Married to a Stranger

by Louise Allen

  It was pleasant, easy and just a trifle dull. He rather suspected that he was being managed. Cal dragged his thoughts away from their uncomfortably jumbled wanderings between Company business and erotic fantasies, and exerted himself to take an active part.

  When the merits of the almond tartlets had been adequately discussed Sophia nodded to Andrew to assist with her chair and rose. ‘I will leave you to your port, Mr Chatterton.’

  ‘I will be with you directly, Mrs Chatterton,’ Cal countered, getting to his feet as she left the room. One glass, that was all. A man’s wedding night was no time to be lingering over the port.

  But he did linger, twisting the stem of the glass round and round as he watched the candlelight shine through the blood-red liquid and the wine sloshed against the sides like waves on a miniature sea. Blood-red waves. Chance and the power of nature meant he was alive and here and Dan was gone. And the woman in the room beyond who was behaving with such impeccable good manners had lost the man she loved and had got him in his place.

  Cal tossed back the wine and reached for the decanter. His wedding night. Well, at least he felt confident about that aspect of this marriage. When he had kissed her at Long Welling Sophia had trembled in his arms—and it had been with desire, not fear. But she was an innocent and a sheltered one at that. He would just have one more glass while he considered how best to go about it.

  Sophia decided that Callum’s idea of ‘directly’ was not hers. She sat and waited in the elegant, dull drawing room for half an hour, then allowed herself to feel annoyed. That did have the benefit of giving her something to think about beyond her nerves and wondering if she was going to enjoy Callum’s lovemaking.

  It was all well and good if she did, but he would not be expecting her to enjoy it, would he? She had been, he believed, in love with his brother. She could hardly confess to a man mourning Daniel that until she had seen Callum she had had to look at his brother’s portrait to remind herself what he had looked like and that she had fallen out of love with him years ago. To experience raptures in Callum’s arms would make her seem either improperly wanton or lacking in respect to his brother. He would know she had married him under false pretences.

  The clock chimed. Not that she would be experiencing anything at all, let alone rapture, if he did not emerge from the dining room soon. Was it normal for a new husband to sit alone drinking port at such a time? Sophia got to her feet, crossed the hallway to the dining-room door and applied her ear to the panel. There was the distinct ching of a decanter stopper being carelessly replaced.

  Sophia lifted one hand, touched the door handle and then withdrew it. No, she would not go in and ask when he was joining her, she was going to bed. That would demonstrate either a suitable reticence or her irritation at being kept waiting, however he chose to take it.

  She did not have to ring for Chivers. She was in the bedchamber when she reached it. Sophia thought the maid was exhibiting considerably more excitement about the occasion than the mistress, judging by the young woman’s smile and the way she fussed around undressing Sophia. She submitted to a spray of scent, to a fetching ribbon in her hair and to having the bowls of roses set either side of the bed because it would have seemed strange not to expect the attention, tonight of all nights. She had no desire to start rumours about her marriage in the Servants’ Hall.

  ‘Such a pretty nightgown,’ Chivers murmured, giving the sleeves a final tweak as Sophia settled back against the heaped pillows. ‘I’ll wait until you ring in the morning, ma’am, before I bring up your chocolate. Goodnight, ma’am.’

  Presumably she was now expected to recline here, every ringlet in place, a shy smile on her lips, until her husband deigned to arrive. That paled after ten minutes. Defiantly Sophia picked up a novel from the bedside table and began to read.

  ‘My dear?’ Callum stood in the doorway clad in a red robe. Something about his stance warned her that he had been there some time.

  ‘Callum.’ Her breathing was suddenly all over the place. Sophia wriggled back up from her comfortable huddle and pulled off the dangling ribbon that had slid down to the end of its lock of hair. She made rather a business of re-tying it. ‘Have you been there long?’

