Ever His Bride (23 page)

“There.” She stood up and turned away from
him.

He sat up quickly, draped his arm across his
lap as she stuffed the recapped crock and the strawberry-stained
napkin into the basket.

The heat in the car had risen considerably,
and made him realize that there were many sensitive matters which
ought to be discussed between them if they were to remain married
for an entire year. Passion and “miscalculations . . .”

And a ring. He didn’t understand why the
subject seemed so unbroachable. He prided himself on his
forthrightness.

Madam, you are to wear this ring—

“Do you know, sir, I very rarely think of
myself as Mrs. Claybourne.”

Hunter nearly swallowed his tongue. He prayed
she couldn’t read his mind as well as she seemed to read the rhythm
of the rails. He had no idea where she was going with this
statement, or even if it had been preceded by a transition from
another subject. He hadn’t been listening. He’d been day-dreaming,
measuring the fit of his hand against the underswell of her
breast.

“Nevertheless, you are my wife, Miss
Mayfield.” Now the subject was at hand. If his own would only stop
shaking, he could lift the ring from his pocket—

“Yes. But, there, you see? You have the same
problem as I, Mr. Claybourne: you keep calling me Miss Mayfield. I
doubt you even know my given name.”

“I do.”

“You’ve never used it.”

“It’s Felicity. Felicity . . .
Claybourne.”

She sniffed, obviously unconvinced, then
picked up the basket and hoisted it to her shoulder. “It’s no
wonder I sometimes act as if I were not married—it’s so hard to
believe that I am.”

Nervous beyond reason, he stood as she
struggled to replace the basket in the rack, and secured it for
her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome, Miss . . . Mrs. Claybourne,
but I remind you that we
are
married.” And they were
standing very close again. The slope of the roof brought his head
bare inches from hers, his mouth poised at her ear again because
she didn’t seem to want to look directly at him.

“But do you suppose our marriage is truly
legal?” She sat down abruptly, flicking her eyes to him twice
before she settled her gaze on her hands, clasped tightly in her
lap.

“What makes you think it might not be legal?”
He sat down across from her. He couldn’t wait to hear her excuse,
felt defensive and raw.

“Well . . .” She finally fixed him with a
precipitous sea-green stare. “We never kissed after we were
married, Mr. Claybourne. Did you notice that?”

He’d noticed. Was determined wait out her
tangled logic if it took the rest of the night.

Felicity felt that odd flush rise out of her
bodice to engulf her face. It always began with a fluttering just
above her heart, but spread deeper, especially when he was looking
at her with those half-lidded eyes. A kiss! Why the devil had she
brought that up?

“A kiss, Mrs. Claybourne?” His long legs were
bent and spread, his knees on either side of hers.

She had no trouble at all imagining his mouth
pressed against her own, especially now, with her knees trapped
lightly between his, and his dark gaze feathering her cheek.

“Well, I just meant that—”

“Madam, a kiss is the least of the seals we
have not set upon this marriage.” His voice was a dark melody that
rose above the unrelenting percussion of the wheels.

He took a small bright object from the pocket
of his waistcoat. She saw it flash gold just before he caught her
hand in his.

And then he was slipping a ring onto her
finger. It was very warm and a little too large.

“There,” he said, encasing her hand
completely in his. “Now there will be no question of it, Mrs.
Claybourne.”

She suddenly felt astonishingly married. “No
question?” Her heart had taken flight.

“No question that you are married to me.”

Married!

She looked down to see the ring, but his hand
still held hers trapped inside his. She didn’t know what to say,
didn’t quite know what to think.

Only that he was very close, his wonderful
mouth just inches from hers.

“And should I kiss you, Mrs. Claybourne?”

That might have been a kiss; the rush of his
sweet, spicy breath past her lips. But he hadn’t moved, save for
the gentle, insistent rocking of the train.

“I think you should, Mr. Claybourne. In case
anyone asks about . . . you know.”

He smiled then, this husband of hers, amused
in some way by her concern, and still smelling of strawberries.

“My dear, they wouldn’t dare ask.” He brushed
his splendid fingers lightly, too gently through the curls at her
temple, lifting the disarray over her shoulder, straying to her
nape, sliding under her collar.

“Wouldn’t dare, Mr. Claybourne?” She could
hardly breathe for the sweetness of his touch.

“Can you imagine such a question?” He’d laid
his soft words against her ear: the barest brush of his mouth,
unspoken images of fire and promise, the slight gruffness of his
evening bristles scrubbing past her cheek.

She took a noisy breath, then expel it with
an indelicate sigh. He wasn’t quite making sense anymore. “What
sort of question would that be, Mr. Claybourne?”

“An irrational one, certainly.” Now his gaze
smoldered and strayed back to her mouth, as palpable as his whisper
had been. “What kind of fool would ever doubt that I had kissed my
beautiful wife?”

Beautiful? But he’d hardly ever looked at
her, and when he had, he was so often scowling. Oh, but he wasn’t
now. A half-smile lifted the corner of his mouth. His touch
feather-light and breathtaking. He followed the course of her jaw,
drawing his fingers to her chin and tilting it up to him.

“But if they did ask, Mr. Claybourne, you’d
have to tell a lie.”

His hand trembled, or she did, or maybe it
was simply the train’s steady progress along the track.

“No, I won’t, Mrs. Claybourne.”

“No?” There was a moment when his exquisitely
shaped mouth was poised above hers, when he smiled crookedly, when
she wondered if he’d been teasing her. And in the next moment there
was nothing else in the world but the bliss of his wonderful mouth
on hers.

She’d have guessed that a man with a soul of
granite would have cold, unyielding lips. But his were supple and
caressing and welcomed her own with a passion that warmed her from
the tips of her fingers to the soles of her feet, and carried a
fever to every place else inbetween.

