Ever His Bride (8 page)

“Take care, sir,” she said, loosening
Claybourne’s grip with a slap at his black gloved hand. “You’ll
hurt him.”

“He’s as guilty as sin, Miss Mayfield,”
Claybourne said, taking a tighter hold on the frail shirt and
tearing it even further. “He’s one of a pack of young thieves that
preys upon people along Threadneedle Street. He must be dealt with
to the full extent of the law.”

Claybourne started dragging the boy up the
steps of the Bank, but she ran ahead and stopped him with a hand to
his chest, a very solid and uncompromising barrier.

“Out of my way, Miss Mayfield.”

“Where are you taking him?”

He brushed her aside, but she clung to his
arm and stopped him again, wedging herself between the boy and his
immoveable judge. Her efforts brought her chest against
Claybourne’s belt, and even as he bent his angry face to hers, she
marveled at his strength.

“I’m taking the little bandit to a bank
guard, who’ll then take him to the police, who will then lock him
up where he belongs.” He bent closer, if that was possible, and the
obsidian of his eyes turned to molten scarlet. “It’s what I do with
thieves.”

“This boy is not my thief, Mr. Claybourne.
The real thief was taller and . . . wore a green shirt. This boy’s
shirt is brown. What’s left of it.” She stepped out from under
Claybourne’s ill-tasting doubt and looked directly into the boy’s
upturned face. “Isn’t your shirt brown, lad?”

He nodded his head slowly, never dropping his
gaze from hers. The boy hadn’t spoken at all, seemed incapable at
the moment, with his mouth gaping and his eyes as wide as the sky.
She wondered if he wasn’t a mute. In any case, Claybourne had no
right to beleaguer anyone without absolute proof.

“There! He’s completely innocent of the
crime.”

“An innocent doesn’t run,” Claybourne said,
growling as if he’d as soon throw the boy off London Bridge.

“If you were being chased along Threadneedle
by an enraged giant, Mr. Claybourne, wouldn’t you run, too?”

Claybourne’s eyes shifted to the street and
the crowd gathered below the stairs, then back to her. His anger
paled his brow and then his neck. He let go his grip on the boy’s
collar with a snap and then looked down at his own hand as he
closed his fist.

The boy scampered to her side. “Thank you
ever so kindly, miss,” he said.

“You’re very welcome,” she said,
straightening the torn and rumpled shirt. The poor child.
Motherless, no doubt, and grateful for her gentle encouragement.
“What’s your name, lad?”

“Pepperpot, miss. Giles Pepperpot.” He smiled
grandly at her and slipped his warm, calloused hand inside hers,
letting it hang there among the folds of her skirt.

Claybourne muttered a curse and grabbed his
hat from her other hand. “You’ve let yourself be taken in, Miss
Mayfield.”

“Have a heart, Mr. Claybourne, and let him
go. We’ll finish our business at the Bank and then part as we
planned. Away with you, lad, before the great man can catch you.”
She patted the boy’s matted head and he sped away, tucking in his
shirt as he went, his filthy bare feet slapping the pavement. The
crowd muttered its disappointment and dispersed as soon as he was
gone.

“You’re a fool, Miss Mayfield.”

“If granting a kind word to an unfortunate
child makes me a fool, then I wear the label proudly. You, on the
other hand, are miserly and cruel, Mr. Claybourne. Not that it
surprises me. I knew it by inference before, and now you’ve shown
me in vivid detail.”

“And where do you suppose your bag is now,
Miss Mayfield?” he asked, taking her elbow and starting up the
steps toward the Bank.

“I couldn’t even imagine. It was probably
snatched from little Giles by the older boy—”

Claybourne stopped on the step above and bore
down on her like a thunder-heavy cloud. “Damnation, woman! You knew
it was he! That little thief stole your good sense as well as your
bag! You let him escape when I had him by the nape.”