  ‘Long enough to see you are engrossed. What are you reading?’ He closed the door and began to snuff out the candles on the dressing table and mantelshelf, leaving the branches on either side of the bed burning. The shadows flickered and the darkness closed around them, stranding the bed in an intimate island of light, cut off from the rest of the world.

  ‘A novel.’ Sophia put it back on the table and dropped a handkerchief over it. ‘Just nonsense.’

  Callum sat on the edge of the bed, right against her hip, and picked it up the book. His robe gaped at the neck to reveal bare skin and dark hair. Sophia swallowed. Her apprehension flooded back.

  ‘The Husband and Wife, or, the Matrimonial Martyr by Mrs Bridget Bluemantle,’ he read out. ‘Engrossing nonsense, apparently—you are halfway through volume three.’

  ‘You object to novel reading?’ Sophia sat up straighter, prepared to do battle to defend her books.

  ‘Not at all, and I am not the kind of husband who insists on regulating his wife’s reading. But the title does not argue much optimism about the married state, which is lowering, considering why I am here.’ She could not decide whether he was serious or teasing her. His profile as he looked down at the book gave nothing away.

  ‘I had decided you were not coming,’ she retorted, remembering her grievance.

  ‘And that was a relief?’ Callum stood up and shrugged off the robe with his back towards her. She had been right: he was wearing nothing beneath it. Her gaze slid over broad shoulders, narrow waist, smooth skin marked by small scars on his left shoulder and a sickle-shaped mole on his right hip. She had never seen a naked adult male before. The classical statues at the Hall looked like this, but they were not moving, nor did their muscles shift intriguingly under skin that was a pale gold in the candlelight. Sophia clenched her hands on the edge of the coverlet to stop herself reaching out and caressing the taut curve of his buttocks. He would think her beyond all modesty if she did that.

  Then he began to turn and she shut her eyes as well. There was only so much she could cope with, she thought, biting her lip against a gasp of nervous laughter. And the statues had fig leaves.

  The edge of the bed dipped. She moved over to the right-hand side to give him room and took the bedspread with her before she remembered to loosen her grip on the edge. She had to say something; he had asked her a question. ‘A relief? No, of course not. After all, the worst is soon over, isn’t it?’ Perhaps that was not the most tactful way to put it.

  There was silence from the other side of the bed, then Callum said drily, ‘I would hope so. I have never slept with a virgin before.’

  ‘Good. I mean, I am sure you have not.’

  There was the sound of breathing, close to her ear. How had Callum moved without her realising? Sophia opened her eyes just in time to see the heat and intent in his eyes as he bent to kiss her and then she was swept up in the kiss, just as she had been at Long Welling.

  He expects me to enjoy his lovemaking, she told herself. It is hopeless to pretend I do not wish to. Her arms went around Callum’s neck and she found herself shifting to cradle his weight over her. Through the thin silk his aroused body was explicit against hers.

  ‘This delightful nightgown is very much in the way,’ he murmured in her ear, accompanying the words with tiny flicks of his tongue.

  Sophia stifled a moan. ‘I’ll take it off if you’ll just …’ Move … Stop that … She must open her eyes and sit up.

  Callum rolled off and lay there on his side watching her, his head propped on one hand, while she wriggled and finally emerged, the nightgown clutched to her front. They stared at each other for a while. Sophia felt herself grow pinker and the curve of Callum’s lips grew more pronounced. ‘You are laughing at me,’ she accused.

&nbs
p; ‘I am enjoying you,’ he said. ‘You are enchanting.’ With a little gasp, like a bather jumping into cold water, she let go of the fabric and closed her eyes tight.

  The sound he made as he took her in his arms again and settled himself was a very satisfactory growl. I please him, at least so far. He won’t expect me to know what to do next … His body was strange and exciting under her hands, sleek with muscle, rough with hair. She could smell his skin, spicy and hot and faintly musky, and then he found her mouth again and after that Sophia gave up on thought and simply clung to the lean body over hers and surrendered to the feelings that were so much more than she had ever imagined.