His eyes where half-closed and his brow
furrowed, and she wondered if he felt the same heat and heard the
same song. So different than she had expected, his mouth soft and
yet firmly seeking. He was making growling noises in his throat,
and holding her face steady with both hands, planting his lingering
kisses everywhere. Now, if he’d only put his arms around her!

Hunter endured the gut-knotting intoxication
like a man about to be dragged out of paradise. She was honey and
steam and lavender, and this kiss would leave him suffering for her
when it ended. She pulled away slightly, staggering him when she
put her fingers to his mouth, as if she were deaf and mute and
searching for some kind of knowledge of him. His ring glistened
there on her hand, looking solid and bright.

“You taste very good, Mr. Claybourne.” Then
his enchanting wife smiled and kissed him hard, fiercely, wrapping
her fingers in his hair and pulling him even closer.

Dear God, he wanted her, in all the possible
measures of the word. To stand naked with her in a stream, to sup
at her breast, to explore this wave of desire to its fullest. She
was his wife, bound by his ring and by a contract with an
iron-forged escape clause. And so he let the muscles seize up in
his arms, left them aching when he bridled the yearning to embrace
her.

“Enough,” he whispered against her mouth, and
then against her ear, where his words drew a sweet sound from her
that only made him want to taste more of her, to lay with her on
the seat and make her his wife in truth, while the train rattled on
into Blenwick.

“Is this one long kiss, Mr. Claybourne? Or
would this be considered many, piled one atop the other?”

He was about to answer her with another dozen
kisses when he felt the sultry drift of her hand hovering above his
knee. If it should touch down— “Stop!”

“What?” She sat bolt upright in the seat, her
eyes wide and wounded. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, you didn’t hurt me, damn it.”

He stood abruptly and opened the window,
framed it with his forearms, and drew in deep draughts of
cinder-tainted air as the dark landscape slid by. Discomfort was
his aim. Anything to erase the memory of his wife’s mouth parting
to accept more than a simple kiss. The kiss was a mistake.

“Well, that’s done,” she said, as if she’d
just stuck a pie to cooling on the sill.

“Done?”

“A ring and the kiss.”

He glanced back at her and found her staring
down at the ring, turning it on her finger. The band was plain and
wider than it might have been, but it said clearly what he had
intended it to say. She was his wife— however briefly. And now she
was straightening her bodice as though he’d caressed her there at
the rise and fall of her breasts.

“The ring was a detail that had escaped me
until recently. Traveling as you do, unescorted, you will be better
protected from discourteous men, Miss Mayfield. As for the other .
. . the kiss—”

“Yes, Mr. Claybourne?”

“A simple one would have sufficed. I . . .
overstepped my intentions.”

“Yes, I suppose we both did.” She shrugged
and began lacing up her boot. “I don’t usually kiss men that I
don’t like. So, I don’t know why I kissed you.”

Hunter slammed the window so fiercely it
rattled. “Whether you like a man or not, Miss Mayfield, you’ll kiss
no one but me while you and I are married.”

She heaved a dramatic sigh and drew on her
other boot. “I see that I’m back to being Miss
Mayfield.”

“Habit.” He watched her sweep her riled hair
into a loose knot at the back of her head. His timing had been
inopportune. The blame was his; he was the stronger of the pair.
But at least he’d managed to deliver the ring to its proper
place.

“Whatever pleases you, Mr. Claybourne. We’ll
be divorced in ten months and twenty-three days. Why bother
learning a different name?”

“You’ll always be Mrs. Claybourne.”

“Not after we’re divorced.”

“A divorced woman keeps her ex-husband’s name
unless and until she marries again.”

“I won’t be keeping yours, Mr. Claybourne.
The last thing I need is a—” She shot to her feet, a fox about to
flee a pack of hounds. “God, no! Do you feel it, Mr.
Claybourne?”

“Feel what?” Hunter asked, was standing as
she was, trying to sense what she was feeling.

“The train—”

He heard it then, the horrible squealing of
brakes and the shriek of metal against metal. “What the bloody
hell?”

“Please, God, no!”

The car suffered a sharp jolt, then rocked to
the side, sending the basket and his travel case flying.

“Christ, Felicity!” He shoved her down
between the seats and covered her with his body. “Hang on,
sweet!”

Their car plowed forward, its momentum still
caught up in the track, surviving the waves of collisions ahead,
one car hitting another, and another, and another.

He held fast to his wife, hugged her against
his chest, every moment ripping past him and lagging like an
eternity. It couldn’t end this way! Not now. Not just when . .
.

Their car shot sideways off the rail,
shattering the window glass and dousing the lamps. He felt himself
being yanked away from her and sent airborne as the car dropped
sharply onto its side and started to skid downward in the
darkness.

He’d lost her. “Felicity!”

He heard her cry out, but was thrown against
the baggage rack. The car kept sliding downward on its side, off an
embankment, or off a bridge, not yet rolling. He prayed it
wouldn’t, but the dark world had gone mad and he couldn’t tell up
from down—only that he kept calling her name, kept hearing her cry
from somewhere above him.

The car came to rest abruptly, almost
peacefully.

“Felicity!” He panicked for the sound of her
in the darkness. “Speak to me!”

Somewhere distant, the downed locomotive
shrieked like a dying beast. He reached out across the glass shards
and felt no trace of his wife; only the rubble of their belongings
thrown around him in a corner of the broken-out ceiling.

“Please, Felicity—”

“I’m here! Right here!” Her voice was small
and winded, but she grabbed hold of his ankle and was suddenly
kneeling in the circle of his arms.