The loss had left him empty. Numb. Because art was his refuge. In those first days when he’d been sprung from the bowels of that British prison ship and found his way home, the horrors of what had been done to him, of what he’d seen and been forced to do, had ravaged his mind. So much that even the reality of his former fiancée’s marriage to his brother had barely been able to pierce the shell of horror that encased the remnants of his soul.
He’d sat, curled into a ball, in the corner of his bedchambers and painted. With the canvas sprawled on the floor, he’d added brushstrokes of colors that were vague, but had somehow in their composition and shading managed to capture the well of emotion inside, all the pain and bitterness and sorrow, with a hint of the hope that had been there. That work had saved him and salvaged his soul, and it had come to be the piece that the world associated with him.
Beyond the handful of canvases he’d captured in those first days, there’d been a void in his work.
Perhaps that was why he’d come to resent Claire Poplar so much, because with her unabashed zeal and love of art, she merely reminded him of himself from another time.
That was why he’d agreed to Wade’s harebrained scheme, to free himself of the stress and tumult that came from unsteady payments. Then, he’d be able to travel and try to find himself and whatever magic he’d created in those earliest days.
The little shuffle of her pencil striking that page only heightened that realization. It hammered home the reminder about how much she loved what he now saw as a beautiful chore, a task that simultaneously called to him and tortured him with his inability to harness it as he once had.
Restless and in a desperate bid to harness some of the energy humming through him, Caleb picked up the metal poker and jabbed at the logs, stoking the fire.
Her head was angled down as she fully attended that page, and Caleb used the moment to study her. The flames danced off her face. Those minky strands hung down in disarray about her shoulders. The light penetrated the fabric of her night shift, offering up the shadowy hint of her pale brown areolas and the pebbled peaks that crowned that perfect flesh.
And just like that, he was forced to revisit the second bit of madness he’d indulged in this night where this woman was concerned. “You gonna pretend like you didn’t hear me say that?”
Claire paused briefly and looked up. “I’m going to let you decide if it’s something you actually want to talk about, or whether it was something you let slip out that you wish you hadn’t.”
With that, she resumed her work.
Caleb continued to watch her.
The latter.
It had absolutely been the latter.
Either way, she was a better person than he was. For, how many times had he taunted her, delighting in needling her because of her birthright? Because of her sense of privilege? Because of his resentment of her love of what he’d once loved? Because she’d also given as good as she’d gotten?
“Why?” he asked suspiciously. Why, when they’d never gotten along and always taken equal delight and riling each other?
This time, Claire stopped altogether. Snapping her book closed and stealing all possibility of his seeing what her muse had compelled her to create, she set her sketch pad aside. “I’m an artist,” she said simply. “Not a good one, as you’ve pointed out. No one will purchase my work. Nor am I one even inclined to work toward such a goal.” She was methodical and matter-of-fact as she spoke. Not a person looking to be pitied or who felt pitiable, and he respected that directness. “I love it. I do it… for me. And as someone who loves to sketch and paint, who has found escape in filling pages with”—her lips twisted wryly—“mediocre sketches…”
Caleb winced, recognizing as his own that straightforward statement he’d once tossed her way, one that he’d actually not even meant as an insult.
“I cannot imagine,” she went on, “what it would be like to lose any sense of the fulfillment I find in my work.”
It was hell. It was a gut-wrenching, sweat-inducing misery that left a person feeling incomplete. Unfulfilled. She was on the mark in every way.
Their gazes locked, hers knowing and compassionate and so damned unnerving that he had to look away.
“I’m going to find it,” he said, directing that vow to the mattress he and Claire had stripped down to the frame. “It’s not gone.” It couldn’t be. For, what would he be without it? Who was he, other than some broken-down soldier who’d been a victim and who’d lost his betrothed and family? “I’ll find it.”
“Oh, I’m sure of it,” Claire said cheerfully, with a confidence that he didn’t feel.
He didn’t even know if it was possible, but he knew this plan Wade had hatched was his last best shot. A plan that involved him… married. Not that it would be a real marriage. It would be as much a business arrangement as his tours of Europe had become.
Claire reached for her sketch pad.
Caleb shot a hand out, resting his larger, scarred, and paint-stained palm over her smaller, softer, delicate… and charcoal-marred one.
A charge, like the air on the ocean right before a storm raged, flared between them. “I…” He cleared his throat. “I…” He tried again several times.
Claire gave him a soft, encouraging look. “What is it?”
“I’m sorry.” The two words emerged gruff and harsh.
The lady’s brow dipped, and then understanding lit her eyes. A light, tinkling laugh bubbled from her lips, soft and warm and… real. Unlike the humorless expressions of empty mirth he often released. “Because of what you said about my mediocre work? You’ve only been honest. I’d not have you resorting to soothing my wounded pride now, Caleb.” She leaned in and dropped her voice to an exaggeratedly low whisper. “Furthermore, I was not so arrogant as to believe myself incapable of learning from you or developing my skills. If I had been, I wouldn’t have asked you, Caleb.” With that, she drew her fingers from under his and grabbed her sketch pad back.
