The only chance he had of salvaging the remnants of the artist he’d once been rested in finalizing this arrangement so that he no longer had to run around Europe, putting mediocre work on display just so he could secure an income.
Digging out the letter inside, he scanned the contents.
Caleb,
You no doubt are finally on your way and are undoubtedly late.
That was what came from having as an assistant the same man who’d been tied up with him in a tight cell aboard a ship. The man knew him enough to predict everything he’d do… and would not do.
I’m also wagering you didn’t bother to look through the file I sent about the wife I’ve selected for you.
No, Caleb hadn’t. Because as long as Wade had done his job and found someone to fit the criteria they’d discussed, there’d been no need.
She’s the one. She fits all the necessary requirements. Skilled in mathematics. Fluent in French and Latin. (This one wasn’t a requirement, but it was an impressive skill worth mentioning.) Experienced in running an estate. Age: Twenty-three.
Oh, and to your point per the back-and-forth exchanges regarding the matter of romance and love—or, more importantly, the importance of keeping this entirely business-minded in nature—she is singularly disinterested in any romantic entanglements.
She’d do. Well enough. No, she was perfect in terms of what he wanted… and what he didn’t want.
Of course, there’d been no doubt Wade would have done the job well. His friend, who oversaw all the business details for Caleb, was meticulous, and as such, he wouldn’t have let Caleb down in this.
The innkeeper reappeared and set a tankard down near Caleb’s notes.
Tossing down the letter about his soon-to-be wife, Caleb traded it out for a drink. The matter of the bride he was headed to meet forgotten, he fetched a sketch pad from his bag, along with his charcoals.
Around him, the whine of a merry fiddle crested over the noise of the taproom as he flipped through unfinished sketch after unfinished sketch. All dull. All wholly lacking in inspiration. Or feeling. He’d been searching for that part of himself for four years now, turning out mediocre pieces that museum patrons were too dumb to know weren’t half as impressive as they thought they were.
Tunneling his focus on the empty page, he stared unblinkingly at it, trying to will an idea to come. A vision to inspire.
Anything.
This blankness he desperately wished to be free of was worse than the uncertainty of death hanging over him aboard that British frigate. This? This was an emptiness of his soul, which he’d never thought to know. For even when he’d been a captive, there’d been the dream of creating waiting for him at the end of it.
And a wife. There’d been that, too.
To hell with that. And to hell with her and the memories of long ago.
Once he had funds coming in and no longer had the pressure of that hanging over him, then that skill would return. Then his mind would be clear. Then he’d be able to create.
That’s what this journey to North Yorkshire and his impending marriage to some nameless, faceless English stranger came down to.
Giving his head a wry shake, Caleb edged his gaze up, eyeing the crowd, and with his focus on the village men clanging glasses, he put his charcoal to the empty page.
Chapter 5
Having been born to the privileged life of the peerage, Claire hadn’t appreciated just how luxuriant her life had been.
Until she’d lost those luxuries.
All of them.
The elegant silk and satins of her gowns.
The delicate leather of her gloves.
Claire’s enormous, four-poster bed, with its feather-stuffed mattress.
Her family’s wide, pink lacquer carriage.
In those earliest days of the discovery of her father’s crimes, they’d been forced out of their London townhouse and thrust into a smaller, darker, danker residence. At night, when there’d been enough wood for only a small fire, she’d lain curled on her side, staring at the ominous shadows as they’d flickered upon the bare plaster walls of her bedroom chambers.
Sleep had eluded her, and she could find rest only by inventorying what she missed most from her previous life. She’d go over every last detail of every last item until she’d settle upon… her bed. She’d missed that grand piece of furniture the most.
She’d been certain of it.
That was, until she’d boarded the mail coach from London to North Yorkshire in the dead of winter.
She’d been so very wrong.
It was the carriage. Definitely the well-sprung carriage.
Gritting her teeth and gripping the edge of the narrow bench, Claire held on for dear life to keep from flying into the older, balding passenger next to her.
Or mayhap it was just that with the two benches packed with a family of four across from her, and three not-so-very-small older gentlemen on the other side of her, the cramped space was responsible for her misery.
The carriage hit an enormous hole in the road, and Claire flew several inches up in the air before landing hard on her buttocks. The thin padding of her seat did little to soften her fall. Pain radiated from her tailbone and climbed her spine. And she groaned. She couldn’t help it.
It was a small, quiet expression of her misery that, after too many hours in the carriage, she could no longer hold back. Her mother would have been horrified had she heard it.
That was if anyone could hear so much as anything amidst the violent wind battering the carriage and the crunching of snow as it rolled unevenly along.
Sore as her entire body was, Claire couldn’t bring herself to care about propriety.
Though, in fairness, having run-off to the North Yorkshire countryside to marry a stranger, she was really past the point of worrying about the impropriety of a groan or moan.
From under the brim of her bonnet, she peeked at the family opposite her—a mother and her three sons—and the men beside her.
Here she was, traveling without the benefit of a maid. And at that, in a carriage with a bunch of hard-looking, life-weary men.
