Married to a Perfect Stranger

by Jane Ashford

  John leaned forward. “I want to find out if China will go to war.”

  Shen shrugged again. “A sailor may be on a ship where high officials travel and hear things, but it would be a very lucky coincidence for that sailor to turn up here.”

  “I know.” John sat back.

  “War might be less likely if Westerners showed more respect for the emperor.”

  “The Chinese court doesn’t respect us,” John pointed out.

  “I believe they feel they have an ancient culture, more refined than those of outsiders.” He made a graceful gesture. “This is what I hear, at least.”

  “Pottery and philosophy won’t matter in the face of gunboats.”

  Shen looked grave. “That is quite true, Mr. Bexley, and another reason I try to help you.” He put the tips of his fingers together. “There is word of some new…presence lurking in our streets.”

  “Presence?” It was an odd way to put it.

  “Someone who appears and disappears like smoke, who hides so skillfully no one can find him. Even I do not know where he stays. But the rumor is, he also will pay for information.”

  “Also?” Had Shen revealed his visits to others?

  “I say this only to you,” the other man assured him.

  “Tell me all you have heard,” replied John, preparing to concentrate. Shen did not allow him to make notes as they talked.

  * * *

  John left Tsing with his payment at the edge of Limehouse and headed back toward the office. The farther he got from the slums, and from suspicious eyes, the more briskly he moved. At one point he heard footsteps and the clatter of something falling behind him, but when he looked there was no one there. He was tired out and more than eager to finish this task and go home.

  A retired sergeant major manned an unobtrusive side door to the Foreign Office building, an entry for staffers when a crisis loomed at night. Recognizing John, he admitted him with raised eyebrows at his shabby dress. John took a candle from a store kept there, lit it at the sergeant major’s lamp, and hurried through empty corridors to his office. He would have liked a thorough wash, but there was no way to have that here. He was not going home in these clothes, however, no matter how tired he felt.

  John changed and bundled away his slum disguise. He sat to pull on his boots, then he took up a pen to make notes about what Shen had told him. He rested his cheek on one hand as he wrote. His eyelids drooped. He pushed himself to keep going.

  Fatigue, and the bit of alcohol he hadn’t been able to avoid drinking, dragged at him, urging him to rest his head on the desk. His head drooped. He jerked upright, fought the impulse to sleep, and kept writing. The words swam under his exhausted gaze. He had to rest his eyes, just for a moment. Only a moment…

  * * *

  John woke to an exclamation from a servant who had come to sweep out the office hearth and light the day’s fire. “Sorry, sir. You startled me,” the man said. “I didn’t expect to see anyone here so early.”

  John straightened in his chair, stifled a groan at the complaints of his stiff muscles, and gestured for the man to go on with his task. The room was cold; dawn light shone through the windows, exposing his scribbled notes. The candle had long since burned out. His shirt was creased, his neckcloth crushed. He ran a hand over his jaw and felt the rasp of stubble. Conolly would exclaim at finding him in this state.

  John formulated excuses as he rose to go in search of cold water to splash over his face and tea. He very much wanted tea. Then he stopped, grimaced, and sank back to write a note to Mary. He’d send it with one of the office messengers as soon as they arrived.

  * * *

  An hour later, Mary held this missive in her hand and tried to contain her anger. When John had sent word yesterday afternoon that he wouldn’t be home until late, she’d been irritated but resigned. He was kept at the office now and then, with work he couldn’t discuss. It had happened several times since she’d come to London. Lately, she’d started waiting up for him on those nights. She enjoyed greeting him with a hot drink and a smile of welcome. She was certain he liked it, too.

  But last night, she’d waited to no avail. John never returned. She’d passed a sleepless, increasingly frantic night, wondering where her husband could be, imagining an attack in the streets, a fatal accident. She’d been half-mad with worry and ready to visit a magistrate this morning. And now came this note, with barely an apology. John was sorry that he’d fallen asleep at his desk. Why should he do so? Why had he not sent her further word if he was being kept so late? Should she even believe this story?

  Mary crushed the page in a shaking hand. She didn’t think John would lie to her. But what was the difference between an outright lie and a partial truth? What was he hiding from her? She was going to find out.

  Thus, as the afternoon waned, Mary lay in wait for her husband, watching at the front window for him to appear in the square. As soon as he did, she threw on her cloak and hurried out the front door. “Mary. Where are you going?” he said when she accosted him. She grasped his arm and pulled him over to the garden, key ready to unlock the gate. “What are you doing?” John said.

  Urging him through the bars, Mary rushed onward until they stood in the center of the space, well out of earshot of any passersby, far from the interested audience of their household. Then she turned to face him. There was just enough light left in the sky for her to see his face. “Why did you not come home last night?”

  “Mary, I’m very tired. I didn’t…”

  “I waited and watched for you all night. I was afraid you were dead…”

  “Why should you imagine anything so silly?”

  “Haven’t you told me about the dangers of the London streets?” Mary demanded. “How I wasn’t to walk alone…”

  “You. I am perfectly capable…”

  “Why should you sleep at your office?” Mary asked.

  “I was out later than I meant to be.”

  “Where? Doing what?”

