Married to a Perfect Stranger Read online

  He’d thought that once they were back in London, taking their former places among the army of clerks at the Foreign Office, Fordyce would disappear from his life. He hadn’t been aware of the man before the China mission. He didn’t expect to see him after. But Fordyce had other ideas and a positive genius for malicious little incidents like today’s, where a protest was impossible. Insisting that Fordyce had done it on purpose would only make John sound like a bleating schoolboy whose homework had been spoiled. Or a tiresome grind. Fordyce was a master of the raised eyebrow, the mocking gesture, the pitying smile that said caring too deeply was just so tiresomely middle class. John would have dismissed his antics as ridiculous, except that this was the pervasive culture of the Foreign Office—the glorification of the aristocratic amateur.

  He was going to have do something about Fordyce, make him stop these infuriating games. John had big plans and no time for his nonsense.

  The hiss and crackle of a log falling in two in the fire called John back to the parlor. Mary’s needle had gone still. She looked wary and as if she might have said something that he didn’t hear. The disaster of their last encounter came flooding back to him. Another tangle he had to unravel. “How was your journey? Not too tiring, I hope?”

  “No, the weather was fine and the coach quite comfortable.”

  They might have been distant acquaintances meeting in the street, John thought.

  “The plantings in the square are quite lovely,” she added. “I walked all around it earlier. There was no one else about.”

  His wife was looking quite lovely herself, John realized. Her rose-pink gown emphasized the warm color in her cheeks and lips. Her dark hair shone in the firelight. She’d been hemming a handkerchief, he saw—a picture of domestic tranquillity, of the gentle Mary he remembered from their wedding journey. Had that scene in Somerset really happened?

  She raised those huge brown eyes and met his gaze. The color in her cheeks deepened a bit. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I ordered dinner for seven, but we could move it up a little. Or perhaps you’d like a glass of wine?”

  He was ravenous, John realized. He hadn’t had time for a bite since breakfast. “Starved,” he said. He rose and held out a hand. Mary took it. She set her sewing aside and stood to face him. Her fingers were small and warm in his. A hint of her scent reached him, subtle and flowery. Was it violets? He breathed it in. He thought it was violets—the shy, secret blooms hidden under fallen leaves and bracken deep in the forest. Her cheeks looked soft as violet petals, softer even than the hand he held. The pink cloth of her gown moved with her breath, the modest swoop of its neckline making him think of what was underneath. If he bent forward only slightly, he could place his lips at that edge.

  Down in the kitchen, something fell with a resounding clang. A spate of unintelligible words followed the sound. Mary turned her head, frowning. “Oh, what can it be now?”

  It was the voice she’d used in Somerset, the sergeant major chivying the troops.

  “I’d better go and see. I’ll tell Mrs. Tanner we’re ready to eat.”

  John let go of her hand. And with a last breath of violets, she was gone.

  They sat down to dinner a short time later. It was roast chicken again, but John didn’t complain. Mary had no way of knowing that he’d had chicken three nights out of five since the servants arrived. The maid reached past him with a serving platter. A carving knife slid along the edge and dropped off, spearing directly toward his lap. John barely caught the handle as she set the platter down with an audible thunk.

  “Kate!” said Mary. “Take some care.”

  A dish of potatoes from the maid’s other hand hit the tabletop even harder. One bounced out; she snatched it up and replaced it.

  She was a ham-handed servitor. John had noticed it before, but now that Mary was here, the maid’s clumsiness seemed somehow his fault. He started to carve the chicken. “I trust your great-aunt is well settled?” he asked.

  “Yes, I was quite right about Mrs. Finch. She is perfect for the position. Both kind and efficient. And the staff all likes her.”

  “That’s good.”

  The maid’s footsteps coming up the kitchen stair and back into the dining room sounded like the tromp of a whole platoon. Something soft and creamy plopped to the floor behind John, followed by a muttered imprecation and scrabbling sounds. There seemed to be far more noise from below than he was accustomed to as well. Had the cook begun talking to herself?

  “Leave it till later, Kate,” said Mary, who was in a position to see what was going on.

  “I can get it back in the dish,” replied the maid pertly.

  “We won’t have it now.”

  “But it’s hardly dirt—”

  “Just bring up the tarts I made,” Mary commanded.

  With a muttered, “Yes’m,” the girl departed.

  “You made?” John said.

  “Yes, I quite enjoy baking. I often…”

  “You shouldn’t be cooking.”

  “Why not?”

  “You have servants for that.”

  A crash from the stairs was followed by an audible curse. “Should I not pick up the tarts either?” shouted Kate from the nether regions. Shattered crockery stirred. “They’re mostly broke,” she allowed.

  “Never mind,” called Mary, her teeth clenched around the words. “We don’t need anything more right now.”

  John recognized the annoyed glitter in her eyes from Somerset. “The registry said these people had worked in the household of a duchess,” he said. “I assumed they would know their business, add a touch of elegance to the place. Apparently, I was deceived.” This was just a cap to his truly wretched day.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “The maid is hopeless. I see that.” The words came out sharp and impatient, driven by his pent-up anger.

