Ever His Bride (11 page)

And something else.

The scent of lavender, a lightness behind him
where there ought to be shadow.

“Good evening husband—darling. Did you miss
me?”

Miss Mayfield was sitting in his chair beside
the bed, her legs tucked beneath her, a book resting open across
the enticing rise of her thigh. She’d loosened her hair from its
ribbons, and now great cascades of gold clouded her shoulders, as
wildly as she had clouded his senses.

He steadied his breathing and lifted the
brandy to let the shimmering fumes rise against his nose. Her robe
was russet velvet and heavy, the cuffs rolled, and the shoulders
drooped to her elbows. Not her robe. The damn thing was his.

“What are you doing in here?” he asked as
harshly as he could manage, trying to ignore the unnamed stirring
in his chest, the hollow burning that spread downward to his knees,
that deepened his breathing and leadened his arms.

“What am I doing here, Mr. Claybourne?”

Felicity abandoned her vow to keep her temper
and flung herself out of the chair. She’d planned all day to be
cooler than he—impossible unless she were an iceberg. “I’m here
because you threw me into your carriage and had me hauled off to
your very charming estate in the wilds of Hampstead.”

“This may be your home for the next year,
Miss Mayfield. But that doesn’t give you leave to enter my chamber
uninvited.”

“Uninvited, sir? But isn’t this the master’s
chamber? Aren’t we married, Mr. Claybourne? And isn’t this our
wedding night?”

“Is that why you’ve claimed my robe?”

“If you remember, sir, I have nothing else to
wear.” She refused to be embarrassed by the heat plaguing her
cheeks again, confused that the warmth should find its way to her
chest.

“And you think this is my fault?” He tipped
his brandy to his mouth and sipped slowly. He had a wicked way of
looking at her—through her; and through her robe—his robe.

She stuck her fingers into the sash wrapping
and flicked open the front of it. The cold hit her like a slap, but
she shrugged out of the sleeves and tossed the robe onto the end of
the bed.

“There,” she said, closing her arms across
the cotton nightshirt that seemed as slight as a cobweb. Her feet
were bare against the polished wood floor, and she stepped in front
of the fire to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Whose nightshirt is that?” His eyes narrowed
in his shadowy assessment.

“I don’t know. I found it with a towel in the
bathing closet next to your chamber.” Claybourne was frowning. “I
suspect it belongs to Ernest.” That explanation didn’t seem to make
him any happier.

“We’ll discuss this in the morning. Go to
bed.”

“Mr. Claybourne, I’ve decided to treat you as
an innkeeper.”

“You have?” He seemed vainly amused.

“And in the morning, I might just decide to
be gone from here. I can’t afford to stay long; I haven’t written a
coherent word about my travels all day. Claybourne Manor doesn’t
lend itself to creativity, nor does the idea of being entirely
dependent upon you. Article Two of our marriage contract allows me
to decide when and where I travel.”

“That may be. But the very legal fact of our
marriage allows me the right as your husband to nullify that
decision, and any other decision you might make in the coming
year.”

He was so very calm, his voice even and
precise. She wanted to scream, but she matched his composure and
spoke through her clenched teeth.

“So I’ve exchanged a sentence in the Queen’s
Bench Prison for a more hideous one in the Claybourne Manor? That
explains the gray walls and the gruel.”

“We’ll speak of this tomorrow.”

“We’ll speak of it now.” She was cold to the
bone, despite the fire at her back.

“Madam, my home is a quiet place.”

“A tomb. I’ve noticed.”

“And I plan to keep it that way.” Claybourne
set his empty glass on the washstand, his manner turned perilously
benign. “This arrangement of ours is . . . unconventional at best.
It’s ill-fitting and uncomfortable, and as new to me as it is to
you. But we are now connected, and I have a reputation to consider.
You, madam, have no money, and no place to stay. I cannot have that
in a wife. Therefore, you need only prove to me that you have sense
enough not to disturb my life any more than you already have, after
which you may, with my most sincere blessing, leave on your travels
for as long as you wish.”

“Oh, and how am I to prove this to you?”

“You can start by going to bed when I tell
you.”

She aimed an entirely uncalled for glance at
Claybourne’s bed. The huge man’s gaze followed hers and lingered
like a fragrance among the pillows, sending her into another fit of
blushing.

