Ever His Bride (38 page)

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Claybourne.”

Her heart fluttered as if she were a
schoolgirl with a mad crush on a handsome Haymarket actor. “Good
afternoon, Mr. Claybourne.”

He stepped forward and stretched out his hand
to her; he was financier and husband, the foundations of the earth.
She had been foolish to come here seeking her answers. It didn’t
matter where he’d come from.

“What an unexpected pleasure, madam. I am
delighted.”

He jerked his head at Tilson, and the man
scooted out into the mezzanine and closed the door, leaving them
alone in the outer office.

“I hope I’m not disturbing your work,
Hunter.”

“Madam, you can be one hundred miles from me
or across the sea and still disturb my work.” He lifted a curl and
wound it round his finger.

“How do I disturb you, Hunter?” He was
standing near enough to ruffle her brow with his breathing. He’d
become a different man in the past three weeks, less fettered by
convention, and home in time to share and suffer Mrs. Sweeney’s
experimental dinners. She was doubly glad she’d washed more
thoroughly than usual when she left Bethnal Green.

“You keep me thinking of your mouth.” He
toyed with the bow beneath her chin. “In fact, just before you came
in—”

“You spend time thinking of my mouth?”

“Among other things.”

“You have thoughts like that right here in
your office?”

“Location seems to have no bearing.” Hunter
yearned to remove her bonnet and kiss the daylights out of her. He
hated that particular brown suit of hers, her ‘traveling suit.’ It
made him think of her leaving him, and he couldn’t risk such
thoughts just now. Not yet. But her eyes were damp around the
edges, wide and stormy with a disturbingly unrecognizable emotion
that made him wonder what had brought her here. In nearly three
months of marriage, she had never come to his office. And now she
had arrived in the middle of the day.

“What brings you here, sweet? Have you come
for another loan?”

She must have known he had been teasing, but
her eyes shifted away for a moment, then grew damper as she shook
her head. “No, Hunter. I came because . . .”

“Tell me you came for my kiss, and I will
desert this meeting and take you home with me. We’ve time for play
before our dinner engagement.” Unwilling to wait for her answer,
Hunter cradled her head between his hands and covered her sweet
mouth with his, a balm to the chaffing of the morning. It seemed
the most natural thing to slip his arm around her shoulders and fit
her against him. There was a reckless intimacy in making love to
his wife’s mouth right here in his outer office, when an earl, a
member of the royal family, Lord Meath, and three other peers were
sitting at his conference table just beyond the door. The temple of
his unyielding world invaded by a sumptuous pagan rite.

Her gaze warmed him as she licked and sampled
his lips from one corner to another. “You taste of far away places,
Hunter.”

“East Indian nutmeg. I’ve been to a meeting
in the spice exchange. They put the stuff into their coffee, if you
can imagine.”

“I can imagine most anything, Hunter. And I’m
afraid if I disturb you any further, Tilson will find us on the
floor behind his desk.”

Her boldness made his heart race. He wanted
to kiss her again, to slip the bonnet from her hair and bury his
face in her lavender sweetness. But this meeting required his full
attention: rumors were rife that Pittman would soon be stepping
down as Commissioner of Railways, due to his involvement in
Hudson’s fiasco. If the position opened, he wanted nothing to keep
him from the appointment. And it seemed the moment was
quickening.

“Then, my dear, I suggest we postpone our own
meeting until after Meath’s party tonight. But if I can have
another moment of your time . . .” Feeling unashamedly proud of his
wife, Hunter put his hand to her back and guided her into his
office.

“Gentlemen, may I present my wife, Mrs.
Claybourne.”

Hunter was gratified to see the half-dozen
men rocket to their feet in a chorus of scraping chairs and
rambling greetings. Felicity was charm itself as she smiled at each
man as he introduced them.

“Good God, Hunter, I shall consult you the
next time I need a wife!”

Hunter joined the others in their laughter,
but his hand tightened around his wife’s waist. The men did their
best to beguile her, employing humor and hyperbole, and Hunter
looked on with pride as she enchanted them without even trying.

