A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  To silence him, a voice taunted. To keep him from claiming that kiss of distraction.

  Liar. It hadn’t been that at all.

  She’d wanted to kiss him. Out of curiosity. Because of the past desire she’d known with him that she’d wanted to know again.

  With all the grace she could muster, her legs unsteady beneath her, she still managed to step out of his arms. “That won’t happen again,” she said tersely. It couldn’t. “And it was… also enlightening for my, as you pointed out, the last time we saw each other, art inspiration.”

  He inclined his head. “Glad I could help, Your Majesty.” With that, he headed to the other side of the bed, and stripping the sheets and blankets off, he tossed them to her. “Here.”

  Claire caught the scratchy wool articles close and hugged them protectively to herself, grateful for that barrier as she awaited his mockery. Heading over to the bag resting beside hers, he removed a small folded-up roll.

  As Claire set to work making her makeshift bed on the floor, Caleb loosened the string about his wrap, shook the pallet out, and set it on the floor.

  A moment later, he lay down… and disappeared from sight.

  Claire furrowed her brow.

  That was it.

  That was all he intended to say?

  Why didn’t he jeer her as he usually did? Where were his customary insults and disdain?

  All of it was… absent.

  She eyed the place he’d been and then crept around the bed. Pausing when a floorboard groaned, she carefully picked her way over to where Caleb lay. Surely he wasn’t asleep already. No person could possibly—

  Claire stopped abruptly, the sight of him halting her in her tracks. Her heart pounded hard.

  With an arm flung over his eyes, he lay without so much as the benefit of a pillow. And he’d also shucked off his shirt, exposing a broad, corded chest covered with a light mat of dark curls. Claire’s mouth went dry as she ran her eyes over each chiseled plane, down to the hard, tanned, and sleek contours of his flat belly. The same forbidden desire that had made a mess of her reason and senses just moments ago wrought havoc all over again.

  He’d spoken about her finding inspiration in art.

  Him.

  Precisely as he was now. Only partially dressed, those formfitting trousers melded to his frame, only adding to the allure of his sinful appeal. She continued running her gaze over him, committing Caleb Gray as he was now to memory. Yes, such a person needed to be preserved, if not in stone, at the very least on a page. Even if it was by her, as he delighted in reminding her, mediocre hand. Her gaze snagged on a vicious scar that arched like a puckered white and red rainbow from one side of his stomach to the other side.

  Just like that, her desire faded, replaced with consternation about such a scar. Claire’s heart beat faster again. This time, the cadence was led not by desire, but by horror. How did a man come by such a—?

  “What now?”

  Claire jumped, her cheeks blooming with heat. “My goodness, you startled me.” She gave thanks for small miracles that this proved one of the many times he didn’t even deign to look at her, lest he see the blush that had come at finding herself caught gawking at him.

  “I startled you?” he asked from behind his arm. “You’re the one creeping about and staring at me as I sleep.”

  How in blazes could he see that with his arm positioned the way it was? As she’d not be able to convincingly refute the staring part, she opted to focus on his a different charge. “You are not sleeping.”

  “Well, not now. A credit to you, Your Majesty,” he said with his usual drollness.

  “Furthermore, no one could fall asleep that quickly,” Claire continued over him.

  “And no one could sleep with your damned jabbering,” he growled. “Will you go to sleep?”

  “Eventually. I—”

  “It wasn’t a damned question, sweetheart.”

  “Well, it sounded like a question.” Of course it would have been a directive. She shifted back and forth on her feet. “I can’t.”

  Even in the dark, she detected the slight movement of his lips, the periodic “God” distinct on his perfectly chiseled mouth.

  “Oh,” she blurted. “You’re praying. Forgive me. I did not realize.” Claire clasped her hands before her as if herself in prayer. “I can wait.”

  At last, he dropped his arms beside him and stared up at her with incredulity. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “I’m not so very rude as to interrupt your pr—”

  “Do you take me for a praying man?”

  “No.” Claire paused. “But I am not one to make judgments when I don’t really know a person.” She batted her eyes innocently at him.

  His dark brows dipped.

  Caleb Gray was many things, but he was not thick-witted. He’d know precisely the point she made.

  Claire pasted a serene smile on her lips.

  “What. Do. You. Want?” The manner in which he gritted his syllables was practically his normal speech pattern whenever he spoke to her.

  Not to Poppy. With Poppy, he spoke in that lazy and friendly American drawl. Claire didn’t know why that should matter to her, particularly since being disliked by all had become a common occurrence since her father’s crimes had been discovered. She’d been left with a thick skin because of it.

  “Well?” he snapped.

  “My dress,” Claire said on a rush. “At the last inn, I had some help from the innkeeper’s wife. However, this particular establishment does not appear to have a female on its staff.” Which also no doubt would explain the overall tone of this miserable place.

  Caleb pushed himself up onto his elbows, and her eyes, of their own volition, were drawn to the way his biceps rippled. “Let me get this straight. You’re traveling without a maid, without a companion, and you thought it was best to pack a dress you couldn’t damned well see to yourself.”

