‘It is?’ It was certainly a surprise.
‘Wait and see.’ Cal led her up the staircase, along a broad corridor to the other side of the house and opened a door in front of them into another passageway running at right angles. ‘These are our private rooms.’ He waved a hand at the row of doors, walked to almost to the end of the left hand branch of the passage and opened one. ‘Your bedchamber.’
Cal stood back to allow her to walk in and Sophie went immediately to the window. ‘Oh, how lovely.’ Spread out before her was parkland and clumps of trees, a herd of fallow deer grazing and the sparkle of water, half-concealed by the swell of the land. She turned, running one hand down jade green silk curtains and then turned a slow circle on the great rug spread out in the centre of the room – all pinks and greens and faded gold. ‘I love it.’ She perched on the end of the bed and leaned back on her hands to admire the plasterwork of the ceiling, then the panelled walls. Her favourite painting would go there, her Chinese silk shawl would be perfect draped over that chair…
Cal strolled in, closing the door behind him and propped one shoulder against the delicate carved bedpost. ‘I see it has you approval.’
‘Oh yes. I may be marrying you simply for my bedchamber, Your Grace. But why is it shocking?’
‘Connecting doors, inside as well as those outside. Although actually it is more of a series. That is the door to your dressing room, but that, on the other side, is to your sitting room, which leads to my sitting room and then my bedchamber. Of course, it is such a walk that I am thinking of installing refreshment tables at intervals otherwise I may be too weak to do more than fall at your feet when I get here.’
‘So my virtue can be safeguarded by two doors to lock and the fact that you will be in a fainting condition even if you should breach them?’ Sophie enquired, wondering why she wasn’t as pink as a peony. Was Cal actually asking her permission to come through those doors tonight?
‘Exactly. And the fact that I believe I can rely upon you to tell me exactly what you do, and do not, want, Sophie. We have not dealt so far in false emotions and coy euphemisms but in facts and in trust.’ There was the faintest emphasis on the last word. Or was it her guilty conscience making her over-sensitive? ‘And one of those facts is that there is a certain attraction between us.’
Yes, her cheeks were definitely pink now, she could feel them warming, just as she could feel other parts of her body heating and softening. She managed to nod, not breaking contact with Cal’s heavy-lidded gaze.
‘So, given that we are going to be married very soon, what is there to prevent us acting on that attraction now? Unless that makes you uncomfortable, or it spoils how you want your wedding day to be.’
‘No. Under the circumstances I am not harbouring romantic dreams of my wedding nights.’
‘You mean after the man to whom you were unofficially engaged?’ Cal’s mouth twitched slightly at what she supposed he would describe as a coy euphemism for her lover, but his face was serious, even when she shook her head. ‘There is something, isn’t there? Am I being insensitive?’ He seemed to be asking himself the question more than her. ‘We have been practical and sensible and frank and now I am setting out to strip all the magic out of it. And there should be some magic, shouldn’t there, Sophie? Some sprinkle of star dust, some gesture to Venus and not simply a ceremony and a social event. A commercial transaction.’
Cal pushed away from the post and wandered towards the window. It looked casual, the action of a man strolling about his possessions, looking at the view, but Sophie sensed that from another man that jerk upright might have been an ornament thrown into the hearth or a fist thudding against the wall.
‘Was that what it was, your first marriage? A commercial transaction?’
‘If only it had been.’ His snort of amusement might even have been genuine, but she couldn’t see his face. ‘I thought I was getting into a monetary exchange, that I was setting up a mistress, that Madeleine was one of the sisterhood who did not expect marriage, more a solid financial recompense for their favours. I was young, and more than that, sheltered from spending so much time at home… ill. I had some experience, of course, I thought I knew my way around and perhaps I did, but not enough to recognise a respectably-raised young lady from a merchant family who was a good enough actress to counterfeit a high-class courtesan.’
‘And then her father appeared on the scene with a shotgun, I suppose.’
‘Indeed he did, just as I was about to finally claim the very expensive reward I had paid for over several weeks of negotiations. I wasn’t so green as to yield instantly. I had the family investigated and yes, they were solid Boston merchants, wealthy, well-respected. Madeleine wasn’t carrying another man’s child, she had not so much as a smudge on her character.’