Sylvia Day - The Stranger I Married

“Yes, Gray?” Isabel stepped into his study with an inquisitively raised brow.

“Are you free Friday evening?”

She gave him a mock chastising look. “You know I am available whenever you need me.”

“Thank you, vixen.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled. “You are too good to me.”

Isabel moved to the settee and sat. “Where are we expected?”

“Dinner at the Middletons’. I agreed to speak to Lord Rupert there, but Bentley informed me today that Lady Middleton has also invited the Grimshaws.”

“Oh.” Isabel wrinkled her nose. “Devious of her to invite your inamorata and her husband to an event you are attending.”

“Quite,” Gerard said, rising and rounding the desk to take a seat next to her.

“That smile is so wicked, Gray. You really should not let it out.”

“I cannot restrain it.” He tossed his arm over her shoulders and pulled her close, breathing in the exotic floral scent that was both familiar and stirring. “I am the luckiest man alive, and I am smart enough to know it. Can you imagine how many peers wish they had a wife like mine?”

She laughed. “You remain deliciously, unabashedly shameless.”

“And you love it. Our marriage has made you a figure of some renown.”

“You mean ‘infamy,’” she said dryly. “The older woman starved for the stamina of a younger man.”

“Starved for me.” He fingered a loose tendril of fiery hair. “I do like the sound of that.”

A soft knock on the open door had them both looking over the back of the settee at the footman who waited there.

“Yes?” Gerard asked, put out to be interrupted during a rare quiet moment with his wife. She was so often occupied with political teas and other female nonsense that he was hardly ever afforded the opportunity to enjoy her sparkling discourse. Pel was infamous, yes, but she was also unfailingly charming and the Marchioness of Grayson. Society may speculate about her, but they would never shut their doors to her.

“A special post arrived, my lord.”

Gerard held out his hand and crooked his fingers impatiently. As soon as he held the missive, he grimaced at the familiar handwriting.

“Heavens, what a face,” Isabel said. “I should leave you to it.”

“No.” He held her down by tightening his arm on her shoulder. “It’s from the dowager, and by the time I am done reading it, I will need you to pull me out of the doldrums, as only you can.”

“As you wish. If you want me to stay, I will. I am not due out for hours yet.”

Smiling at the thought of hours to share with her, Gerard opened the letter.

“Shall we play chess?” she suggested, her smile mischievous.

He shuddered dramatically. “You know how much I detest that game. Think of something less likely to put me to sleep.”

Turning his attention to the letter, he skimmed. But as he came to a paragraph written as if it were an afterthought, but which he knew to be a calculated strike, his reading slowed and his hands began to shake. His mother never wrote without the intent to wound, and she remained furious that he had married the notorious Lady Pelham.

…a shame the infant did not survive the birthing. It was a boy child, I heard. Plump and well-formed with a dark mane of hair, unlike his two blond parents. Lady Sinclair was too slightly built, the doctor said, and the baby too large. She bled out over hours. A gruesome sight, I was told…

Gerard’s breathing faltered, and he grew dizzy. The beautifully handwritten horrors on the page blurred until he could no longer read them.

Emily.

His chest burned, and he started in surprise as Isabel thumped him on the back.

“Breathe, damn you!” she ordered, her voice worried, but filled with command. “What the devil does that say? Give it to me.”

His hand fell slack, the papers falling to flare out on the Aubusson rug.

He should have been with Em. When Sinclair had returned his letters unopened, he should have done more to support her than merely sending friends with secondhand greetings. He had known Em his whole life. She was the first girl he’d kissed, the first girl he had given flowers to, or wrote poetry about. He could not remember a time when the golden-haired angel had not been in the periphery of his existence.

And now she was gone, forever, killed by his lust and selfishness. His darling, sweet Emily, who deserved so much better than he had given her.

Faintly, he heard a buzzing in his ears, and thought it could be Isabel, who held one of his hands so tightly within her own. He turned and leaned against her, his cheek to her bosom, and cried. Cried until her bodice was soaked, and the hands that stroked his back shook with worry. He cried until he could not cry anymore, and all the while he hated himself.

They never made it to the Middletons’. Later that night, Gerard packed his bags and headed north.

He did not return.

Four years later

“His Lordship is at home, my lady.”

For a great many women such a statement was a common utterance and nothing of note, but for Isabel, Lady Grayson, it was so rarely heard, she could not remember the last time her butler had said the same to her.

She paused in the foyer, tugging off her gloves before handing them to the waiting footman. She took her time with the task, taking the extra brief moments to collect herself, and ascertain that her racing heart was not outwardly visible.

Grayson had returned.

Isabel could not help but wonder why. He’d rejected every missive she sent to his steward, and had sent none to her. Having read the dowager’s letter, she knew what had broken him that day he’d left both London and her. She could imagine his pain, having seen his initial excitement and subsequent pride at becoming a father. As his friend, she wished Gray had allowed her to provide him more than just that one hour of comfort, but he’d turned away from her, and years had passed.

She smoothed her muslin skirts, and touched a hand to her upswept hair. When she caught herself checking her appearance, Isabel stopped with a muttered curse. This was Gray. He would not care how she looked. “The study?”

“Yes, my lady.”

The scene of that day.