Until her brother had married and fortunes enough secured that they’d been restored to some semblance of their previous life. But those monies also made Claire the poor relation, the one dependent upon the charity of her brother and his wife, and though she’d no doubt they would never, and could never, see Claire as a burden, that generosity did not change the fact that was precisely what Claire found herself to be. And she didn’t want that.
Just as she didn’t want to live amidst the society that Poppy and Tristan and Claire’s mother did. Her sister, Faye, was the only one of her family who understood that. It was why, when she’d confided her plans in Faye, she’d supported Claire’s decision, and promised to keep the secret of her disappearance as long as she was able.
Because Faye understood how very desperately Claire wished to have the freedom to make a life for herself, accepting charity from none, and establishing a future of her own accounted for the perilous journey she now made.
The carriage hit another bump, and she gritted her teeth as pain shot through her back.
Soon the journey would end, and she’d be out of this carriage.
And then she’d find herself in a far-flung region of North Yorkshire, a barren wilderness, with a new husband.
The wind howled ominously outside. Shivering, Claire burrowed deeper into the folds of her cloak. Only, that chill had little to do with the effect of the storm swirling in the English countryside. Or had they already arrived in North Yorkshire?
Stop it. He wasn’t really a husband. Not in any sense she need worry about, that was. Theirs was a business arrangement. He was some ancient traveler who’d gallivant about the globe while she carved out a new life for herself. Alone. Without his interference. And away from the prying eyes of Polite Society or the pitying eyes of her family.
Except, those assurances she’d methodically given
herself when she’d talked herself into this venture hadn’t proved quite so very reassuring once she’d found herself on her way to this new life. With a man she did not know…
A man who very well could be a killer. Someone who’d fashioned a clever plot to lure her to an abandoned estate, only to—
“Stop!” she exclaimed, the word bursting from her and attracting deservedly strange looks from the men and women around her.
Adjusting her hood atop her bonnet to better conceal her face, Claire slunk down in her seat.
Damn Faye for her macabre ways, and damn Claire for having allowed those thoughts in. It was fine. It was going to be absolutely, utterly fine.
Just then, the carriage jerked forward, and all the occupants of the mail coach lurched against one another. The horses took off racing, the pace they set growing increasingly frenzied in a way that sent the conveyance sliding back and forth before the team settled once again into a less-dizzying cadence.
Claire closed her eyes and did that which calmed and distracted her: She proceeded to catalog colors. She’d begun doing so when she’d lain abed, and thoughts had slipped in of the heinous crime her father had committed against a little boy. Too cowardly to think of the child, she’d instead channeled her focus onto colors, a visual she could see in her mind that wasn’t the imagery of a boy being ripped away from his family and—
Pure blue, cobalt blue, azure, sky blue, cyan, Prussian blue. Indigo. Or was indigo more a purple?
The carriage rolled to a stop.
Claire’s eyes flew open. Alas, it would appear the journey was ending, sooner than she’d expected.
Puzzling her brow, Claire reached a hand past the slumbering rider beside her. The fellow snored himself awake as she tugged the curtains back.
Snow swirled before the frosted windowpane, and the layer of ice, coupled with the inky black of the night sky, made it near impossible to see.
“This isn’t the posting house,” she blurted. When the other awake, though some sleepy-looking, passengers gave her an odd look, she pointed outside.
As if on cue to her questioning, the door opened. Wind sent snow swirling inside the carriage, whipping flakes flecked with ice at the occupants.
“Resting for the night,” the man called up.
Resting for the night?
With not a question or peep from the bunch, people filed from the mail coach.
“But… but… we’ve only been traveling eight hours.”
“Aye,” the driver answered testily. “And?”
In just a moment, Claire found herself the sole, remaining passenger. Outside, there came the calls of the men and women, pointing out their valises for the guard overhead. They couldn’t be stopping, and yet, that was precisely what they were doing.
Claire planted herself on the bench. “And mail carriages only stop for the collection and delivery of mail and… and… not for the comfort of passengers,” she reminded him.
The young driver removed his cap and beat it against his leg. “And I’m not.”
She cocked her head, looking past him to the passengers headed down a long drive toward a stone-faced, medieval-looking inn.
“I’m stopping for me,” he snapped.
“But… but… We’ve already been delayed.” And she’d strict orders that she was to arrive before the fourteenth day of January, after which her would-be husband was to depart. The missive had made it clear that there’d be no waiting. That the terms of their arrangement were contingent upon her being there for the wedding.
If they continued to stop as they were, she’d never arrive.
Mayhap this was fate’s way of telling her to go back home. Perhaps she should take this as a sign to turn tail and forget this plan she’d hatched.
“Let’s go,” the driver snapped.
Jumping, Claire forced herself to give up her place on the bench and climb down.
The guard had already set her trunk down and had himself returned to his perch at the back of the conveyance. “If you would?” she asked the driver.
“If I would what?”