  She nodded. “Yes. You have the right of it. Now, if you would.” Claire presented him with her back. When he remained precisely where he was, she turned back. “Please.” She tacked that on with another smile.

  Cursing, he leaped to his feet with an agility no man of his size and power should be in possession of.

  “Turn,” he clipped out.

  It was the same military tone, as she’d come to call it, she’d heard used by her brother and his friends who’d served beside him fighting Boney’s forces. And this was the sole time she did—and ever would—comply. Giving him her back once more, she concentrated her focus on the wall ahead of her.

  Caleb set to work on the row of buttons, mumbling less-than-flattering opinions about the pearl-encrusted fastenings. Which… well, at least they were not about her.

  And yet…

  One would think, given the passionate exchange that had occurred in this very room just minutes ago, that there’d be some… awareness. Something more than—

  “There,” he muttered, and Claire caught the bodice of her dress just as it would have sagged.

  Not that she need worry anyway. Caleb had already settled himself back on his bedding.

  “Thank you,” she said pertly.

  When she’d returned to her side of the room, she let her dress fall and stepped out of it. Claire collected a fresh night wrapper from her valise. All the while she dressed, Claire watched his side of the room. She should be grateful.

  He could have been a boor—or, rather, more of a boor than usual. He could have mocked her for that explosive moment of passion, in which she’d behaved shamefully and wantonly.

  But he hadn’t.

  He’d allowed her that glorious bliss she’d stolen for herself and had not let it be a source of mockery between them.

  Sliding her night shift into place, she lowered herself to the floor. Even with the blankets under her, the wood proved cold and unforgivable. The hearth, several paces behind her, cast a deep heat that soon managed to drive out the chill. Rolling onto her
side, Claire drew a blanket across her person and stared across the room to where Caleb had just unbuttoned her dress.

  Claire lowered her head, and under the bed they’d both forsaken, she squinted in the dark to easily and instantly make out his silhouette.

  He’d offered her his bed. And he’d also allowed her the place nearest the fire and subsequent warmth.

  Nor had he said anything about those sacrifices. He’d just made them, which seemed contradictory for a man who disliked her most fervently. That didn’t mean he liked her, per se. At all. But it did speak to the fact that he wasn’t the completely cold, unfeeling man she’d taken him for.

  Claire stared off at the shadows dancing upon the empty, unoccupied bedframe. Perhaps this was the side of him that her sister-in-law saw. While Claire? Claire had been too blinded by the fact that he didn’t like her to see anything beyond her own resentment. He’d come to represent all of society who viewed her in a less-than-kind way, and as such, she’d taken that resentment out upon him. But his feelings for her didn’t speak necessarily to who he was as a person.

  They were just… two people who didn’t get along. A man and a woman who butted heads over art and life and any other topic in between.

  Except, you were moving in fine enough harmony, a voice taunted, her own conscience mocking Claire when Caleb hadn’t. Nor had his embrace been wielded by him as some manner of lesson.

  This embrace she’d initiated and seen herself fulfilled. And he’d allowed her that pleasure, without shaming her. And that… made it impossible to hate him as she once had.

  A log shifted in the fireplace, the fire hissed and snapped, and nearly an hour later, Claire gave up on sleep with a sigh.

  She pushed herself upright and dragged her valise close. Opening the prettily embroidered piece, she fished out her sketch pad and pencil. She rolled onto her stomach, and licking the tip of her finger, she turned past image after image and then stopped, lingering on one—a bright porcelain vase overflowing with wildflowers. The arrangement sat framed in the center of the room with a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked her family’s previous estates.

  A memory whispered forward.

  You’re dying there to show me what’s in your notebook. I don’t need to even see it. I’ll bet every last canvas I ever painted on that you’ve got yourself one of your mother’s fine vases filled with some wildflowers, and because you didn’t paint the hothouse ones, you think you’re somehow bold. Maybe you even have them outside, or next to a window to make some kind of artistic point about how the flowers deserve to be outside, but are trapped inside. You’re no artist, Claire. You’re a pastel and paint miss who has no place in an art room.

  That monologue had been scathing, each word of it seared on her mind long after he’d uttered the words in his mocking, slightly raspy tones. It had been raw and brutal and… incisive.

  When she’d reflexively hidden her sketch pad behind her back, his smile had said he knew he’d been accurate in his assessment of her work that he’d not even seen.

  That had been the last floral arrangement she’d ever sketched or painted.

  Giving her head a clearing shake, Claire resumed turning the pages until she landed on an empty one. She contemplated the empty canvas before her.

  “… Paint your passion…”

  She’d been so offended by his treatment of her that day, she’d failed to appreciate he’d given her perhaps the most important art lesson she could have ever received.

  Claire set her pencil to work; gliding it over the page, the gray strokes filling in the previous places of white. As she worked, her mind tunneled as the memory slipped from her and into her rendering.

  Passion…

  Emotion of the most raw and unbridled and beautiful…

  Also, ironically, a second lesson he’d taught her. Claire sketched, biting at her lip, frustrated with her fingers’ inability to keep up with that which she sought to commit forever to this sketch pad.