“Yes, I did. The bag was long gone. There was
nothing to be done. Giles Pepperpot is a poor little boy—”

“He’s a thief, madam. He’d rather slit your
throat for a ha’penny than to look at you.”

“You may be a cutthroat, Mr. Claybourne, but
that doesn’t mean that every man is. Children like Giles need care
and comfort and a good home. In fact, if I had thought about it in
all the commotion, I’d have given Giles money to buy himself a new
shirt to replace the one you tore.” She reached for the purse that
hung from her belt, prepared to shake the coins in Claybourne’s
face.

“My purse—”

It was gone. Nothing remained but the short
length of cording, cut sharply.

Claybourne’s growling anger smoothed into the
rumble of insolent laughter. “Stolen by your wretched little
angel?” he asked, lifting a diabolical eyebrow, knowing the answer
as clearly as she did. “Who’d have thought it possible?”

Heat rose in her cheeks. The boy’s gratitude
and need for affection had only been a ruse for cutting her purse
from her belt. The little imp. The thought was strangely
comforting. “Well, Mr. Claybourne, with a bit of luck, a clever lad
like Pepperpot might survive his poverty to become a ruthless
financier just like you.”

Claybourne grunted and captured her hand to
fit it into the crook of his stone-rigid arm. His long legs took
the steps two at a time and sent her running to keep up with
him.

“You married Mayfield’s daughter?”

“Less than an hour ago, Lanford.” Hunter
handed him the note that changed Miss Mayfield’s address to his
own. That change now seemed so much more significant than simply a
new address. He was married—to, to that green-eyed, willowy bit of
opinions waiting for him in Lanford’s reception room. “I’ll have a
copy of the registry sent to you tomorrow.”

“Is she pretty?” Lanford raised his eyebrows
and smiled too broadly.

The man didn’t need to know that his new
bride was somewhat more attractive than he’d reckoned for, somewhat
less insignificant.

“Never mind, Mr. Claybourne. I suppose looks
wouldn’t matter, would it? You’d have married a goose if it would
have brought you that railway.”

“Good day, Lanford.” Hunter left him behind
his desk and strode deliberately to the door, tired of the banker’s
society.

Lanford followed him like a puppy. “I knew
you’d come up with something, Claybourne. But I never really
thought the woman would agree to marry you.”

Hunter turned as he caught the door latch.
“Think what you will. I came here only to inform the Bank of
England that Miss Mayfield and I are now legally wed, and that her
shares in the Drayhill-Starlington Railway will revert to her one
year and one day from this date.”

“And, by way of marriage, they will become
yours at the same time. A bold step, Claybourne. Though I don’t
know why you would want those shares—you’ll become sole owner of a
five-mile line of iron track that begins in a bog, leagues from any
town, and then dead-ends at the foot of a chalky cliff. I don’t
understand it, myself. But you are a man of unerring judgment where
finance is concerned. You must know what you are doing.”

“You and the Bank have benefited countless
times from my advice, Lanford.”

“Yes, we have. And I suspect we will again.
Would you, by any chance, be looking for investors in the
Drayhill-Starlington?”

He had never felt quite so absurdly
possessive, as if the railway was the woman herself and he craved
some singular claim on her. “No investors, Lanford. I’m in this one
alone.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

“I never change my mind.” Hunter threw open
the door, wondering if his wife would still be waiting for him.

She wasn’t.

“W
hat do you mean I
haven’t an account here at the Bank of England?” Felicity held fast
to her temper; her heart had taken off on its own at the teller’s
outrageous statement. “You’re quite wrong! My uncle, Foley
Mayfield, put one thousand pounds into an account for me just three
days ago! Have you spent it already?”

“I can assure you, miss, the bank does not
spend your money for you. But I must repeat: there is no account
here in the name of Felicity Mayfield, or Foley Mayfield, or even
in your father’s name. I’m sorry.”

“But Uncle Foley said—” Oh, but he’d said a
good many things that day, that very singular day when he’d sold
her to Hunter Claybourne.