  The pressure of his mouth over hers, open, hot, demanding, created 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 frightening, but exciting too. It made the ache worse and so did pressing against him. Then Callum’s hand cupped her breast and he began to play with the nipple and the ache turned into a stab of sensation that had her whimpering into his mouth.

  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. But Callum’s mouth never left hers and his hands were stroking and exploring and she was so dizzy that it was impossible to think about where she was, what was happening beyond the silken slide of his mouth over hers, the torture of his hand on her breast, the demanding throbbing ache so low down.

  Then his hand slid between them and he touched her, intimately, parting the folds that felt wet and swollen and the delicious shock had her arching up against him, her gasps swallowed by his kiss. He shifted, lifted away a little and she whimpered in protest until his weight came back.

  ‘Best to be fast, I think,’ he murmured. Then something hard was pressing into the hot, wet core of her and she gasped, tried to shift, but it was too late. There was pressure, a yielding, a sensation of exquisite fullness and then a stab of pain that had her recoiling, struggling, shocked out of delight and into reality. She had cried out, she realised as she emerged out of the sensual delirium he had plunged her into, back to alarming reality.

  ‘Shh,’ he murmured, lodged impossibly deep inside her. ‘Shh. That’s the worst over, I promise. Trust me, Sophia.’

  And, after a shuddering moment while her body fought to accept his, she found she could, after all, accommodate him. But the magic had gone. This man, intimately joined to her, moving within her, was a virtual stranger. She did not love him, she hardly knew him any more. And she was no longer herself.

  Sophia opened her eyes and saw that Callum’s were closed, his face stark as though he was in pain, his breath coming in deep, effortful inhalations as he thrust into her. A stranger. Her body tightened as though responding to her frantic thoughts. She felt him within her as muscles she had not known she possessed clenched around him and the pleasure flooded back, and with it a feeling of tenderness for her husband who had rescued her.

  Callum gasped, thrust and then hung, shuddering, over her as she felt his heat gush and spill into her. Sophia tightened her arms around him and felt a confusion of emotions, a sense that there was still something her body needed, the thrill of intimacy, shyness. And guilt.

  Chapter Ten

  Callum rolled onto his back and lay staring up at the ceiling while his breathing got back into some sort of order. That had been good. Sophia had been so responsive—way beyond his hopes. Not perfect, of course, for either of them, but that would come.

  She was naturally sensual and she would learn fast how to pleasure him. His body felt heavy and utterly relaxed. Sated, he thought, hauling his eyelids open as they threatened to descend. Not quite sated, perhaps. It would be good to do that again in a little while. He had never felt that close to a woman while he was making love to her. Perhaps there was more than the usual sense of responsibility to make it good when the woman was one’s wife and that was all it was. Yet somehow he had sensed her desire and her nervousness, her pain and her yielding almost as if they had been his own.

  He found he was smiling and turned his head to look at Sophia. He had given her some pleasure, of that he was certain. As he moved, so did she, to turn her head away, but not before he saw the fat tear running down her cheek.

  ‘Sophia!’ He sat bolt upright and she curled away from him defensively. ‘What is it?’

  She said something in a low mumble. He bent over her, but all he could make out was ‘… Daniel.’

  ‘What?’ he snapped. For several seconds he thought she was not going to answer him, then Sophia sat up and rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. They were wide, almost bemused.

  ‘I …’

  ‘What is wrong?’ he asked again, trying to keep his voice down. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  ‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Well, yes, but I expected it. It did not matter.’

  ‘You enjoyed it? I gave you pleasure?’ It was the first time in his life that he had needed to ask that question and it was not doing his temper much good to have to ask it now, of his wife.

  Sophia ducked her head so he could not see her face. ‘Yes. Yes, you did. Of course.’

  ‘You said Daniel’s name.’

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I have a confession to make,’ she said, her face still stubbornly hidden from him.

