Ever His Bride (42 page)

“You live with me. You and your accursed
questions.”

“And that’s the lamentable Mayfield story. I
have only a wife’s interest in your past, Hunter, nothing more.”
She sniffed at him and started collecting wood-chips from around
the stump, intent on some distracting mischief.

“You were snooping where you shouldn’t have
been.”

“I was minding my own business and found the
book among a barrelful of others at the school. And there was your
name, as big as life, and it startled me. That’s why I stopped in
to see you today.”

Sweat suddenly chilled across Hunter’s back.
“You had the book with you then? You took the damned thing to the
Exchange? What the hell were you going to do with it? Show it to my
doorman?”

“Frankly, I didn’t know what to do,
Hunter.”

Hunter thunked the ax into a log at the edge
of the clearing. “So now you’ve come out here to make your bargain
with the devil, Miss Mayfield?”

“My name is Mrs. Claybourne. I’m your wife.
And you are not the devil, Hunter.”

The flames licked at the night air, tasting
it the way Hunter wanted to taste the woman who kept adding fuel to
the blaze. “What do you want here, Mrs. Claybourne?”

“I don’t want anything. I told you that.”

“Then go back into the house and leave me
alone.”

But she calmly and tenaciously fed her
eccentric blaze until the flames were as high as her waist. Baffled
by the woman, Hunter left her to her ritual and began stacking the
split wood into a cart. He usually enjoyed the task, one of the few
labors left in his life. Tonight he had hoped to split her out of
his soul.

But she was standing by the fire when he
returned for another load of wood. And she was holding the book
toward him.

“Here, Hunter. Burn it.”

The woman still didn’t understand. “It’s too
late.”

“Burn the evidence. Then it’s your word
against mine. And since you are the great Hunter Claybourne, whose
word is never doubted, and since I would rather be boiled in oil
than reveal what I know, your secret will be forever safe.”

“You’re a lunatic.”

“I probably am, but, Hunter, you must do
this. Destroy the book and that will be the end of it. I promise
never to ask another question. I’ll wait patiently for you to tell
me your secrets.”

“No.” He watched as she audaciously stole two
pieces of wood from his pile and took them back to her own
fire.

“You trusted me tonight,” she said.

“I had no choice.” She would always be a
thief.

“And did I fail you? Did I parade around the
parlor holding aloft Hunter Claybourne’s mildewed reading book from
his days as a student at the Beggar’s Academy? Did I whisper to
Lord Meath that you were raised up in a slum? Have I blackmailed
you for money, or power, or for an end to our marriage?”

When he refused to say anything, she glared
that insolent glare of hers and then answered for him.

“No. No. No. And no. I did none of those
things to you. Nor was I ever tempted. I don’t want to see you
fail; I don’t want your money, or power; I want. . . I’m sorry,
Hunter.”

“Sorry for what, exactly? Sorry that you
didn’t find my journal, too? Well, don’t go looking for it, madam.
I never kept one. Far too dangerous.” Hunter tossed another chunk
of wood into the cart, careless of his aim. “Wouldn’t want anyone
to find out who I am, would I? Wouldn’t want anyone to know that my
mother was a dockside whore.”

“It doesn’t matter, Hunter.”

He rounded on her and her charitable
absolutions. “Well, it does to me, madam. My mother brought men to
her bed to put food on our table.”

He had hoped to mortify her, to send her
running back into the house. But her face softened and a light wind
caught up her hair, drifting it across her chest.

“Then she must have loved you very much,
Hunter.”

“Loved me?” Tears prickled at the edge of his
vision. “That’s difficult to say. I don’t even recall what she
looks like.”

His wife said nothing in reply, only stood
there beside her fire, watching and listening, her eyes misting. He
scrubbed his hand across his face and turned away, started
gathering wood into his arms again.

“I was a mudlark, madam, from the time before
my memory. I made my living plucking flotsam from the Thames.
Glass, metal, coal, the occasional corpse—”

“Hunter, you needn’t tell me this—”

“Oh, but isn’t that why you ask all your
questions? Not a stone unturned? Well, you’ll listen now. Sit!”

He pointed to the tree stump he’d been using
as a chopping block. When she hesitated, he took a step toward her
and she sat down. She would hear it all tonight, every bloody
truth.

