A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  “Claire?” Caleb asked, a question in his voice.

  Lowering her hood, she turned slowly and faced Caleb.

  He eyed her warily. “What is it?”

  Claire smiled. “Caleb Gray, will you marry me?”

  The world liked to generalize people and lump them all together.

  All men were one way.

  All women were another.

  Society had these expectations for everyone, how they should behave or think or live their lives. As such, people ultimately found themselves falling into one category or another that contained other versions of themselves.

  During their short time together, Claire had opened his eyes to the narrow way in which he’d viewed people. He’d formed an opinion about an entire group of people based on how he’d been treated by a handful. He’d seen English ladies just like he saw their men—prim, and grim, and proper, and guided by nothing more than their own self-interest.

  But Claire? She was unlike any woman he’d ever known, British or American. She had gumption. The sharpest sense of humor. And the keenest wit. She’d proposed marriage to him.

  And he couldn’t help it.

  He laughed.

  She was—

  “Oomph.” His laugh died. Cause of death: snowball.

  The fire burning from her eyes would have melted the snow covering all of Yorkshire. Which could only mean… Horror dawned slowly.

  “You were serious?”

  As if her glare wasn’t sufficient enough to convey her ire, she bit out each of her next words. “I. Was. Serious.” She paused. “Am serious. Furthermore, I’ll have you know,” she carried on, her conversational tones better suited to talk of the fierce weather they’d been having than a request of marriage. “It is not at all as foreign as you are thinking. Why, Poppy’s own sister put a marriage proposal to her husband.”

  He doffed his cap and beat it against his leg. “Let me get this straight. You’re proposing marriage to me… in the form of an argument?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “W-well, you w-were the one who went and ruined it. Nor, for that matter, was I intending to be romantic.”

  “Then consider your goal met.” He motioned to the stairs behind her, encouraging her to get herself indoors before she—and he—froze to death out here.

  Claire began the climb, looking back and talking to him as they went. “We are passionate. We aren’t afraid to go toe-to-toe and challenge each other, to think.”

  “Do you think I’m looking for someone to go toe-to-toe with?” Except, even as the question left him, an idea trickled in of him and Claire embroiled in some battle or another, followed by the two of them making passionate love—

  She rolled her eyes. “You needn’t worry about it,” Claire said as they reached the main landing. “Because we won’t be t-together.”

  With that pronouncement, the lady continued on ahead, leaving Caleb frozen to the spot where he stood, her valise in hand, feeling like she’d flipped him upside down and then turned him around several times for good measure.

  “We won’t—?” For yet another time that day, he let a thought go unfinished. But really, he was thoroughly befuddled.

  Claire paused and looked about, as if only just realizing she was alone. “Be together,” she called out. “We won’t be together.”

  Caleb resumed his walk, finding his way to where she stood at the doorway into the keep. Pressing the handle, he let Claire in and followed close behind.

  Warmth immediately came rushing up to meet them.

  “You were looking for a wife. That hasn’t changed, has it?” She stared pointedly at him, and he made himself nod. Claire beamed. “Splendid, because I”—she touched her chest—“am looking for a husband.” She lifted a finger. “A specific husband.”

  “Me.”

  Claire nodded, and far more in possession of her wits than he was, she reached behind him to draw the door shut. She stared expectantly at him.

  “You want to marry me?” he asked a different way, stalling for time.

  “I was going to marry a stranger. One whom you pointed out might have attempted to control me and subjugate me. Therefore, I’d say you are a marked improvement.” She smiled.

  And then it occurred to him. She really was serious. She was, in fact, asking him to be her husband. In sickness and in health. Through good times and bad. And all the other farcical lies contained within those vows.

  “Claire,” he began, removing his damp gloves and stuffing them inside his jacket. “I can’t marry you.” Surely she saw that.

