Ever His Bride (12 page)

“She’s gone, sir.”

Hunter didn’t have to ask who
she
was.
“Gone where? She was just here not ten minutes ago.”

“Here, sir? In your chamber?” Branson looked
befuddled and peered past him into the room. “But I thought you
weren’t. . .she said—”

“Did you look in her room?”

“Her room, sir?”

“She left here not five minutes ago. I sent
her back to her room.”

Branson looked at him as if he’d been
speaking Greek. “Ah, then, that just might be the problem, sir. She
doesn’t have one.”

“She doesn’t have what? Quit speaking in
riddles.”

“A room, sir. Mrs. Claybourne doesn’t have a
room. You neglected to give instructions to—”

“Damn it, Branson. Do I need to give such
instructions? I have a wife now, see that she has a chamber with a
bed and all the necessary furnishings.”

“Yes, well, that was the crux of the problem,
sir. All the beds at Claybourne Manor are used up.”

Hunter opened his mouth to protest the idiocy
of Branson’s argument, but he knew the fact to be true. Ten
servants, ten cots, and his own tester bed. There were no more
beds. He’d never needed more, never entertained or expected
overnight guests. Or any other kind of guest, for that matter.

“Fix it, Branson. Find her. Search the
upstairs rooms, every closet—”

“Ernest is looking—”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” He left Branson to his
excuses and set off down the stairs. She could be halfway to
Hampstead by now, gone like a wood nymph to roam her precious
heath. He’d take his horse and follow the road. As he passed the
dining-room door, he remembered her growling hunger and wondered if
his half-witted staff had forgotten to feed her. Miss Mayfield
wasn’t one to wait around for room service.

A faint light limned the kitchen door as he
stepped through the butler’s pantry. He caught the murmur of a
feather soft voice and the rattle of a cabinet. He gathered back
his racing heart. He’d found her.

Felicity heard the footsteps slow to a stop
on the other side of the pantry door. She turned to motion Giles to
hide, but he was already behind the plate rack, bunched up among a
bank of aprons, poking cheese into his already bulging mouth. The
child had eaten as if he intended stocking up on enough to last the
rest of the year.

Claybourne burst through the door just as she
was fitting the lock back into the hasp. His hair drooped against
his forehead, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, his collar
and stock missing entirely. The brawn she’d imagined beneath his
coat was an extraordinary fact.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Felicity lifted her gaze to his and found
there a carefully banked flame. Dear God, had he seen her
looking?

He left the doorway and came toward her in
that deliberate, overbearing stride of his. “Did she feed you?”

“She? Mrs. Sweeney, you mean?”

He looked exasperated and charmingly rumpled.
“I understand that my servants neglected to find you a bed. I
feared they’d neglected to feed you as well.”

“No. I was fed well, thank you.”

“But you haven’t a bed.”

Giles poked his face out from behind the bank
of aprons. She frowned at him in a warning to stay hidden.

“It’s no bother, Mr. Claybourne. I was going
to sleep here, next to the fire.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you hadn’t a chamber
when I ordered you to bed?”

“I didn’t think you’d be interested. You
seemed occupied. And there’s no need to disturb your household. I
don’t plan to stay that long. The kitchen will be fine with
me.”

“But not with me.”

“Then where shall I sleep, Mr. Claybourne? On
top of one of your everlasting crates? Give me back my bedding and
I will.”

“You’ll sleep the night in a bed, on a
mattress.”

“I won’t have you evict one of your
hard-pressed servants from their own bed—”

“You’ll sleep in mine.”

Tangled in his bedclothes, wrapped in the
searing kind of heat he was throwing off at the moment— “I will
not
, Mr. Claybourne!”

“You’re my wife. You’ll sleep in my bed. This
way, Miss Mayfield.” He turned away just as Giles took the fool
notion to race toward the garden door.

“No!” she said, unsure who she was talking
to.

Giles made it as far as the rocker before
Claybourne whirled back on her.