  Mary didn’t want to talk about dismissing the servants within their hearing. Indeed, she wasn’t eager to begin any significant discussion. John had come home so grim and fierce, so utterly unlike—again—the man she’d thought she married that she hardly knew what to say to him. And then he’d stood in the parlor gripping her hand and staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. It was very unsettling.

  “Do you wish me to admit I made a mistake in hiring them?” John snapped. “Very well, I admit it. Satisfied? Now you have an opportunity to show that you can manage much better than I can.”

  “I was not thinking any such thing!” Though she certainly could, Mary thought. She reined in her temper. “I will talk to Kate about her serving…”

  “Our house is not a training ground for incompetent servants!” He was spoiling for a fight, John realized. Though he knew it was Fordyce he wanted to throttle, and not his unsuspecting wife, he couldn’t seem to stop himself. “You will dismiss them at once.”

  “I am in charge of the house. I will decide what to do.”

  “Do you take pleasure in contradicting me?”

  The sarcasm in his voice eroded Mary’s resolve to be amiable. She would not be treated like a lackwit in her own home. “You are being unreasonable.”

  “You are being infuriatingly stubborn! Why will you not simply do as I ask?” It was a question for John’s whole world at this moment. It seemed that every element of his life strove against him.

  “The servants are my responsibility,” Mary countered. She knew that the women below stairs would be straining to hear every word they said. “I’m quite good at running a household.”

  “Indeed? And that is why there is…” John turned to look behind him. “…something green and slimy seeping into the carpet.”

  Mary lost her battle with annoyance. He was really being quite unfair. “You hired them!”

  “And now you refuse to be rid of them! Why? I suppose you will enjoy shoving my mistake in my face each
and every day?” Just as Fordyce created opportunities to make him appear incompetent.

  Mary was shocked by the idea. “I would never do anything like that.” How could he think such a thing?

  They stared at each other across the table. The tension in the atmosphere stretched and tightened until Mary thought she would scream. Then it seemed to slowly drain away. John’s gaze shifted to his half-eaten dinner. “I can’t stand constant brangling,” he said. “I have more than enough of that at the office.”

  “I hate it,” said Mary, wondering what in the world his office could be like.

  They contemplated one another through a further silence.

  “We were married off by our families,” said John finally. It was a stark statement; all the emotion had disappeared from his voice. The flat tone so depressed Mary’s spirits that she could only nod. It felt as if the fragile fabric of her marriage might be coming apart at the seams.

  “We’d just begun to get acquainted, and then we were apart for a long time, leading quite different lives.”

  “Yes.”

  “We don’t know each other very well.”

  It was true that the man who’d returned from his long journey seemed like a stranger. And sometimes, lately, Mary felt she scarcely knew herself. Yet the way he said it was so dispiriting. “I suppose not.”

  “But we’re married,” he said.

  She didn’t like the “but.” Not at all. It sounded resigned, and not particularly hopeful.

  “So…I think we need to…make allowances.”

  “That’s a horrid word.” It came out of her mouth without premeditation. She didn’t blame him for looking startled. Mary licked her lips and searched for clarity in the jumble of her thoughts. “Making allowances” was for inescapable predicaments or disagreeable relatives. “More like…starting fresh?”

  John cocked his head, raised an inquiring brow.

  An errant impulse brought Mary to her feet. She came around the table, stood before him, and dropped a small curtsy. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Bexley.”

  After a moment, a smile tugged at his mouth. He rose and bowed politely. “Mrs. Bexley.”

  Mary offered her hand. He took it and, as in the parlor earlier, heat seemed to suffuse the air. She felt his gaze on her. His eyes looked bluer, somehow. She was newly aware of his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the strength in the fingers around hers. He raised her hand toward his lips.

  Audible grumbling and loud footsteps heralded the appearance of Mrs. Tanner, still in her soiled cook’s apron. She looked startled to find them standing together, then defiant. “We’ve run out of kindling,” she declared, “and the coal bin’s near empty as well.”

  John dropped Mary’s hand and stepped back. How had he endured these servants for two weeks? They were insupportable.

  Mary frowned at her. “I’ll see about ordering new supplies first thing tomorrow,” she answered. “You might have waited until then to tell me…”

  The cook just stood there with crossed arms. “Mr. Bexley said he’d do it today.”

  John cursed silently. He’d said he would try to see about this, but with all that had gone on at the office, he’d forgotten. He opened his mouth to defend himself.

  “Mr. Bexley is far too busy to deal with household orders,” Mary replied crisply before he could speak. “I said I would take care of it.”

  “I suppose there’s money for coals and all?” was the incredible response. John gaped at the woman’s impertinence.

  “Yes, Mrs. Tanner, there is. And for whatever else I decide that we require.”

  Mary spoke like a duchess herself, John thought. And the obstreperous cook responded at once to her tone. She took a step back, dropped a curtsy, and said, “Yes, ma’am.” She left the room much more rapidly than she’d come in.

