Ever His Bride (4 page)

The carriage door opened to Claybourne’s
stone-faced footman, but instead of crossing the busy confluence of
Threadneedle and Cornhill, she quickly found herself escorted in a
grip of iron, up a wide set of granite stairs and into a cavernous
lobby. What wasn’t fashioned of icy-white marble was severe
mahogany or excessively polished brass. She felt altogether drab
and powerless in her durable, pale-blue traveling suit that she’d
been wearing for well over 24 hours.

“Where have you brought me, sir?” she asked
the footman, who’d taken over as her jailer.

“The new Claybourne Exchange, Miss Mayfield,”
he said without expression, though he knew her name.

Claybourne. She might have known he’d have
his own exchange arrogantly taken root smack dab in the middle of
the City’s financial district. Cold, lifeless, pretentious.
Claybourne’s signature—down to the thin-lipped doorman. Her courage
fueled by a rising outrage, Felicity followed a crisp-collared
clerk up the wide marble stairs and through a set of double doors
and into a dark paneled reception area.

“This way,” he said, striding past a large,
unoccupied desk—doubtless his own, toward another set of doors. He
rapped twice, then waited.

“Come.”

Felicity knew the voice from last night’s
terror; its rumbling, cool disdain reached past the lock and the
brass hinges and angered her all the more.

The clerk swung the door open to a dimly lit
office. Dark drapes hung heavily against the windows, shutting off
any light that might filter in from the foggy morning, an effect no
doubt fashioned by Claybourne to beat down the spirit of his
victims.

“Go right in, miss.”

Claybourne was standing behind his enormous
oak desk, glaring at her as if he had heard her thoughts through
the mahogany door. Gone were the greatcoat and cape, replaced by an
expensively tailored frock coat of the finest wool. The white of
his shirt darkened his features by contrast; his hair curled
willfully against his high collar and across his forehead. Yet for
all Claybourne’s frosted glaring, Felicity felt a breathy warmth
rise up into her collar. His mouth was too perfectly formed and
perilously fascinating.

“Come here, Miss Mayfield.” His command
rolled across the room, buffeting her courage like a winter
wind.

“Felicity’s here?”

She finally noticed the withered figure
hunched over the desk in front of Claybourne. The tousled-gray head
lifted, and the man looked up at her through watery red eyes.

“Mr. Biddle!”

“D-Dear Felicity. . .” Biddle gathered
himself up from the chair on a pair of wobbling legs.

Felicity dropped her portmanteau and her
shawl and ran to him, throwing her arms around his startlingly
reduced frame. He smelled of stale cigar and even staler beer. “Has
he beaten you? What’s happened here? Have you come to save me from
Claybourne and his scheming!”

“Oh, my dear girl,” Mr. Biddle muttered and
hid his brow against her shoulder.

Though she hadn’t seen the man for a few
months, she’d remembered him taller and more solid. He trembled now
as she patted him on the back and glared up at Claybourne, who’d
stepped away to stand like a monolith in front of the green-tiled
room heater. He didn’t look at all contrite for scaring the poor
man speechless.

“Dear Mr. Biddle,” she said, seizing his bony
arms and straightening him so she could look into his eyes. “You’ve
come all the way to London to help me. How can I thank you?”

Claybourne snorted. “Your Mr. Biddle answered
my summons, Miss Mayfield.”

“No wonder he’s in such a state if you
summoned him the way you did me.” She released her hold on Biddle
to take a more square-jawed stance against Claybourne’s
imperiousness. “Mr. Claybourne, I gave you my answer last night. I
will not marry you. Put me into debtor’s prison; pluck out my
fingernails one by one; I don’t care. I have not changed my mind.
Nor will any threat you level my way change it for me.”

He took two deliberate steps toward her,
making him all the more impossible to ignore. “I brought your Mr.
Biddle here to ensure that you
do
change your mind.”

