Married to a Perfect Stranger (9 page)

Mary sat at the table, ignoring the women's surprised looks as well as Arthur's soulful acceptance of the cook's sympathy. “You and Kate are related,” she said to her.

“She's my mam,” said Kate.

“For my sins,” murmured Mrs. Tanner.

Mary nodded. Since drawing the two women, she'd found the words for this necessary conversation. “This is a small household and will remain so. No peers of the realm, no large staff with specializations. I don't plan to hire anyone else for now. If you wish to remain here, you'll have to turn your hands to many different tasks.”

Mrs. Tanner stiffened with apprehension. Kate merely sulked.

“If you find that prospect too unpleasant…”

“No, ma'am,” the cook interrupted.

Mary looked at Kate. “You will have to take more care serving dinner.”

Arthur hooted, and Kate shot him a glare.

“Particularly because we are planning to have a guest,” Mary continued. John's colleague couldn't be subjected to thumping crockery and falling knives.

“She will,” said Mrs. Tanner. “I'll see to it.”

The maid tossed her head. “I'm no footman to be hauling trays. As soon as may be, I'm going to marry a man who'll keep me. Owner of an inn maybe.”

“Who'd marry you?” Arthur wondered. “Anyhow, you'd be serving at all kinds of tables at an inn.”

“He'd hire people to do that,” Kate replied.

“The wife of an innkeeper either cooks in the kitchen or serves at the bar,” her mother declared. “Haven't you seen as much yourself?”

“A shop then,” Kate said.

“What, a grocer or a notions store?” Mrs. Tanner wrinkled her nose. “You'd be serving at a counter there. You have to work, my girl. You may as well accept it.”

“Too lazy,” said Arthur, who had abandoned the shoes in his interest in the conversation.

Kate turned on him. “Be quiet, you wretched boy! I don't mind working. Nobody understands that. It's the kind of work.”

“What sort do you like?” Mary asked, genuinely interested.

“The stillroom,” was the prompt reply. “I like concocting things. Her Grace showed me how to make a lovely hand lotion and an herbal mixture to clear out phlegm.”

“There's no place for a stillroom in a small house like this,” said Mrs. Tanner.

“Don't I know it.” At her mother's glare, Kate subsided. “I'll do better with the serving,” she muttered.

Satisfied for now, Mary let it drop and went to the pantry to get the ingredients for a piecrust. “What happened to the dog?” she asked Arthur as she cut in shortening and mixed.

Arthur's rag stopped moving again. “We took him back to the market square. There weren't many people about, so Mr. Bexley said I was to wait a while so's I could ask about an owner.”

“Talking of lazy,” Kate accused, pointing at the shoes.

Arthur went back to rubbing at the leather. “I didn't want to be left alone with that great brute. But Mr. Bexley gave him his orders and he lay down like a lamb.” The boy's tone was admiring. “Finally a feller came along and said it was his dog and what was I doing with him.”

Mary sent up a small prayer of thanks. She'd dreaded hearing that the animal was in need of a home. “And what did you say?” she wondered, rolling out her dough on a slab of marble she had purchased for the purpose.

Arthur assumed a look of pious virtue. “Said I'd found him wandering and was afeered he was lost.”

Kate snorted.

“So you returned him?” Mary said.

Arthur nodded. “The fella was that glad. He gave me a sixpence.”

When Mary looked at him, he grinned. There was no need to point out the irony of being rewarded for shooting a dog. Obviously, he was well aware.

* * *

The lingering awkwardness between the Bexleys had somewhat dissipated that evening when Mary learned that William Conolly had accepted their dinner invitation. “Shall we invite your brother George as well?” she asked her husband. “I've only just remembered that he's stationed in London.”

“No.”

Mary blinked. “He isn't station—?”

“He's very busy with his own friends.”

“Surely you count yourself among…”

“We can ask him when we're completely settled,” John interrupted.

“But we are…”

“He and William Conolly wouldn't get on.”

