Ever His Bride (9 page)

“Adam Skinner!” Miss Mayfield hugged the man
even more fiercely in return. She finally pulled away from him and
stood back to gaze on him in too-obvious admiration.

The Skinner person swabbed his hat from his
head and beamed at her. “You’re a sight for sore eyes,
Felicity!”

“What are you doing here, Adam? Last I knew,
Mr. Dolan had sent you to Cardiff to report on the auctions.”

“I left Dolan’s weeklies for the
Times.
I’m working here in Threadneedle now! Special
reporter to the Bank. Reporting on the great Hudson’s demise.”

“Special reporter! How wonderful!” She hugged
the giddy-faced man again, and Hunter wanted to toss him under a
speeding dray.

Instead, he reached down and separated them.
“You’d best be on your way, boy.”

The man looked like a chicken whose feathers
had been stroked backward. “Who is this fellow, Felicity?”

She sent Hunter a damning glare and fluttered
her hand as if she were explaining away a stray dog. “Just my
husband. Never mind him.”

“Your, your what?” Skinner’s mouth sagged,
and he took a long step backward. “You got married?”

“Well, I. . .” She seemed abruptly awkward
and unsure of herself, casting Hunter a stammering glance that
spoke of past indiscretions.

“Enough, wife.” He’d have led her immediately
to the carriage, but he looked up from her wrathful displeasure
into the white-browed, laughing eyes of Lord Meath. Damnation, but
there were too many people about this morning.

“What’s this I hear?” Meath said, his
forehead furrowed in genuine concern. “You’ve gotten yourself
married, Claybourne?”

“Good to see you, your lordship.” Hunter took
Meath’s outstretched hand.

“Is it true, Claybourne? Have you married at
last?”

Meath was a member of the Board of Trade, a
man whose reputation and goodwill meant more to Hunter than any
man’s in the City. He seemed quite pleased at the moment, but a
single stray word from his scowling bride could ruin it all.

Skinner watched the exchange with far too
much reporterly interest, his notepad and pencil at the ready.

Hunter pulled his wife against him and
settled her beneath his shoulder. Fortunately, she fit perfectly.
“Lord Meath, I present to you my wife, Miss—”

“Mrs.—” she corrected, boring a sharp
fingertip into his ribs.

“Mrs. Claybourne.” He must work on this
breach in his thinking, and on his wife’s behavior in the presence
of a viscount. “Mrs. Claybourne, Lord Meath.”

Meath smiled down on her and took her hand.
“I am charmed, my dear. When was the happy event?”

“An hour ago,” she said quickly.

Meath laughed and patted her hand. “You have
snared a very eligible jackrabbit, Mrs. Claybourne. Many women have
tried. However did you do it?”

Felicity tipped her head up toward her
intolerable husband and considered telling the absolute truth:
he blackmailed me, your lordship.
But Claybourne had
narrowed his eyes to slits, like an ill-humored dragon disturbed
from its afternoon nap. She decided against the absolute truth; the
explanation would take all day and she didn’t trust Claybourne’s
reaction, not after his treatment of dear Adam.

“Dear, sweet, Mr. Claybourne
insisted
that I marry him,” she said instead, settling a false smile on her
face. Claybourne must have approved; he seemed to start breathing
again. But would he breathe as easily if he knew she’d noticed that
weakness in his defenses? He was much impressed with himself and
seemed determined to have others return his good opinion.

“Well, then!” Meath said, beaming at
Claybourne. “Your heart stolen away by true love. Good. Good.
Should happen more often these days. Congratulations,
Claybourne.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“You and your lovely wife must come to dinner
sometime in the next month.”

Felicity opened her mouth to decline, but
Claybourne grabbed her hand and placed it on his arm, then clamped
his own hand down on top of hers.

“We would be delighted, your lordship,”
Claybourne said, his white teeth gleaming in the afternoon sun.

It seemed strange to her that the beastly man
could transform himself in the daylight into quite a handsome
figure, his primitive darkness turned to dignity, his
blunt-shouldered hugeness turned to a nearly charming presence. And
strange indeed that her heart fluttered wildly when she studied his
face in search of some kind of virtue. A fruitless venture, to be
sure.

