Married to a Perfect Stranger

by Jane Ashford

  Mary crossed her arms on her chest. The reflection of her movement in the vanity mirror caught her attention, and she met her own wide eyes there. She looked shaken and…uncertain. The man in her second sketch roused far more tumultuous, and complicated, feelings than the respect and mild regard she felt—had felt?—for the first. She wanted to set him straight, to make him apologize, to throw her arms around his neck and pull those authoritative lips down to her own. Mary shivered again at the bolt of sensation that raced through her with that thought. It threatened to sweep all else before it.

  She raised her chin and let her arms drop. No. She wouldn’t let it. John had to see that he couldn’t speak to her as he had earlier. Going away and changing didn’t mean he got to ride roughshod over her or spout his mistaken opinions as if they were gospel. She would tell…

  The door opened, and John strode back in. His eyes scanned the untouched stocking and hat, skipped over the two portraits, and settled on the bed. Quickly, he turned and faced her. His blue eyes burned into hers.

  Mary’s rational arguments went up in smoke. She struggled to regain her train of thought. “It was…wrong, the way you spoke to me earlier,” she said.

  A low noise emerged from John.

  “Did you hear me?” Mary’s voice shook a little.

  Catching the tremor, John wondered if she was afraid of him. John was a bit afraid of himself in his current state. The life he’d plotted out during the last days on the ship seemed to teeter in the balance. Reason battled for supremacy—and lost. He moved toward his wife, and the bed, and everything his imagination had promised.

  “Are you refusing to talk to me?” Mary’s dark eyes glittered; her cheeks burned a tantalizing rose red.

  He reached for her.

  Knuckles rapped on the bedroom door. Unlatched, it moved a few inches. “Excuse me, ma’am?” came the voice of the housemaid. Why hadn’t he locked the cursed thing? John thought.

  “Not now, Alice,” said Mary breathlessly.

  “But that delivery’s here, the one you particularly wanted to check. For Mrs. Finch’s room?”

  “Voss can do it,” said Mary, her eyes fixed on John.

  “But, ma’am, you said you had to make sure it’s right before we let…”

  “Later!”

  Even he would have retreated at the snap in her voice, John thought. But the door edged a little farther open. The housemaid was either foolhardy or utterly deaf to nuance. “The man said as how he had to be on his way to the next…”

  “All right!”

  She was giving in, walking away from him. John’s hands curled closed, then open. This place was bedlam. He had to get away, get Mary away, before he did something irrevocable. “We’re leaving for London as soon as you can get packed,” he commanded. He thrust aside the annoying inner voice that pointed out he had no carriage to transport her.

  Mary paused on her way out. “What? I can’t go now. The new housekeeper doesn’t arrive until next week. I can’t abandon Aunt Lavinia.”

  Raw with emotion and desire, John snapped. “You haven’t managed to install a housekeeper in twenty months?”

  His tone was like a lash. Mary’s anger blazed up again. “Like a ‘managing female,’ you mean?”

  “You might have gotten help for this one simple task.”

  “One…simple…?” The myriad upheavals she’d dealt with while he was away crowded Mary’s mind. Not to mention the fact that finding just the right person had been far from simple. He had no idea what she’d faced or what she’d accomplished. “That’s not fair.”

  “Must you argue with everything I say?”

  “When you’re mistaken, yes!”

  “Ma’am?” came a plaintive voice from beyond the door.

  Goaded beyond endurance, John turned and flung it open, making Alice jump and shriek. Did the silly woman do nothing but jump and shriek? He pushed past the aging maid, speaking to Mary over his shoulder. “I must be back in the office by Monday.” This wasn’t precisely true, but he didn’t care. “If your aunt’s housekeeper is more important to you than I am, I’ll go alone.” With some slight satisfaction at venting his frustration, he strode from the room.

  Mary ran after him. She might have caught him at the front door, but it had been left open. Voss stood on the step berating a large mustached man leaning against a furniture delivery wagon. The old butler turned when Mary appeared, like a child welcoming the arrival of a parent. Mary lost precious minutes fending off his complaints.