  ‘What?’ He made his voice gentle with an effort. To be jerked out of that post-coital, sensual happiness was a shock. But what secrets could she possibly have that could provoke this reaction?

  ‘I did not love Daniel,’ Sophia blurted out.

  Callum found he was staring at her hands, twisted together in distress. ‘Of all the things I might have expected you to say, that one would never have occurred to me,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘I know. I swore I would love him. I meant to. But I fell out of love, I suppose.’

  ‘My God.’

  Sophia looked up, her eyes swimming with tears she was somehow holding in check. They were very lovely, blue and wide in the candlelight. ‘You are disgusted with me for being so fickle, I realise that.’

  ‘No, I am not. Of course not. I always thought the betrothal was wrong—you were both too young.’

  ‘You told me I would fall in love again, properly, when I was grown up. How angry that made me!’ She managed a smile. ‘I thought you were pompous and condescending.’

  ‘I probably was, pontificating on the subject of marriage at that age,’ he admitted. Hell, all those years of nagging Dan to write, feeling guilty about not making him come back and marry and all the time …

  ‘Why didn’t you write and break it off?’ he asked.

  ‘And jilt Daniel? After the promises I had made? But I didn’t realise, not for years, that was the trouble. If I had, early on, I would have written. Instead I settled down into being comfortably betrothed, I suppose. It gave me a little freedom that other girls did not have. I had my art and that absorbed me.’

  ‘Art?’ She was surely not still spending her time with those endless scribbles and daubs, was she?

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Sophia’s mouth curved into a smile and the tears were gone. ‘That is the most important thing in my life. Except my family. And you now, of course,’ she added. He hoped that was not an afterthought.

  ‘And there was no other man?’ Callum could have laughed at the surprise on her face at the question, but he kept his own straight. Deep down he had no idea how he felt about this revelation, other than a fixed resolve not to reveal his suspicions that Dan had fallen out of love even faster.

  ‘No. Honestly, I was faithful to him,’ Sophia said with an earnestness that shook him. Dan had not been faithful, not at all. But then, no one expected the man to be under those circumstances. The idea of Dan embracing almost ten years of celibacy was impossible to contemplate.

  ‘I am sure you were.’ Callum discovered that he had put one ha
nd over hers. The twisting fingers stilled and after a moment threaded confidingly into his. ‘But you have grown into an attractive woman. Other men must have noticed.’

  ‘Which other men? We could not afford for me to have a Season—and anyway, why should we? I was betrothed. Local society, with the exception of William at the Hall, is very confined. My friends are in St Albans, but that is also a small society; people knew I was spoken for. And I never saw anyone I was tempted by,’ she added with a shy glance from under her lashes.

  ‘Hmm, very virtuous.’ Did that look mean that he would have tempted her? No, if she had fallen out of love with one twin, she was not going to fall for the other. ‘When did you realise?’

  ‘When I got the letter telling me that you were both coming home. It came the day the wreck happened, I calculated afterwards. Daniel sent it by a faster, smaller ship that had left Calcutta a few days before yours.’

  Callum looked back over almost a year and remembered the conversation at a party in Government House when he realised that Dan had not warned Sophia of his return. He had nagged and his brother had gone off guiltily to scrawl a note.

  ‘That night, with his return so close, I realised that I did not want to marry him, that I had fallen out of love.’

  ‘Would you have told him?’

  She looked appalled. ‘I do not know! How awful, I never thought of that. I just knew that I had left it far, far too late to break it off and that anyway, we were so desperate for the money I did not dare.’

  ‘It was that bad even then? I did not realise.’

  ‘Oh, yes. It was bad, although our creditors were holding off because of the betrothal, they knew they would be paid eventually.’

  ‘So when you realised what had happened you knew it would plunge you into serious financial difficulties?’

  No wonder she had been so distressed even though she had not loved Daniel. She had behaved with great control and dignity, but the stricken look in her eyes had penetrated even his own black grief.