“You have nothing to fear from me, Miss
Mayfield.” His face was as blank as a slate; yet his mouth remained
every bit as fascinating to her, well-planed and improvident.
“Article Four states that our marriage will remain unconsummated. I
have no salacious designs on you.”

She blotted up his scorn and used it against
him. “Good. For I plan to have a real husband someday, and will go
to his bed chaste.”

“My best to you both. Now, go to bed, Miss
Mayfield,” he said quietly.

“Go to hell, Mr. Claybourne.”

He frowned, took her gently by the elbow, and
swept her out into the corridor, then shut the door in her
face.

“Pinchfist!” she shouted. The word multiplied
itself and bounced away from her, leaving a bleak silence in its
wake. He was the rudest, most callous man she’d ever met. To
everyone it seemed. Cold and hungry again, she was glad she’d been
locked out of his room, instead of in.

“But damnation!” She’d left her blanket in
Claybourne’s chamber, wasn’t about to return for it. And she’d
forgotten to ask him about a bed. At least one that wasn’t his.

She hurried to the kitchen and huddled beside
the still-warm stove. Mrs. Sweeney hadn’t left so much as a crumb
of food anywhere, and the larder was locked down tightly. A
stuttering oil lamp kept the room from total darkness. The only
difference between this night and the previous one at Cobson’s Rest
was space. There were tall, dreary gobs of it everywhere she
looked.

Her one and only skirt and shirtwaist were
drying on a rack near the stove, hadn’t known Mrs. Sweeney was
going to wash them until her clothes disappeared from the bathing
closet. Now they seemed to have lost some of the blue and gained a
tinge of black along the seams, from the woman’s dye pot.

With the exception of Claybourne’s chamber,
this was the warmest room in the house—certainly warmer and more
quiet than London Bridge Station—and Mrs. Sweeney’s rocking chair
would do just fine as a bed. Tomorrow she would demand to be taken
to London for the day, else she would walk there herself.

She dragged the rocker out of the corner,
dislodging a bundle of rags from behind it. The bundle teetered and
rolled to the center of the room, and a small, grimy face appeared
among the folds.

She would have jumped out of her skin, but
that little face was far too familiar.

“Giles Pepperpot!” she hissed, catching and
holding the boy by the ear. “So we meet again!”

“Ouch, miss! Let go, please! Owwww!” His arms
whirled and his eyes pinched closed as she dragged him toward the
wan light. “You’re hurting me.”

“Good. I ought to throw you to Claybourne’s
dogs. They’d like a tender little morsel to chew on.”

“Leave off!”

“You stole everything I own, Mr. Pepperpot.
There’s nothing left to steal. And you’re a bloody little fool if
you’ve come here to rob from Claybourne! He’ll have you hanged for
the thief you are!”

“But I didn’t come for nothing like that! I
come to settle with you.”

“To settle with me?” She tapped the middle of
his bony chest and he fell, panic-stricken, backward into the
rocking chair. The dark circles under his eyes made him look older
than Claybourne, but she wasn’t about to feel sorry for the little
felon. “I won’t be made a fool of twice, Mr. Pepperpot. Today on
the street I was being generous. Now you’ve come to take advantage.
That makes me angry, and very dangerous to a sneak thief! How did
you get here all the way from London?”

“In the carriage boot.” He drew his scrawny,
threadbare knees against his chest and clung to them. “I saw the
big man send you away this noon, and I kenned the brougham would
come back for him sometime today, so I waited and when it did come,
I slipped inside and waited some more. Then I hid out here in the
stables till it was safe to come inside.”

“Why, Mr. Pepperpot?” She grasped the rocker
arms and leaned forward. The reek of poverty nearly gagged her;
Giles Pepperpot was the sewers of London made flesh. She closed her
nose against the horrible smell and pressed him for the truth. “Why
did you come here if it wasn’t to practice your nefarious
trade?”

“I come to give this back to you.” He drew a
folio of papers out of his shirt.

“My articles!” She grabbed the folio and
hugged it against her, wanting to whoop for joy. For her ticket to
her independence from Claybourne. “Thank you!”

“It was the only thing I could bring you.”
The boy’s head was cocked, and a ripe new bruise bulged on his
brow.

