“I know what you’re thinking,” Claire murmured, and he startled, having failed to hear her approach from behind.
He had to force himself to look at her.
“You’re thinking you’ll go to Tristan and offer to marry me.”
God, it was unnerving how well this woman did know him. “It was one thing before I took your virtue, sweet—oomph.”
Claire jabbed a finger hard into his chest, cutting short the rest of that endearment.
Her eyes glimmered with her outrage. “You didn’t take anything. I gave it. Freely and happily. Because I chose it. You were the one who told me I shouldn’t settle for a formal arrangement.” Like a spirited warrior princess, Claire brought her head back, sending her curls dancing about her shoulders. “So by all means, if it will ease some unnecessary sense of guilt, go meet Tristan.” She waved a hand towards the front of the room. “Make your offer.” She let her arm fall to her side. “But I’ll not accept, Caleb.”
Of course she wouldn’t. Caleb briefly closed his eyes. “But you asked me before.” And now that he’d offered, she’d turn him down?
“That was before,” she explained, wagging that same digit she’d previously planted in his chest. “When it was mutually beneficial. Not now, when you feel duty-bound to marry me.”
He prayed for patience. “That doesn’t make any sense, Claire.”
She steeled her jaw. “It makes complete sense.”
He swept his gaze over her pale features, touching his eyes upon each beautiful angle of her delicate chin and high cheekbones.
At her strenuous objection and declination, Caleb should be… relieved. So where was that rush of sentiment? Why did he continue to feel an increasing sense of hollowness inside, greater than any he’d ever known before? A chasm of emptiness deeper than when he’d found his way back to America and discovered his brother and Alicia’s betrayal?
“Claire,” he began, making one more attempt.
Gripping him by his upper arms, Claire squeezed lightly and attempted to steer Caleb. “Go.” And this time, her implacable-until-now facade wavered, and a hint of tears glimmered in her eyes.
His heart seized, and he reached for her.
Claire tripped in her haste to get away. “Go,” she repeated. “Before my brother comes in search of you,” she said, brushing the moisture back as his mind raced to make sense of the reason for those tears.
But then, withdrawing from him, shutting him out, Claire presented him with her back and proceeded to dress.
“I’ve had a bath prepared. I’ll speak to your brother and allow you some time to… ready yourself,” he said.
“Thank you, Caleb.”
Thank you.
That was it, and with her words of gratitude the last spoken between them, he quit the ballroom, too much of a damned coward to look back.
She’d rejected his offer.
And she’d been quite decisive about it.
Furthermore, she’d been entirely right in her rejection. She did deserve more than a halfhearted request for an empty future with a bastard like him.
As such, to put the offer to her brother anyway would be to disrespect Claire and her wishes. The matter was settled, and all his energies deserved to be focused on the impending meeting with the lady’s brother. A brother who was undoubtedly prepared to meet Caleb across a dueling field.
Caleb reached his offices and found the Baron of Bolingbroke pacing.
Claire’s brother spun and faced him. His face was covered with several days’ worth of beard, his eyes sunken and glittering, his face haggard. He’d the look of a man who’d run himself ragged. Not dissimilar to the first time they’d met, after the man had been abroad serving in Ireland and returned late to his own wife’s art exhibit.
Never trust a person who didn’t properly appreciate a loved one’s art exhibit—it was a motto he lived by.
“Baron Bolingbroke,” he drawled as he entered the office. “A pleasure as—”
“Thank you,” the other man rasped. Surging forward, he met Caleb near the middle of the room, and not unlike the manner in which Claire had taken him by the arms, so, too, did the lady’s brother. “I cannot thank you enough.” The baron’s face crumpled. “I…” He dragged shaking hands through his hair. “Thank you.”
“It… is fine,” he said gruffly. Having anticipated a fight, he didn’t know what to make of this show of magnanimity from a man with whom he’d never gotten on. He motioned to the pair of chairs by the blazing hearth.
When Bolingbroke headed to claim one of those chairs, Caleb fetched a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Carrying them over, he sat and poured. All the while, the other man stared off blankly, his deadened eyes focused on the flames.
He’d known the baron for several years. After the other man had left his new wife, in service to that same military and king that had captured Caleb, the baron had returned, late to the lady’s art exhibit, and it had been all too easy to hate him for the Crown he served. God, Caleb preferred it when it was easier to not hate or commiserate with the man.
“Here,” he said, thrusting the drink under the other man’s nose.
Accepting it with a word of thanks, the baron stared at the contents a moment and then tossed them back in one quick swallow without so much as a grimace at the fiery burn. Wiping a hand across the back of his mouth, he set the glass on the arm of his chair.
“Do you know if she’s been hurt in any way?”
A memory traipsed in of Claire wandering the taproom of the Rotted Rooster, her eyes snapping as she’d taken on patron after patron, a beautiful warrior. He’d been in awe of her from the moment he’d found her there.
Feeling a questioning look on him, Caleb cleared his throat. “She wasn’t. She handled herself… quite capably.” In hopes that the other man would leave it at that, Caleb took a sip of his whiskey and studied his glass.