  In the stables, John spotted his saddle and threw it over the back of his hired horse even as a startled stableboy ran to help. The long summer daylight would last for hours, and the nag had had a bit of rest.

  Mary hurried in as he fitted the bridle. How had things gotten so completely out of hand? she wondered. “John, you mustn’t go like this.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!”

  He sounded rather like Arthur in a sulk. “But it’s ridiculous. We should talk…”

  “Ridiculous!” John felt as if his head might explode. “You’re the one who’s formed ridiculous notions while I was away making a real contribution to the world.”

  “A real…?” Mary couldn’t find the words to respond.

  At last, the horse was ready. John mounted and looked down at his errant wife. “The next time we meet, I expect you to have mended your ways.”

  “Mended…?” In her glare, John caught another glimpse of the cadre of mothers who had pitched him into his present predicament. He kicked his heels and urged the horse out of the stable yard. He was conscious of Mary’s eyes on him all the way down the lane and of a sinking sense of disaster. What sort of devilish marriage had he gotten himself into? Was it going to drive him quite distracted?

  He’ll turn back, Mary kept thinking. He’ll realize how pigheaded he’s being and change his mind. But he didn’t. His mounted figure receded farther and farther into the distance until he disappeared over the crest of the hill above the house.

  Three

  Three weeks later, Mary Fleming Bexley traveled east to London. Though she rode in a comfortable post chaise and the early September days were warm and golden, she was almost too preoccupied to notice. All through welcoming her great-aunt’s new companion, getting her established in the household, more turmoil over Arthur Windly, and packing her own things, Mary had thought of John’s brief visit. How had it gone so wrong?

  The two letters she’d received from John during this period were short and informational, as cordial as if their quarrel had never happened. And since he told her about their new home without asking for opinions or answering questions she sent about staff and furnishings, Mary wasn’t moved to send an apology. He seemed to think she was incapable of deciding details about her own household. Indeed, it had all felt a good bit like being bundled off to Aunt Lavinia’s months ago. She tried not to be angry, because John also said how very busy he was in the aftermath of the China mission. But it was difficult. Mary had to believe that things could be smoothed over once she was in London, because to think otherwise was to despair.

  She arrived in the afternoon, when John was at his office. As the carriage pulled up at the correct address, and she examined the house that he’d leased, Mary realized that part of her wanted to find fault, to discover that John’s choice was quite unsuitable. That would prove him arrogant and incapable and wrong. It was not an impulse she liked in herself.

  In fact, the tall, narrow, gray-brick edifice looked comfortable, the sort of place she might have chosen, given the opportunity to do so. It sat on the south side of a leafy square. Dwellings to either side had beds of fall flowers in their small front gardens. She knew the place was close enough to the Foreign Office that John could easily ride there on the horse he kept at a nearby livery stable. She knew that the lease terms he had arranged were reasonable. She knew she was look
ing at her home, that perhaps she would be living here for many years. Someday, she might recall this first sight of it and think…what would she think?

  One of the postboys opened the carriage door, and Mary stepped out onto the cobbles. A small, skinny figure, bouncing with energy despite the long journey, had already jumped down from the box. Arthur Windly circled the chaise, gazing around the square with bright curiosity. Mary sighed. The boy’s presence was another complication, when she didn’t need the ones she already had.

  “This one?” Arthur asked, pointing at the house. When Mary nodded, he skipped up the two stone steps and knocked on the front door. Mary mounted them behind him. After a rather lengthy delay, the door was opened by a housemaid. “No one home,” declared the young woman, and she shut the door in their faces.

  Astonished, Mary blinked at the wooden panels.

  “What the…?” Arthur pounded on the door.

  It opened more quickly this time. “I told you…”

  “This is Mrs. Bexley,” said Arthur. “It’s her house, ya daft creature.” He pushed at the door.

  Mary put a hand on his shoulder to restrain him. “I wrote that I would arrive today,” she said.

  “Oh.” The maid stood back, opening the door. Arthur darted inside.

  Mary waited for embarrassment, an apology. None came. “And what is your name?” she asked in her best Great-Aunt-Lavinia-in-her-prime manner.