For the first time in his life, he hated a sketch pad, for having stolen those long, graceful fingers from his.
Resented a sketch pad?
He wanted to hold Claire Poplar’s hand?
What in holy hell was this madness?
God, he’d gone temporarily insane. No, he had been insane since his capture. This was just a new variation of insanity.
“So what are you doing?”
Claire paused and lifted a puzzled gaze to his. “I’m sketch—”
“That is, what are you doing in this godforsaken corner of an already godforsaken country?”
The lady didn’t blink for several moments. “Oh.” With that, Claire fell silent, glancing down at the pencil in her left hand.
“Didn’t think I was going to ask?” he asked when she still didn’t speak. How could she believe that he, best friend to her sister-in-law, wouldn’t have? And if he’d not been attempting to save her from herself in the taproom, and then nearly making love to her, he very well would have earlier.
At last, Claire picked her head up, meeting his gaze with the same spirited directness she always had. “I’d hoped that you wouldn’t delve. I don’t want to involve you.”
“Yeah, well, the minute you wandered through the front door of this place and took on every other patron in the taproom, I kind of was.”
“I didn’t take on…” She wrinkled her nose. “You’re teasing.”
Caleb winked.
She didn’t smile, however. Instead, there was some vague melding of melancholy and wariness. For a moment, he expected she’d be as stubborn as the useless English sun and hold on to whatever secret she clearly weighed sharing.
Secrets meant trouble.
And any secret from this woman meant complication. Because of who she was. Because of his connection to her sister-in-law.
But then, Claire sighed. “I’m meeting my betrothed.”
A branch snapped in the fireplace behind them, the crackling of the flames being fed the only soun
d to be heard.
Of anything Claire Poplar could have said, that had been the last he would have expected.
“Your betrothed?” he echoed, because, hell, it really needed clarifying.
She nodded.
“Without Poppy or the baron or your mother or sister.”
Using the tip of her pencil, she punctuated each of the next words as she spoke them. “Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.” With that, she put that measly little scrap between her fingers back to use on the shadowy page he’d been trying to make out.
Not any longer.
“You’re getting married?” he asked bluntly.
“Mm-hmm.” Claire proceeded to hum.
In his time aboard a British ship, he’d learned a thing or two about humming. It was a tool. A distraction. All the men who’d gone mad had hummed.
Claire’s, however, had a soft, gentle cadence that had no traces of insanity or panic or fear. Rather, it was a sweet, wordless melody that had shades of romance, her voice so clear and the melody even clearer of a popular folk song.
Down in my father’s garden
When first my love met me
He threw his arms around my neck
And embraced me tenderly
We both sat down upon the ground
For to complete our joy
Go where ye will,
And I love him still,
He’s my darling plowman boy.
Through the years, all of Caleb’s time and efforts were spent on his artwork. Wade handled the business that allowed Caleb to do the only thing he truly cared about in life.
But when Wade had concocted a harebrained plan to free Caleb up by having him marry a faceless, desperate English lady, Caleb had been sure to lay out clear expectations of what that deal would entail. There was to be no romantic entanglement. He and the woman would be business partners, and love and affection would not be part of the arrangement. As there wouldn’t be a real marriage in any sense of the word, with both living apart, each of them would be free to find companionship where and how they would, without hurt feelings.
The woman whom he married would have to understand that.
Wade had been free to pick whomever the hell he wanted, as long as those details were ironed out.
Those terms had come in large part because Caleb had no interest in putting himself through the suffering that had come at his previous fiancée’s hands. Details on fidelity had been carefully spelled out because, as a man who’d been made a cuckold of—and by his brother at that—he’d vowed to not take part in a similar betrayal.
Caleb sharpened his gaze on the woman sketching across from him. And then there was… Claire. She sat here, humming a damned love-sick song about this fiancé she was rushing off to meet? While just moments ago, she’d been coming undone in Caleb’s arms? Just like that, the brief kindred moment he’d shared with Claire faded.
It shouldn’t matter. Claire Poplar didn’t mean a damned thing to him. Not romantically, that was. He fisted his hands into hard balls, telling himself that over and over. What he resented like hell, however, was that he, who’d sworn to never get between any couple had, because of her failure to share the important detail about a fiancé, been forced into doing just that.
Her ability to take her pleasure in his arms while on her way to get married had shades of a betrayal he’d known firsthand when his sweetheart had moved on to his brother. All the while Caleb had been rotting in the bottom of a British ship.
As if you’re any different, a voice taunted. She might have initiated the embrace, pressing her body against his and kissing him, but he’d responded, too, and he hated himself as much for it.
With that sharp reminder, he got himself out of whatever madness had been let loose in this inn and focused on that which he needed to focus on—her being here alone.
He froze. Caleb silently damned, for altogether different reasons, the information he’d discovered. Because, now? Knowing that Poppy’s sister-in-law was being lured off by some English rascal meant Caleb was involved. He had to be.
A woman headed to a wedding to some other fellow was something he needed details on. Solely because of Poppy. That was the lone reason.