At his curt tone, and third objection, Mary fell silent. It seemed that John did not intend to confide in her about his family either. She felt her temper rising. Did he imagine that they would confine their exchanges to practicalities and commonplaces? That he could continue to push her away? Was this his conception of a marriage?

She'd met the Bexley brothers at her wedding and retained only a general impression of three young men who resembled her husband. She knew that Frederick, the oldest, managed the family property in Somerset. George was in the military, and Roger, the youngest, had gone off to India to make his fortune. The brothers had seemed cordial after the ceremony. Mary got no sense of friction among them. Yet John had not even mentioned George since she arrived, she realized. If one of her sisters lived in London, Mary would have haunted her household.

She examined John's set expression. “How can you be so sure that they won't?” she pressed.

“Because I know them both. As you do not,” he snapped.

Mary put every bit of the irritation she felt in a look. As far as she could see, it had no effect. That evening it was she who retreated—to her parlor studio and sketchbooks—leaving her husband to go to his study without protest.

* * *

William Conolly came home with John on the appointed day, and Mary was introduced to a slender man of medium height with black hair, hazel eyes, and an engaging, mobile face. Though his clothes seemed designed not to call attention, he had a definite presence. There was a French phrase Mary had once heard—je ne sais quoi: an indefinable quality of…assurance. John's friend possessed this. Perhaps it was his easy smile as he bowed over her hand or the slight lilt in his voice, just an echo of—Irish, or Welsh? Most importantly, it was clear that he liked and respected John, and Mary would have welcomed him for this if he'd been half as pleasant.

He admired the neatness and comfort of their house as he drank a glass of the sherry John had bought specially. Mary was glad she'd hung new draperies in the front parlor. Kate appeared in the doorway right on time, curtsied correctly, and signaled that dinner was served. “Shall we go in?” said Mary. She savored the role of hostess in her own home.

She was also proud of the meal she put before them. There was salmon in a pastry crust, roast beef and potatoes, and just the right array of side dishes—plentiful but not ostentatious. Kate actually was taking particular care with her serving. And Mary was secure in the knowledge that there was a Chantilly cream to finish. She'd managed it out of a cookery book. It looked and tasted lovely. Her eyes met John's, and he smiled. Mary felt an odd little flutter in her chest as she smiled back.

John held Mary's gaze and felt a moment of perfect amity with her. It had been a bit strange to leave the office with Conolly and traverse the familiar streets in his company. Now, here he sat at the head of a laden board, his beautiful wife at the other end. She created a gracious setting, a fine meal. He'd never been the householder, the host. He rather liked it.

“Do you enjoy living in London?” Conolly asked Mary. “You've been here only a short time, I believe?”

She nodded. “I'm still getting accustomed to town life. There's so much to see. This square is a very pleasant place to live, a little patch of country, with the trees and the garden to walk in. And I've met one kind neighbor, Eleanor Lanford.”

“The Dowager Countess St. Clair? Someone said she'd moved out this way.”

“Countess?”

“They claim she's become a hermit.” Conolly smiled as if to show he knew the label was ridiculousness. “She was the toast of society years ago, you know, during the American war.”

“They?” said Mary, then she flushed as she realized she'd spoken aloud, repeating words like a parrot.

“Well, her old friends. They like to pretend there's no existence outside Mayfair. Lady Cast…” Conolly appeared to notice that he'd astonished his hosts.

“Lady…?” Mary prompted.

“Castlereagh.” For the first time all evening, Conolly looked self-conscious.

John took a sip of wine to mask his surprise. He'd heard that Conolly had some family connections, though he hadn't paid much attention at the time. He had
not
known that his colleague was acquainted with one of the chief arbiters of London society and the wife of the foreign secretary himself. “You know Lady Castlereagh?” he couldn't help asking.

Their guest seemed embarrassed. “I'm not a friend, or anything of that nature. Just a distant connection of her mother's. Very distant—fifth cousin, eight times removed, or some such thing.” He made a deprecating gesture. “On the Irish side, to boot. I get the odd invitation, pick up this and that bit of gossip. I'm the sort of sad creature who enjoys hearing it.”