The baron jumped to his feet. “I do not understand why she would do this,” he said aloud, his voice unsteady. “When your letter arrived, my sister Faye confessed to an advertisement Claire had responded to.” Lord Bolingbroke spoke in a furious whisper. “A damned marriage advertisement. Why, only a madman would advertise for a damned wife, and my sister was going to tie herself to…” Shuddering, the baron gave his head a shake and let the remainder of his opinions go unfinished.
Caleb managed a sheepish smile. “Yeah, a crazy idea.”
“If it weren’t for you…” The baron’s throat moved rhythmically.
“She would have been fine,” Caleb said, unable to keep a wistful quality from creeping in. “Claire is capable and strong and clever, and she didn’t really need me.” Stop talking.
Except, he’d already said several sentences too much.
The madness eased from the other man’s eyes, replaced with something far more dangerous—suspicion.
Ever so slowly, the other man doffed his gloves and beat those leather articles against each other. “Capable and strong and clever, is she?” The baron’s gaze darkened.
Now, this was how he’d anticipated the exchange would go. And he welcomed it. Embraced the fight, because for some inexplicable reason, he felt like tossing his head back and raging at the world. Caleb quirked his lips up in a mocking grin. “If you don’t know that about your sister, then you’re not much of a brother, Bolingbroke.”
“Oh, I know it,” the other man said in silky tones, giving him another once-over. “The question is, should I be concerned that you’ve noticed as much about Claire?”
The immediate obvious and definite answer was absolutely. Any brother with a brain in his head and an ounce of older-brotherly protection within him would have already beat Caleb down.
“Tristan!”
At that exclamation from the doorway, Caleb and the baron broke apart.
And just like that, the fury faded from the other man’s threatening gaze. Relief and love so palpable contorted the baron’s features that Caleb had to briefly look away from
that show of emotion.
Bolingbroke held his arms open, and Claire was already racing over and launching herself at the other man. Her brother immediately folded his arms around her and closed his eyes.
It was… a new way to see the baron. Always before this, he’d represented every Englishman who’d been behind Caleb’s capture. A heartless, ruthless lord who cared about rank more than family. Hell, when Caleb had first met Poppy, the other man had left his new wife to go off in search of wealth and prestige with the King’s Army. Now, however, Bolingbroke was any other loving brother who’d been panicked at the idea of losing his sister.
Just then, Claire slid a glance beyond her brother’s shoulder in Caleb’s direction. She caught his eye and winked.
He stilled…
Why, the hellcat had been diffusing the escalating tension between Caleb and Bolingbroke.
He tamped down a chuckle. Claire Poplar could run circles around English and American men alike.
The baron set his sister back on her feet, and the pair of them proceeded to speak in hushed tones, with barely any of their exchange reaching Caleb. Occasionally, Claire would nod. Whatever responses she gave, however, ushered in a tangible relief from the gentleman as his shoulders grew less tense.
Through it, Caleb stuffed his hands in his pockets.
This was it. There was only one way this exchange ended, and that was with her departure.
As if Bolingbroke had followed Caleb’s thoughts, he said, “We need to return to London.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
As expected.
And yet, his stomach tightened in a sharp, painful way.
“…I took my mount for the sake of speed,” Bolingbroke was saying to Claire. “I will arrange for a carriage at the inn…it should not be long…”
As her brother went over the details of the lady’s upcoming travel arrangements, Claire looked to Caleb.
Something was expected of him here. Why was it even harder than usual to get any damned words out? Say something. “You can have the use of my carriage,” he said gruffly; interrupting Bolingbroke. “To get you back to London.” He could forsake the time during his carriage rides that he used for sketching so that Claire could have this.
The baron bowed his head. “Many thanks. For… all your assistance.”
Claire’s expression dimmed, indicating whatever response Caleb had given had proven the wrong one.
But what could he say? Nothing about how much he’d come to appreciate their time together could be spoken aloud, not in front of her brother. The last of their intimate exchanges and private discussions had come to an end in the ballroom when he’d taken his leave to meet her brother. In his haste to get to the meeting without further arousing Bolingbroke’s suspicions, however, he’d failed to realize it. And he’d let the moment pass.
“I trust you have to finalize your packing,” the gentleman said to Claire.
Claire proved uncooperative, refusing to cede the ground and leave Caleb and the baron alone. “It is already being seen to. As we speak, my trunk is likely now being brought down.”
She hesitated. The lady would try to protect Caleb? He was undeserving of that show of support.
He lifted his head slightly, and Claire held his gaze once more before taking a reluctant-looking retreat from the office. In her wake, she left the door gaping open.
The ghost of a smile brought Caleb’s lips up, immediately quashed by the black look Bolingbroke turned his way.
The baron spoke without preamble. “My sister and I are not like some of the siblings amongst the ton. We do and have always gotten on. Our affection for one another is real.”
“And?” Caleb asked coolly, wanting the other man to get to whatever it was he’d intended to say before Claire’s arrival.