“Good to see you, Claybourne.” Lord Meath was
glancing down Threadneedle Street, kneading his gloved palms
together. “Well, I’m off to the club to rub some salt into some
very sore wounds. Word is that George Hudson is going to hit rock
bottom in the next few days.”

“Indeed.” Claybourne seemed relieved to be
talking business.

Felicity wanted to be done with the man and
his overwhelming presence, wanted most of all to pursue her own
business at the
Hearth and Heath.
How else was she to live?
Bartering for food and lodging only succeeded half the time; she
often had to pay her own way. And now that Giles Pepperpot had run
off with her purse and a whole month’s worth of finished travel
articles, and her uncle had left her penniless, she needed to
explain the delay to Mr. Dolan, and then somehow recreate her work
as soon as she could manage.

But this Lord Meath fellow seemed to have
Claybourne’s full attention.

“You right about Hudson all along,
Claybourne. There will be resignations among the Board Members.
Your timely warning saved my own fortune and my name. I thank you.
Again.”

“My pleasure.” Funny how Claybourne could be
downright engaging when high finance was involved.

“I’m not likely to forget such things,
Claybourne.” Meath tapped the brim of his top hat with a finger and
tipped a wave as he stepped around them and started down
Threadneedle.

Felicity winked at Adam as the wily reporter
followed on Meath’s heels.

Claybourne stared down at her, unblinking.
“Who was that young man?” he asked.

“A reporter friend of mine.”

“You’ll have no reporter friends while you’re
married to me.”

She laughed at his frown, at his
unenforceable, uncontracted-for demand. “I’ll have any friend I
want, Mr. Claybourne. And I plan to spend most of the next four
weeks touring Northumberland, so I doubt I’ll have time in my
schedule for a soiree at his lordship’s.”

“You’ll make the time, wife, or I’ll make it
for you.”

Then Claybourne wrapped his big hands around
her waist and lifted her into his carriage.

“Curse you for a liar, Claybourne!” She made
a grab for the doorjamb, but he’d taken her by surprise and she
stumbled to the seat as he locked the door behind her. She righted
herself, reached through the open window, and took hold of his
wrist.

“Let me out of here! We made a bargain! You
said I could leave any time I like. And unless you’re sending me to
the
Hearth and Heath
in Fleet Street, I want out of this
carriage immediately.”

“Without money, where will you sleep
tonight?” He cocked his know-it-all eyebrow. “In Waterloo
Station?”

“I’ve slept in worse places.”

“You won’t while you’re married to me.”

“Is that going to be your standard answer to
my every request for the next year?”

“Be prepared to hear it, or you’ll take up
residence at my house for the duration of our marriage.”

“I will not! Damn you!” She tried the door
handle, but it didn’t budge. “You promised I could travel. You
signed your name to our contract! Is that what your name is worth,
Mr. Claybourne? Nothing but lies?”

“We’ll speak of it later,” he said coolly.
“Home to Hampstead, Branson!”

The force of the carriage threw Felicity back
against the padded seat.

“Blazes!”

She scrambled to the rear window, hoping to
wound Claybourne with a glare. He stood shoulders above the stream
of foot traffic, his attention intent upon her departure. He looked
utterly out of place, a siege-built castle erected mid-river,
buffeted by tree trunks and rising water. And yet he managed to
remain unjostled, founded in the bedrock.

The arrogant blockhead!

With the carriage door locked again from the
outside, and the windows far too small to climb out of without
getting stuck, she sagged back against the seat. She could have
jimmied the lock with the pair of scissors in her portmanteau, but
she’d donated them along with all her clothes and her writings to
young Mr. Pepperpot and his associate.

Where would I go anyway?
The
boardinghouse was out of the question. Without ready cash, she’d be
turned away at the door. Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Cobson could have
been twin spirits separated at birth for all their natural-born
charity.

