Married to a Stranger (13 page)

She did her best to reciprocate in these conversations. She studied the newspapers carefully, borrowed books from the circulating library on trade and India and China and asked about his work. It seemed a very responsible one, forming the medium-term strategy for the luxury goods that the company handled.

‘It is an uphill struggle to convince some of the members of the Company to make any changes, though,’ Callum confessed with a wry smile. ‘They have a pet supplier or a favourite kind of produce and that is that—to try to convince them that to load their ships with tea rather than silk at a particular time or to hold back on a certain product because the market will soon be amply supplied and the price will fall, is like pushing against a door that is jammed shut.’

‘So how do you do it?’ Sophia asked, her embroidery left untouched in her lap. This, to her, was far more interesting than what was in the newspapers, not for itself exactly, but for the way it gave her an insight into Callum’s thinking.

‘Like a military campaign. I plot the weakest points, see where the tactical advantage lies, decide where it is prudent to retreat—I seem to be doing a lot of tactical retreating just at the moment.’ But he smiled as he said it and she laughed and there was a moment when she wanted to reach out and touch his hand, link her fingers into his long brown ones and tease him a little and just be friends.

Then she saw Callum’s eyes darken and the amusement faded from his face and was replaced by something else that made her breath catch in her throat. Her mouth went dry and all she was conscious of was the urge to cross the narrow space between them, curl up on to his lap and kiss him. But he never kissed her, never caressed her, during the day. Would he think her wanton if she did? Would she be gauche and clumsy? ‘Callum?’

But the moment had passed. He was reaching for his glass of port and his face was once again back to its pleasant, neutral mask. ‘Nothing. Sorry, I must not bore you with this stuff, it can be of no interest to you.’

‘I asked because I
am
interested,’ Sophia said and bent to bundle her untouched embroidery into the basket at her feet. ‘But it must be tiresome for you to have to explain it to me after you have been immersed in it all day.’

She stood up and Callum got to his feet too. He moved, as always, with the ease that so attracted her and she felt that familiar tug of desire.

‘I think I will go to bed now. Thank you.’ He opened the door for her and she passed through with the sensation of having lost a precious moment of intimacy.

Chapter Thirteen

‘Y
ou are looking a trifle peaky, if I might say so, ma’am,’ Chivers remarked as Sophia got out of bed the next morning.

‘That is exactly how I feel, Chivers,’ she admitted as she rubbed the small of her back. ‘Oh, how foolish of me—it is the usual cause!’ She did some rapid mental arithmetic: yes, more or less on time.

At first, as she washed and dressed, she simply registered it as the routine discomfort, then the fact struck her that she was married now and her husband would want to know whether or not she was with child.

It was not a topic for discussion over the breakfast table. Sophia waited until Callum went to his study to gather his papers for work and followed him upstairs, straightening her back against the miserable low ache. He was standing at his desk, bent over the documents spread between his braced hands, but at the sound of the door closing behind her he looked up.

‘Sophia? Is something wrong?’ He was at her side in two long strides and caught her by the shoulders. ‘You are ill?’

She wondered what he saw to make him so concerned; she thought she had schooled her face not to show any discomfort and he had not noticed anything at breakfast, but then he had been engrossed in
The Times
for most of it. ‘Nothing—except nature taking its course. I thought I should tell you that I am not with child this month.’

‘Not—? Oh, I see. It is of no matter.’

‘Is it not? I thought you were anxious for children, for an heir. It is my duty—’

‘Duty?’ His brows drew together in a sharp, level line. ‘I hope it is more than that—no child deserves to be merely the product of
duty
.’

‘I did not say that! I would never look upon a child in that way—but I am your wife and you made it clear that you expected me to give you heirs.’

‘I am sorry if I put it so baldly.’ Callum swept the papers together and stuffed them into a folder. ‘I will, naturally, not trouble you until you tell me that it is … convenient for me to visit your chamber again.’

Convenient? Oh, yes, our marital relations are a matter of convenience for you now, not of passion. I suppose I am cheaper than a mistress.

‘How very considerate,’ she said, more sharply than she had intended, and turned to go.

Damn.
He had blundered. He was disappointed that Sophia was not with child, but so, no doubt, was she. Cal came round and stood before her, blocking the door. He studied her set face. ‘Are you in discomfort? In pain? You are very pale.’

‘I am sorry, I had not meant to trouble you with it. It is just the usual cramps and backache.’

‘Usual?’ Of course, that feminine mystery that was simply an inconvenience for the men in their lives must be most uncomfortable. He had never thought of it. ‘You must remember I have no experience of these feminine matters—no sisters to grow up with,’ he offered in mitigation. Sophia visibly bit back a comment and Callum could not help but smile. ‘And, no, my mistresses would vanish discreetly for however long it took.’ He took her arm and gently urged her into a comfortable chair. He wanted to help her, but this was an intimate secret and he had done nothing to make such confidences easy, he knew that. He kept hold of her hand. ‘Tell me how it hurts.’

