Ever His Bride Read online

  “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.”

&nbs
p; 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?”

  “Because I wanted to see you.”

  “Why today, when you knew I was meeting with Meath? When I heard your voice in the front office, I thought I was imagining it. I guess I’d stupidly hoped that you had come to see me out of some wifely interest. That you had made time for me in the midst of your charity work—”

  “I am interested in you, Hunter. In your hopes and dreams, in—”

  “In digging where you shouldn’t!”

  “If I must dig, Hunter, it’s because you’ve buried yourself so that no one can find you! And yes, I was digging today, as I do every day. Looking for you.”

  That frightened the hell out of him. “I am not missing, madam, so you can quit your—”

  “I had been at the school …”

  Hunter had heard enough, and stalked toward the door. “I don’t want to hear another word about your school—”

  “Hunter, I discovered something while I was there today.”

  He stopped and turned back to her. “Something?” A coal fire flared in the pit of his stomach, lining his lungs with a billowing stench.

  “It was just …” She looked like a rabbit caught in a rifle site.

  “Damn it woman, what did you find that was so important you needed to interrupt my meeting?” He heard the fury in his voice and hoped it scared the hell out of her.

  “I found, Hunter, that—that …” She stammered and swallowed, and glanced out the window. When she looked back at him again, she had taken a breath, had straightened her shoulders. “I was roundly grateful for all the help you’ve given the school … against your better judgment, I know.”

  “You dug around and found your gratitude today? How charming.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Hunter. I looked around and saw the effects of the money and the food, and the leavings from the house—your generosity. And so, I came to your office today to thank you for it.”

  “To thank me?”

  “Yes, to thank you in the name of the children. So, so, you can stand there and curse me all you want, Hunter, but it won’t stop me from admiring you or the success you’ve made. Or thanking you.”

  God, how he wanted to believe her. But she was lying again, and he couldn’t fathom the reason. If she knew something of his past, she would have thrown it at him in an instant and slipped herself out of their marriage with a simple bit of blackmail. But she stood there, bare to her underclothes, looking guilty of a crime he couldn’t describe but which ate away at the core of him.

  “I don’t need your admiration, Felicity.”

  “I think you do.”

  Stubborn little chit. “Nor do I require your interest, or your gratitude, or any other petty emotion you wish to bestow upon me.”

  “Petty emotion?” She caught her breath and her cheeks flushed crimson. “I’ll have you know, Hunter Claybourne, that none of my emotions are petty. And right now, I’m suffering through an acute bout of monumental anger.”

  Good. Perhaps she would keep her distance tonight, and forever afterward. He’d gone soft, and he was paying for it. As he turned his back on her, one of her shoes hit the door with a hollow thunk just above his head, and landed at his f
eet.

  “You’re a coldhearted charlatan, Mr. Claybourne!”

  “Be ready in fifteen minutes, wife. I’ll be waiting in the carriage.”

  Their carriage rocked sideways and slammed Felicity against the granite cliff-side that was her husband. Neither had spoken more than a word since the ride toward the Meaths’ began. In that time, she had decided that Hunter Claybourne was stubborn, arrogant, and fiercely prideful, and there wasn’t much she could do to change him. He was probably born that way—slum or no slum. Let him have his past. The secret belonged to him, not to her. It was a matter of trust. And she would earn his, even if it meant they went to their graves long years from now having never shared this single secret. It didn’t matter; not to her.

  The carriage was close and warm. Hunter threw off heat like a forge. When she lifted her wool shawl off her shoulders and laid it on the seat beside her, her hand met the familiar rectangle in her pocket and her heart sank.

  The book! She had forgotten it was there in the pocket. It would have been safer in her chamber. She would take it home tonight and burn it. That would be the end of the questions, and Hunter would never have to know.

  Hunter himself was another matter. She didn’t need a sullen husband as an escort, and he wouldn’t be helping himself any if she left him in this state.

  “Who will I be meeting tonight, Hunter?”

  He grunted and shifted in his seat, then went still again.

  “If I know a little about your associates, I can make a better impression. Will there be other wives in attendance besides Lady Meath?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Anything I should know about any of them? Quirks, quarrels, quandaries?” She tried to sound breezy, but the man’s mood tonight might require extraordinary means.

  “Lady Spurling drinks.”

  “Hmmm. To excess?”

  “At times.”

  “And how will I know if she is drunk? Does she get loud, or sleepy, or overly friendly with the men?”

  “That’s been known to happen.”

  “Well, if she gets overly friendly with you, Hunter Claybourne, I shall pop her one on the nose.”