  Relieved, and impressed, he turned to gaze at his wife. There she stood, looking just like the pretty little thing he’d taken to the altar two years ago, the sweet girl he’d imagined molding to his revised requirements. Only she wasn’t. She was somebody else entirely, currently watching him with uncomfortably sharp brown eyes. It was a fine idea, starting fresh. He liked it; he approved. But just now it felt like another task in a long list on his plate.

  “I have a good deal of work to do.” He had to recopy his report, deciphering and reconstituting the ink-spoilt pages. It would take hours, but he couldn’t let Fordyce’s stupid trick make the document late.

  “Oh.” Mary felt dismissed, as if she no longer had any place in his thoughts. “Shall I bring you a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, thank you.” John smiled. “And perhaps some of those broken tarts?”

  For a disorienting moment, Mary thought he’d said “broken hearts.”

  “If you can pick out the bits of china,” he added.

  He was joking, Mary told herself. He was trying to be pleasant. She nodded and smiled back. Amity trembled into existence between them once again. What if she simply embraced him? Mary wondered. If they could cut through the thicket of words that seemed to entangle them every time they spoke…

  And just at the moment she would not have chosen, Arthur Windly erupted into the room from the kitchen stairs. “That Kate is a regular caution,” he said. When the Bexleys turned to look at him, he added, “She said to come and ask you. Cook wants me to scrub all the pots. There’s a great mound of ’em. Must I really? Ma’am?” The boy wilted a little under their combined gaze. “Sir?”

  “Who are you?” John asked.

  “This is Arthur,” Mary supplied. She turned back to the boy. “You know the agreement, Arthur.”

  “But they’re all crusted over. And Kate burnt a whole pan of…”

  “Nevertheless. You must do as you’re told.” Mary’s sergeant major voice was back.

  John got it finally. “Aren’t you the boy who was chasing the chicken in Somerset?”

  Arthur’s skinny shoulders drew together. “That devil! I never meant to go in the house. If those dratted doors hadn’t been left open…”

  “Go on to your work,” Mary told him. “You promised.” With a scowl, he turned and walked—very slowly—out of the room.

  “Who exactly is he?” John asked again. “And what is he doing here?”

  Wishing she could have chosen a better moment for explanations, Mary plunged in. “Arthur is the son of Great-Aunt Lavinia’s steward. He and his father are having…a difficult time of it. They cannot seem to get along. The chicken, uh, incident was the last straw for Mr. Windly, after a number of other…mishaps. He insisted that Arthur must be truly punished, so as to learn his lesson once and for all.” Mary tried to read John’s face, to see if he understood. “Arthur cannot seem to do anything right in his father’s eyes. I was worried that his measures would be…too severe. But when I tried to speak to him about it he…didn’t wish to listen. So I thought…”

  “That you would bring him here,” John said in an odd voice.

  Mary nodded. “Arthur is set to go off to school next year. I think he will do quite well once he is away…” She left that thought unspoken. “His father decreed that he spend the time until then as a lower servant, in order to understand what he might come to if he didn’t, uh, straighten up. He thinks that blacking boots and scrubbing pots and…oh, obeying orders will…”

  “Turn Arthur into a paragon of virtue,” said John.

  Mary couldn’t fathom his dry tone. He didn’t seem angry, as she had feared he would be. “More or less.” She shrugged. “I promised him that Arthur would be put to work. But I thought it would go better here than directly under Mr. Windly’s eye…” She’d also thought, in the end, that Mr. Windly had suspected as much, even known that she would treat Arthur with more sympathy than he could muster himself.

  “There can be no doubt of it,” John declared. “You did quite right.”
r />   Mary had expected annoyance at the least, a battle at worst. This response confused her. “So, you don’t mind if he is with us for a few months?”

  “On the contrary. He’s quite welcome.” The smile he gave her was one of the most open and sincere she’d seen since his return.

  Mary watched her husband head for the stairs, surprised and grateful. He’d been so irritated about the servants. Why was he suddenly amenable? Truly, she didn’t understand him. And now that the hurdle of Arthur was successfully passed, she felt a tinge of guilt. She was sure the boy had his slingshot packed away in his bag.

  When she took up the tea and broken tarts a bit later, she found John settled at his desk, deeply engrossed with pen and ink. Oddly, a bulky document covered with ink was spread before him. He barely acknowledged her arrival, though she could see it was from distraction.

  Later still, Mary climbed into her unfamiliar bed alone. Though she was worn by days of travel and her rocky arrival, she didn’t fall asleep right away. She was acutely conscious of John on the floor beneath, directly below her pillow—almost as if she could hear the scratch of his quill across the page, see the look of concentration on his handsome face. She remembered the way his strong, shapely hand had gripped hers earlier, how he’d looked at her with such unsettling intensity. That look had been…thrilling. And fleeting. And confusing. John had never looked at her that way before he went away. The girl she was then wouldn’t have wanted him to, really. Now, she hoped he would do it again, soon.

  Indeed, what if she went downstairs this minute, as she was, in only her thin nightdress, and stood before his desk…? A flush began in Mary’s cheeks and burned all the way to her toes. Where had that idea come from? A host of others, equally new and enthralling, bubbled up as she imagined what might follow.