“If you might help me get this trunk from here…” Shifting her valise over to one hand, she pointed down the drive with the other. “To there? I would be most—”
“No!” With that, he gave a snap of his reins, kicking his team into motion.
“I can pay—” The churning wheels sprayed her face with muddy snow, startling her into dropping her valise. “You,” she muttered around a mouthful of dirt.
Blanching, she spat the gritty grossness from her mouth. Oh, good God. Damn this day, and yes, in this moment, the decision, too.
All the while, she stared after the slow-moving conveyance as it headed to the courtyard. Until she was… alone. The wind howled forlornly, yanking at her skirts, and she stood there, shivering, faced with the very real truth of just how alone she was here.
There was no devoted Tristan to glower at the unkindly sorts. There was no Faye, with her obscure stories on other families with sins to their names, to provide a much-needed distraction from anything. And there was no Poppy to bring her to a laugh.
She hugged her arms around her middle. Why, at this point, she’d even take her damned, harsh, unsmiling mother as a companion.
Alas, she’d wished to live a life for herself, by herself, forsaking her family’s involvement in any decisions she made, and now it was time for her to climb into that proverbial bed she’d made. She’d wished for independence, and her husband-to-be represented her path to it. And if she truly wished to have control of her life and how she lived it? Well, then, that required her to do difficult things. Like get… mud in one’s mouth and get by in uncomfortable situations and—
Her gaze fell to the snow-covered ground.
And get her own things to where she needed them.
Eyeing her trunk and valise, she considered the length of the way she was expected to take them. She could make two trips. Or she could venture into the establishment, summon someone and offer them coin to help.
That, however, would require she leave her trunk behind.
She firmed her jaw. No. She didn’t require help. She could at least get it to the inn, and then from there, she could solicit some help. But she’d be damned if she left anything out here in this godforsaken, barren-but-for-that-inn countryside.
Nearly numb from the cold, her teeth chattering, Claire placed the valise atop her trunk, and bending down, grabbed the trunk by one of its handles, and proceeded to drag it.
Backward as she was, she had to stop occasionally and glance behind her to be sure she was headed for the front of the inn.
And every time she looked, she found herself making an uneven path.
She gripped the handle and dragged hard, her back strained from the angle and the efforts she required of it.
It was a never-ending walk that, slow as it was, only left her body chilled all the more. Her nose dripped moisture, and she sniffled, pausing periodically to wipe her gloved hand across the frozen appendage in an act that would have given her mother a fit of the vapors.
A panicky laugh bubbled from her lips, the sound of it spilling over the quiet countryside, eerie for its mirth… and solitariness.
Her teeth knocked together from the cold, and she bit her lower lip to ease their tremble. It didn’t help. The biting wind cut through her velvet-lined cloak and dress and undergarments.
Claire took some comfort in the fact that her sister would, although mourn her, be left with some intrigue and curiosity over the sister who’d frozen to death in a blizzard.
In England.
Not for the first time since she’d set out, she was certain these miseries were merely fate’s way of attempting to send her back to her family to spend the holiday at Black’s Hotel, as they were wont to do with her sister-in-law’s large, loving family. Or mayhap it was the devil trying to keep her from the fate and future she was determined to snag for herself.
Then, miracle of miracles, Clair
e reached the front of the inn.
She straightened, groaning as all the muscles along her back screamed at the abrupt shift.
But she’d done it.
For the first time in longer than she could remember, she smiled, a smile born of this small but not insignificant accomplishment. Yes, it had been a miserable ride by the coach, and it was even more miserable outside, but she had traveled alone and faced discomforts and had now gotten her trunk and valise to the establishment without the help of any servant or man or anyone.
Just she had done it.
The door swung open, and an immediate blast of heat and noise enveloped her, both welcome.
A pair of men stumbled out and brushed past her. Taking advantage of the door still hanging open, Claire collected the handle of her trunk once more and dragged her things inside. She drew the door shut behind her, and out of breath from the winter cold, and the effort it had taken to drag her things inside, she searched about for the innkeeper; and easily identified him as he moved between tables.
Going up on tiptoe, Claire lifted her hand, in a bid to capture his attention. Alas, her efforts proved futile. She sank back on her heels.
At last, he started towards her.
“Hullo,” she greeted loudly; to be heard over the swell of noise from the revelry. “I require a room.”
“Don’t have any,” he said, and made to step around her.
She immediately hurled herself into his path. “But…”
“Look around you, lass. Do you see a spot to be had here?”
Slowly, with an ever-growing dread and sense of helplessness rooting in her belly, Claire scanned the crowded floor. Every wooden table and every wooden chair, over by the fire, at the tap. Patrons filled every last nook and cranny of the stone establishment. And every last one of them was… male.
And for the first time since she’d set out, she felt the overwhelming urge to cry.
“I can pay.”
“Take it up with one of the patrons, lass. Ain’t my problem.”
Ain’t my problem.
It was an entirely curt, dismissive response that, had it been directed Claire’s way during the first twenty years of her life, would have both horrified and shocked her. Now, however, she’d grown accustomed to disdain.
A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1) Page 5