“No?” But the rustling of Giles’s dive for
cover drew Claybourne’s eyes as the flicking tail of a rabbit draws
a wolf. He looked past her, scanning the counters, the cupboards.
She fancied him sniffing the air. The only sound was the rasp of
the rocker runners against the floor. Her folio lay exposed on the
butcher’s block. Dear God, if he found it, he would quiz her
without mercy to learn how it had been returned.

She tapped on his chest and drew his gaze
back to her. Now, she was the rabbit, caught in the wolf’s cold
gleam.

“All right, I’ll sleep in your bed, Mr.
Claybourne, as long as
you
don’t.”

He snorted. “You have my word.”

Feeling roundly displaced, and utterly
unattractive by the conviction in his voice, she followed him
through the butler’s pantry into the dining room. Needing to return
for her folio and for one last word to Giles, she stopped
abruptly.

“My clothes,” she said, backing toward the
pantry. “They’re drying in the kitchen. I’ll need them in the
morning.”

He seemed skeptical, but Branson chose that
moment to enter the dining room, nearly dragging Ernest behind
him.

“Be quick,” Claybourne said to her. “There
you see, Branson, I’ve located Miss Mayfield. No thanks to
you.”

“Mayfield?” Felicity heard Ernest ask
innocently as she dashed back into the kitchen. If Giles was still
in the room, he’d hidden himself well.

“Eat your fill from the larder, Mr.
Pepperpot,” she whispered into the dimness, wondering if she spoke
in vain, “then sleep in the stables tonight. I’ll come find you in
the morning.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Claybourne.” The whisper
came from behind the stove.

Yes, the lad would survive. She hoped he
wouldn’t steal too much from the house.

“And I thank you, Mr. Pepperpot.” She wrapped
the folio in the folds of her still-damp skirt and hurried back to
the dining room.

“But I swear to you, Branson,” Ernest said,
“I heard something in the stable. That’s why we were awake when you
come home. Willis heard it, too.”

Probably Giles, sneaking around, trying to
find a place to hide.

“Hire a rat catcher, Branson,” Claybourne
said. “Do it tomorrow. I’ll have no vermin living in my
stables.”

“Yessir.”

Giles would be safely gone by then. She could
feel Claybourne’s gaze shift between her nightshirt and Ernest’s
matching one, and knew the sight wasn’t sitting well with him.

“To bed with you, Miss Mayfield,” Claybourne
said with a jerk of his head.

She wanted to ask where he would be sleeping,
but the question would answer itself come morning. And she was
weary enough not to care. “Good night, Mr. Claybourne,” she
said.

His chamber was warm; his sheets fresh and
smelled of lime and folded sunlight. She’d just settled into the
mound of pillows when the door opened. Claybourne stood in the
doorway, oil lamp in hand, and studied her for a moment before
tossing an armful of blankets onto the other side of the bed.

“I have plenty of blankets, Mr.
Claybourne.”

He said nothing as he set the lamp on the
mantel, trimmed the wick to a pale glow, then walked around the
foot of the big bed. The mattress dipped with his weight, a
compelling force that tried its best to draw her toward him. When
his first shoe hit the floor, she started, the sinister sound
sending her heart up into her throat.

“What do you think you are doing, Mr.
Claybourne?”

The other shoe hit the floor and he grabbed a
handful of the blankets he’d brought in.

“I’m going to sleep these few hours left to
me.” His voice drowned in a groan as he lay back against the bank
of pillows.

Felicity pushed herself up against the
headboard. “You’re sleeping here? With me?”

“No, Miss Mayfield. You are sleeping with
me.”

“You gave your word that you wouldn’t sleep
in your bed.”

“I’m sleeping
on
my bed, not in
it.”

“This isn’t proper.”

“It’s our wedding night, if you recall. Go to
sleep.”