  “Kate…ma’am.” Belatedly, the maid dropped a curtsy.

  “Kate.” Mary looked her over. The young woman had blond hair and blue eyes that were a bit small for her round face. She was several inches taller than Mary, probably a bit older, with square shoulders and a stubborn-looking jaw; her print dress and apron were superior examples of a housemaid’s garb. She might have been attractive if not for the sullen set of her mouth and general dissatisfied air. “Well, Kate, that is not the way callers are to be greeted at my house.”

  The maid leaned a little toward her, as if to emphasize her greater heft. Perhaps she expected her new mistress to be cowed. Two years ago, she might have been, Mary thought. But much had happened since then. She took the time to find the right words. “I require that everyone who knocks be treated with courtesy. And spoken to with respect, whoever they may be. You are not to shut the door in people’s faces. Ever.”

  Kate’s eyes fell. She muttered something about not being used to answering doors and turned her attention to the postboys and driver as they carried Mary’s trunks inside. The maid followed along to show them the way upstairs and to exchange flirtatious remarks with the youngest. Once Mary had paid the boys off, Kate seemed prepared to trail her about the house as well and to make slighting remarks about the size and decoration of the place. Mary had to dismiss her quite firmly before she was left on her own.

  At last, Mary stood alone in the small entry, able to really look around. To the right was a reception room with an attractive tiled fireplace. She recognized the sofa and two armchairs as castoffs from her parents’ house. The Flemings and the Bexleys had taken it upon themselves to send furnishings, and she knew John had not discouraged them from doing so. The faded rose pattern on the chintz was familiar and fit well enough in the paneled space, however.

  Mary looked left. The dining room was smaller, as the house’s front door was offset from center. A dining table and six chairs filled it to overflowing. They, and the red Turkish carpet, must have come from John’s family. She didn’t remember them.

  This was her house, Mary told herself as she started up the stairs at the back of the entryway. Not her mother’s undisputed domain or her great-aunt’s abdicated kingdom. No authority would be looking over her shoulder, reminding her how things should be. Though she hadn’t gotten to choose the place—or the furnishings, for that matter—she could order life as she imagined it here, set routines that suited her and John, of course—the changed John who had come back from the other side of the world, who might not be the sort of man Mary would have chosen to marry at all.

  Mary shoved aside this thought and moved on. The second floor offered three rooms. One was already set up as a study/library and showed signs of John’s occupation. Another, also overlooking the square, would make a cozy parlor for her use. The last, just now empty, was quite small. Here she found Arthur Windly peering out the window over the sea of rooftops receding into the distance.

  “So many houses,” he marveled. “I never thought there’d be so many.”

  “London is very large,” Mary said.

  “Where am I to stay…ma’am?”

  She sighed. She had made a deal, and she must stick to it. “Upstairs.”

  Arthur trailed her to the third floor, where she and John had connecting bedchambers. Her trunks sat ready for unpacking in hers. A smaller room was empty. He followed her again up to the top level of the house, which contained servants’ rooms. Two of the small bedchambers showed signs of use. Mary gave Arthur his choice of the other two. He opted for the one at the front, and ran off in search of his bag.

  Mary walked slowly back down the stairs. The place was a bit stark and drab, in need of draperies and other touches of warmth, but she didn’t mind the lack. She wanted to choose those things herself. Her luggage included lengths of cloth from both her parents’ and aunt’s houses, handed along for her use.

  Descending to the basement kitchen, she found Kate huddled with a thin, pinch-faced woman of perhaps fifty. The older woman wore a cook’s apron and a sour expression. “This place isn’t what I’m used to,” she said as soon as Mary appeared. “Everything’s old-fashioned and near worn-out. The kitchen stairs are so narrow, it’s a penance to carry a tray up ’em. There’s no proper pans or knives…”

  Mary interrupted the flood of complaint with, “How do you do? I am Mrs. Bexley.”

  “Catherine Tanner,” the woman supplied, scarcely missing a beat. “Mrs. Tanner. And I don’t know how I’m to cook under these conditions.”