Lord Meath seemed especially infatuated.
“Madam, I look forward to seeing you again this evening.”

“Thank you, your lordship.”

She cast an amused glance at Hunter when
Meath bowed over her hand and said broadly, “Oh, and you can bring
along that lout of a husband, if you have a mind to.”

“That goes without saying, your lordship,”
she said, taking Hunter’s hand. “I never travel anywhere without my
financial advisor.”

The room erupted in laughter and Hunter
thought the buttons would pop from his waistcoat. He saw her to his
carriage, stepped inside the cab for a simple kiss, but ended up
staying long enough to loosen her bonnet and steam his
neckcloth.

Then Hunter returned to his meeting, and to
the envious jibes of these fate-impoverished men who didn’t have
Felicity Claybourne to come home to.

Felicity stepped out of the bath and dried
off. A hot soaking hadn’t sorted out her dilemma.

If the book was indeed Hunter’s, and if she
showed it to him, she knew without a doubt that he would be angry
that she had uncovered his secret. He’d gone to great lengths to
conceal his past from everyone. Including her! Where he ought to be
proud of his success, he seemed ashamed and haunted by it.

Still, this wasn’t the kind of secret to keep
between husband and wife. But a man’s pride was fragile, especially
Hunter’s. If she was to broach the subject it would take careful
planning.

That is, if the book truly belonged to him. .
. .

She slipped into her drawers and camisole,
and was just hooking the front of her unwieldy stays when she
noticed Hunter leaning against the closed door in his rolled up
shirtsleeves.

“Astoundingly lovely, even in your drawers,”
he said.

“Where did you come from?” She flushed at the
unforeseen import of the question, and felt overly impatient at his
intrusion—what if she’d been looking at his book? She glanced
toward her shawl, where the book remained safely wrapped and hidden
in her pocket. “You didn’t knock.”

“An abominable habit, but I have found such
reward in it.” He left the door and sauntered across the room to
stand beside her at the cheval mirror. “I missed everything before
you removed that towel. Care to repeat some of it for
me—particularly the bathing part?”

The blackguard stepped in front of the
mirror, hooked a finger into the neckline of her camisole, and slid
the fabric off her shoulder.

“I’d love to accommodate you, husband, but
I’m afraid we’ll have to wait until later.”

“
Later
will be at the Meath’s dinner
party.” He was using his practiced tongue to flick a fiery trail
just inside the flowered border of her bodice, over the sensitive
swell of her breasts and into the cleavage between them.

“Now, there would be a scandal.” Felicity
tilted her head back and gladly yielded Hunter his progress. He
smelled of his ledgers and lime, and wine-dark pipe smoke, Lord
Meath’s perhaps. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your meeting.”

“I insist that you make a habit of it, sweet.
You put them all in a much more receptive mood. God knows,
I
was ready to receive you.” He was at her ear and then standing
behind her, plucking the combs from her hair— her husband of great
talents. “Which reminds me, I’ve brought you something.”

“I’ve got all I need, Hunter.” Her eyes were
closed, and her head resting back against his shoulder. To move
would be to disturb his mouth from her neck, and she really didn’t
want to do that.

He slipped his hands around her waist from
behind. “You’ll have to open your eyes.”

She finally glanced down. He was holding a
rectangular box. “What is it?”

“Open it and see.”

She took the box from his hands and lifted
the lid. “Dear me, Hunter . . .”

A string of pearls lay among the folds of
velvet. She stood in the circle of his arms, holding the box as he
lifted the strand and clasped it behind her. He led her closer to
the mirror and stood behind her.

“Quite a complement to your drawers, my
dear.”

She touched the necklace. “You shouldn’t give
me such things, Hunter.” This was no bit of jewelry. It was
probably worth half the price of the railway shares she still owed
to him.

“They are yours, Felicity.” His eyes found
hers in the mirror, and held her gaze as tenderly as the sweep of
his hand across her shoulder. “Whatever happens.”

Her heart wrenched at the unsubtle reminder
of their contract and the miles she had yet to travel to find the
real Hunter Claybourne. She wanted to cry, but instead she turned
in his arms, rose up onto her toes, and kissed him on the
forehead.