“But . . .” The blasted man had a point. They
were
married, and sharing a bed on this night, of all the
nights in a marriage, was altogether proper, if not expected. She
wasn’t sure what would have been expected of her in an ordinary
marriage bed. More than a kiss, certainly. But theirs wasn’t to be
an ordinary marriage, and gave no hint that it would ever be. Her
husband lay atop the counterpane, still in his clothes and covered
by an entirely different pile of blankets. And he didn’t seem at
all interested in her.

Not at all. Which disappointed her more than
she cared to admit. She’d been fighting an unreasonable urge to
touch him, one that had stirred when he’d come back into the room
just now. The same stirring she’d felt last night in the Cobson’s
parlor when he’d pulled her close—stark terror and a superb sort of
singing in her pulse. And it had come again later, just after she
had signed her name in the marriage registry: when his gaze flitted
to her mouth, then away, their marriage kiss evaporating with his
disinterest. Which had been all for the best.

But still, there was that odd whirlpooling
commotion that seemed intent upon dragging her toward him. He
didn’t seem to be affected by it in the least. He lay on his side,
facing away from her, his hair dark against the pillow, his
shoulder and back a wall.

He was handsome in a frightening sort of way,
like the dizzying view from atop the cliffs at Tintagel, like the
terrible beauty of a dangerous storm.

No, beauty wasn’t the right word; beauty was
the bliss that happiness brought to a smile; it was hope shining up
from a fearless soul. Hunter Claybourne was sorrow and despair and
bone-chilling dread. He seemed to thrive on this bleakness, proud
of his ruthless ways, of taking advantage of his power.

“Mr. Claybourne, did you know my father?”

He didn’t answer, and she was about to give
up and settle in for the night when his voice rumbled through the
mattress, settling low in her chest.

“I knew him only from a distance.”

“He was a great railway engineer.”

“He was a miserable business man.” Claybourne
shifted his weight and stuffed his blanket beneath his folded
arms.

“That doesn’t matter to me in the least, Mr.
Claybourne. The railways he designed and built will last a hundred
years. He made me very proud.”

“Your imprudent father left you with nothing
but a feckless uncle and nearly bankrupt railway—”

“Which you then stole from me.” She sat up
and stared down at him.

“The opportunity presented itself to me. Your
uncle approached me—”

“And you thought him quite the pigeon, didn’t
you? Easy to pluck, ready to spit and roast. Didn’t expect a
mouthful of feathers, did you?”

Claybourne rolled up onto his elbow and
glared at her through weary-lidded eyes, their color gone to silky
black smoke in the dimness.

“It was business, Miss Mayfield. I wanted the
Drayhill-Starlington to extend a branch line into Ravenglass. If I
hadn’t purchased it, then another man would have. And your fate
would have been the same.”

“Except, Mr. Claybourne, that I’d be married
to someone else instead of to you.”

The fire popped in the grate at the end of
her statement, then fell to hissing.

“Or you’d be in jail.” He snorted and
presented his broad-shouldered back.

Deserted again. And yet that immodest urge to
have him kiss her, to finish off the business of their wedding
ceremony nearly took her breath away. The urge would soon pass,
never to be rekindled.

“Good night, Mr. Claybourne.” She settled
into the pillows and pulled the counterpane to her chin. Claybourne
didn’t move, but his breathing eased after a time.

Her wedding night. She tried to imagine
herself lying next to a different man: someone who might smile now
and then, someone less imposing, less baffling. Someone she loved
with all her heart, a man who loved her in return.

But no matter the strength of their
character, every man she conjured had one trait in common—the face
of Hunter Claybourne.

H
unter lay awake
all night, waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure, but he did know it
had a great deal to do with the young woman lying beside him in his
bed.

His
wife
.

His bedmate—one who endlessly roamed the
mattress in search of the best place to nest. He’d suffered the
brush of her hand across his temple, and her soft breathing against
his arm. He’d spent most of the night aroused by the scent of her,
by the very real fact of her alliance with him, and by that damned
nightshirt, which was too thin and too big and belonged to Ernest,
his blasted footman.