“At the ripe old age of eight, I gave up
mudlarking for stealing coal right off the barge, bold as brass:
hired myself out as a laborer and then would ‘accidently’ shovel a
portion over the side as the tides of the Thames allowed, day after
day, would then collect my bounty in the dark of night, haul it
away to then sell in small lots. And I was making good money—bought
myself shoes and ate a meal every day, till I was caught by the
collier and sent to a workhouse. Where, my dear, I learned the
craft of making shoes for ladies.”

“Dear God . . .” Her shocked little gasp gave
him mild satisfaction. “I didn’t know.”

“And for that reason I made quite a fool of
myself at the Blenwick School for Apprentices, didn’t I?”

“No, Hunter. You were very brave.”

“Ballocks! I was that boy again, fighting for
my life, for one last breath.” He went back to stacking wood, and
the memories pushed at him, loosed by his wife’s hell-bent
curiosity. He would sate her tonight and then he would be done with
her, done with everything. It was just a matter of time.

“I escaped the workhouse when I was nine, and
went to sea. I invested my salary in the ship’s cargo and made
three guineas at the close of the voyage. A sizeable sum to a boy
of nine. Damn, I liked the weight of three guineas in my hand.”

He could feel the money even now; shook his
fist next to his ear, and heard the echo of his jangling fortune.
Raw memories, tainted by anger, hardened by time.

“I learned the pickpocket trade next, and
added to my treasure whenever my ship was in port, investing all my
ill-gotten funds in the cargo’s profits. After two years I had
earned myself the tidy sum of five hundred pounds—which was exactly
the amount snatched from me by a man who said he had shares to sell
in a canalway. Showed me an official looking piece of paper full of
words I didn’t understand, and promised me I’d be rich in a matter
of weeks. My God, I was gullible.”

Blinded by his ignorant dreams and slapdash
schemes. He remembered the flush of anger and the felling shame as
he stood outside the deserted office, rattling the door, the
gagging truth plain as the floor beyond the window, littered with
documents just like the one he held in his hand. He turned to his
wife, and caught her worried frown, raised a palm against her
pity.

“Don’t waste your misplaced compassion on
that ragged boy, madam, he was resourceful far beyond his years.
But I understood then that I must to learn to read if I was to
defend my profits in the future. So I joined myself to that
venerable institution, the Beggar’s Academy. You know the
place.”

Her frown had deepened, and now her eyes
flashed with the anger of the righteous, still she said nothing,
offered none of her trite comforts. He moved away, added another
piece of wood to her ritual fire, lifting a wall of sparks between
them.

“Six months later I bought myself a new suit
of clothes and started haunting the coffeehouses, studying the
shipping news and, having been a sailor, I began to see what others
did not. Began taking deep profits on insurance paper, then
invested in the cargoes themselves, just like the brokers at
Lloyd’s. By the time I was fifteen, I was financing my own cargoes.
Far too young to be taken seriously, so I invented a holding
company, and I was just the clerk—’placin’ orders for th’ boss,
milord’ I used to tell them, if they asked, if they noticed me at
all. I hid my profits in the vaults of the Bank of England. And
then, one bright day twelve years ago, I ‘arrived’ in London, on a
ship from New York, speaking the Queen’s English, dressed like a
young lord, my pockets lined with banknotes. And the rest, madam,
you can read about in the back issues of the
Times.
My
epilogue will be there too, should you care to follow me to the
end.”

She had said so little that he didn’t know
what she was thinking. Appalled, probably. He was, still, after all
these years.

She raised her chin, spoke softly, her eyes
glinting. “If you were trying to scare me away with that story,
Hunter, it didn’t work. You’ve only caused me to admire you more
than I did before.”

“Because you are a fool, madam.”

“No, husband. Because I love you.”

His throat closed off entirely on a breath
that had threatened to become a sob. Damn the woman. “You love too
easily, Mrs. Claybourne. Stray children, thieving uncles,
counterfeit industrialists.”

“You're wrong, Hunter, you're a hard man to
love.  But I do, madly, as freely as I breathe.  I saw
through you a long time ago.  I know your heart and it’s as
good and fine as any I've ever known.”

