Ever His Bride (44 page)

“
If
I get caught.”

“
When.
Don’t forget, Giles, in just a
few years you’ll be a young man, and too old for the mercy of the
court. You’ll spend your life locked up in Newgate. No more
stealing, Giles. Ever. We’ll simply ask for donations.”

“Good luck, Mrs. Claybourne. I wouldn’t give
up nothin’ of mine.”

“Oh, but you already do give up something
very valuable of yours, every day, Giles.”

He snorted. “I don’t give nothin’ to
nobody.”

“You are very generous with your time. You
help me and Gran, and you help the children who can’t read as well
as you.”

“Ballocks!” He blew air out from between his
lips. “That’s nothing.”

“Exactly as it appears to you. And so we must
teach our potential donors that the act of giving won’t cost them
any more than a moment of their time and will save them money in
the long run. We’ll just go back into that shop and—”

Giles made a grab for the door, but Felicity
hung on to his collar band.

“I’m not going in that linen shop with
you!”

“Oh, yes you are. We’re going to be honest
and when we are we’re going to walk out of that store with two
bundles of donated shirts, instead of one! And they will be given
to us with sincere blessings by the owner himself.”

“A chocolate says we don’t.”

“It’s a deal, Mr. Pepperpot.”

The owner of Malstowe’s Fine Linen
Furnishings glanced warily between Felicity and Giles as they stood
together in his upstairs office.

“So this boy stole these shirts from me off a
cart in the alley, and now you want me to just give them to you for
your school? That’s quite a dodge you have going there, ma’am.” He
scowled and pointed a finger at her. “I think I’ll have you both
brought up on charges.”

Felicity shook her head sagely. “Oh, but my
husband wouldn’t like that, Mr. Malstowe. Hunter Claybourne is a
man who values charitable work. And I’m certain that he wouldn’t
want anyone falsely accusing his wife of stealing—”

“Hunter Claybourne? You mean of the
Exchange—”

“Yes, Mr. Malstowe. That’s exactly the
Claybourne I am Mrs. to. Not that his name should influence your
charitable giving in any way. The desire to give ought to come from
the heart. I only wish to enlighten you to the progress we are
making at the Beggar’s Academy, where Mr. Giles Pepperpot”—Felicity
put her hand on Giles’s shoulder— “lately a thief and pickpocket,
is now learning to mend his ways, just as he learns to read and
write.”

Giles toed his shoe into the floor. “I’m
sorry, Mr. Malstowe, sir. I thought I was bein’ ever so ’elpful to
the children.”

Felicity hoped that at least a speck of
Giles’s apology was from the heart. “There, you see, sir. Where the
boy would have once sold the shirts for his own gain, he brought
them directly to me just now, Mr. Malstowe, thinking to aid the
poor children of the school, who wear rags instead of clothing. You
can see that his heart was filled with compassion, and that he is
learning the difference between right and wrong.”

Malstowe looked anything but convinced. “But,
I say—”

“We will gladly take your damaged goods, sir,
and anything else that needs mending. We have developed a program
that teaches young women the art of dress- and shirtmaking, and we
could also use—”

“Oh, all right. Here! Take the damn shirts.”
Mr. Malstowe shoved the bundle into Felicity’s arms. “Come with
me.” He took off down the hallway.

Felicity smiled down at Giles and lifted her
eyebrows just as Hunter would have done, then followed after
Malstowe.

They left the linen shop with four bundles,
which included not only shirts but also drawers, kerchiefs, and
socks. Giles was silent and surly as Branson stowed the donations
in the carriage boot.

“Now, about that chocolate, Giles?” Felicity
asked.

“I don’t have any money,” he snarled, and
kicked the wheel.

“Oh, but I do, young man. And since I won, I
have to buy you a chocolate.”

Giles’s smile was the most genuinely bright
when he was caught off guard, and when his teeth were clean. “Is
‘at how it works where you live?”

“Of course. Will you join us, Branson?
There’s a tea shop in Threadneedle.”

“I’d be pleased to, Mrs. Claybourne.” He
smiled across the top of Giles’s head and led her to the carriage
door.

