A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  Caleb remained there, staring after the place he’d last spotted her carriage on the horizon. Frozen. Numb. Neither from the cold.

  The crunch of snow echoed behind Caleb, and he stiffened when Wade stopped at his side. Standing shoulder to shoulder with him, his friend stared out to the place where Caleb kept his gaze trained.

  “Well, that’s done,” the other man said, so conversationally that Caleb gritted his teeth.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve already taken the liberty of drawing this up,” his friend said, holding out a sheet.

  Dazed from Claire’s sudden departure and Wade’s return to normal, matter-of-fact business, he glanced down at four names that had been etched in the middle of the page.

  “I’ve dragged out the same list of the women I compiled before.”

  Now, with one crossed out. That cinch wrapped about his chest once more, at odds with Wade’s casualness. “This time, I’ve taken the liberty of suggesting an in-person interview.”

  Ripping the sheet from his friend’s hand, Caleb growled and stalked off.

  His friend proved persistent.

  “Do you want me to get new names?” Wade asked as they passed into the foyer. “Take out a different advertisement?”

  The dutiful butler pushed the doors shut behind them.

  Caleb quickened his stride, heading for his ballroom.

  The ballroom where he’d made love to Claire, and now any time he entered that room, he would see her and hear her cries of pleasure like a ricochet about the walls and in his mind. “Just stop,” he bit out.

  They reached the ballroom.

  “Stop what?” Wade pressed. “Asking you what the hell you are doing letting that lady go?”

  “You don’t know a goddamned thing—”

  “I know you delayed your travels to Paris.”

  “Because I had to,” he snapped.

  “Yeah. Right,” Wade said with a sarcasm-filled smile. “You, whose life is your art, decided to make yourself a caregiver to a stranded lady.”

  Heat climbed Caleb’s neck. “She—”

  “Is Poppy’s sister-in-law. Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that. I think the sole reason you escorted Claire Poplar is because you wanted to. Not for any other reason. Just like I know you don’t really want to leave. You don’t want to go to Paris. You want to be here.”

  It was insane to think as much, that he’d actually want to be here in England.

  “I think you want to be here with her,” Wade clarified with a somberness that brought sweat to Caleb’s brow.

  He pressed his eyes shut. “You don’t know anything about it.” How could the other man? Caleb himself couldn’t make sense of anything.

  “I’ve seen you in pain. I’ve seen you terrorized. Afraid. I’ve witnessed you consumed by your work.” A sad smile formed on Wade’s lips. “But you know what I’ve never seen you?”

  Blank, Caleb shook his head.

  “Happy,” his friend answered. “I’ve never seen you happy. Until now. I’ve known you sixteen years and had never seen you forget yourself as you did until the few days you spent with Miss Poplar. And now, you’ll just let her slip away?” Wade gave his head a pitying shake, and with that, he finally gave Caleb what he’d sought—solitude.

  And yet, as Caleb set to work on his painting, he’d never felt more hollow than he did in this moment.

  Chapter 23

  She’d expected questions the moment the carriage departed.

  Claire had anticipated a furious diatribe as her brother unleashed his anger about all the foolishness of what she’d done and risked.

  Alas, Tristan had shown restraint.

  Nearly thirty minutes passed before he said so much as a word, and when it did come, it wasn’t accompanied by the emotion she’d expected, but rather, a quiet calm.

  “Do you want to talk about it, Claire?” he asked.

  Her gaze directed out at the passing snow-covered landscape, Claire stared at the wild, untamed lands of North Yorkshire. She wanted to forget about how close she’d been to having all she’d ever wanted, with Caleb Gray.

  Caleb, who when he’d called her name and charged after her, had led her to believe for one moment that he was coming for her. That he couldn’t bear the thought of being separated. Tears stung her eyes. Foolish. Foolish. Foolish. Of course, that’s not what it had been about.

  Alas, he’d given her valuable guidance in finding an art instructor.