  “Why not?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

  Why not, indeed? There were a million and one reasons not to, but he knew Claire Poplar enough not to say as much. Instead, he settled for the most obvious ones. “You’re—”

  “If you say I’m Poppy’s sister-in-law, I’m going to slug you,” she said with a smile. And he believed her.

  Only, he’d come to care too much about her to not be honest with her.

  “You want to know why, Claire? Because yes, in part, it is because you are Poppy’s sister-in-law.”

  Her entire body jerked erect, and her smile grew strained, tense in the corners.

  “But the real truth is, you want a real marriage,” he said.

  “I do not,” she exclaimed with such indignation he almost believed her. But they’d shared so much with each other. And the blush that bloomed in her cheeks said that she knew as much, too. “I may have mentioned wanting life to be a certain way, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t made peace with what I wanted.” Her eyes pleaded for him to believe her.

  “Fine.” He allowed her to that lie she likely clung to for the sake of pride and dignity. Or mayhap it was just that she, in fact, believed what she said in these moments. Which was perhaps the greatest reason of all to decline her offer.

  Caleb stretched his hand out and brushed his knuckles down the curve of her cold cheek. She leaned into his touch. It was the faintest, most slight, infinitesimal angling of her head, along with a fluttering of her lashes, and watching her as he did, captivated as he’d become, he caught each of those telling details.

  “You may have accepted all that,” he murmured. “But you deserve a real marriage, Claire. And someday, you’re going to find yourself coming out on the other side of the situation that brought you here, a situation you had nothing to do with,” he added with a quiet insistence. “And I won’t have you trapped in a loveless, empty marriage to a bastard like me.”

  “So as some manner of honor, you’d have me trapped in a loveless, empty marriage to another?” she asked quietly, and he stilled as her words ushered in a different imagining this time.

  Some fancy English gent capable of poems and smiles and not being a gruff, insensitive fellow, and…

  He let his arm fall and fisted his hand at his side, wanting that future for her, but selfish enough to resent the nameless stranger anyway.

  “I know you, Claire. You’re not going to settle for that. Not anymore.”

  Fire flashed in her eyes. “Do not make this about protecting me from myself, Caleb Gray.”

  He frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Did she not realize he’d come to care about her? She’d accuse him of having some ulterior motives?

  Claire rejoined with a question of her own. “What is this really about, Caleb?”

  What exactly was she asking? “I’m not following, sweetheart,” he said slowly, sensing a trap here.

  “You’ll say your art,” she said matter-of-factly. “Or you’ll point out that you have to travel. London one day. Paris another. But never America, though.”

  At the corner of his eye, a muscle twitched. She didn’t know what she was talking about. Caleb forced back the tide of denials he wished to level, refusing to feed her questioning and accusations so that she would stop.

  Only, she proved tenacious in even this. When she spoke this time, however, there was a gentler quality to her tones. “But do you k
now what I think?”

  “I trust you intend to—”

  “Tell you?” she cut him off. “Yes. I’ll tell you the truth.” Claire angled her chin up. “I don’t think you’re searching for your muse, Caleb. Or actually heading anywhere…” She paused and gave him a long look that was full of such pity and sadness, he squirmed with discomfort. “I think you are running away,” she finished. “In fact…” She took a step toward him, and he reflexively moved back a step. Running from her and the suppositions she spoke as truths? “I don’t even really believe you’ve lost your muse.”

  He jerked, curling his hands tightly at his sides. “You don’t know a thing about it, Claire.” He gritted those words out as a warning.

  Alas, she proved braver than any grown man, from the navy to street-hardened criminals who’d been impressed alongside Caleb.

  She took another step closer. “If your muse is lost, you cannot bring yourself to stay in whatever place you happen to be residing.”

  The charge sent his pulse pounding harder and louder in his ears, leaving a sickly sweat to coat his skin. Claire, however, wasn’t done with him.

  “You are constantly leaving. Never staying in one place too long.”

  His gut clenched.