“They’re beautiful. Thank you, Hunter.”

“And you are stunning.”

He tried to kiss her, but Felicity slipped
out of his embrace and smiled with all her heart.

“How did the rest of your meeting go?” she
asked, feeling like a sneak thief as her gaze touched upon the
shawl.

“Remarkably well,” he said. “The rumors are
true: Pittman is resigning at the end of the week.”

“Is he? And are you in the running for
successor?”

He looked so vulnerable in his shirtsleeves,
fumbling his fingers through the strand of unruly hair that
probably had driven him mad as a young man trying to look his best
in an exacting and unforgiving world.

“To a man, they declared they would nominate
me, and then vote for me, including Lord Meath himself.” A little
boy’s excitement glinted in his eyes.

She was so proud of him. How could he not be
proud of himself? “Did you ever doubt it, Hunter?”

Hunter doubted a great many things, but
caught his breath as his wife slipped her arms around him, then
settled her cheek against his chest. Of all the abundance she’d
brought him, the gift of her embrace had been the most unexpected,
an aching treasure so precious he dare not speak of it, dare not
dwell on its transitory nature—because she was no more his than was
her embrace, and he, too, had begun to count down the days as she
did—yet for another reason. She counted her way toward freedom from
their burdensome marriage, while he plodded his way toward a bleak
existence without her. What would she think if she knew of his
past? And which enemy would she tell? Even in passing.

“I so admire your success, Hunter.”

He wondered if she could hear his heart
hammering inside his chest. He needed no one’s approval of his
business acumen, but this simple compliment from his wife made him
want to crow like a young boy who’d just won his first kiss.

“I do my best,” he said, as mildly as he
could, trying to kiss away the crease that had formed on her
forehead.

“You have every reason to be proud of
yourself, Hunter. Every reason in the world.”

Her voice had changed without warning, had
taken on a kindness that raised the hackles on his neck. A wariness
crept over him. “I was . . . lucky in my investments.”

“Lucky?” Her eyes had softened and her brows
slanted as they did whenever she slipped and spoke of one of the
children she’d rescued from the workhouse. “I think it was more
than that, Hunter. Much more than luck.”

Yes, something had changed in her, and he
knew he hated it even before he could ferret out its source. “Do
you?”

“You’ve never said much about yourself— what
your father did; what business he was in. Did you inherit the
Claybourne Exchange from him?”

“No, I didn’t.” He gave her his answer in
measured beats, which sounded distant even to him. Where the devil
was she going with her blasted questions? “The exchange is my own
creation.”

“That’s remarkable. But surely you had seed
money from somewhere?” Her smile seemed to grow overly genuine. She
even dropped her arms from his waist and stepped away from him to
her cluttered desk.

“Tell me, Felicity, have you given up your
charity work and travel gazettes to become a reporter?”

“Hardly.”

“Then why the inquisition, madam?”

Her laughter rang falsely in his chest, made
his heart race.

“In light of the position, I was merely
asking how you started your business. What catapulted you to such a
phenomenal success in such a short time?”

“Why?”

“Because you are amazing to me, Hunter.” Now
she was fiddling with her magazines, shifting them, then restacking
them.

“Am I?” Still she confounded him. From that
first moment in Cobson’s parlor, she had set his world teetering on
its edge and kept it there, spinning; asking questions that he dare
not answer; confusing him by her persistent concern; making him
want to believe the admiration he saw in her eyes as she stood in
front of him in her drawers and camisole.

“Hunter, anyone would be impressed. You’re
courted by kings and prime ministers; you’re the financial advisor
to the Bank of England—”

“I earned my success, Felicity. Every
ha’penny of it.”

She righted another of her magazines, then
pushed away from the desk and turned to him. “Yes, Hunter, I
know.”

She offered her hand to him, but something
deep and stinking oozed up out of a long-locked vault inside him.
Her mood reeked of unspilled secrets. He turned away from her.

“Why did you come to the office today,
Felicity?”