  “Claire?”

  She started, jolted back to her brother’s question. What had it been? Ah, yes, did she wish to speak about it?

  “No,” she said softly. “I don’t.”

  “Well, we’re going to.”

  Claire managed her first smile of the day. She forced her gaze from the frosted window. “I thought you asked if I wanted to.”

  “I was being polite.” Tristan looped an ankle across his opposite knee. “I was hoping you’d say yes. I was hoping you would tell me on your own what madness compelled you to leave.” His previously calm tones grew increasingly agitated as he spoke, the questions coming without even a pause for her to interject an answer. “To seek out a stranger. My God, Claire, what possessed you?” he demanded on a furious whisper.

  She winced. In all her life, he’d never spoken to her with the disappointment now dripping from his every word.

  Dropping that nonchalant pose, he leaned forward. “Is it really that bad, Claire?” There was such pain in her brother’s voice that tears clogged her throat. “Has it been so bad that you would run off to marry a strang—?”

  “No!” she exclaimed. Except, that wasn’t the whole truth. “Yes.”

  His features contorted in such grief, she briefly closed her eyes. “Th-that is, not because of you. Not because of Poppy. It is just… I am so tired of being linked to what Mother and Father did,” she implored, begging for him to understand. “I hate what they did. And I hate that I shall be held accountable.”

  “Oh, Claire.” His voice broke, and he reached a hand out.

  She ignored that offering from her eldest sibling. “I don’t have a future awaiting me, Tristan.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “You know I don’t,” she shot back. “You said it yourself,” she pointed out, reminding him of that day they’d been forced out of the Earl of Maxwell’s townhouse, and she and her sisters had been carted off to the country while Tristan had remained behind in London.

  “Whatever happened to, ‘I for one don’t much care if some proper lords and ladies give us the cut direct. If a gentleman doesn’t wish to know me or marry me because of actions beyond my control…’?”

  My God, he’d remembered verbatim those words she’d spoken to him in the ballroom that day.

  “I lied,” she cried out. “I lied because I wanted you to not feel so bad because it wasn’t your fault.”

  “It wasn’t yours either, Claire,” Tristan said quietly.

  She paused. Yes, she knew that… now. Because of Caleb. She slumped in her seat, seeing Caleb on the bench across from her as they sketched quietly together. Conversed. Learned each other’s bodies…

  This time, she didn’t attempt to hide the flow of tears. She let the big drops well in her eyes and fall silently down her cheeks.

  A tortured groan slipped from Tristan’s lips, and he reached another hand out.

  “I’m not a child anymore, Tristan,” she said, her voice catching. “I am tired of being a burden.”

  He made a sound of protest. “You would never be a burden.” That denial burst from him.

  A half laugh, half sob escaped her. “Tristan, not having a life of my own and imagining that I’ll always live in your household, it’s simply how I feel. I am never going to have a life of my own. You cannot make any of this go away. You cannot make society accept me. You cannot make a-anyone love me.”

  But she didn’t want just anyone. Caleb. She wanted him to love her as desperately and passionately as she loved him.
<
br />   “It is my life to command,” she finished.

  “I respect that,” he said instantly. “But can you please not let those commands include tying yourself to a stranger? My God, Claire, he could have been any madman. He could have beat—”

  “I know,” she bit out. She’d considered every last horrible possibility before she’d responded to that advertisement.

  Her brother’s gaze scoured her face. “And yet, it was still a risk you took?”

  “It was,” she said tiredly. “Because at least then it would have been my decision.”

  A sound of frustration escaped him, and Claire’s patience snapped.

  “How dare you, Tristan?” she hissed. “How dare you condemn me? You, who were so determined to restore honor and not look like a fortune hunter, joined the military, again.”

  He winced. “Claire.”

  “No,” she said calmly, forging ahead even as her heart raced from the double standards of it all. “You then agreed to a business arrangement with Poppy.”