  “It doesn’t matter…”

  “Who did you go out with?” Mary asked. Her voice shook.

  John stared at her. “No one. Or not… It wasn’t that sort of ‘out,’ Mary. You can’t think that I would…”

  “What am I supposed to think?”

  “That I am your husband and would not lie to you or betray you.”

  Mary looked deep into his blue eyes. “All right. But you do hide things from me.”

  “You know I cannot tell you everything about my work.”

  “So, if you told me where you were last night, it would endanger the…country, the government?” John shifted from foot to foot and looked away. Mary waited for an answer. He said nothing. “Or it would not endanger England,” she prodded. “It must be one or the other.” She struggled between anger and sadness.

  John ran his hands over his face and up through his hair. He was so very tired. “Can’t we go inside? It’s cold.”

  “Do you want the servants to overhear this conversation? You won’t even tell me where you were.”

  John sighed. He looked around, spotted a bench, and went to sit on it. He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck against the evening chill. When Mary joined him, he weighed his words. If he meant to continue his information-gathering trips into Limehouse—and he did—Mary would have to be told something. She clearly wouldn’t be satisfied with secrecy, and she should not be made to worry. John looked at his wife in the dimness. She was leaning forward, hands folded tight in her lap, frowning. Her eyes were pools of darkness. He realized that he didn’t want to fob her off with evasions and half-truths, even if he could think of plausible ones. He let out a breath and said, “I was out in the city, looking for information.” And he explained his expeditions with Henry Tsing and the reason for them.

  Mary was silent for a moment when he finished. “Isn’t it dang
erous, going into the slums?”

  “There is some risk, but I take great care,” he assured her.

  She didn’t look convinced. “You didn’t want me walking alone even in this neighborhood…”

  “The cases are entirely different,” John said again. “And I am not alone.”

  “I don’t see how it’s that different. A gentleman moving among the poorest classes is surely a target for robbery, if not worse.”

  “I don’t go as myself.”

  “Not…?” Mary looked startled. “Oh. You wear a disguise?”

  He nodded. “You’d laugh to see my worn coat and ancient clogs.”

  “How clever you are!”

  Though night was coming on, John could still see the glow of admiration on her face. It warmed him.

  “And you think you will get important information from these foreign sailors?”

  He leaned toward her and spoke quietly. “I don’t know. But I feel I must try every way I can to fill in the outlines of the situation in China. If there is any way to prevent England from being plunged into a far-off war over the opium trade, I have to find it.”

  Mary reached for his hand. “Yes, I see! You must let me help you.”

  John sat back. He was relieved to have the confession over with, but this was unexpected. “There is nothing you can do to help.”

  “I could! I could…take care of the clothes you use as a disguise. Conceal them from Kate and Mrs. Tanner when you come home afterward. You must come home, John, or I shall worry myself sick.”

  “It would be easier to leave and return from here,” he admitted. And there would be no chance of encountering any colleague who might hamper his efforts.

  “You must! And then I will know where you’ve gone. Someone should know, in case of…trouble.” Mary frowned. “Are you sure there won’t be trouble?”

  “It is necessary.” He believed it was. Some sense of the flow of events, a current in the tides of information that washed through his office, urged him on. But it was a good idea to have someone trustworthy who knew where he’d gone. He could give her Conolly’s address and tell her about the sergeant major who manned the door of the Foreign Office at night.

  “It is so brave of you. So brilliant.”

  Her hand was warm in his. Her face was a pale oval in the dusk. Then the moon rose over the buildings across the square, and he could see her more clearly.

  “And so resourceful. No one else thought of it, or learned the language, or was willing to risk himself.”

  “It isn’t that…” But John’s impulse to play down his achievements was cut off by the admiration in her eyes. Had anyone ever gazed at him with such respect and appreciation? Not that he could recall. It was heady stuff. All he could do was lean forward and kiss her.

  The touch of her lips—so soft, so yielding—sent a thrill through his body. He slid his arms around her and pulled her tight against him. This was outrageous; they were outdoors, in public, an inner voice objected. But another declared that no one would see them in this dark garden and to hell with the proprieties. As he slipped a hand under Mary’s cloak and found the intoxicating curve of her breast, John marveled at how his life had changed since his long voyage. These inner fires that burned so hot were a gift and a delight. And then all thought dissolved as Mary’s hand crept beneath his greatcoat and moved in a way that was profoundly arousing.

  Some indeterminate time later, the click of footsteps sounded on the cobbles outside the garden. Both of them went still. Mary stifled a giggle. They sat there—buttons undone, laces hanging loose—until the sound faded on the opposite side of the square. Then Mary giggled in earnest. Laughter rose in John’s chest as well. “I’m shocked, shocked, Mrs. Bexley, at your levity in these scandalous circumstances.”

  “It’s my husband,” Mary murmured in his ear. “He is so…masterful. I can deny him nothing.”

  Though the words were like gunpowder to the flames of his arousal, John had to say, “We must go in.”

  Mary nestled against him in a way calculated to drive him to distraction. “Must we?”

  “We have a warm fire and a bed ten yards from here.”

  “Well, of course we will use that later. Too.”

