘It feels warm, as though it wants to hug us.’ It sounded fanciful as soon as she said it, but Callum did not laugh, only looked at her a trifle quizzically.

‘Perhaps it does. It sounds almost alive. Listen. Like a ship riding at anchor,’ he murmured. ‘Shall we explore?’

They wandered through the old house, drawing back the curtains, peering into cupboards, finding odd flights of stairs that went to one room only, almost falling down the cellar steps.

Sophia caught Callum by the wrist as he peered down the precipitous, dusty steps into the dark beneath. ‘Don’t you dare go down there! Do you remember that day we played hide and seek together at the Hall and I hid in the wine cellar and you and Daniel pretended you didn’t know I was down there and locked the door?’

‘And left you to those great big hairy spiders and the mice and the mouldering skeletons that hung in chains, which is what you accused us of when we relented.’

‘Did I say mouldering skeletons?’ She tugged him firmly back into the kitchen passage and closed the door.

‘No, that’s what you were screaming about when you threw a bottle of Papa’s best crusted port at Dan’s head.’

‘You caught it.’

‘Of course,’ he said and for a moment there was something unspoken, more than just the recollection of a childhood prank. Callum had saved the port, saved his brother from a possibly serious injury and her from the consequences. ‘If you will not let me explore downstairs,’ he said, ‘I dare you to come up to the bedchambers.’

‘Why?’

‘To assess their suitability and condition.’

‘You did not want to look at them at Wellingford,’ she said.

‘We had agreed by then that we did not like the house. There was no point.’ He cocked his head to one side and studied her. ‘Are you suspicious of my motives?’

‘Yes,’ she said frankly.

‘My dear Sophia, if I was intent on seducing you I could do it as well on the drawing-room sofa, the kitchen table or here and now.’

‘You could? Is that not very uncomfortable?’ Disturbing images flitted through her imagination. Callum raised one dark brow and took a step forwards. Sophia threw up both hands. ‘Oh, no, that was not a challenge! Come along then, let us see what is upstairs.’

Finally, they arrived in a great bedchamber dominated by a four-poster of age-blackened carved wood, so high that there was a wooden stool set to help the sleeper climb into bed.

‘Well?’ Callum stood in the middle of the room, hands on hips, and studied her face.

‘I adore it,’ Sophia confessed. ‘I want it. But that is quite irrelevant; I cannot marry a man because I have fallen for his house.’

‘Liking the house is surely on the positive side of the scales. There are other reasons to marry. You would not permit me to attempt to seduce you downstairs, but this is a proper bedchamber and a very comfortable-looking bed.’

‘You are not going to seduce me!’

‘Am I not?’ Callum tossed his hat and gloves on to a chest and came purposefully towards her.

‘You are far too much a gentleman to seduce a virtuous lady,’ Sophia said with all the conviction she could muster.

‘Certainly not one I have no intention of marrying,’ he agreed.

Sophia edged around a stool. ‘But I haven’t said yes yet.’ It came out as an undignified squeak.

‘True. May I not kiss you? Are you quite certain you wouldn’t like to be kissed, Sophia?’

‘Well, yes,’ she said so promptly that he blinked. ‘Now don’t look so shocked! I am curious. Here I am at six and twenty and I have hardly been kissed, certainly not for ten years. The prospect of a good-looking man demonstrating how it is done properly is undeniably intriguing.’

‘Are you always so honest?’

‘I hope so.’ Of course, to allow Callum to kiss her when they were not even betrothed was a shocking and unwise thing to do, but she had been wanting to kiss him for the past hour at least, despite that.

Partly it was curiosity, as she had admitted. But mainly it was the good-looking gentleman himself. He annoyed her, he teased her and she sensed a deep inner darkness in him that he was hiding and showed no signs of wanting to share. On the other hand he would, she was certain, make her a good husband and, when she was not feeling like she wanted to shake him, she found him curiously easy to get along with. Perhaps it was simply the shadow of their childhood acquaintance.

Sophia bit her lip and looked at him standing there patiently for her to make up her mind. As patient as a cat at a mouse hole, she thought.

‘Shall we get rid of that bonnet?’ She began to untie the bow, her fingers all thumbs. ‘If you are considering marriage, you must expect your husband to want to kiss you,’ Callum remarked. Sophia turned her head away, unable to think of a single sensible thing to say. She was beginning to find her focus was oddly blurred, as if she might be coming down with a fever, and it was difficult to read his face. ‘But, if this is making you uncomfortable …’

‘No. I would like to be kissed, I think,’ Sophia said, placing her hat beside his on the chest. It was only a kiss, after all. Another fast thing to be doing, but hardly something to be frightened of. It was ridiculous, at her age, never to have been kissed properly. ‘But that’s all.’

‘I thought you might say that,’ Callum said. She had no time to wonder whether that was a joke or whether he was deadly serious before he pulled her into his arms.

Chapter Four

It was a disturbingly pleasant sensation, being held by Callum Chatterton. Part of her was shocked at being so intimately close to a man, but it was hard to summon the appropriate outrage when she was being held fast against his body and he was tipping up her chin to look down into her face. After all, she had asked for this.

