Ever His Bride (5 page)

“My answer, Mr. Claybourne, depends upon two
things.” When he didn’t speak, or move to release her from his
too-private embrace, she continued, trying to ignore the compelling
sensation of his sultry wrath breathed across the bridge of her
nose. “If I consent to this. . . marriage, you will immediately
indemnify my uncle and Mr. Biddle against this felony. And we will
agree upon a marriage contract, set down in a legally binding
document, drawn up by Mr. Biddle. What do you say to this, Mr.
Claybourne?”

Hunter Claybourne wanted nothing more than to
order the vexing woman out of his office and out of his life, and
yet he could not even bring himself to release her. She was lithe
curves and warm, indignant sighs. She was a summer day, the
sunlight on his cheek. He had imagined she would be a faded copy of
her uncle; ungainly limbed and overly adorned; instead, she was
unstudied grace and accidental elegance. She regarded him steadily,
her mouth newly moist and altogether too rosy.

Careful man, the ice was thin here, and
slippery. He’d been too long without a woman, and this one was too
near.

“Well, Mr. Claybourne?” she asked, with a
fractious lift of her delicate chin.

Hunter released her abruptly, and stepped to
safety behind his desk. “Are you ready, Biddle,” he asked, clamping
his hand down on the old man’s bony shoulder to keep the bumbling
bastard from scrambling out of the chair.

“Yes, sir?” Biddle asked, looking up at him
with those watery blank eyes as Hunter slid a sheet of paper onto
the blotter.

“You will write out this contract as dictated
by Miss Mayfield.” Hunter met the young woman’s eyes, intending to
send her a silent challenge, but finding meadow-green fire that set
his pulse to racing. “Your first article, Miss Mayfield?”

“Now?” She looked convincingly startled,
touched her slender fingers to her ivory throat, then slipped them
through the loops of the untidy bow at her neckline. “Mr.
Claybourne, I need time to think this through.”

“You have one half-hour.”

“Before what?”

“Before I call the bailiff.” Hunter welcomed
the throbbing that had come to play against his temples. The woman
was no more than a headache to him, and it was best to be so
starkly reminded of the fact. “Your first article, Miss Mayfield.
What is it to be?”

She straightened and primly laced her fingers
together among the soft folds of her skirts. “Firstly, Mr.
Claybourne, this marriage will last one year and one day, and will
end abruptly in divorce the moment my shares in the
Drayhill-Starlington Railway become yours.”

“Done. Write it, Biddle.”

Biddle was already scrawling his way through
the first line, flinching each time Hunter moved a muscle. The man
had been a cowering wreck from the moment he had arrived and now
looked like a dog awaiting a well-deserved beating.

“Secondly, Mr. Claybourne,” the woman said,
pacing away from the desk toward the window, her hips swaying
slightly until she turned to him, “since I make my living writing
travel articles for the
Hearth and Heath,
I must be free to
plot my itineraries as I see fit.”

He’d been prepared to agree to most any of
the woman’s pointless requests, but he paused, unable to imagine
such an occupation. “And this travel takes you where?”

“To the very type of place you had me
kidnapped from yesterday. To inns and oddities along the railway
lines.”

He’d no idea where Cobson had found her, and
cared not at all. And yet now that she’d mentioned this traveling,
riding trains into the countryside— “Do you travel alone?”

“Certainly alone, Mr. Claybourne.” Impatience
flecked gold into the crystal green of her eyes. “But it’s no use
questioning me on the subject. My freedom to travel is not
negotiable—”

“Done,” he said, cutting off her argument,
and any thought beyond the completion of this damnable contract.
“Your third article, Miss Mayfield?”

She cleared her throat twice. “My third
article regards your behavior in public.”

“My behavior?” He would have laughed, but the
woman looked ready to throttle him, her jaw set in stone, her mouth
drawn tightly as if he’d already committed some indecent act.

“You, sir, are to keep your women out of the
public eye.”

“My women?” He did laugh then—for all the
women who had presumptuously taken his arm after dinner, who had
smiled and hinted, who’d made him burn—

“I won’t be laughed at, Mr. Claybourne. I
realize you are a man of great social and financial importance, but
I will not be embarrassed by your flaunting your mistresses where I
might hear about them, or read about them in the news. I have my
pride. Surely you can restrain yourself for a year and a day.”