“You did this for me? Came all the way to
Hampstead in the boot of a carriage to return my portfolio?”

He shrugged. “Figured I owed ya.”

Grateful beyond words, she leaned down and
kissed his cheek, trying to ignore the grime there. “Thank you, Mr.
Pepperpot.”

The boy laid his hand across the kiss and his
eyes seemed to grow liquid in the dim light. “I’d return your
money, miss, but I don’t have it anymore.”

“Never mind about that. I owed you the coins
to pay for your torn shirt. I hope you bought something with the
money to keep you warm.”

He shook his head. “Harry kept it.”

“Harry—the other boy? He kept the money?”

Giles nodded and rubbed the bruise on his
forehead.

“He shared nothing with you?”

“I work for him. Why should he?”

“Ah, then Mr. Claybourne was right. You are a
member of the gang of boys that works Threadneedle.”

“And Chancery Lane when Threadneedle gets too
close.” He unwound his legs and arms as his hesitancy slipped off
him like a too-big coat. His bristling courage reminded her of a
young eagle whose feathers have only just begun to sprout. “I’ve
never been caught before. You saved me from the workhouse. And I’d
rather die than go back there.”

“A terrible place, is it?”

The boy wouldn’t elaborate; only nodded.

“Well, Mr. Pepperpot, I don’t condone your
trade, but you’re very good at it. You cut my purse and I didn’t
discover it missing until you were long gone.”

“Cut it with your own scissors.”

“How?” She laughed in earnest for the first
time in days. “Never mind! I don’t want to know. Slicker than a
railway baron. You’ll go far, Mr. Pepperpot, if you apply
yourself.”

The boy didn’t take well to the compliment.
He blushed like a beet, clear through the grime. His smile sloughed
its hard-edged cynicism and softened in innocence.

“Well, miss, I come here to return your
papers and I done that, so I’d best be leaving.”

“Where do you live?” But, of course, he
wasn’t going to tell her that! She could tell by the set of his
jaw. What would he think if he knew she hadn’t much of a home
herself? “How will you get back to London?”

“I’ll walk.”

“No. Wait. Stay the night in the stables, and
you can return in the carriage boot tomorrow without Claybourne or
his footman ever being the wiser.”

“I don’t know. . ..” The boy’s stomach
grumbled much like her own had done earlier that day. He didn’t
seem to notice.

“Don’t worry. I’ll make sure you won’t be
caught. Let’s steal us a late night feast, and then we’ll put you
up where no one will find you.” She went to work on the larder
lock, hoping to find a breach in Mrs. Sweeney’s defenses.

“Allow me, miss.” Giles brushed her hands
from the lock, then slipped a thin wire into the keyhole. “Do you
work for him, miss? Are you his housekeeper?”

She smiled. “If you mean Mr. Claybourne, then
no, Mr. Pepperpot. I’m his wife.”

The lock popped open.

So did Mr. Pepperpot’s mouth.

Miss Mayfield had called him a pinchfist.
Probably the best epithet she could manage; but he’d been called
far more colorful things in his life. A man in his business
acquired animosity and enemies by the bushelful. The word had just
seemed more jagged and empty when she shouted it through the closed
door.

Hunter picked up the robe she’d thrown across
his bed and hung it in the closet. She’d left her warmth and the
scent of lavender draped among the heavy folds. She’d also left an
unblinking image of soft angles and spun gold. He shouldn’t have
mentioned the damn robe; he had many others. But he hadn’t reckoned
she would throw it off and stand nearly naked in front of the fire
in his valet’s nightwear.

On his wedding night.

The ache was deep and progressive; it rose
out of his chest and curled like a thrashing fever through his
groin, leaving his heart to beat a hollow, hollow thrum.

His wedding night.

Willing his new wife from his thoughts, he
shrugged out of his jacket and planted himself in his chair to
watch the fire and read. He’d been spared only a moment’s calm when
heavy footsteps slogged up the corridor toward his room.

Miss Mayfield, no doubt, returned to plague
him with more of her opinions. He was out of the chair and opening
the door even before the knock sounded. Branson’s fist hung in the
air, unused.

“What is it Branson?” His pulse was racing;
the threat born in the woman he’d so recently married.