  “Mary…”

  With stifled laughter, she pulled at cloth barriers, shoved aside folds of her gown and his coat, and shifted until she sat astride his lap.

  “Mary!”

  She tented her cloak around them, kissed him, and wriggled.

  John’s objections evaporated on a gasp. His wife rose a little onto her knees. He guided her back down, and they came together in a white heat of daring and desire.

  She buried her face in his shoulder to silence her gasps of pleasure. He clenched his jaw to keep in his own. They danced together up to a peak of ecstasy and plummeted together into glorious release. In its aftermath, they held each other as if they would never let go.

  It was some time before they raised their heads, laughed again, and stood to adjust tousled clothing and run across the dark lawn hand in hand.

  Thirteen

  John made several more forays into Limehouse over the next two weeks. He was slowly amassing a thick file of facts and suspicions. Though they didn’t add up to anything definitive as yet, he had hopes that they would in time. He made particular, discreet, inquiries into Shen’s story of a mysterious newcomer in the slums. Rumors of such a person persisted, even grew, but it was impossible to pin down details. The whispered tales dissolved in his hands like the shreds of mist that drifted in from the river to blur the outlines of buildings in the twisting lanes and hide the hunched figures who scurried past. It was frustrating to feel a possibility so close yet out of reach.

  He did now have the pleasure of being greeted by Mary when he came home tired and cold. It really did help to know that she watched for him from the dark house. When he had changed out of his shabby disguise, she brought hot drinks and listened admiringly to the stories of his searches. During these quiet talks late at night, it was as if they were the only two people in the world. John had never felt closer to anyone.

  And he had never felt prouder than on the evening of the Castlereaghs’ party.

  He had ordered full evening dress from his tailor, and as he walked down the stairs in his black coat and snowy linen, he heard female voices from Mary’s room. Lady Caroline Lanford was in there, helping Mary put the finishing touches on her ensemble. The earl’s daughter had taken to visiting his wife. They seemed to have become real friends, and she was going with them tonight. John was glad that Mary would have her company. No doubt it would ease her entry into this new rank of society.

  When the ladies came down, however, he saw only Mary. She wore a gown of peach gauze over satin of the same shade trimmed with ribbons in a darker hue. Her cheeks glowed; her dark eyes sparkled. She seemed to him the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.

  “Is she not gorgeous?” asked Lady Caroline. “I’m taking full credit for Mary’s appearance. I told her that color was perfect.”

  John looked at their guest—a pretty blond girl in a green gown. But his eyes went immediately back to his wife. He felt ready to burst with pride and affection. “You are exquisite,” he said, and she flushed under his gaze.

  John had hired a carriage for the night, and it took them from their out-of-the-way address to St. James Square, in the heart of fashionable London. The Castlereaghs’ town house blazed with light, with ranks of candles in every window of the lower floors and torches burning beside the wide front door. Vehicles streamed in from both directions, disgorging richly dressed people to mount the steps and enter. Where would all these equipages go while their owners reveled? John wondered. Should he have some instructions for his driver? Then he noticed a pair of stableboys directing the coaches as they emptied. There must be some place set aside for them to wait.

/>   At last their carriage made it to the entry. John helped the ladies down and followed them inside. Footmen waited to take their wraps and pass them into a set of large reception rooms already crowded with people. The glitter of jewels and roar of conversation was a bit intimidating. Bath assemblies were nothing to this.

  “Come over here,” said Lady Caroline. Fully at ease, she led them away from the archway where they’d entered to a less populated spot near the wall. “This is a good vantage point. We can look around and plot our route,” she added.

  “Route to where?” Mary asked.

  “The people we wish to speak to, those we don’t, the food,” the girl replied. She surveyed the chattering crowd with an eagle eye.

  “I don’t know anyone to speak to,” Mary said. “Oh, yes I do. There is Mr. Conolly.”

  John’s colleague was approaching and soon greeted them with a bow. “Mrs. Bexley. John.”

  “How nice to see a familiar face,” said Mary. “This is Lady Caroline…”

  “We’ve met,” said Conolly with another small bow.

  “We…?” Lady Caroline looked blank, then quickly hid her reaction. “Of course. Good evening.”

  “At the Massingtons’ fete last season,” said Conolly, clearly not fooled.

  Caroline cocked her head, considering, and then her green eyes lit and her lips curved upward. “Conolly. You’re the one who put the goats in the garden.”

  “I?” His face was carefully neutral, but a spark danced in his hazel eyes. “I can’t imagine why you say so. I don’t believe the…er, perpetrator was ever established.”

  Seeing that sparkling gaze, John had no doubt that Conolly had been involved in whatever had happened with the goats.

  “Never established, but certainly suspected. Strongly suspected.” Caroline examined Conolly for an interested moment before turning to the Bexleys. “Gerda Massington is a frightful pill,” she continued in a low voice, expertly pitched to reach no further than their small circle. “She’s famous for making girls cry at their debut balls and then spreading dreadful stories to explain the tears. Every year, she has a garden party to show off her roses, though everyone knows they’re all due to her gardener. But last year, when they threw the doors open to reveal her triumph, they found a herd of goats eating them.”