“Enough, wife. . .”

“No! It’s time you listen to me,
Hunter.”  She stood suddenly, in a great fury.  “I
came out here tonight to burn this bloody book under your very
nose.  To put the whole incident behind us, forever. But
you’ve made it clear that my heart-felt gesture isn't enough for
you and your fractured pride. Well, fine then. If I must throw
myself on your mercy and do a bit of groveling, then I will. But
first I will ask you one last question. Because your answer means
everything to me.”

“Christ, woman, have done with it! There is
left nothing for me to tell. I have confessed my soul!”  He
stalked to where she stood beside the tree stump, thinking he’d
have to wring this last question from her.  “What the hell
more do you want?”

She was biting at her lower lip, looking
skyward and then down at her fidgeting fingers. “I was wondering,
Hunter, if you would . . .”

“Damn it, woman! If I would what?”

“Would you. . .marry me?”

“What?” Surely he hadn’t heard
right. 

“I need to know, Hunter. . . if we were
standing in your office right now, about to be married, and you
knew then all that you know now, every angry word, my every fault.
. . would you marry me again?”

“Marry you?” He struggled for a breath,
drowning in a sudden wave of loss and terror. He tore the book out
of her hand. It hit the fire with the ungainliness of a slain
robin, sending up an explosion of sparks. “Of all the damn fool. .
.!”

“Hunter, please, I have to know.”

“You’re mad!” And there was her answer. And
his. He didn’t give a damn about the book, or what the morning
might bring. He’d confessed his greatest weakness to her, had
handed her the power to destroy him, not out of anger or suicidal
recklessness, but because he’d known all the while, to the depths
of his wretched soul, that she was all the surety he needed. His
secrets had always been, would always be, safe with her. She was
love and trust and he wanted her to know; wanted to lose himself
inside her, in this circle of light. He dragged her into his arms
as if he were hauling her up from the edge of a cliff.

“I’ll marry you again tonight, Felicity.” He
caught her face between his hands, couldn’t get enough of her,
speaking every word against her mouth and her eyelids and into her
hair. “And tomorrow and the next day, if you’ll have me.”

“Yes and yes and yes again!” Her eyes
sparkled and her face was wet with her delicious tears. He took in
a breath and lifted her in his arms, then stood her on the tree
stump so he could look up into her star-born eyes.

“It’s a marriage between us, wife, or
nothing.”

“What about the contract? Article One and Two
and all the others?” He saw joy poised on her face, as if she
awaited word of a great happiness. He lifted her hand and put his
lips against her wedding band.

“We’ll have a regular marriage from this day
forward, unending, irrevocable.” He waited, too, for this woman to
accept him as he was, common and deeply flawed.

Her smile trembled before it broke. “An
irrevocable marriage, to the man I love? Oh, yes, Hunter.
Please.”

He caught her tear-salted words with his
kisses, held them as tightly as he held her. “Promise me, Felicity.
Promise me—”

“Oh, Hunter!” Felicity put her fingers to his
lips— she didn’t want him to beg, or to have to ask again. “I’ll
not forsake your name, Mr. Claybourne. Not ever. Nor will I ever
forsake you.”

He was smiling, at long last. A singularly
magnificent smile that lodged itself inside her heart.

“Then come to me, love.” He slipped his
feverish hands beneath her skirts and slid them slowly up her cool,
bare legs.

“Married!” Her sweet husband had found the
slit between her pantalets and was playing his thumbs and his
fingers along the opening, teasing as if he couldn’t find his
way.

“You nearly drove me through the roof of my
brougham with these drawers of yours tonight.”

Felicity felt lighter than air standing there
on the tree stump, able to fly but unwilling to leave his hands.
“We’d never have made it to Lord Meath’s party, and you wouldn’t
have found the book. And I—”

He paused in his magnificent wandering and
brought her face down closer to his. “Which book is that, my
dear?”

She followed his glance toward the blaze, but
there was nothing left of the bloody book—only a hot, cleansing
flame that sharpened the majestic angles of Hunter’s finely
chiseled face. Perhaps the blood of a prince or a duke coursed
through his veins—it didn’t matter, only that she pitied a father
who would never know such a remarkable son.