  “It wasn’t the same thing,” he mumbled, and at least he had the good grace to blush at his own hypocrisy.

  “Why?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Because you fell in love? Well, I—” Claire clamped her lips shut, but it was too late. In her bid to defend her actions, she’d exposed herself in the most agonizing way.

  Oh, God.

  She whipped her gaze back toward the window, silently pleading. Please, do not say anything. Please let it go. Please, just—

  “Do you want to talk about Gray?”

  All her muscles clenched. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “I knew before you let slip what you just let slip,” he said gently. “I knew the moment you rushed into his office, pretending to be happy to see me.”

  Claire flinched. “You knew—”

  “Knew that you were pretending? Yes, I knew that, too. Don’t take me for either a blind man or a fool, Claire. You’re my sister.”

  Claire sank her teeth into her lower lip to steady the tremble. “What is there to say?” she asked on an aching whisper. She folded her arms around her middle. “I hated him… until I didn’t. I despised him until I fell madly in love with him.”

  He ran a hand down the right side of his face. “Oh, Claire. I’m sorry.”

  “That he doesn’t love me back?” She couldn’t swallow back the bitterness in her reply. “No, you’re not. You’ve hated him from the moment you came home and found him instructing Poppy.”

  “Fair enough.” He leaned forward again, but remained silent until she met his gaze. “But this has nothing to do with Poppy and everything to do with you. Caleb Gray doesn’t deserve you.” Then, just like when she’d been a small girl, he tweaked her nose. “No man does.”

  “He does,” she whispered. Her brother was wrong. About so much.

  “If he was fool enough to let you go, Claire,” he said quietly, “then no, he was never worthy of you.”

  Perhaps. Because the man she loved was surely one who would fight for her, who would be so bereft at the thought of her leaving that he’d stop her carriage midflight.

  Another tear slipped down her cheek, and she discreetly brushed it back.

  And yet, this wasn’t one of the romantic tales she’d once read. This wasn’t some love story for the stage. This was life, as real and harsh and painful as only life could truly be. Love was complicated and messy, and there weren’t happily-ever-afters. At least not for everyone.

  The carriage rumbled along, past an open field, a familiar one she’d passed just two days ago. Had it really only been two days?

  Desperate to cling to the moments that existed beyond the carriage, to the memories she’d made there with Caleb, she brushed her gloved palm over the frosty glass, and laying her head against the cold panel, she stared out at Gordale Scar.

  This place was the closest she’d ever come to having everything she’d always wanted.

  It was now time to let go of a child’s dreams and look to the future that awaited her.

  Chapter 24

  She’d been successful.

  Claire had returned to the folds of her family and achieved that which she’d never thought to attain—victory over her mother.

  “This is a sin,” her mother hissed, wagging a finger at Claire. “With all that we have to worry about with Christina’s husband dying, now we need worry about you, too.”

  If it weren’t just like her mother to focus on such a triviality when her daughter’s beloved husband was suffering.

  “She hired an art instructor, Mother,” Tristan called from where he stood in the doorway, overseeing the exchange. “I’d hardly call this grounds for upset, and,” he dropped his voice to a whisper. “If we might please show some restraint for Christina and her children?”

  Alas, their mother would have to care about something more than she did their family’s reputation—their already ruined reputation. “A wicked, terrible art instructor whose work is shameless. Scandalous,” their mother called over to Tristan. “And he is a man.”

  “Men are as capable of being artists as females,” Claire pointed out, pretending to misunderstand the reason her mother had mentioned Mr. Francis De Witt’s gender.

  Her mother’s nostrils flared. “It’s all this one’s fault.” She shifted that shaking digit Poppy’s way. Poppy who, dressed in pants as she often was while painting, smiled in return.

  The dowager baroness gasped. “Shameful is what it is.”