Blushing, she described the symptoms.

‘So how do you treat it?’

She shrugged. ‘Just put up with it. It will be better tomorrow.’

‘Nonsense.’ He hated the thought that she would uncomplainingly drag herself through the day if there was something to be done. ‘Why should you put up with that? It sounds most unpleasant.’ He began to shepherd her towards his bedchamber.

‘Callum? You will be late to the office.’

‘I can work from home. Wilkins!’

‘Sir?’ The valet emerged from the bedchamber, a hat in one hand, the brush in the other.

‘Please send a message to Leadenhall Street to say I am detained at home for the day. Then have Cook send up a hot brick from the kitchen when I ring. And we are not to be disturbed—Mrs Chatterton needs to rest.’

‘
Callum!
Whatever will he think?’ They were in the room now and the door was shut. He found he was anxious, as if she was ill or injured. He reminded himself that this was normal, that she was used to it. But it was strange having someone so intimately close to him to care about, to worry over. He had worried about Dan, but at least his twin had been a large, strong male.

His wife looked almost fragile today. He had tried to keep her at a distance, emotionally, it felt safer that way. But he couldn’t do it if she was hurting. He’d had no idea that marriage would be so … consuming.

‘I do not pay my valet to think,’ he said briskly. ‘Now then, let us get you comfortable.’ He began to unlace her gown, then her corset, then peeled her chemise and petticoat down to her waist as she stood there, passive under his hands. He had never undressed her, he realised. He had wanted to, often. Wanted to catch her in his arms and kiss her, fondle her, undress her slowly and see if he could break through the polite yielding with which she tolerated his lovemaking. But you did not behave like that with a wife, as though she must be ready for you whenever you demanded it.

But if she wanted it too … Callum got a grip on his wandering thoughts and found Sophia’s skin cool under his hands that lay on her shoulders. ‘Off with your shoes and lie down on the bed. On your side with your back to me will be best, I imagine.’

He had stripped off his coat and was rolling up his shirtsleeves by the time she curled herself up on the bed. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked, her voice wary.

‘In India one learns to doctor almost everything from snake bite to fever. I refuse to believe that this cannot be alleviated.’ He sorted through bottles until he found the one he wanted. There was a clink of glass as he pulled out the stopper and the room filled with a warm, spicy smell that transported him straight back to the spice market in Calcutta.

Callum sat on the edge of the bed, his hip against the curve of her buttocks and poured oil into his right palm, letting it take the warmth from his skin. ‘Just relax. Is this the spot?’ He pressed his hand, warm and slippery with oil, gently into the small of her back, and let the other stroke lightly over the slight swell of her belly above the edge of her turned-down petticoats.

She sighed. ‘Oh, yes. Oh, Callum, that is bliss.’ He kept his hands gentle, kneading and stroking with just enough pressure to relax the knotted muscles. Sophia breathed deeply and closed her eyes. He knew how relaxing the smell was, he used this oil when he had a headache. He worked quietly, letting the scent fill her senses.

‘You are purring,’ he said, after perhaps five minutes.

‘You could make a tiger purr,’ she murmured, and he felt Sophia relax as she drifted into sleep.

When she woke Sophia found herself curled up on Callum’s bed, a cover over her and something bulky and warm snuggled into the small of her back. Cautious investigation revealed a hot brick, well wrapped in towels. She turned over and found that her aches and pains had almost gone and that the bedchamber door was open, as was the study door opposite.

Callum was sitting at his desk, his head bent over some papers, one hand raking through his hair. He seemed completely engrossed, but as she watched him he looked up, straight into her eyes, as though she had called his name. He got up and crossed to the bedchamber, tugging the bell pull as he came in. ‘Better?’

‘Much better, thank you.’ She pulled the covers around her like a shawl, sat up and swung her legs off the bed. ‘You have magic in your hands.’

He shrugged, but he seemed pleased with the compliment, she thought. ‘I have rung for Chivers. If you want to get up, I wondered if you would keep me company in the study.’

‘Will I not distract you?’ The idea was intriguing.

‘No. You could read. Or draw if you like. Use my things.’

‘I would like that, thank you. I saw the slope in your study.’ She stumbled to a halt. He would know she had been in there looking around. Then she recovered herself. It was her house and she was in charge of it. Of course she would check all the rooms.

‘I used to have one in India and I brought that one up from the Hall without thinking. My sketchbooks went down with the ship.’ He turned away abruptly. ‘Somehow I don’t feel much like taking it up again.’

‘Did you draw landscapes?’

‘Some. And people.’ He became very still, his attention apparently fixed on the bed post. ‘I drew Dan. I wish now I had sent some home before we sailed, but I never did and now—’ He shrugged. ‘I do not expect I will start again.’