Giles brushed Branson out of the way and took
Felicity’s hand. “After you, miss.”

She wanted to kiss the little scamp, but he
would probably have thrown himself under the next wagon in
embarrassment. So she exchanged a nod with Branson and stepped into
the carriage.

Giles was learning.

Hunter stopped his horse at the top of the
rise, and gazed down on Claybourne Manor. The sight pleased him to
the deepest part of his soul. If he’d been gone away on some trip
during these past few months and only now returned, he’d have
thought himself arrived at the wrong house. But the transformation
had happened before his very eyes, and the drive up to the house
would soon resemble Versailles, with its tidy boxwood hedges and
immense stone lions, the banks of roses and chrysanthemums.

Felicity.

His heart nearly bursting with the need to
see her, he quickly stabled his horse. As he entered the foyer, he
heard the ripple of female laughter from the back parlor and
wondered what enterprise Felicity had devised for today.

Where he’d once been greeted by cold, gray
stone and the empty echoes of his own footsteps, now he was met
with tapestries and landscapes, carpets and settees, and total
strangers wandering the halls. And in the midst of all the
commotion, he would always find his wife.

He ached to see her. She had hung her
nightgown in his closet the morning after their encounter in the
woods, and in the following few days the rest of her wardrobe had
managed to make its way across the hall to his chamber. To
their
chamber.

The room had become that much to him and
more: a place where he could relax, where his wife could dance
around in her nightgown until his blood was boiling, where he
awakened each morning to her arms and legs draped over his chest,
or his fingers tangled in her hair. And she was always ready with
her kiss, and more than ready for his.

Making love in the morning had done wonders
for his general mood, and roused him for the day’s work. He had
recently found himself whistling his way up the stairs to his
office at the Claybourne Exchange, and had only that morning given
Tilson a raise when the man’s wife had appeared to deliver his
daily lunch. The look of astonishment on Mrs. Tilson’s face had
seemed out of all proportion, but he accepted her thanks and had
felt exceptionally good the rest of the afternoon.

Yet his days at the office had become
grueling and overlong as he juggled his normal routine with
negotiations about the fate of Hudson’s investments. And his
impending nomination to the Commission was due to be announced any
day.

He strolled down the gallery toward the noise
at the end of the corridor, wondering what manner of activity he
would encounter. Last week it had been Lady Meath, Lady Oswin, and
three wives of parliament members sitting in the dining room. They
had been assembling kits of needle and thread, going on about
gardens and traveling, and had giggled like schoolgirls when he had
greeted them.

Not wanting to suffer the same fate today, he
peered quietly into the south parlor and discovered a sewing works
installed in his home. There were three odd- looking machines, each
sitting on its own table, and women bent over them in
concentration. One of the women was his wife.

She raised her head and looked directly at
him.

“Hunter! You’re home early!” She looked
startled and a little distressed. Her dark-blue dress was strung
with bits of thread, and her hair was stuck through with at least
four pencils and some kind of dangerous- looking hook.

“Good afternoon, ladies,” he said mildly.

The other women cowered from him, tucked
themselves behind their sewing contraptions and piles of woolens.
The taint of Bethnal Green was obvious only to him, but he tried,
for Felicity’s sake, to ignore the thickening in his throat. He was
getting better at it.

He’d begun to look forward to reports of her
new ventures. Felicity Claybourne was no dewlapped, moist-eyed,
philanthropic matron. She was knee-deep in goodness, a patch of
warm sunlight that grew ever brighter. And sometimes he was made
breathless and blinded by his consuming need for her to hold him.
His passion for her was always near the surface: scratch at his
thoughts and it would be there, banked and ready to flare.

“Hunter?” She met him at the door, slipped
her hand inside his.

“Ah, yes, love. Just came to say hello.” To
insure she wasn’t a dream he’d conjured from his yearning.

“We’re making winter clothes for the
schoolchildren. And the ladies are learning the sewing machine.
Please, come in.”

No matter the time of day or the chaos of the
moment, Felicity could count on her heart taking flight the instant
her husband entered a room.

“Come see.” She led him to the machine she
had been working on. She sat down, steadied the wool beneath the
needle, and then started working the treadle up and down with her
foot. The needle rose and fell and set its astounding stitches in a
line along the fabric.