She nodded, and squared her shoulders, shoring up her nerve. As ready as she would ever be, Isabel passed the curving staircase and turned into the first open door on the right. Despite her mental and physical preparations, the sight of her husband’s back struck her like a physical blow. He stood silhouetted in the window, appearing taller and definitely broader. His powerful torso tapered to a trim waist, beautifully curved ass, and long, muscular legs. Framed by the dark green velvet curtains, the perfect symmetry of his form stole her breath.

But there was a somber, oppressive air that surrounded him that was so distant from the carefree man she remembered. It forced her to take another deep breath before opening her mouth to speak.

As if he felt her presence, Gray turned before she managed a word. Her throat closed tight as a fist.

He was not at all the man she had married.

They stared at each other, both held motionless in the pregnant pause. Only a few years, and yet it seemed a lifetime had passed. Grayson was no longer a boy, not by any stretch of the imagination. His face had lost that faint remnant of youth, and time had etched its passing in the lines that bracketed his mouth and eyes. Not happy lines, she could see. Frown lines, lines of sorrow. The brilliant blue of his irises that had caused many women to fall in love with him were now a deeper, darker shade. They no longer smiled, and appeared to have seen far more than possible in only a four year span.

She raised a hand to her bodice, dismayed by the rapid lift and fall of her chest.

Gray had been beautiful before. Now, there were no words to describe him. She forced her breathing to slow, and fought off a sudden, desperate flare of panic. She had known how to handle the boy, but this…this man was not tamable. Had she met him anew, she would know to stay far away.

“Hello, Isabel.”

Even his voice had changed. It was deeper now, slightly raspy.

Isabel had no notion of what to say to him.

“You have not changed at all,” he murmured, striding toward her. The previous cockiness of his bearing was gone, replaced by the type of confidence one gained from walking through hell and surviving it.

Sucking in a deep breath, she was inundated with the familiar scent of him. A little spicier, perhaps, but he smelled like Gray, nevertheless. Staring up at his impassive face, she could do no more than shrug helplessly.

“I should have written,” he said.

“Yes, you should have,” she agreed. “Not just to warn me of your intent to visit, but before, if only to say that you were well. I have been worried about you, Gray.”

He gestured with his hand toward a nearby chair, and she sank into it gratefully. As he moved to the settee across from her, Isabel noted his quaint garb. While he wore trousers with jacket and waistcoat, the garments were plain, and of common materials. Whatever he had been doing these last years, it apparently had not required the latest fashions.

“I apologize for your worry.” One side of his mouth curved upward in a ghost of his former smile. “But I could not tell you I was well, when I was far from it. I could not bear to look at letters, Pel. It was not because they were from you. For years I avoided any sight of correspondence. But now…” He paused, and his jaw tightened, as if with determination. “I am not visiting.”

“Oh?” Her stomach fluttered. Their camaraderie was gone. Instead of the easy comfort she had once enjoyed with him, she now felt decidedly nervous.

“I have come here to live. If I can remember how to do that.”

“Gray-”

He shook his head, his slightly-longer-than-fashionable locks drifting about his neck. “No pity, Isabel. I do not deserve it. What’s more, I don’t want it.”

“What do you want?”

His met her gaze directly. “I want many things, but mostly I want companionship. And I want to be worthy of it.”

“Worthy?” She frowned.

“I was a dreadful friend, as are most selfish people.”

Isabel stared down at her hands and noted her gold wedding band-a symbol of her lifelong commitment to a veritable stranger. “Where have you been, Gray?”

“Taking stock.”

So he was not going to tell her. “Very well, then. What do you want from me?” She lifted her chin. “What service can I provide?”

“First, I will need to be made presentable.” Gray waved a careless hand down the length of his body. “Then I will need to hear the latest on dit. I have read the papers, but you and I both know that gossip is rarely the truth. Most importantly, I will require your escort.”

“I am not certain how much assistance I can offer you, Gray,” she said honestly.

“I am aware.” He stood and moved toward her. “The gossips have been unkind to you in my absence, which is why I have returned. How responsible can I be, truly, if I cannot take care of my own wife?” He dropped to a crouch beside her. “It is a great deal to ask of you, Pel, I know. It was not what you agreed to when we made our bargain. But things have changed.”

“You have changed.”

“God, I can only hope that’s true.”

Gray caught up her hands, and she felt calluses against her fingertips. She looked down, and saw his skin dark from the sun and reddened from work. Next to her smaller, paler ones, the contrast was like night to day.

He gave a gentle squeeze. Isabel lifted her gaze, and was stunned again by the comeliness of his features.

“I will not coerce you, Pel. If you wish to live your life as you have been, I will respect that.” That faint hint of his remembered smile shined through again. “But I am not above begging, I warn you. I owe you much, and I am quite determined.”

It was that brief glimpse of the old Gray that soothed her. Yes, the outer shell had changed, perhaps even much of the interior, but there was still some of the scapegrace charmer she knew in there. For the moment, it was enough.

Isabel smiled back, and his relief was tangible. “I will cancel my engagements for this evening and we can strategize.”

Grayson shook his head. “I need to gather my bearings, and familiarize myself with being home again. Enjoy yourself tonight. You shall be burdened with me soon enough.”

“Perhaps you would agree to have tea with me, in an hour or so?” Maybe then she could compel him to tell her about his absence.

“I would enjoy that.”