  She’d often thought about those forbidden acts shared between men and women. However, she’d not thought to know it for herself. Why, even the marriage she’d agreed to wouldn’t involve a marriage bed.

  She puzzled her brow. Or… eventually, it would? Surely there’d be a consummation of their union. She’d not allowed herself to think of that. Which, in hindsight, was silly. Her breath came in noisy little spurts, damning in the quiet of the room, and she forced herself to slow that cadence. To sketch instead.

  “Now what?” Caleb asked, with such a coating of annoyance.

  Startled, Claire gasped, and her fingers slid, the pencil scraping across the page and effectively marking up the form upon that page.

  She glared at that line. Blast it. “I didn’t say anything,” she felt inclined to point out.

  “You’re awake.”

  Claire rolled onto her side and found his head turned toward where she lay. “But I wasn’t bothering you.”

  “Your pencil is.”

  She glanced down at the nub in her fingers and then looked Caleb’s way once more. “You’re a light sleeper, are you, Mr. Gray?”

  “It appears you are.”

  Too. That unfinished response hung in the chilled night air.

  Not even a day ago, she’d have come back with an equally quick rejoinder. This time, however, something held her back. For, it did not escape her notice that he’d proven deliberately evasive. Not for the first time since she’d met the enigmatic American, she wondered about who he was. What had shaped him into the hard, and even harder to read, man across from her now?

  “My muse strikes at midnight,” she said softly. As an artist, he surely understood that. Why, it was likely even one more bond they’d struck up this ni—

  “Then it’s not a real muse.”

  She wrinkled her brow. So much for a kindred connection. The lummox. And here she’d thought they’d been sharing a moment. More the fool her for that thought. “It’s my muse. You can’t say that about my muse.”

  “Oh, no, I can, and I did.”

  He spoke with such an infuriating sureness that she slapped her pencil down. “All right, Mr. Gray. Out with it. I’m sure you, with all your infinite artist wisdom, are just dying to lecture me on how my muse operates.”

  “A muse doesn’t schedule regular visits,” he said flatly, his words spoken with the same confidence of a fact-driven statement. “She comes to you when you are inspired.”

  “Exactly. And I am personally inspired at midnight.”

  He chuckled. “When nothing is happening to you.”

  It was the robust laugh, droll and all-knowing, that set her teeth on edge. “When I’ve had time to think about the day.”

  The floorboards groaned, and a moment later, he stood, crossing around the bed until he’d joined Claire on her side of the room, and he was still—she swallowed, or she tried to—bare-chested. Claire hurriedly closed her book and seated herself, her knees drawn to her chest.

  She needn’t have worried about him looking through her drawings. As he’d sworn that long-ago day, he’d no intention of examining her works. Instead, he lowered himself onto the floor, his back to the fire and his enormous legs stretched out.

  “You create in the moment. You don’t mull the day. You don’t let it simmer. When something grips you, you just give yourself over to it, Claire.”

  With her sketch pad in hand, she scooched over until she sat facing him. “Let me ask you this, Caleb. If you know so very much about how muses should work and how I should interact with my muse, then mayhap you should be in the business of teaching after—”

  “No,” he cut her off before she could even finish.

  Claire smiled wryly. “Trust me. I’m not requesting your services.” Not now. Not ever, ever, or ever again. “I’m merely stating that you have strong opinions that you give out freely.”

  He grinned, his pearl-white teeth gleaming in the dark. “That’s the American in me.”

  “Yes
, I suspected as much,” she muttered. Opening her book, she resumed her sketch.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  And yet, she felt him studying her movements and angling his head toward her page.

  Claire whipped her head up.

  Caleb immediately made a show of studying the room around them, the splash of color on his rugged cheeks indicating his embarrassment at having been caught staring.

  Hmph.

  She was of half a mind to tease him over it. This time, however, even while she moved her hand over the page, bringing the imagery to life, she was distracted by the feel of him studying her.

  “What is so terrible about giving art lessons?” she asked, returning her attention to her sketch.

  He grunted. “It’s not my place to tell people how to create.”

  Claire drew her eyebrows together. “This from a man who’s never met an opinion he wasn’t comfortable sharing?”

  “I created a handful of pieces the world thought was great. That was it,” he said, bitterness coating his deep baritone. “Everything else has eluded me since.”

  Claire stilled her fingers, her grip slackening on her sketch pad.

  For, with his stunning and bold invitation into his world, she understood Caleb Gray in a way she never had before. She’d believed his annoyance about the art instructions she’d pleaded for and the paintings she’d praised had been a product of his dislike of her.

  Only to discover now that so much of it hadn’t a thing to do with her and everything to do with the artistic frustration of a man who’d no idea how very talented he, in fact, was.

  Chapter 8

  What in hell had Caleb said?

  What in hell had he shared?

  As his only friend in the world, Wade Harrison knew of the frustration that held Caleb in its grip these past years.

  It wasn’t something they spoke about. Ever.

  Because it scared the everlasting hell out of Caleb.

  If he lost his ability to create, then what was there?

  His work had represented the one constant when his own fiancée had left him, and to find that he’d lost that, too?