Louise Allen - Married to a Stranger

She felt the anger sweep through her and know it was for herself, not really for him. She had been frustrated and she had not realised. She had been desperate for a man’s caresses. What might she have done if he had not stopped—or would the apprehension that was trembling just under the confused desire have made her flee?

‘Are you all right?’

‘No,’ Sophia said. ‘No, I do not think I am all right. What have you done to me?’

‘Kissed you,’ he said. ‘There is some basic attraction between us, I think.’ From the way he smiled he seemed to find that amusing. ‘Sophia, that was passion, that is all.’

‘Very basic,’ she snapped. ‘I am obviously far more ignorant and innocent than the women you are used to associating with,’ she added bitterly. ‘I did not want passion! I only wanted a kiss in a decent manner. There was no need to virtually ravish me,’ she hissed and slapped him, hard, right across his handsome face. She might not be heavy, but she was fit and tall and she put a great deal of feeling into the blow. It rocked him back on his heels, she was pleased to see.

Callum lifted one hand to his face and touched his cheek with his fingertips. ‘A decent manner? That was the sort of kiss that lovers exchange. The sort of kiss married couples exchange. If I had wanted to ravish you, believe me, we would be on that bed by now.’

Bereft of words, Sophia turned and walked down the stairs and out into the sunlight. And now she was going to have to sit beside Callum for half an hour, so close that she could feel the heat of his body next to hers and all the while he would be smirking with male superiority over reducing an ignorant spinster to such a pitiful puddle of need.

The horses looked up and whickered softly at the slam of the front door and she stared at them in sudden speculation. Perhaps she was not trapped here after all. She could drive a gig with one horse. How much more difficult was it to drive a pair? These had been well exercised and seemed biddable enough.

She ran across the clearing, untied the reins and climbed up on to the high seat. It took a moment to sort out two pairs of reins, but she had been watching Callum’s hands as he drove and she found the knack of it.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ He had come out at last, but there was the width of the clearing between them now. ‘Sophia!’

‘Get up.’ Sophia clicked her tongue and the pair responded as Callum began to run. She slapped the reins down and they broke into a trot, then a canter. As the carriage swayed up the rutted track she heard a shout behind her, but by now she was too concerned with not overturning the curricle to heed him.

The track sloped uphill, which helped, and she had the pair steady by the time it turned on to the road. They settled into a walk again and she did not try for more speed. As it was, the instinct to hang on to the side of the vehicle with her free hand was hard to fight.

But the pair’s docility calmed her. It left her with nothing to do but brood on what had just happened. How could he? Why did he not ask? But he did, in a way, a small voice cut into her tumbling, angry thoughts. He asked to kiss me, it was not his fault that I was so shamefully carried away by it. I gave myself up to his kisses far too easily. I did say I agreed.

She managed a wry smile. Now she knew something about herself that was a revelation. She had felt physical desire and she had also been frightened by the force of it, the sheer physical power of him. His brother had never made her feel like this, needy and shy and confused and almost out of control of where her passions might take her. Memories of Daniel had not made her want to moan with frustration. The gentlemen she encountered at the modest country gatherings had never tempted her in the slightest, she admitted as she negotiated the village street and a flock of sheep. Her body kept murmuring that it expected more. Sophia tried not to listen to it. More meant surrendering everything to Callum Chatterton.

‘Confound the woman.’ Cal stopped at the top of the hill and surveyed the lane down to the village; it was mercifully free of wrecked carriages. The breath rasped in his lungs from running for a mile, but he took a grim satisfaction that he was not panting. He had dragged himself from the lethargy of grief and had thrown himself into physical activity, those past months in London. Boxing, fencing, riding. Sex. They had all helped heal him, helped bring some balance back as well as strengthening his body.

He surveyed the road. If Sophia had got this far, then she was probably sufficiently in control to get home safely. He had chosen steady horses so he could concentrate on her and they had been well exercised. Now he should stop worrying that she had broken her neck and face the fact that he had badly mishandled that kiss. She truly was an innocent and he had shocked her, not so much by what he had done, but by the reactions he had provoked in her.

He had not set out to shock her, Cal told himself as he strode down the hill and into the inn yard. He had intended to kiss her, with restraint, and convince her that marriage to him was nothing to be afraid of. And then she had quivered in his arms and he had sensed the innocent natural passion and sensuality so he had given a mental shrug and found himself taking, demanding, far more than he should.

Sophia’s total surrender in his arms would be flattering if it were not for the fact that she had probably simply been overwhelmed by the novelty of it all. And now the physical desires he had been suppressing when he was near her were all on the surface again. The taste of a woman, the feel of her in his arms, was as powerful as a drug. No, not just a woman. This woman. He wanted Sophia Langley very badly indeed.

‘ Anari murkha,’ he muttered in Hindi. ‘Worse than a fool.’

‘Sir? Sorry, sir.’ An ostler emerged from the stables.

‘Not you.’ Cal unclenched his teeth and tried for a more pleasant tone. ‘I require a horse to get to Flamborough Hall; I’ll have a groom bring it back later today.’

Having to deal with a suspicious ostler who could not understand why a gentleman should arrive sweaty, horseless and without his card case or more than a crown in his pocket, and then riding a slug of a nag home, did nothing to improve Cal’s mood.

He had tried to be honest with her. He could not find it in himself to love, to risk caring so deeply, ever again. Life was too uncertain—how could he cope if he allowed himself to feel for her and then lost her?

Did she understand the difference between physical passion and love? He did not want to hurt her, break her heart all over again. And yet … An errant smile curled the corner of his mouth as he thought of Sophia’s reaction to his kisses and caresses. She had felt glorious in his arms, despite her inexperience.

He was still musing on that as he rode up to the front of the Hall and tossed the reins to the groom who ran forwards to take them. ‘This belongs to the Black Swan in Long Welling. Have someone take it back at once, will you?’

‘Yes, sir. Miss Langley called with the curricle, sir. Wilkins drove her home.’

‘She has won her wager, then,’ Cal said lightly. ‘Most improper. You and Wilkins won’t speak of it, I trust.’

He strolled into Will’s study, his mind full of interesting memories which his body, relaxed by vigorous exercise, was eagerly endorsing.

‘There you are! How did it go?’ His elder brother tossed down his pen and looked up, his expression lightening. ‘You look better—so much colour in your face. Sophia said yes , then?’ Will had been enthusiastic when Cal had returned to the Hall and told him of his intention to marry Sophia. Cal suspected that he had been worried about the Langleys, but had been unable to penetrate their polite reserve.