Obviously he'd thought John was aware of this relationship already. Abruptly, John felt as if he was back at his job, navigating the shoals of the Foreign Office's internal politics, rather than monarch of his own small homely kingdom. It seemed he'd made quite a clever move, inviting Conolly. He simply hadn't done it on purpose.

Conolly singled out the Chantilly cream for special compliments. He praised the wine John had chosen, working hard to restore their earlier ease. When they'd finished eating and Mary rose to leave the men to their port, he suggested they all retire to the front parlor. “It's not as if we want to drink ourselves insensible,” he said with a laugh. “And why should you go and sit all alone?” He made it seem a jolly scheme rather than a deviation from etiquette or an acknowledgment that their house was so small, Mary would hear everything they said unless she retreated upstairs. But nothing put the evening back on a relaxed footing until he shifted the conversation to China. “I don't see how we can ever establish proper diplomatic relations with a ruler who insists on the
kŏutóu
,
” he said. Noticing Mary's blank look, he added, “Anyone granted an audience with the Chinese emperor has to kneel before him and bang his forehead on the floor.”

“Even foreign ambassadors?” Mary wondered.

John nodded. “Lord Amherst couldn't agree to it, of course.”

“I should think not.” She tried to imagine an English nobleman in such a humiliating position before a foreign ruler, and could not.

“You can't even present credentials in a situation like that,” John added. “So how we'll redress complex commercial grievances, I don't know.” He spoke with calm authority. This was a side of him that Mary hadn't seen.

“We could give up tea,” Conolly suggested humorously.

“Perhaps Englishmen should stop drinking it,” replied John, smiling to show he knew it had been meant as a joke. “A boycott would erase the trade imbalance in a matter of months.”

Their guest shook his head. “We'll never let go of our tea at this point. And it's too late anyhow. The opium trade is established, and so profitable it will go on whatever the diplomats do.”

John made a sour face, but nodded.

Mary was fascinated by the way her husband came to life talking to a knowledgeable colleague. He sat straighter; his eyes glowed with a relish for debate. He looked absolutely confident of his ability to contribute. She wanted to see more of this man. “What does tea have to do with opium?” she asked.

Conolly smiled at her and sat back to allow John to answer.

“Just this,” her husband replied, ticking off points on his fingers. “Tea from China is the largest single item in Britain's trading accounts. Every Englishman wants his tea. Of course we sell goods to the Chinese as well, but not nearly enough to offset the amount we purchase. Some years ago, tea imports finally became so expensive that there wasn't enough silver to pay for them. So traders looked for a profitable product to compensate for the loss.”

“And discovered that many Chinese like opium,” said Conolly.

“Which is illegal in China by imperial edict,” added John.

He and his coworker were like a practiced chorus, Mary thought. Obviously this was much discussed at the Foreign Office.

“However, opium is produced in India and sold there anyway.”

“By private agencies, not the British government,” her husband assured her. “But the trade is silently condoned by the East India Company.”

“Because it brings in piles of money,” Conolly supplied, “with which to buy tea.”

Mary nodded. “I see.”

“We're rapidly reaching an impasse,” John concluded. “And it will end in war.”

“Do you think so?” If he had begun the conversation out of politeness, Conolly was wholly engrossed now. Mary could see how much he valued John's opinion.

Her husband nodded. “All sides are obdurate. Communication is slow and uncertain and often contentious. Somebody will call out the troops in the next few years.”

Mary understood better now why John cared so much about his work and devoted so much time to it.

William Conolly looked glum, but he didn't argue. “There must be some way we can stave it off.”

“By doing our jobs,” replied John. “Get the most accurate information to the right people. Lay out the implications as best we can. I haven't much hope, though.”

“Do you think that your new explorations will…?”

John made a quick gesture. Conolly bit off the end of his sentence. The two men had been leaning forward, gripped by the intensity of their discussion. Now they sat back, the rhythm of the exchange broken.