“I know my sister,” Bolingbroke said bluntly. “I know she ran in here as a diversion, which of course only gives me reason to trust there was a reason she felt she needed to distract me.”
So the man wasn’t as empty-headed as Caleb had previously taken him for.
The baron took a step toward him. “I don’t know what occurred between you and my sister once you found her,” he whispered, “but I suspect whatever it was? It would require me to call you out.” A vein bulged and throbbed across the other man’s tense brow. He stepped back. “But I also know you are the reason l learned where to find her, and for that reason and that reason alone, I’ll let you live.”
Let him live.
The baron was shorter and less muscular than Caleb by half, but fire glared from the gentleman’s eyes. Caleb smirked. “I appreciate that.”
Bolingbroke flattened his lips into a hard, angry line, and then with all the arrogance, only an Englishman was capable of and all the command of the owner of the keep, he stalked off.
Caleb followed along after the gentleman through the corridors, every step bringing him that much closer to his trip to Paris. And closer to Claire’s departure.
When he reached the foyer just behind Claire’s brother, he found the space bustling with the activity of servants rushing about.
Wade, demonstrating all the reasons Caleb had made him his assistant and why he relied so heavily upon him, was calling orders to the footmen. He’d anticipated that Claire and her brother would require the carriage.
Next came a pair of strapping servants, each holding an end of Claire’s trunk. Right behind them followed the young maid who’d served as Claire’s de facto chaperone, and clasped in the young woman’s hands was the floral valise she was never without.
As if of their own will, Caleb’s eyes locked on that article as he recalled the day Claire had entered the Rotted Rooster, swinging that bag about, refusing to relinquish it. That bag that contained her art supplies and was always with her. Fixed on her valise’s journey from this place, and his life, he stared on until it was carried through those front doors to the waiting carriage outside.
All his muscles contracted.
His skin pricked from the stare of another upon him, and Caleb glanced at Claire’s brother.
From under hooded lashes, the baron stared intently back, his expression inscrutable.
Caleb made himself unclench hands he’d not realized he’d balled at his sides.
The baron whipped his attention away from Caleb and upward.
Claire.
She glided down the stairs, the queen that she’d set out to be of this keep. And, for all her regalness and strength and courage, the queen she should be. She was more deserving of this parcel of land than Caleb, or any other man, for that matter.
Claire reached the bottom step, and his housekeeper came forward to greet her with the green cloak. “Here you are, miss,” she said cheerfully, helping Claire into the garment.
That cheerfulness was at odds with the familiar darkness that lived within Caleb, a darkness he’d not known… this week. Because this week, there’d been laughter and light and discourse. But instead of making him claustrophobic and becoming grating, it had been a welcome balm that he’d not appreciated… until now. Until this moment when he was about to lose it.
And then, as if fate sought to mock him for that loss, Claire, now attired in her cloak and bonnet, looked up.
Dressed to leave, she was.
“Again, please accept my heartfelt thanks,” the baron said quietly, his words reserved for Caleb and hushed so as to not be overheard by nearby servants.
I don’t want your damned thanks…
He’d not helped Claire because of the baron. Some of it had been because of Poppy, but always it had been about… Claire. To say as much would only invite the duel the other man had alluded to. Instead of saying anything, however, Caleb inclined his head.
Bolingbroke dropped a bow and headed for the open door.
Claire and Caleb lingered there together.
“So this is goodbye,” he said needlessly, his voice even more peculiarly flat to his own ears.
A
wistful smile teased her lips. “So this is goodbye.”
He glanced outside to where her brother now stood speaking to the driver.
So little time. It was all slipping away so quickly. Too quickly. And there was so much to say. But he’d been without words for so long, he wasn’t even sure what the right ones were in this instant.
“What’ll you do, Claire?” When he headed to Paris and she was back in London, would there be another business arrangement she’d seek out with another man? And why did the thought of it make him want to toss his head back and snarl like a wounded beast?
Claire glanced down at her clasped hands. “I don’t know. Perhaps find an art instructor.”
He took a step closer. “That’s not what I meant, Claire.” He needed to know if she was going to go out looking for a marriage of convenience with a man who’d never be deserving of her.
“I know,” she said with a sad little smile. She opened her mouth as if she would say more.
“Claire!” Tristan called, and she and Caleb glanced over.
“Goodbye,” she said softly, and with that, she hurried off. Taking her brother’s hand, she let him help her into the carriage.
“Claire!” Caleb called out, and Claire froze, turning back to face him.
His heart pounded hard as he raced out onto the stone steps, taking them quickly. He ignored the way the wind cut through the fabric of his garments and rushed closer, stopping himself several paces away from the carriage. “Don’t accept anyone who’s going to place constraints on you. Don’t find someone who’s going to steal your joy and control you. An art instructor, that is,” he finished lamely.
Claire moved her gaze over his face and then nodded. “Goodbye, Caleb.”
Then, as quickly as she’d come crashing back into his life at the Rotted Rooster, she was gone.
A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1) Page 24