Right now, she was so hungry she could eat
the batting out of the carriage seat. Well, then, if Claybourne was
offering his hospitality, she might as well take him up on it, as
long as he was willing to let her keep her appointment with Mr.
Dolan and had paper and ink for her to rewrite her articles. She’d
met more than one peevish innkeeper in her travels. This one could
well afford a few amenities. Judging by the grandeur of his office,
his estate must rival Windsor Castle. Elegant, well-kept gardens, a
large stable and paddock chock-a-block with thoroughbred stock,
liveried servants, a stately gallery of gilt-framed ancestors, and
a kitchen complete with a French chef.

“Bloody hell, I’m hungry!’ She imagined the
dining room at Claybourne’s estate, bright with candles, a
block-long table sagging under the weight of succulent meats,
creamy desserts, and candied vegetables.

“Another helping of Yorkshire pudding, Miss
Mayfield?” she said in his basso voice.

“Please, make that two, Mr. Claybourne.”

She sighed. A day or two of splendor might do
wonders for her spirits while she straightened out her finances and
made sense of the coming year and a day. Her deadline to Mr. Dolan
was the end of the week; without the usual interruptions she could
easily re-create her travels in the meantime. Wouldn’t have to
wonder where her next meal would come from, or where she would
sleep the night. And Mrs. Wright wouldn’t be poking her head into
her business every other moment.

Yet there was Claybourne himself to consider.
All of him: every inch. The searing heat and the bone-breaking
chill, his arrogance, his greed.

And the oddly stark realization that when he
hadn’t kissed her at the end of their oh-so-brief wedding, she’d
felt cheated. Cheated! The insatiable blackguard had not only
stolen her railway from her, but he’d dashed any hope of a chance
to marry for love, forever!

The brougham rose up with the road as it
carried her north out of London, then through Hampstead and soon
turned off the rutted thoroughfare into a narrow lane. Another ten
minutes and the lane ended entirely, blocked off by a pair of
rusted iron gates that squealed as the footman opened them, and
squealed again after he’d pulled through the gates and closed
them.

The carriage sped along inside a shaded
avenue of overgrown yew and beech. Branches whipped past, slapping
at the windows. She kept waiting for a break in the tunnel, but the
green landscape went on for a quarter mile until the road crested
and then hurdled downward and opened into a broad glade.

She caught sight of the roofline first, vast
and crenelated like a fortress, stubbled with odd-lot chimneys and
twisted towers. A pitifully lonely-looking sight.

Claybourne’s house grew out of an island of
bramble and weeds that reached nearly to the second floor. If there
had ever been a hedged and clipped garden, it had long since been
overtaken. The wildness crowded against the courtyard, held in
check by another iron fence.

A few pallid faces peered down at her through
the dark windows as the brougham clattered to a halt in front of
the stone porch. What sort of man had she married? What sort of
greed was this?

A stick-thin man came flying out the front
door, frantically flapping his elbows as he tried to fasten the
front of his coat.

“Hell and be damned!” she heard him hiss to
Branson. “What’s the master doin’ home at this hour?”

“Easy now, Ernest,” Branson said as he
slipped down from his seat, “I haven’t got the master with me.”

The stark terror melted from Ernest’s face,
replaced by the grace found in a reprieve from death. “Just you,
then—”

“No.” Branson brushed aside Ernest’s
worthless efforts at buttoning the livery coat and finished the job
himself. “I’ve brought the master’s wife.”

Felicity heard a chorus of gasps but couldn’t
place the source until she saw the drapes swing back into place in
the ground-floor windows. Claybourne was abrupt and disdainful in
public; what kind of demon was he in the privacy of his own
isolated estate?

“His
wife
, Mr. Branson?” Ernest peered
into Branson’s face and waited for his answer as a dog awaits a
bone.

“You heard right, Ernest. The master’s new
wife. Now let’s get the little thing out of the carriage and
settled into the house. Take care, though. She might have a mind to
bolt.”

“I promise not to bolt, Mr. Branson,”
Felicity said as he opened the carriage door. Where would she go in
this godforsaken landscape? “I’m too hungry to do anything more
active than faint.”

“We’ll see about a meal, then,” he said as he
handed her down the steps to the gravel walk.

“Afternoon, ma’am.” Ernest’s smile started on
one side of his mouth and traveled quickly to the other side.

She smiled back at his eagerness to please,
more certain than ever that Claybourne was an overbearing,
ungrateful taskmaster.