Felicity leaned against the desktop, hoping
to look unconcerned, trying to steady her breathing. “Mr. Biddle
will have no better luck convincing me to marry you than you did
yourself. He is our family solicitor, nothing more. His opinions
have no bearing on mine.”

“Felicity. . .” Mr. Biddle’s wheedling voice
could barely support her name. He was frightened to death by
Claybourne and wasn’t going to be any help at all.

“It’s no use trying to warn me of the horrid
conditions in the Queen’s Bench, Mr. Biddle. I’ll need a bit of
help from you now and then. A basket of bread, fresh fruit—”

“Felicity, you don’t underst—”

“But I do, Mr. Biddle. Uncle Foley will be
home within a year, and we will use his new fortune to pay off the
debt to Mr. Claybourne, with interest, and then I will be set free.
The matter will be settled without me having to marry anyone as
vile as Mr. Claybourne.”

Claybourne stirred again, an avalanche poised
to descend.

“That won’t do, Miss Mayfield.” The
oppressively tall man took another of his studied strides toward
her, and she held her breath. “I am no longer interested in the
money you owe me. Nothing will satisfy me, unless it’s your shares,
immediately, and the full ownership in the Drayhill-Starlington. I
will have them by whatever means.”

“You can’t have your way in this, Mr.
Claybourne! Not now. Not ever! You’ll have to settle for repayment
in cash when my uncle returns.”

Mr. Biddle was tugging at her sleeve,
whimpering like a child. But Claybourne was bearing down on her,
his voice a rumbling in her chest, and roaring through her
veins.

“I will have the shares, woman, or you, your
precious uncle, and that cowardly little man hiding behind you will
find your carcasses in prison for the rest of your paltry
lives!”

“L
eave him alone,
you coward!” Felicity planted herself squarely between Claybourne
and Mr. Biddle. And it was a very good thing, because Claybourne
began to advance on them with his next breath.

“Biddle cheated me, Miss Mayfield.”

“He did not! Would not, would you, Mr.
Biddle?”

“Well, I—”

Felicity shoved Mr. Biddle and his unhelpful
stammering behind her and continued backing away from Claybourne’s
seething glare.

“And your uncle cheated me, Miss Mayfield.”
She stuck out her hand to hold Claybourne in check, but her palm
met a wall of shifting brawn, one that was moving ever forward.

“He did not cheat you! At least, if he did,
I’m sure he didn’t mean to. Did he, Mr. Biddle?”

“Well, he—”

“And now,
you,
Miss Mayfield, are
cheating me.”

Claybourne had driven them both all the way
around the desk. Mr. Biddle grunted as he plopped down in the
chair. Another step backward and she would be sitting in the poor
man’s frail lap.

“I have never cheated anyone, Mr. Claybourne,
at any time in my life!” Feeling hugely overpowered and wishing for
at least a hint of support, she stepped around the chair and turned
Biddle’s scratchy chin toward Claybourne. “Tell him, Mr. Biddle!
Please.”

Claybourne stared unwaveringly back at her.
“Yes, Biddle, do tell me.”

Mr. Biddle withered and whined, then dropped
his arms onto the desktop and his head into his hands. “Dear, dear,
Felicity. Please forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” She got down on her knees to
be closer to his disturbing weeping. He’d been her father’s trusted
solicitor. He was supposed to be strong for her, not the other way
around. “Forgive you for what? Tell me!”

“I’m sorry, child,” Biddle said with a whine,
his soggy words muffled by his too big collar. “You see I. . . I
knew about the stipulations in your father’s will before we sold
the shares.”

His words hit her like a blow to the belly.
“That can’t be true, Mr. Biddle.”

“Your Uncle Foley knew as well. We were
partners.” Biddle rocked his head back and forth across his folded
arms, and his whining turned to keening. “I’m sorry, Felicity. I’m
so sorry.”

Whatever misty ray of hope she’d held out for
Mr. Biddle’s intervention evaporated. She’d never felt so forsaken
in all her life.

“You and Uncle knew you were cheating Mr.
Claybourne! Deliberately?”