“I can assure you, Miss Mayfield, you’ll read
nothing of my escapades in the newspapers.”

“And if your social life demands your
attendance at a function, you will go alone, or if you must have a
partner, we will attend together.”

A partner. The idea had some merit. “I
agree.”

“Good, because—”

“And I demand the same courtesy from you,
Miss Mayfield.”

“From me?”

Now her cheeks were burning brightly, and
Hunter felt his own blood rising, wondering who she was thinking
of, which man in her life could coax such a flame of color. “You’ll
keep your parade of gentlemen out of my house and out of the
newspapers.”

“I have no such parade, Mr. Claybourne! Nor
do I intend to arrange one.”

“Fine. Article Four, Miss Mayfield.”

“Article Four.”

Felicity endured Claybourne’s insolent glare
as she went to the desk and looked over Mr. Biddle’s shoulder to
read the earlier articles. Imagine, him believing that she had a
parade of men following her. Claybourne obviously harbored a guilty
conscience. A man of his dark charms must attract women of the
lowest sort, not to mention his fair share of the highest.

“As we have agreed so far,” she said, “we
will divorce at the end of one year; I may travel; you will keep
your mistresses in seclusion, and. . .”

And the wedding night? A flush leaped like a
forest fire out of her bodice and dashed up her neck to lick at her
earlobes.

“And what?” Claybourne asked slowly, his
curiosity at her sudden embarrassment far too apparent.

Marriage held certain physical
responsibilities for a woman. Had she been marrying a man she
loved, she would be eager to share his bed. But the very thought of
sharing anything with Hunter Claybourne made her head go light. As
it had last spring as she’d ridden over the Yorkshire moors in a
hot-air balloon, soaring into the gladness of the day. The thought
of sharing a marriage bed with Claybourne evoked the same kind of
fear, born of the unknown and a feeling of falling from great
heights. His hovering darkness descended on her, his mouth softened
by the gilding of the gaslight above.

She turned to the wide-eyed Mr. Biddle. “Will
you leave us for a moment, sir?”

Biddle nodded and sped out the door, followed
by Claybourne’s bark of warning not to leave the building.

“Time is wasting, Miss Mayfield. What part of
our marriage contract couldn’t you discuss in front of Biddle?”

Claybourne stood at the edge of the desk, his
gaze efficiently charting her face, his arms linked across his
chest.

“The. . .marital part.”

“Marital, Miss Mayfield?”

“Yes. Article Four involves. . . well, I
don’t know how to put this properly without sounding. . .” Unable
to face the man, Felicity shifted her interest to the shiny brass
rail that edged the desk, and ran her fingers along it.

“Without sounding what, woman?”

“Without sounding vulgar. Mr. Claybourne,
since ours will be a marriage in name only.” She dashed a glance
back at Claybourne, hoping he would understand the immodest source
of her hesitancy so she wouldn’t have to lay bare the intimacy of
her fears. But he merely stared at her with those obsidian eyes. A
curse on his rock-headedness, and the giddiness in her chest.

“Go on, Miss Mayfield.” Now the bloody
monster seemed amused at her stammering. Was he going to make her
speak the words?

“I assume, Mr. Claybourne, that our marriage
is to remain. . . unconsummated.”

“It is,” he said too casually, too quickly,
leaving her feeling exposed and thoroughly repudiated. Apparently
not worth his slightest temptation.

“Good,” she said, not as relieved as she’d
expected. Not that his opinion of her mattered; she found him not
at all interesting. Too towering, too darkly dangerous, far too
arrogant— “Then my fourth article is irrelevant. However, I shall
add it to the contract anyway.”

She sat in the desk chair and was poised to
write the number four on the contract when Claybourne’s hand
clamped around hers. It was very warm and very large.

And his voice was very near her ear. “What is
it you plan to write there, Miss Mayfield?”

His breath lifted the curls along the nape of
her neck, dancing them lightly. That balloon-soaring fear returned
and nudged her off course for a moment. She went willingly—floated
across patchwork fields, caught his updrafts and touched the
clouds.

“Your plan, Miss Mayfield.”