“Isn’t it wonderful, Hunter?” She slowed the
treadle and the needle stopped.

He peered closely at the head of the machine.
“Where did you get this thing?”

“They were in the cellar.”

“I bought them?”

“You must have. And we’ve put them to good
use. We’re all learning together.” She stood and put her arm around
Mrs. Lytle. “In truth, Marguerite seems to have a natural way with
the beasts.”

Mrs. Lytle shied, and turned her face
away.

Hunter bowed slightly. “My compliments to
you, Mrs. Lytle, for your genius. I’m afraid I would stitch my own
fingers together.”

“Dear me, thank you, sir!” Mrs. Lytle put her
hand to her lips and exchanged a nervous giggle with her
compatriots.

Felicity beamed at Hunter. He was too much of
a distraction, and she led him toward the door. “Out of here, Mr.
Claybourne. Or else we will put you to work.”

“Heaven help me. May we speak a moment,” he
said, rather sternly.

The handsome blighter pulled her around the
corner into the gallery and swept her into his arms. She loved his
eager mouth and his quick arousal. She slipped her hands around his
waist, and he backed her against the wall.

“Oh, I missed you, Hunter.”

“I miss you perpetually.”

“Do you?” She gave a tug on his neckcloth,
and his heady moans turned to deep-chested growling.

“Tonight, love,” he whispered, at the lobe of
her ear. “We have a private box at the Royal Opera House in Covent
Garden.”

“Is this a threat to make love to me at the
theater, Hunter?” She felt his arousal flare against her thigh.

“That wouldn’t be wise. Though now that
you’ve loosed the idea in my head, I hope I can keep my hands to
myself until we get home.”

She ducked out of his embrace. She turned
back to him at the door to the sewing room. “And I’ll do everything
in my power to see that you can’t.”

She saw him roll his eyes, and watched in
deep appreciation as he straightened his coat and strode
purposefully down the gallery toward the library.

What a fine and gentle man he was! Misguided
sometimes, but so willing to listen. He’d looked like a terrified
wolf just now, standing among the sewing machines and the disarray
of fabric, pretending interest and trying not to cast his judgment
on the women she had brought to his home.

He was doing his best, and she loved him
madly for it.

Loved him even more, because she was almost
certain she was carrying his child.

Felicity tried to pay close attention to the
stage and to the over-wrought young tenor, who was struggling
valiantly to propose marriage to the aging soprano. But how could
she, when Hunter was sitting decorously beside her in their elegant
box, splendidly handsome in his cutaway and crisp linen, calmly
assaulting the underside of her black, elbow-long glove.

“Dear husband,” she whispered too
breathlessly, “you ought to be watching the stage!”

He brushed his warm fingertips deliciously
along her forearm, and she sighed.

“How can I watch the stage, my dear, when I
have you here beside me?” Hunter looked far too roguish in the
shadowy, gas-dimmed light. He held her hand in his bare palm as if
it were porcelain, tugging on one tiny button, then the next,
unusually patient in his efforts, his smile brazenly crafty.

“Aren’t you at all interested in that woeful
young man and his sweetheart?”

“My interest is entirely with you, madam.”
His fingers were like fire, his eyes as dark as a moonless ridge of
shale, when she dared glance at him.

“Hunter Claybourne, what are you doing?”
Their private box was surely visible from the galleries above them;
anyone could look in.

“Undressing my wife.” His whisper was a
phantom caress, slipping itself around her heart, making her smile.
“One button at a time.”

He stroked his warm fingers deliciously
between her palm and her glove as if they were his mouth and
tongue, tugged and persuaded until he had freed each of her
fingers. “Your other hand, my sweet. I need you naked.”

Felicity giggled even as she tried to frown
at him. “I hope you plan to stop with my gloves.”

His laughter was low and gentle. “For
now.”

She gave up her other hand. Though he never
touched more than her hand, he never took his eyes off her, and she
felt quite thoroughly kissed when he finished and both hands were
bare. She flushed to her hairline as he tucked her gloves into his
breast pocket like a shared secret.