Free Married to a Perfect Stranger by Jane Ashford Page B

barking.
    â€œArthur! Put that away.”
    He shoved it back in his pocket, and their jailer quieted. “What are we going to do?” For once Arthur sounded like a small boy rather than an apprentice wreaker of havoc.
    â€œWe’ll wait. The dog will get bored and wander off.” Or so Mary hoped.
    â€œBut I’m hungry!” Arthur was always hungry. In Somerset, the cook had made it her mission to fill him up, but she never managed it. Huge quantities of sustenance disappeared into his rail-thin little body without perceptible effect. “I gotta eat.”
    â€œShh. You’re upsetting it.”
    Arthur subsided with a mumble that sounded very much like, “It’s upsetting me .”
    They sat down on a bench. Arthur fidgeted. After a while, the dog lay down on the cobbles and rested his formidable jaw on his forepaws. Thinking he might have calmed, Mary rose and slowly approached the gate. The dog jumped up, growling, and started to bark. “Stupid mongrel,” muttered Arthur as she retreated again.
    The sun inched down behind the western roofs. A breeze rustled the autumn leaves. A passerby indignantly declined to become involved in their dilemma, moving off at a blistering pace when he spied the dog.
    This was ridiculous, Mary thought. She would simply walk through the gate and across the square to her front door. It was well-known that dogs responded to an air of command. Her father’s dogs always did so. But when she put her hand on the latch, this animal lunged at her with a growl and snap so threatening that she pulled away again.
    * * *
    John’s mood was far lighter than yesterday’s as he headed for home. His report had been handed in on time and welcomed with a mention of his good work on the China voyage. He hadn’t encountered Fordyce. He left his office with a solid sense of accomplishment and a mind full of the plan he intended to put in motion in the next few days. He was even able to get away a bit early.
    Passing a flower vendor outside the Foreign Office building, he paused and looked over her small selection of late blooms. When he told her he wanted something for his wife, the woman helped him put together a charming little bouquet. It seemed a good idea to arrive home with a…not a peace offering. It wasn’t that. It occurred to John that one often sent flowers after being presented to a young lady. He’d sent something—roses?—the day after he and Mary first danced together at a Bath assembly. Remembering her curtsy and introduction last night after dinner, he smiled. Recalling the feel of her hand in his, the visions it conjured, he let out a breath. The bouquet could be a tangible sign of their fresh start.
    Their lives had shifted like one of those newfangled kaleidoscopes that Scottish fellow had invented, John mused as he walked to the livery stable. One of his colleagues had showed him how the bright pieces turned and slid into a new configuration. The change was disorienting, uncomfortable but also rather…intriguing.
    Every time he saw Mary his mind slipped that way. She looked very much as she had before he left; that was one view. Then she felt so different; that was the turn of the cylinder, the pieces falling into a startling new order. He was tricked by old assumptions to act as he had before, and then he got a prickly, unsettling response. Like reaching down to pet your cat and touching a…a hedgehog…or a…dragon. It was…sometimes…quite exciting.
    As he retrieved his horse and rode homeward, his thoughts were full of Mary. She contradicted him and confused him. But it was all of a piece, he realized suddenly, with the alterations his long voyage had stirred up. His interior life now seemed to be a matter of surges and sparks, waves of intensity, rather than a placid stream he scarcely noticed. He’d become something of a stranger to himself.
    John left his horse at the livery near