Unbidden, an idea slipped in of Claire unleashing that passion on some pale-faced, ruddy-cheeked English bastard.
“Well, who is he?” he demanded. An inexplicable iron-hot jealousy made his tone sharper than he intended.
Claire cocked her head. “What?”
Not for one damned moment did he believe the clever-witted Claire Poplar didn’t know exactly what he was asking. Fine. She wanted to play that game? He indulged her. “Not ‘what.’ Who? Who’s the lucky fellow?”
She bristled with an indignation only a queen could manage at being dealt an insult. “Hmph. I shall choose to ignore that sarcastic emphasis, Mr. Gray.”
Fine, so long as she provided the other details. “Well?”
“He’s a… gentleman.”
He snorted. “A gentleman who’s got you running away from your family, by mail carriage, without the benefit of an escort or companion? Yeah, he sounds like a regular old prince.” Not that he was at all surprised where an Englishman was concerned. The miserable bastards took only what they wanted and thought nothing of inflicting hurt on others. “Certain to be a great marriage.” In fairness, there really was no such thing as a great marriage.
Claire frowned and set her book aside. “I’ll have you know, we are… quite in love.”
There it was. Not the type of business arrangement he was about to enter into. Not that a romantic like Claire Poplar would. “Quite in love, are you?” he asked dryly.
She didn’t take the bait.
“He values my mind, and he sees me as an equal. He doesn’t wish to subjugate me. And I respect and admire him for respecting me.”
Caleb curved his lips up in a slow smile. “Does he also value your fidelity? Or does that not factor into your special relationship?” he drawled.
The color leached from her cheeks. “That is… fair enough.” Her voice emerged weaker than he’d ever heard.
It was one thing to hand out honest critique. It was another to level barbs meant to wound… which was precisely what he’d done, and damned if he didn’t feel like the same bully as her English compatriots who’d tortured him for two years of his life.
Claire cleared her throat. “As I said, what happened here should not have happened, and it will not happen again.”
“Damned straight it won’t,” he said tersely. “I’m not going to scratch your itch and make a cuckhold out of some man.”
A blush exploded on her cheeks. “That is offensive.”
He leaned in. “Yeah, well, I’d argue you finding your pleasure with me while being in love with another man is worse.”
Her gaze faltered, dipping to her lap, but not before he caught a glimmer of remorse and sadness in their depths. “Y-you are right.”
“So, tell me about this paragon who couldn’t be bothered to collect you.”
“My family wouldn’t approve.”
With good reason. A man who’d have her journey through the country on her own was hardly the manner of fellow one would have their daughter or sister, or sister-in-law, marry.
Claire narrowed her eyes. “Do not even think about it.”
“Wh—?”
“You are thinking to tell Tristan, and I forbid it. My brother-in-law is ill, and Tristan, along with my mother and Poppy have gone to help Christina. Furthermore, I am a grown woman capable of making my own decisions, and I certainly don’t need interference from you or anyone.” Her chest rose hard and fast, not unlike the frenzied cadence from when she’d been nearing her climax a short while ago.
Ah, so that was where the Poplars were.
“Caleb?” she demanded.
He nodded slowly. “Very well, Claire.” Surprise filled her revealing eyes. “I’m not going to tell your bastard of a brother.” Granted, he was dancing around the truth.
<
br /> Given what she’d just shared however, about the gentleman looking after their other sister and her family, it now made sense both how Claire had managed to slip off with her family unawares, and why Bolingbroke hadn’t ridden like hell to get to his sister already.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “I… appreciate that. Just as I appreciate your sharing your room with me.”
Her words and her tone were clearly meant to mark the end of their exchange.
Caleb climbed to his feet and found his way back over to his makeshift bed. And for some unexplainable reason, with his hands folded under his head as he stared at the ceiling overhead and listened to the frantic scratch of her pencil upon her page, he couldn’t shake the regret that the moment had come to an end.
Chapter 9
The following morn, Claire was greeted with a knock at the door and arose from her sleep to find the fire cold and Caleb… gone.
Knock, knock, knock.
Blinking back the fog of sleep, she peered at the still-dark sky. Hastily fetching her wrapper, she donned the article, belting it at the waist.
Knock, knock.
Catching the handle, Claire drew the door open a fraction, interrupting the remainder of that rapping.
A young woman’s enormous brown eyes met hers. “Good morning, Mrs. Gray.”
Claire wrinkled her brow. “Mrs. Gray?” Confusion filled the young woman’s face before Claire realized what Caleb had been mindful of—he’d protected her reputation. “I am Mrs. Gray,” she blurted. “Mrs. Gray, wife of Mr. Gray. Happily wed and—” Just stop with your rambling. Claire managed to make herself go silent. She donned a smile. “How may I help you?
“I’ve come to help you with your ablutions,” the woman explained. “Mr. Gray sent me to help attend you.
Claire’s jaw slackened.
He’d done this… for her?
“What?” she managed to ask.
The young woman cleared her throat, and Claire stepped aside as a handful of people, including children, streamed in with a small wood bath and buckets of water.
“Had me fetched from the village, he did.”
A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1) Page 9