‘You painted in watercolours, did you not?’ Sophia asked. He looked puzzled. ‘You told me when we were driving to London. Would you teach me, Callum? I have never been able to master it.’

‘I don’t know. Perhaps. I might not be good enough.’

‘Then we can struggle with it together,’ Sophia said. Best perhaps not to push him, there were some painful memories involved. ‘Here comes Chivers, I’ll order luncheon to be sent up.’

She had thought Callum healed after Daniel’s death. But it seemed the scars were still tender and the hurt lurked close to the surface. Then she recalled the look in his eyes when he had raised his head and seen her watching him. Perhaps, after all, she was helping him, just a little.

‘I will just read, I think,’ Sophia said. ‘I don’t want to bend over a drawing book at the moment.’ The truth was, she was itching to pick up a pencil, but how could she, in his own study, after what Callum had just told her?

‘You are not bored, I hope?’ He laid aside his pen. ‘I thought of having a dinner party next week. And now you are making calls we will start to receive any number of invitations.’

‘No, I am not bored,’ she promised him. If truth be told, despite her longing to make friends, the thought of plunging into London society was just a little daunting. So long as she could draw, then she would not be bored.

Callum was scrupulous in avoiding her bed. At first Sophia told herself that she was glad to have her bedchamber to herself and that it was delightful to be able to curl up in bed and read for as long as she wanted to, just as she had before she had married.

After four days these protestations were wearing somewhat thin. The truth was, she knew that she wanted the closeness that lovemaking brought even more than she wanted the frustrating pleasures that her husband’s touch brought her. There was something more, she knew that, but somehow she could not reach it, nor could she bring herself to abandon all reserve and allow him to completely overwhelm her.

For that was what it would be, she suspected. If she once yielded utterly to Callum, then she would no longer be herself, the woman she had been. She would feel for him more than she wanted. Certainly more than a man who had married out of duty would want.

But she needed to hold Callum and to be held and she needed the nearness that she had experienced when he had soothed her pain and allowed her to sit quietly in his study while he worked.

In an effort to fill the void she drew with an almost feverish urgency, tearing off pages and throwing them on the fire in frustration at their inadequacy to express what she saw and felt.

The sketches she had drawn of the imaginary, adult Daniel almost followed the still lives, the portraits of the servants and views from the windows onto the fire, but something held her back from destroying them. At first she thought it was because they were rather better than she had thought when she was creating them, then she had to admit that she kept them because they were uncannily like Callum. With a sigh she tucked them under the cover of her portfolio. What she really wanted was to draw her husband, but he was hardly at home these days and when he came back in the evening it was always with a pile of papers and work to be done after dinner.

‘Madam?’

She glanced up. There was Andrew with a salver. ‘The second post, madam.’

And there they were, the first of the expected invitations. Sophia spread them all out and looked at the dates. None of them were on the same night, all of them could be, and doubtless Callum would say, must be, accepted. A musicale, a soirée, a reception and a dinner party. She reviewed her wardrobe and decided that she was adequately gowned for all these. There was nothing for it but to put on her best behaviour and do Callum credit.

Andrew moved around the room, quietly, efficiently repairing the small untidinesses she had created, then whisked out. The house ran like clockwork. Callum’s house, Callum’s servants who hardly needed to refer to her, although, of course, they did. Callum’s contacts and friends and superiors who she must cultivate for the sake of Callum’s career.

Stop it!
she thought. He had rescued her from spinsterhood and paid drudgery and given her a life of ease and security. He had saved Mama from genteel poverty and, as soon as Mark was ordained, he would make sure that Will found her brother a good parish, even if Mark had bored and patronised him on their wedding eve.

But, ungrateful as it was, she missed her old life. In Hertfordshire she had managed the house, the budget. She had contrived and schemed and kept them going, somehow. She could see who she wanted of her friends and she could draw whenever the mood took her. She had been free and her mind had been exercised to its utmost.

There was a snap and Sophia looked down to see the pencil held tight in her fingers was broken. But she still had this, still had her art. She opened the portfolio again. It was good, wasn’t it? Or was she deluding herself? Was she simply a moderately talented young lady? If her art sold, then she would know she had talent, know there was something that remained of the old Sophia. Dare she put it to the test?

‘I am working at home this morning,’ Callum said as Sophia poured him a second cup of coffee at breakfast, six days after she had told him that she was not yet with child. ‘I thought perhaps you would like to go for a walk in Green Park this afternoon. Unless you have more shopping to do.’

‘Oh, yes, thank you. I would like that very much.’ Sophia heard the excitement in her own voice and wondered at herself. Her husband—the husband to whom she had been married for two weeks and two days, she reminded herself—had suggested a walk and she was so pathetically grateful for the simple treat that she sounded as though he had offered her a box at the opera for a year or a carriage and pair for her own use.