Married to a Stranger. Louise Allen

suppose I had better get used to it.’

       Chapter Five

      By three o’clock the next day Sophia was hard put not to range up and down the parlour like a caged animal. Where was Callum? There was no sign of him, not so much as a note. Had he changed his mind and decided that after yesterday when she had slapped him, insulted him, stolen his horses and abandoned him in the middle of the woods that she was impossible, duty or no duty?

      When the clock struck the half-hour she could stand it no longer. ‘I must go out for a walk, Mama,’ she said. She stuffed the half-hemmed pillowcase that she had been mangling into the workbasket and almost ran out of the room. She snatched up a straw villager hat, jammed it on and was out of the front gate before she could think where she was going, or why.

      She stepped straight out into the little lane, aiming for the stile into the field opposite and the footpath through the woods. The sound of hoofbeats only registered when the horse was almost upon her. No one cantered down here—Sophia spun round and the rider wrenched the animal to one side, but not before it caught her with its shoulder and knocked her to the ground.

      Sophia sat in the mud at the edge of the lane, her hat over one eye, and tried hard not to scream. It was too much. This was her best afternoon dress, worn in the expectation of receiving a proposal of marriage. Her bottom hurt where she had landed on it, her heart was thudding like a steam engine and she wanted to give in and weep.

      Instead she found herself being hauled to her feet by a man who was becoming all too familiar. ‘What the devil do you think you were doing? Don’t you ever look where you are walking? You could have been killed!’ He looked as furious as she felt.

      ‘You were going too fast, Mr Chatterton,’ Sophia snapped back. ‘Or perhaps you cannot control your horse any better than you control your lusts?’ She pushed her hat straight and glared at him.

      Callum stared back, his eyes narrowed, his mouth grim. He looked dangerous, irritated and impatient. ‘Where were you going?’

      ‘Out. For a walk, if it is any of your business.’ He was still holding her with a big hand wrapped around each arm, just above the elbows. ‘Will you kindly let me go?’

      He ignored her demand. ‘Out? When you were expecting me?’

      ‘Expecting you, Mr Chatterton? Why should I be? I assumed you would not make another assault on my virtue in my own home.’ As she said it she felt something contract inside. Was this really the man who had made her drunk with desire, so incoherent that she could not think? Yes, it was and being this close brought back an unsatisfied ache to add to her discomfort.

      ‘You should have been expecting me to come and finalise the arrangements for our marriage,’ he said, his voice even. It was infuriating that she could not get him to raise his voice and show some emotion, even if it was anger.

      ‘Oh. You still intend to marry me?’ Thank goodness.

      ‘Do you mean to be deliberately provocative, Miss Langley?’

      ‘Yes,’ she said, lifting her chin. I might have to marry him—I do not have to like him.

      ‘And what are you attempting to provoke, I wonder?’ he said, his voice silky smooth. A quiver of something that was not quite fear and not quite desire went through her and she knew he sensed it from the way his eyes narrowed and his mouth curved.

      ‘Some genuine emotion,’ she flashed. ‘Not cold duty, not manipulative lust, not sarcasm. The truth. Do you truly want to marry me or not, Mr Chatterton? I should warn you, I meant it when I said we have considerable debts. And Mama will need support; I do not expect my brother to be able to do that.’

      The question hung there in the warm air. Then Callum smiled. ‘Yes, I want to marry you, Sophia. I think it is the right thing to do. I think we can deal well together. I cannot pretend that I love you, that I ever will love you. And I do not ask that you will love me—how can I expect you to be so fickle as to forget Daniel that easily? And, in any case, I suspect love to be a much overrated emotion. That does not mean I will not do my utmost to be a good husband to you. And I understand about the debts.’

      She tried to block the surge of guilt at his mention of Daniel. It was easier to think how he had made her feel yesterday. How, shamefully, she wanted him to make her feel today. The desire to touch him, to feel those muscles shifting under her hands, to smell his skin again, to taste him against her lips … She was going to marry him, so those sensual promises would be her reward for doing her duty. She only hoped that if the need to provide for her family had not been so great she would have had the strength to refuse him and that she was not doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons.

      She twisted away, but something must have shown in her face, for Callum caught her by the shoulder and turned her back to face him as he untied her mangled bonnet strings and removed the crumpled hat. His hand as he brushed her hair back from her face was gentle and she closed her eyes against the intent in his, breathing in the smell of horse and leather and the spicy scent she was coming to know as Callum.

      ‘I wish to marry you, Sophia Langley, because I believe it is the best thing for both of us. I also wish to marry you because I promised my brother I would look after you if anything happened to him.

      ‘And I believe that you know you will marry me and, not surprisingly, you are angry and frustrated at having your hand forced by someone else telling you what is right for you. Especially when that other person was somewhat clumsy yesterday.’

      ‘I—’ He had summarised it perfectly. So efficient, Callum Chatterton. ‘You have left me very little to say, sir.’

      ‘That was my intention. You could say, yes,’ he suggested.

      ‘Yes. Yes, I will marry you.’ Surrendering to the inevitable was an odd sensation. A sort of dizzy relief mixed with fear.

      ‘Excellent.’ Callum bent his head. She held her breath, closed her eyes. He kissed her, lightly, on her cheek.

      Sophia gave a strangled gasp of disappointment, relief, surprise, but his hands still held her upper arms. She opened her eyes to find his face already far enough away for her to read the cynical amusement in his eyes. He knows I want him to kiss me properly. How humiliating.

      ‘Later, Sophia,’ Callum murmured.

      ‘You know how to tease, do you not?’ she asked, almost tempted into smiling at his effrontery. There was a noise behind her, some kind of disturbance, but Callum continued to hold her. ‘Sometimes it makes the conclusion sweeter,’ he murmured.

       ‘Sophia Grace Miranda Langley!’

      ‘Mama.’ It sank in that she was standing—or perhaps sagging—in a man’s arms in the middle of the public highway, her skirts mired, her hat gone and her hair a tumbled mess.

      ‘Thank heavens! Oh, how wonderful!’

      ‘Mama?’

      ‘Come inside, both of you, before someone comes along.’ Mrs Langley flapped her hands as though rounding up chickens.

      Callum stooped to hand her the bedraggled villager hat, tossed his horse’s reins over the gatepost, replaced his own hat—which, of course, he had safely in his hand—on his head and opened the gate for her. Elegant, controlled, serious. If he so much as let his lips twitch she would … No, he would not make such a tactical mistake. No giving way to smug triumph or foolish passion for him.

      ‘Thank you, Mr Chatterton,’ Sophia said with as much frigid politeness as she could manage.

      ‘My pleasure, Miss Langley.’

      ‘I fell in the lane, Mama. I will go and change.’ She whisked upstairs, leaving her suitor to break the news to her mother. With any luck Mama would be over the worst of her transports of joy by the time Sophia rejoined them in the parlour.

      ‘Here you are at last.’