Louise Allen - Married to a Stranger

He should stop teasing her. ‘I would gain a wife with elegance of manner, intelligence, courage and poise,’ Cal said. Her cheek, all he could see of her face, became peony pink. He was laying it on rather thick—she hardly looked elegant in that gown. ‘I would have the satisfaction of knowing I have done as my twin would have wished.’ He hesitated, then decided that he owed her frankness, if nothing else.

‘I do not look for a love match. If I am to be honest, I do not think myself capable of that kind of total emotional commitment any longer. I feel, since the wreck, that part of me has been ripped away. You knew us both once, you showed some understanding of how a twin must feel—I wonder if you can comprehend that now I do not think I will ever be able to love anyone wholeheartedly again. Not my brother, and not a woman.’

Sophia moved away, her movements jerky, and came to rest with one hand grasping the frame of the door. She did not speak.

‘With you, with your maturity and our shared loss, I can hope for some acceptance of that. I am not sure I can ask it of some young girl looking for first love.’ Still she did not reply. How much was he wounding her by speaking of Dan and her lost dreams?

He thought of her faint when she had heard the news. For nine years she had clung to the promises she had made. She had been faithful and loyal, just as she had sworn that day in 1799 when he had tried so clumsily to put a stop to the betrothal that had seemed premature and ill founded. He had not sensed then any deep emotional involvement from his twin and the passing years had proved him right.

Dan should have come back and married Sophia years ago, even if he hadn’t wanted to risk her health out in India. She’d have had status, the estate, probably children by now, if he had only come home when he had had the opportunity. There was no excuse, not really. There had only been Dan’s desire to have his freedom and his total lack of responsibility towards anyone but Callum. And Cal could have made him come back and do his duty, and he knew he had not because it was good to have his brother beside him and not to have to share him with a wife and children.

He would marry Sophia if she would have him, because that was the right thing to do and it was convenient for him, but he did not want to have to agonise over her feelings. It had been hard enough dealing with his own grief and the aching void where Dan should have been.

But soon he must find a wife and settle down. Besides anything else there were two estates to consider, the one that was in trust for him until he married or reached thirty and the one that had been Dan’s on the same terms and which was now his, too. He felt depressed and weary at the thought of setting out to find a wife, courting a woman, pretending to love a woman. So much simpler to marry Sophia and solve all their problems.

It would help if he could feel any positive emotions, but they seemed to have deserted him, leaving only a black, aching hole even now, six months later. And so had empathy. He felt his brother Will’s pain at a distance; Sophia’s, hardly at all. And yet in all other ways he was back to normal. He worked hard, his brain was as sharp as ever, he had ambition, he planned for the future, he welcomed the company of friends and colleagues. He was eating properly, looking after himself and creating a home, not lurking in bachelor lodgings.

Sophia moved again, as though she checked herself from flight, and the sunlight caught the shine of her hair, outlined her figure vaguely through her thin skirts. She turned and looked at him and he saw a speculation and awareness that had not been there before. Cal felt a sudden heaviness in his groin, a stirring in his blood.

‘Well, Sophia?’ He moved closer to her until the hem of her skirts brushed the toes of his boots. ‘Shall we fix a date?’

‘Mr Chatterton—Callum—I cannot marry you.’ Sophia realised there was nothing else she could think of to say. She could not argue with his sense of duty, with his desire to fulfil a promise to his twin. But how could she accept him when it was her own folly that had allowed the betrothal to endure? Daniel could not have broken it off, not as a gentleman.

‘I realise that your feelings for Daniel might make this somewhat awkward,’ Callum continued, as dispassionately as though he was discussing the price of tea. ‘However, I will endeavour to make you a good husband. I am certain now that I will be remaining in England, which will relieve your mind on the score of either the unhealthy climate or the likelihood of long separations.’

In love with Daniel? She blinked at Callum, distracted from his ruthlessly practical catalogue. Of course, how could he know how inconstant I had been? I swore to him, so long ago, that I would always love Daniel. What else is he to assume? Appalled, Sophia realised that she could hardly disabuse him of the notion now; it would be dreadful to announce that she did not love her betrothed when Callum’s loss was still so raw.

He was saying something else. She pulled her attention back with an effort. ‘… a sensible and amiable wife and you require a husband. We could marry quietly by licence.’

‘You appear to have thought it all through very thoroughly,’ Sophia said, her mouth dry. ‘How efficient. I must confess I do not feel much inclined to be sensible, let alone amiable, just now. As for what the intelligent thing to do might be, I have no idea.’

Screaming seemed tempting. You require a husband, indeed! Certainly she did; she lay awake in the panicky small hours thinking just that thing and wondering how they would manage when their creditors woke up to the fact that there was no well-connected male in her future to pay the bills. It would be a long while before the pittance she could earn as a governess or a put-upon companion would pay off the debts. But to marry a man who was proposing out of a chilly sense of duty …

‘I cannot marry you simply because you have a kindly im pulse.’

‘I do not commit to matters of importance, of honour, on an impulse.’ His mouth curved into something that was almost a smile.

‘Certainly not a kindly one,’ she tossed back at him.

‘I am not much given to impulse,’ Callum confessed, and she became aware of his eyes on her body, assessing her.

He was so certain that she would do what he said. Sophia bit the inside of her lip to stop herself flaring up. It was ungrateful, but she was the only one who would decide what she was going to do. ‘My feelings for your brother do not concern you?’

‘No.’ He did not appear willing to expand on that. Perhaps, because he felt nothing for her, he did not care if she still loved another man. It argued that he did not see marriage as involving any exchange of deep feeling, of passion beyond the physical.

She averted her eyes from his broad shoulders and long legs and the distracting prospect of physical passion. He was an attractive man. That was not a good reason for making a marriage, especially as he would hardly be entertaining the same feelings of physical attraction for her. A wife was a warm body in a bed who would perform her marital duties and produce children. Apparently she passed muster, even if she did not drive him wild with desire.

This was as bad as the prospect of marrying Daniel had become, only colder. Sophia reminded herself that Callum was, by business and training, a trader. He was approaching marriage, she supposed, in the same way as any other contract, rationally and with good sense.

‘Financially there are problems, are there not?’ he asked.

She had to be honest about that, never mind how her pride revolted. ‘Yes. There are debts, more than we can cope with any more. I had intended to apply for a post as a governess or perhaps a companion.’