  “Always running from your past. From what you endured on that ship.”

  Stop.

  “From the pain of your broken engagement and your brother’s betrayal.”

  Every word was a lash upon his soul, sharper than any he’d taken aboard the British man-o’-war ship.

  “From the parents you never even speak about. All the while, you’re looking for something that isn’t truly missing, so you don’t have to bring yourself to—”

  His patience broke. “Enough,” he bellowed, his heart threatening to pound outside his chest.

  Claire jumped several inches, and all the color drained from her cheeks.

  “I said enough,” he echoed a second time, even as that order was unnecessary. She’d already at last given him her silence. “You think, what?” he demanded. “We spend several days together, and you suddenly know me? Well, you don’t, Claire. You know nothing.”

  But her silence didn’t bring him relief. It brought a sick sense of guilt at having yelled at her.

  They remained there, fixed to their spots. Claire’s shoulders rose and fell at a quick cadence. And then she gave a shaky nod.

  “Forgive me,” she said stiffly. “Our marrying, it was a foolish thought from the start. As you pointed out, you don’t even like me.” With that, she started around him and headed down the corridor.

  The one-sidedness of her last declaration did not escape Caleb.

  A muscle twitched at the corner of his eye.

  She believed his declination and reaction just now somehow stemmed from feelings of resentment on his part. Yes, maybe that would have held true months ago. But so much had changed between them. Everything had changed. Now, his rejection came because of how damned much she’d come to mean to him.

  Caleb stared after her rapidly retreating frame.

  Let her go. It is easier this way, for the both of us. Let her think you don’t like her.

  But damn it all, he couldn’t just have her leave this place thinking that.

  “I didn’t say I dislike you, Claire,” he bit out.

  She stopped, but did not turn to face him, and he strode over to her, sliding into her path.

  “I like you,” he said tiredly. “Perhaps too much,” he murmured, palming her nape.

  Claire’s rosebud lips slipped apart.

  With that, he was lost.

  Caleb covered her mouth with his, swallowing the little sigh she emitted as she let him inside, and he delved deep into that hot cavern.

  Claire swirled her tongue around his, like some manner of wand she wove, and maybe it was because this, having her in his arms pressed against him, was pure magic.

  Growling, he lowered his hands and cupped her buttocks, bringing her up higher, flush against him, and as magnificently wanton as she was whenever she was in his arms, she rocked herself against him, undulating her hips, further fueling this voracious hungering that refused to quit where Claire was concerned.

  Drawing her higher into his arms, he guided her up, and she instantly wrapped her legs around him, her wet skirts riding high about her waist as he bared her limbs.

  Caleb guided her up onto the nearby hall table, and she let her legs splay so he could step between them. She was bare of undergarments, and he slipped his palm between her legs and found her, cupping the silken thatch of curls.

  Her eyes clenched tight, Claire moved against his hand. “Mmm,” she moaned.

  “What do you want?” he whispered against her mouth. “Tell me,” he demanded and brushed his thumb over her nub once, eliciting a sharp hiss.

  He stopped, and her eyes immediately opened. “Tell me,” he repeated, withholding that which she sought.

  “More,” she begged, and he obliged, sliding a finger inside her.

  Claire’s body instantly sagged, and she collapsed against the wall, lifting into his touch. Moving her hips wildly in time to his strokes, she set the table under her knocking against the wall.

  Sweat beaded on his broad brow, and he viciously hungered to take even more. More than he had a right to. But right didn’t stop that hungering, the need to bring her to surcease just once more.

  Once was all he’d need, and then they could part ways and—

  And he was a fucking liar. He was going to paint these moments in his mind long after they’d parted, all bright and burning color on a canvas to capture her as she was when she found her pleasure.

  He increased the steady rhythm of his strokes. Claire’s respirations grew sharp and harsh, her movements jerky, and then she stiffened.

