The Stranger I Married

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.”

She stood, and he rose with her.

Heavens, he was tall. Had he always been? She could not recall. Pushing aside her surprise, Isabel turned toward the door, and found one hand still caught in his.

Gray released it with a sheepish shrug. “See you in an hour, Pel.”

Gerard waited until Isabel departed the room before sinking onto the settee with a groan. During his absence, insomnia had been a recurring torment. Needing physical exhaustion to sleep, he’d worked the fields of his many properties and in doing so he had become accustomed to muscle aches and pains. Never had his body hurt in quite the manner it did now. He hadn’t realized how tense he was until he was alone and the seductive floral fragrance that was his wife’s alone had dissipated.

Had Isabel always been so beautiful? He could not remember. Certainly he had used the word “beautiful” to describe her in his thoughts, but the reality was beyond what the mere utterance could convey. Her hair had more fire, her eyes more sparkle, her skin more glow than he had remembered.

Over the last few years he had said “my wife” hundreds of times as he paid her accounts and handled other matters relating to her. However, until today, he had never actually put the appellation together with the face and body of Isabel Grayson.

Gerard ran a hand through his hair, and wondered at his sanity when he’d made this marriage bargain with her. When Pel had walked into the room, all the oxygen had left. How had he never noted that corollary before? He had not lied when he said she looked the same. But for the first time, he saw her. Truly saw her. Then again, during the last two years, he had begun to see a great many things he had been blind to before.

Like this room.

He glanced around and grimaced. Dark green with dark walnut paneling. What in hell had he been thinking? A man could not peruse accounts properly in this gloomy place. And reading was out of the question.

Who has time to read when there are drinks to be had, and women to woo?

The words of his youth came back to taunt him.

Rising to his feet, Gerard walked to the bookshelves and withdrew random volumes. Every one he opened creaked in protest at the bending of its bindings. None of them had ever been read.

What kind of man surrounded himself with beauty and life, and then never spared a moment to appreciate any of it?

Filled with self-disgust, he sat at his desk and began a list of things he wanted changed. Before long he had filled several sheets.

“My lord?”

He lifted his head to see the lackey in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Her ladyship inquired after you. She wishes to know if you have decided against tea?”

Gerard glanced at the clock in surprise, and then pushed away from the desk and stood. “The dining room, or the parlor?”

“Her ladyship’s boudoir, my lord.”

Every muscle tensed again. How had he forgotten that, too? He had enjoyed sitting in that bastion of femininity and watching her prepare for her evenings out. As he climbed the stairs, he thought back on what time they’d spent together and admitted it had been filled with very little meaningful discourse. But he knew he had liked her, and that she had been a confidant to him.

He needed a friend now, since he no longer had any. He determined that he would rekindle the friendship he had once enjoyed with his wife, and with that expectation in mind, he lifted his hand and knocked on her door.

Isabel took a deep breath at the sound of the soft knock, and then called out permission to enter. Gray came in, pausing on the threshold, a telling moment of hesitation she had not seen from him before. Lord Grayson never waited. He leapt into action the moment he thought of something, which is how he often landed into mischief.

He stared at her, long and hard. Enough to make her regret the decision to receive him in her dressing gown. She had debated internally for almost half an hour, and in the end had decided to act as much as possible like she had before. Surely, the sooner they settled into their usual routine, the more comfortable they both would be.

“I believe the water is most likely cold by now,” she murmured, turning away from the gilded vanity to sit on the nearby chaise. “But then I was always the one who drank tea.”

“I preferred brandy.”

He closed the door, giving her a brief moment to savor the sound of his voice. Why she should notice its slight rasp now, when she hadn’t before, puzzled her.

“I have it here.” She gestured toward the low table where a china tea set, brandy decanter, and goblet waited.

Gray’s mouth widened in a slow smile. “You are always thinking of me. Thank you.” He looked around. “I am pleased to find the space exactly as I remember it. With the walls and ceiling draped with white satin, I have always felt like I am standing in a tent when I am in here.”

“That was the effect I wanted,” she said, relaxing into the low back and curling her legs next to her.

“Is that so?”

He sat across from her, tossing his arm across the back of the settee. Isabel could not help but remember how he used to do the same to her shoulders. At that time, she had thought nothing of it. That version of Grayson had merely been exuberant.

He also hadn’t been quite so large.

“Why a tent, Pel?”

“You have no notion of how long I’ve waited for you to ask that,” she admitted with a soft chuckle.

“Why didn’t I ask before?”

“We did not talk about such things.”

“No?” His eyes laughed at her. “What did we talk about then?”

She moved to pour him a brandy, but he shook his head. “Why, we talked about you, Gray.”

“Me?” he asked with raised brows. “Surely, not all the time.”

“Nearly all the time.”

“And when we weren’t talking about me?”

“Well, then we were talking about your inamoratas.”

Gray grimaced, and she laughed, remembering how much fun she used to have in simple discourse with him. Then she noted how he looked at her, as if he could not quite put his finger on something about her. Her laughter faded away.

“How insufferable I was, Isabel. How did you ever tolerate me?”

“I quite liked you,” she said honestly. “There never was any guessing with you. You always said exactly what you meant.”

He looked past her shoulder. “You still hang Pelham’s portrait,” he mused. Gray returned his gaze to hers. “Did you love him so very much?”

Isabel turned, and looked at the painting behind her. She tried, truly tried to dredge up some remnant of the love she had once felt for him, but her bitter resentment was too deep. She could not reach below it. “I did. I cannot remember the feeling now, but once I loved him desperately.”

“Is that why you avoid commitment, Pel?”

She looked back at him with her lips pursed. “You and I did not discuss personal things either.”

Gray’s arm left the back of the chair and he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “Could we not be better friends now, than we were then?”

“I am not sure that would be wise,” she murmured, once again glancing at her wedding band.

“Why not?”

Isabel rose and stood at the window, needing to put distance between herself and his new intensity.

“Why not?” he asked again, following her. “Do you have other, closer friends who you share things with?”

He set his hands atop her shoulders, and it took only a moment for his touch to heat her skin, and his scent to