  Claire, however, had returned to her family, not the same woman she’d been when she’d set out on her own, a woman who no longer tiptoed about her mother in a bid to avoid conflict. “I couldn’t agree more,” she drawled. “Someone with real sins on her hands daring to cast aspersions upon anyone else’s character, particularly a woman whose very generosity is the reason you aren’t in a debtors’ prison, is shameful indeed.”

  Their mother clutched at her throat. Her eyes bulged. “How dare—”

  “How dare I?” Claire cut her off. “How dare I defend Poppy against one such as you? I do it quite easily.

  “Please, just allow me to send one more name for you to consider?” the dowager baroness implored.

  Over the top of her head, Poppy caught her eye. “You decide,” she mouthed.

  Yes, it was her decision.

  This was the closest to independence she’d get as long as she was here. That would have to be enough. At least for now, it was.

  “I’ve made my decision on who my new art instructor will be, Mother.” Claire infused a firm insistence to let the dowager baroness know the matter was at an end.

  Her mother scraped a fury-laden gaze up and down Claire’s person. “You, running off as you did, aren’t fit to make any decisions. And now you’ll run off with a different male artist? There is no end to the shame you’ll bring.” With that scathing pronouncement, she stalked off.

  “I’m not really running off,” Claire pointed out with an unholy glee. “I’m planning to tour the Continent in the name of art and will have a chaperone for company.”

  “In the name of art,” their mother mumbled.

  Tristan hurriedly stepped aside so as to not get in the way of her retreat.

  “She’s leaving,” Tristan promised the moment she’d gone. “I thought it might bring Christina some comfort having her mother near.” At his wife and sister’s look, he mumbled. “I know. I know. I will see that she returns to London to join Faye.”

  “No!” Claire exclaimed. She and Faye had celebrate the freedom they would have from their miserable mother and prying eyes. Claire had gone off and lived her own life these past days, and she would soon leave to tour the Continent. She’d not steal Faye’s freedom.

  “No?” Tristan asked; his eyes filled with the heavy suspicion that only an older brother could achieve.

  Claire smoothed her features. “That is, let the decision be for Christina…” She glanced to Poppy. “And Poppy.” After all, Poppy was Tristan’s wife, a
nd her wishes should be considered before all.

  “Of course, we shall let Christina decide,” Poppy demurred.

  “And if Christina does choose to send Mother on her way,” Claire urged. “might I suggest Dartmoor?”

  Husband and wife exchanged a look that existed only between a loving couple, where no words were necessary, and Claire’s heart cracked and bled all over again from her envy of what they had and the yearning that hadn’t gone away, and had only grown, following her departure from North Yorkshire.

  It was too much.

  Ripping her stare away from her brother and his wife, Claire headed over to the canvas she’d begun work on five days earlier, her eyes going to the pair locked in an embrace, focusing on just one form upon that page.

  Caleb.

  Her throat moved in a painful way.

  She missed him.

  God, how she missed him.

  She even missed the brooding, surly side of him.

  Poppy approached Claire on the other side of the canvas, a fellow artist respecting and appreciating that it was no one’s place to look until a project was completed, and only then if an artist wished to share.

  She now understood why she’d so offended Caleb with her actions that day long ago.

  “Are you happy with your decision?” Poppy asked gently.

  “I’ve interviewed any number—”

  “That isn’t the decision I spoke of,” her sister-in-law interrupted.

  “Oh.” Claire stared at the brush she held in her fingers. “It wasn’t really a choice,” she said softly. “Not mine, anyway.”

  Poppy sighed. “Caleb is a—”

  The nursemaid appeared in the doorway; sparing Claire from having to listen to Poppy speak about the last man Claire wanted to think about. Not when her heart was already shattered.

  “Beg pardon, my lady,” the young maid was saying. “The little sir has awakened.”

  “Go,” Claire urged.

  Poppy hesitated a moment, and then hurried off.

  The moment her sister-in-law had gone, Claire devoted herself to her painting, losing herself in the image, losing herself in each stroke of her brush. Until something brushed her nose.