‘Ah, we are discussing children now?’ Sophia looked sideways and found Callum was smiling. Faintly, it was true. She realised she was staring at his mouth and switched back to looking straight ahead. ‘Should I take that as a promising sign?’
‘Not necessarily,’ she said, wary that this was going too fast again. ‘I am merely considering all aspects of your proposal.’
‘But if you are convinced I am not returning to India you will marry me and if you think I might go back, you will not have me.’
‘Callum Chatterton, you are harassing me! I said no such thing and this is not a matter to be bargained over.’
‘Very well, let me be clear then. I need an heir; I would like several children, in fact. But I would not expect you to live in India and certainly not bring up a family there.’
‘And I would not wish to spend long periods separated from my husband.’
‘Flattering,’ he remarked and she jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow, suddenly the small girl again.
‘I did not mean that!’
‘I can assure you, that eventuality is highly unlikely to occur.’ When she did not reply he added, ‘I am prepared to promise you that I will not take a posting in the Far East again without your express approval. You see how convinced I am that you will suit me?’
‘Why, thank you, sir,’ Sophia muttered and caught sight of that elusive smile again. But would you suit me? Does that really matter?
‘Here is the turning to Wellingford village.’
‘And Daniel’s estate,’ Sophia said, pulling herself together. This is where she would have lived if she had married Daniel.
‘Yes. It is years since I’ve been there. I have no idea why Grandmama left this one to Dan and the other to me. She used to reside here and Great-Aunt Dorothea had Long Welling. There have been tenants in until recently, so they should both be in good repair, but as for decoration, I have no idea.’
‘Paint and fabrics are easily dealt with. The question is, which feels best to you.’ But her heart was beating a little faster at the prospect. A home of her own, finally. I am deciding on marrying a man, not a house, she reminded herself. There were any number of changes one could make to a house, but not to a grown man, not one as single-minded and stubborn as Callum Chatterton. But she must stop thinking about this as a marriage of love, or even affection. This would be a marriage of convenience with most of the convenience on her side. It would be up to her to accommodate herself to him, not the other way around.
‘There.’ Callum reined in the pair at the crest of a small hill. The valley opened up before them, green and lush; the fields were interspersed with coppices and a larger beech wood crowned the opposite hill. Smoke rose from the chimneys of the village and on the slope directly across from them sat a neat brick house.
‘What do you think?’
‘It looks smug,’ Sophia said instantly, startled out of her reverie by the force of her reaction. ‘So symmetrical and tidy.’ Two windows either side of the front door, five on the floor above, five peeking out from the roof behind the parapet. The drive swept round at the front in a perfect circle with a central flower bed. Service buildings flanked the house in carefully balanced order on either side. It was like a doll’s house or a child’s drawing.
‘And that is wrong?’ Callum was studying it with his head on one side. ‘Everything looks so different after India, I am still not used to it. Except the Hall, of course—that just feels like home.’
‘Shall we look at this one inside?’
‘Isn’t that rather shocking?’ Callum kept his face perfectly straight, but she guessed he was teasing her.
‘I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,’ she said. ‘Driving around in the curricle is rather fast, going into an empty house alone with a man is shocking. But I have come this far; I may as well give you my opinion on the inside as well if you think it would help you make a decision about the house. Your house.’
Callum moved the horses into a walk again and they wended their way down the hill, along the village street where they were much stared at, and up the opposite slope to the gates.
Close to, the air of immaculate formality was reduced somewhat by a rather ragged garden, a drive in need of weeding and dull window glass. Callum drove round to the deserted stables, tied up the pair and offered her his arm as they walked back to the front door. ‘The last tenants left two months ago,’ he said. ‘Will did not re-let because he knew I’d want a free choice.’
‘This feels like intruding,’ Sophia said with a shiver as they stood in the front hall. ‘I half-expect someone to appear and demand to know what we are doing.’
‘Yes.’ Callum threw open the doors on either side. ‘Odd, is it not? When Grandmama lived here it always seemed a friendly enough place. The rooms are well proportioned and the view good.’
Sophia followed him. ‘I suppose we should look at the kitchens and servants’ quarters.’
Those proved to be perfectly satisfactory. Callum did not, to her relief, suggest they look at the bedrooms. ‘It is a very good house,’ Sophia said as they returned to the front door.
‘And you do not like it.’
‘It is not for me to say,’ she responded, earning a sideways look from those penetrating hazel eyes. ‘Do you?’
‘Not much. It is … dull. I cannot imagine us living here.’
‘What are houses in India like?’ Sophia asked, steering the conversation away from marriage as they went back to the stables.
‘The Europeans live in single-storied houses called bungalows, with a wide and shady veranda around the sides. You spend a lot of time out on the veranda. When I was holding court I would sit there and the petitioners would assemble in the courtyard in front. In the evening that is where we would all sit and talk and drink.
‘There are wide windows covered with slatted shutters to let in the breeze, and each room has a big fan in the ceiling that is moved by the punkah-wahllah, a man who sits outside in the passageway and pulls the string with his toe. The bathroom has a door to the outside so the water carrier can come and fill up the tanks and take away the waste. The kitchens are separate because of the heat and the risk of fire. Servants are very cheap so one becomes lazy easily,’ he added.
‘How?’ Sophia asked. Callum, she thought, would not take to a life of indolence. Now, recovered physically from his ordeal, he gave her the sense of suppressed energy. Or perhaps it was simply impatience with her indecision.
‘Oh, you could be carried everywhere if you wanted. You reach out for your glass and someone puts it into your hand. You forget something and a bearer scurries off to get it the moment you frown, apologising as though it was his fault and not yours. Some of the mem-sahibs—the European wives—had constant battles with their cooks, wanting them to make English dishes. If you get used to Indian food it is much easier.’
‘Would you want Indian food in England?’ she asked, seized with trepidation at the thought of explaining dishes she did not understand to a temperamental English cook or, worse, a French one. Stop thinking like that! It is not my problem. Not yet.
‘I could always employ an Indian cook, I suppose,’ he said.
‘Of course,’ she said, politely, and then saw the amusement in his eyes. ‘You are teasing me, are you not? Seeing how far I would be prepared to accommodate your whims.’
‘Whims? A man’s dinner table is almost the most important