She shook off the peculiar dizziness and
forced herself to focus on the bronze tip of the pen, which was
nearly obscured beneath Claybourne’s hand.

“I’m writing Article Four, Mr.
Claybourne.”

“Which is?”

He smelled of fog and exotic spices. His
fingernails were clean and neatly trimmed, the back of his hand
tanned and lightly haired, but striped with prominent white scars
on two of his knuckles. The contrast between pampered gentleman and
street fighter was so great, she almost asked about the cause. But
she didn’t want to know. He was a brief moment in her life, no
more. She turned her head slightly to see him better.

“Mr. Claybourne, the contract must address
the issue of dealing with the result of an error in judgment
between us—”

“What possible error in judgment?” He looked
affronted, as if he had already considered every possible issue and
she need not waste his valuable time considering any other.

“I mean to say that, should we find
ourselves, at some point, overcome with. . . with, well, you
know.”

“No, I don’t know. Tell me.”

She shook off his hand and stood up to get
away from him. “Please listen to me, Mr. Claybourne. This is very
important.”

“I’m listening, Miss Mayfield.”

She stepped around to the front of the desk.
“You’ll pardon the crudeness of my language, Mr. Claybourne, but,
just in case our marriage is consummated. . . by some
miscalculation—”

“Miscalculation?”

“Whether it be on your part or mine—”

“Yours?”

“
And
should a child come of this. . .
miscalculation—” She glanced up at Claybourne. He was looking
across the room at the wall of drape-shrouded windows, into some
unseen distance. He probably wasn’t listening, but she continued
anyway, knowing she’d never be able to broach this conversation
again with any kind of confidence. He was so very large, and his
hand had been so very warm, his pulse so strong . . . . “If we
should conceive a child between us, for whatever reason, I want to
be assured that he or she will live with me at the end of our
marriage. That you won’t fight me for custody.”

He said nothing. Perhaps he hadn’t heard
her.

“Well, Mr. Claybourne? You don’t appear the
sort of man who’d want to bother with children. And I couldn’t bear
to part with any of my own. Do you agree?”

“There will be no children between us.”

“Then you agree with Article Four.”

“Yes. Write what you will.”

“Good.” Felicity felt his gaze follow every
stroke of the pen until she finished the clause. As she fit the pen
into its holder, her arms seemed made of lead. “Time to call in Mr.
Biddle.”

“Not quite yet, Miss Mayfield.” He slipped
the paper from beneath her hand, smearing the final line and taking
up the pen. “I have an article of my own.”

“Only one?” Felicity scrubbed at the ink he’d
left on her fingertip. “You surprise me. This marriage is your
idea, Mr. Claybourne. I would have thought a financially astute man
like yourself would have drawn up a contract of your own ahead of
time.”

He sighed as he studied the page, obviously
feigning interest in its clauses. “An unnecessary effort, Miss
Mayfield. According to law and tradition, you and everything you
own become mine when we marry. Not only do your debts become mine,
but your actions, your income, and your possessions will belong to
me without question.”

“Then I present to you the rest of your
property, Mr. Claybourne.” Felicity pointed to the sad-face
portmanteau she’d been toting for the last year. “I hope you are
dreadfully happy with it. Though I’ll need it in my work. Perhaps I
can rent it back from you on a weekly basis?”

“Don’t be insolent, Miss Mayfield. I don’t
want your portmanteau.”

“And I want nothing from you in support, not
a single penny. Only to know where I will stand.” She thanked God
that Claybourne didn’t know of her emergency fund sitting in the
Bank, just across the street.

“Where you go during this year of our
marriage is unimportant to me.” He dropped the contract onto the
desk.

“You’ll hardly know we’re married, Mr.
Claybourne. I shall travel extensively, as indicated in Article
Two. You needn’t concern yourself over my actions.”

“I’ll not concern myself as long as your
actions never reflect badly upon me. I’ll not be made the subject
of your penny magazines, nor find the Claybourne name linked to
your exploits in any way. Should you sully my reputation or my good
name—”

“Sir, if your name is sullied during the four
seasons of our marriage, it will be by your own hand.” His face
hardened, instantly reminding her of the beast she was taking on as
a husband.