  “Yesssss,” she cried out, loud enough in her surrender that any nearby servant could hear. She continued pumping her hips, and then she stopped.

  And the truth was, as Caleb pressed a kiss against her temple and struggled to get control of his breathing and heartbeat after her coming undone in his arms once more, he confronted maybe the greatest reason he’d really said no: He wanted her with the fierce kind of intensity that could only see a man destroyed.

  Chapter 20

  As Claire made her way to dinner that night, she passed the long row of windows and stared at the snowflakes that had begun falling past the frosted lead panes. Every other panel bore a crack.

  She paused and ran a fingertip along a winding, lightning-shaped zigzag, following it all the way to the bottom of the panel.

  Cracked panels she’d expected.

  Just as she’d expected a husband.

  Neither of which there would be now.

  Claire briefly closed her eyes. And certainly there wouldn’t be anything with Caleb following that volatile exchange just prior to his bringing her to pleasure. Yes, that moment in his arms had been splendorous. But ultimately, they’d proven harmonious in matters of passion, but at odds in every other way.

  You think, what? We spend several days together, and you suddenly know me? Well, you don’t, Claire. You know nothing.

  Sucking in a shaky breath, Claire rested her forehead against the crack upon the window.

  He wanted nothing to do with her… beyond sating each other’s desire. That much was clear. And yet, that didn’t stop her from wanting him anyway.

  Her heart spasmed. God help her, she yearned for him. The man who spoke to her about demanding more and expecting more for herself than the business arrangement she’d set out in search of. His rejection had been the most painful one, and yet, the most beautiful. Caleb was correct. Claire did deserve love and a very real marriage, one that was a joyous partnership like the one she’d witnessed between Tristan and Poppy.

  He’d been right about so much. She wasn’t responsible for her parents’ crimes. She was not undeserving of happiness because of the bad decisions other people had made. Even as it had been easier to live in gu
ilt.

  Yes, the guilt would always be with her… and regret and pain for her family’s involvement in Lord Maxwell’s disappearance. But she did not own those crimes and mistakes. Her mother and father had been the ones who’d acted in evil. Not Claire. Not Tristan. Nor Faye, nor Christina.

  A lightness filled her chest as that realization… set her free. She’d accused Caleb of running, but mayhap she’d been able to recognize that in him as she herself had been fleeing.

  Claire saw that and, more important, now believed that—because of Caleb. He’d opened her eyes to so much.

  It was just one of the reasons she’d fallen so desperately in love with him.

  Claire went motionless. Close to the window as she still was, the now-warmed glass panel reflected her wide, unblinking eyes and slack jaw. Her breathing grew raspy in the empty corridor.

  She couldn’t love Caleb Gray.

  Her body hummed with a restless energy, prompting Claire back into movement.

  It was preposterous. As he’d pointed out, they were constantly at war. A small half laugh, half sob spilled from her lips. But the advertisement that had led to their chance meeting at the Rotted Rooster had been fate’s way of bringing them together.

  And that was just one of the reasons why, even after their tumultuous exchange that afternoon, she was eager to see him again. On the morn, they’d head back to London, and at the end of that final leg of her journey, they would part ways for a final time. Until that day, however, she wanted to steal as many moments as she could with him.

  Claire reached the dining room and came up short in the threshold of the doorway.

  There were two occupants in the room. The woman, Sarah, who’d been assigned as her maid, sat at the opposite end of the table, knitting, a temporary companion for the night.

  And the gentleman was not the particular gentleman she’d been expecting, the man she’d been so desperately wanting to see.

  “Miss Poplar,” Mr. Harrison greeted, dropping a slight but respectable bow.

  Unlike Caleb, who didn’t bother with that expression when he greeted any English person, considering the bow second only in silliness to the curtsy. And she found that was just one of the many things she’d come to love about Caleb. He didn’t bother with useless societal norms. He didn’t stand on ceremony. He just… was. And he treated her like anyone else.