He was very good-looking, even more so close up. Now she could study the fine lines of his lips, the subtle colours in his hazel eyes, the uncompromising masculinity of his bone structure. He was not a pretty youth, he was a man, complete with a bump on his nose which looked like a break, several small scars and faintly tanned skin that gave him a most exotic air.

Callum let her study him, his face as serious as hers must be, then he bent his head and took her mouth. Sophia almost jumped at the intrusion of his tongue between her lips, the pressure that opened them to him. Was this normal? It felt indecently intimate. She quivered and his arm tightened around her, supporting her, almost, not quite, constraining her. He felt very determined.

She could taste him, which was shocking. And she could smell him, which was even more so. He was clean, of course, but under the smell of ironed linen and good soap there was something dangerous and faintly musky, overlain by spice and sandalwood.

He was holding her very firmly, which might have been frightening. Sophia flirted for a moment with a feeling of alarm, the instinct to struggle, then let herself relax into Callum’s hold. He was too strong to fight. His mouth was insistent now and she let him do as he wished, and, increasingly, what she wished, as her tongue learned to play with his.

It made her body feel most strange. There was an ache, low down, and the urge to mould herself tightly against him there as though that would ease it. She realised that his body was hard against her belly and that was … worrying. It made the ache worse and so did pressing against him. Then Callum’s hand cupped her breast and he began to play with her nipple through the fabric of her bodice and the ache turned into a stab of sensation that had her whimpering into his mouth.

This is far more than I expected. Far more. But it was a fleeting thought, easily dismissed. This was the man she was going to … no, might marry. She must learn to respond to his lovemaking. Then the kiss deepened, became more demanding, and Sophia lost awareness of everything except the sensation that was singing through her, the strength of Callum’s hold, the urgency of their bodies. So this was proper kissing … She was drowning. It was overwhelming.

‘Sophia?’

‘Oh.’ Callum had stopped kissing her. How long had she been standing there, her brain reeling, her heart pounding and her senses quite disordered? What must he think of her? She wanted to run and hide, from herself as much as him.

‘Have you ever been kissed before?’

She blinked and he came into focus. He looked pleased with himself and faintly amused. Amused by her old-maidish ignorance, she supposed.

‘Not like that, no.’ It seemed she could articulate, at least.

‘Dan never—’

‘Certainly not. We kissed … but it was different. We kissed a little and held hands. He put his arms around me. He touched my … my breasts once.’ She felt her cheeks getting hot. She wanted Callum to kiss her again, to touch her. And he knew it. He must be feeling sorry for her, poor frustrated spinster that she was.

Gradually her pulse calmed and she felt her colour rising under that steady gaze. She had very little experience of men, but she knew he was aroused. That was only to be expected, she supposed. But had he thought she was so … so desperate? Frustrated? Potentially wanton that she needed to be kissed until her legs trembled?

She felt the anger sweep through her and know it was for herself, not really for him. She had been frustrated and she had not realised. She had been desperate for a man’s caresses. What might she have done if he had not stopped—or would the apprehension that was trembling just under the confused desire have made her flee?

‘Are you all right?’

‘No,’ Sophia said. ‘No, I do not think I am all right. What have you done to me?’

‘Kissed you,’ he said. ‘There is some basic attraction between us, I think.’ From the way he smiled he seemed to find that amusing. ‘Sophia, that was passion, that is all.’

‘Very basic,’ she snapped. ‘I am obviously far more ignorant and innocent than the women you are used to associating with,’ she added bitterly. ‘I did not want passion! I only wanted a kiss in a decent manner. There was no need to virtually ravish me,’ she hissed and slapped him, hard, right across his handsome face. She might not be heavy, but she was fit and tall and she put a great deal of feeling into the blow. It rocked him back on his heels, she was pleased to see.

Callum lifted one hand to his face and touched his cheek with his fingertips. ‘A decent manner? That was the sort of kiss that lovers exchange. The sort of kiss married couples exchange. If I had wanted to ravish you, believe me, we would be on that bed by now.’

Bereft of words, Sophia turned and walked down the stairs and out into the sunlight. And now she was going to have to sit beside Callum for half an hour, so close that she could feel the heat of his body next to hers and all the while he would be smirking with male superiority over reducing an ignorant spinster to such a pitiful puddle of need.

The horses looked up and whickered softly at the slam of the front door and she stared at them in sudden speculation. Perhaps she was not trapped here after all. She could drive a gig with one horse. How much more difficult was it to drive a pair? These had been well exercised and seemed biddable enough.

She ran across the clearing, untied the reins and climbed up on to the high seat. It took a moment to sort out two pairs of reins, but she had been watching Callum’s hands as he drove and she found the knack of it.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ He had come out at last, but there was the width of the clearing between them now. ‘Sophia!’

‘Get up.’ Sophia clicked her tongue and the pair responded as Callum began to run. She slapped the reins down and they broke into a trot, then a canter. As the carriage swayed up the rutted track she heard a shout behind her, but by now she was too concerned with not overturning the curricle to heed him.