  Mary, whose mother had given her a solid grounding in household economy, took stock. The brick-floored kitchen had space for cooking and preparation and a large table off to the side where servants could dine and sit in their off hours. There was a scullery and pantry behind, and Mary just glimpsed an outdoor stair up to the back of the house. The woodstove set into the huge old fireplace seemed to be working well. There was a hot water reservoir and a grill. The walls had been recently whitewashed, and she was happy to see that everything looked clean. It was true that pans and utensils were few. She would have to remedy that. But as far as she knew, the woman had been cooking here successfully for two weeks. She remembered her mother’s list of questions for new staff. “Where did you work before this?”

  Mrs. Tanner drew herself up and crossed her arms on her meager chest. “We came direct from the Duchess of Carwell’s household. And let me tell you, I didn’t have to scrub roasting pans or peel potatoes there. Two scullery maids and a potboy, we had. Not to speak of kitchen maids and one cook just to do the bread and pastry.”

  “You were head cook for a duchess?” Mary marveled. Why in the world was she here, in that case?

  “Second undercook to ‘Monsewer Danyell,’” said Kate, earning a glare from Mrs. Tanner. “He’s landed on his feet, he has. Working for an earl, is what I heard.”

  “Why did you leave your positions?” Mary’s mother had emphasized that this was a question one always asked, perhaps the most important question.

  “Her Grace’s precious son gambled their fortune clean away, didn’t he?” replied Kate, with obvious relish. “They had to sell the town house and let all the servants go. All his fancy racehorses as well. Family’s run off to hide in the country. I wouldn’t wonder if them down there was to lose their places, too.”

  “Kate!” snapped Mrs. Tanner. She pulled a folded packet of paper from one of her apron pockets. “I have a very good reference from Her Grace’s housek
eeper,” she said. “Worked in the household all my life, I have…did.”

  She didn’t mention references for Kate. Mary took the pages and read the references under two pairs of resentful blue eyes, two similar sullen expressions. When she’d finished, satisfied that Mrs. Tanner had been honest about the recommendations, she suppressed a sigh. This was not the sort of staff she’d imagined in her new home.

  The packet went back in Mrs. Tanner’s pocket, and she resumed her litany of complaint as if it had never been interrupted. “I’ll be needing more help as soon as may be. And what’s to be done about the bread, I do not know. I only have two hands. As for that butcher down the street…” She sniffed. “Not a partridge to be had, he tells me. It’s all chickens with him. Scrawny ones, too. And mingy bits of beef you wouldn’t feed a spaniel.”

  Did she even know how to cook for a small household? Mary wondered. It was quite a different job from feeding a peer’s huge retinue. Or her spaniel. Something would have to be done about this.

  “Who’s that boy?” Kate asked, with no sign of deference. “Is he staying?”

  “That is Arthur,” Mary replied. “He will help out.” Or else, she thought.

  “He can do the scullery work,” replied the cook. The spark in her eye did not bode well for a peaceful future.

  * * *

  John arrived home after six to find his wife established in the parlor with some sewing. There was a small fire burning in the grate, candles throwing a warm light over the walls, and a cozier feel to the room somehow. More color, John thought; she’d thrown a shawl over the back of the sofa, draped some cloth at the windows. Relief washed over him. This domestic picture seemed to herald the old Mary, the sweet compliant Mary, rather than the militant creature he’d encountered in Somerset. Perhaps, in his disorientation at being back in England, he’d imagined the latter?

  Dropping into an armchair, responding to her quiet greeting, he profoundly hoped so. Because right now, he could not stomach any more aggravation. After two hours, he was still seething, and longing to kick something. That idiot Fordyce had tipped a bottle of ink over John’s carefully composed twenty-page report, wrecking two full days of effort. And when John had protested, the overbred twit swore it was an accident, even though John had seen him pause beside the desk, check to see no one else was watching, and flip a finger at the bottle. When he’d sworn at him, Fordyce claimed his coattail must have brushed it. Pure chance, due to John’s carelessness, really, to be leaving ink bottles about uncorked. John found that he was clenching his teeth.