“Would you care for a hot cup of tea, Miss
Mayfield?”

“No. Unless you want it dashed into your
face, sir.” She was instantly sorry. “Please forgive me. It’s just
that I’m . . .”

She was penniless, homeless, without even a
change of clothes. And all her irreplaceable work had been stolen
by that scamp Pepperpot!

She pushed away from the teller’s stall and
crossed the lobby to the lofty windows that looked out onto the
street. Perhaps Uncle Foley had forgotten to put the money into the
bank. He had been in a devilish hurry to sail that day.

No. She was just making excuses for him. He’d
failed her, as no other could have done.

Hunter was beyond surprised to find his wife
in the lobby, staring out the window, her bonnet sitting askew. No
doubt searching for that grimy urchin who had just stolen her
blind. Probably looking to reward him with a basket of cakes, had
she any money to purchase such a reward. He curbed his anger. He
couldn’t very well make a scene in the bank lobby. He knew far too
many people here.

He caught her elbow. “Where have you been,
Miss Mayfield?”

She turned sharply, her eyes liquid and
angry, and he felt a moment’s guilt for the day’s business.

“I’ve been busy falling off the turnip wagon,
Mr. Claybourne,” she said, righting her bonnet with a yank. “I
would like to leave now. It seems I have pressing business at the
Hearth and Heath
in Fleet Street.”

The reckless woman had no sense of her own
helplessness. “Have you any money, Miss Mayfield?”

She opened her mouth to answer at the same
time her hand unconsciously touched the empty place where her purse
had once hung. She sent a look of impatience toward the teller
stalls, then shook her head at him.

“I’m momentarily without funds,” she said,
raising her chin, quite proud of her loss, it seemed. As if she’d
just donated a million pounds to a worthy charity, instead of
losing her last penny to a stinking urchin.

“And what do you plan to do about your lack
of funds?” he asked.

“I . . .” She seemed to look for an answer in
the cavernous ceiling of the bank lobby. She had caught up her
lower lip between her teeth, deepening the rose tint of her mouth
and lighting a spark in the center of his chest that burned an
instant path to his loins. He took a sharp breath as it hit, but
hid the sound inside a growl.

“Where do you live, Miss Mayfield?” he asked
sharply, wishing away this damnable attraction to her.

But she tilted a slender hip into her palm
and cocked her head in open defiance, tipping her bonnet off-center
once again. “I live wherever I please.”

He didn’t like this all of a sudden. His
legal wife, let loose on the city without means. He could see the
headlines in the
Times:
“Hunter Claybourne’s wife found
sleeping in a dish crate in Hyde Park.” That wouldn’t do at
all.

“Have you no rooms anywhere?” He hadn’t
considered the living arrangements between them. Hadn’t thought it
necessary.

“Why should I pay rent all the month, when
I’m gone for days, weeks at a time? I live in a boardinghouse when
I’m in London and take my rent in kind when I’m traveling.”

“In kind?” He was stunned by the implication,
imagined beady-eyed innkeepers and seedy bedrooms, sweaty hands
reaching for the private curve at the base of her breast. His own
hand ached for the same. “What the hell do you mean by ‘in
kind’?”

She gave him a look of annoyance, as if he
were out of his league and she was too busy to explain. “Innkeepers
are quite happy to exchange meals and lodging for my favorable
listing in the travel gazette.”

He hadn’t realized that he’d been holding his
breath until he blew it out of his chest in a storm. “You live by
that means? By barter? For mention in a gazette?” Good God, he’d
married a gypsy!

“By bartering, and by selling my articles to
the
Hearth and Heath.
What did you think I meant, Mr.
Claybourne?”

He frowned and led her out of the Bank into
the gray blanket glare of noon. They had just reached the bottom
step when a young man in a moth-eaten tweed suit rushed in between
them.

“Felicity!” the man shouted, as he yanked the
woman into his embrace, causing the hair to bristle on Hunter’s
neck and a spot of coal-hot anger to blossom in his gut.