Claybourne shifted, the rigid stretching of
boot leather, the whisper of wool against wool, a mountain settling
back into place following an earthquake. For once he seemed to
restrain himself from speaking.

Biddle lifted his chalky face to hers. “We
did it for you, Felicity.”

“You and my uncle committed a felony for
me?
Well, why stop at larceny? Why not murder and treason
while you’re at it?”

“Felicity, please listen. Foley needed a lot
of money, needed it quickly. He had a chance to buy a cache of
mining tools in San Francisco and sell them in the gold country.
It’s a sure thing. My own money’s tied up in this, too.”

“So you thought you’d help Uncle Foley steal
from someone else to finance your scheme. Mr. Biddle, my father
would be outraged! I am outraged! We trusted you!” Too disgusted to
continue looking at him, she took refuge in pacing in front of the
massive desk. “Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused?”

“It wasn’t supposed to turn out this
way.”

“How could it not? Did you think that
Claybourne wouldn’t come looking for his money when the Bank
wouldn’t give him the railway shares? That he’d let Uncle Foley run
off to the gold fields?”

“We hoped Mr. Claybourne wouldn’t mind
waiting out the stipulation in the will, then shares would be his
out right.”

“When? In five years when I’m
twenty-five?”

“Before then, surely!” Biddle smiled up at
her, his head canted like a rooster. “You’re a beautiful young
woman, Felicity; we thought someone would marry you before too
long. My very own nephew, Bernard is in the market for a wife!”

“Are you completely mad, Mr. Biddle?” Had the
whole world fallen into madness? “And you, Mr. Claybourne,” she
said, whirling on the man, wondering where her fearlessness had
come from. “You are at fault here, too!”

“I’m at fault?” Claybourne’s face darkened,
and he grew as still as a frozen pond, his teeth shining white in
his scorn.

“If you were duped by my uncle and Mr.
Biddle, it happened because of your own sightless greed. You risked
thirty thousand pounds on a mere promissory note. Shouldn’t you
have had the ownership certificate in your hands before
surrendering a tuppence? Why take such a risk, Mr. Claybourne? Even
I know better than to exchange bank notes for a worthless piece of
paper.”

Claybourne suddenly had her by the ribbons
again. This time he’d planted his other hand in the middle of her
back and trapped her against the desk, his face so near she could
smell the lime of his shaving soap, could feel the startling,
rock-hard press of his thigh through her skirts. She was
scandalized and frightened and utterly bewitched by his simmering
strength.

“My reasons are not your concern, Miss
Mayfield. You and I will wed this day, or you and Biddle and that
thieving uncle of yours will spend the next twenty-five years in
prison.”

“You can’t do that! There are laws—”

“Yes, there are laws against felony fraud,
punishable by long prison terms. I have the right, and the means to
prosecute. And I have every intention of doing so if those shares
are not in my possession by close of business today. Do you
understand me, Miss Mayfield?”

He was so powerfully close, was such a
breath-stealing presence, she could barely hear for the thundering
in her ears, would remember his heat and her terror till her dying
breath. Yet she understood his ultimatum very well, marriage to him
or prison for her entire family. Twenty-five years meant that her
uncle and Mr. Biddle would die in prison. She couldn’t let that
happen. A year and a day married to Claybourne couldn’t be any
worse than that.

“Unhand me, Mr. Claybourne.”

“Your answer, woman.”

She lowered her gaze from his impossibly dark
eyes and watched the muscles tighten beneath his clean-shaved jaw.
Marriage to Hunter Claybourne? What kind of life would that be?
Waiting at home for a bleak winter storm to blow through the house
and freeze her to death. Hiding from him and his ever-present
wrath, from this reeling sensation.

But what choice did she have? None that she
could see from the vantage point of his snarl. Still, there must be
a way to protect herself and her family, to see that he didn’t
grind her into gravel. She’d learned a very long time ago that with
the right amount of leverage, she could move whole mountains.