Married to a Perfect Stranger by Jane Ashford Page A

your clothes? Why are you wearing…?”
    â€œI…was caught in the rain. I left my wet things downstairs.” He would have to go back down as soon as he placated her, John thought, and hide his disguise. The scent of violets drifted around him. There could be no greater contrast with the places he’d passed through tonight. He ached to touch her, to feel her softness and warmth, but the sights he’d seen tonight had left him feeling soiled within and without.
    â€œYou went to a reception?” Mary said.
    She was looking at his mud-spattered buckskins, obviously inappropriate for a Foreign Office gathering. He’d implied, without actually saying, that such was his destination. Her face showed bewilderment and hurt. John shook his head. “It was something else.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIt’s confidential. I can’t talk about it.” This wasn’t absolutely true, but he didn’t want to talk to her about the dark things that went on in other parts of their city. To link Mary, even in thought, to that bleak world of men bereft of home and family, of no women except whores… He shook his head.
    â€œYou don’t trust me?” Mary said. The candle wavered in her hand.
    â€œI do. But much of my work simply can’t be discussed. That is its nature.”
    â€œWork…in the middle of the night. Half-naked.”
    That final word seemed to echo on the narrow landing. John became acutely aware of his bare feet and legs, his shirt hanging open. It would take less than a moment to shed the rest. The bone-deep chill of his long trek evaporated in a surge of heat, a wave of arousal. He had to have her. He couldn’t wait an instant longer.
    â€œYou have dust on your face,” Mary said. She touched his cheek, her fingertips light as a butterfly on his skin, then she looked at the smudge left on her fingers.
    Though that gentle touch enflamed him almost beyond bearing, John’s hands fell to his sides and curled into fists. He’d been splashed with all manner of filth tonight. He’d held dirty glasses of rotgut that he had to pretend to drink. He’d been pawed by a drunken lightskirt and forced to endure one mucky kiss before he could be rid of her. A gin-crazed lascar had spit on his sleeve. He wasn’t fit for his marriage bed, no matter how he ached for it. “I’m exhausted, Mary,” he said. “I must get some sleep.”
    Mary’s face fell. She turned away. John’s hand came up of its own accord and reached for her. He forced it down, remorseful yet resolute. Mary’s realm was this gracious house, this serene square, in the safe, respectable district he’d chosen for her. Mary was clean crisp linens, the scent of violets and baking bread, warmth and laughter. She must never be touched by London’s black underside, the remnants of which spattered him now. He waited for her to close her bedroom door, then he waited another few minutes before retrieving the sodden clothes from the scullery.
    * * *
    Mary didn’t see John the following morning. He was up and out earlier than ever, before even Mrs. Tanner could glimpse him. And oddly, when she inquired about his wet clothing to send to the laundress, none could be found. Whatever he’d been doing—certainly not a Foreign Office reception—he’d removed all signs of it. Just as he’d refused to tell her anything.
    Sitting at the breakfast table, she broke a piece of toast into smaller and smaller pieces as she went over last night’s encounter in her mind. She couldn’t see how the work he’d described to her over dinner could ever require creeping around barely dressed in the night. But where had he been then? What were the secrets she couldn’t be allowed to know?
    She crushed the last bit of toast to crumbs. He’d been here for weeks on his own, after they’d parted in anger in Somerset. Had he found