Ever His Bride

by Linda Needham

  “I know you only by your name, Mr. Claybourne,” she said in the void left by his unwieldy silence. “And know for a certainty that I couldn’t possibly owe you so much as a ha’penny. You have arrested the wrong woman.”

  “And you have stolen from the wrong man, Miss Mayfield.”

  “Stolen?” She laughed then, still vastly nervous but relieved by his blatant accusation. “I’ve never stolen anything from anybody.”

  Claybourne’s greatcoat fluttered, then folded around him as he stepped away from the hearth. The simple act gave the room back its glowering light, but none of its warmth. His profile sharpened as he bent to retrieve a sheaf of papers from a side table. She wished she could see more of him, the slant of his mouth, or the depth of his eyes—something beyond the shadows.

  He turned then, looked down at her from across his papers. But his eyes only drew her into a deeper darkness.

  “Your uncle is Foley Mayfield.”

  “My uncle?” She swallowed back a lump of foreboding and sidled over to a spindly chair, gripped the rails of its laddered back, prepared to wield it should Claybourne choose to overtake her. “What does my uncle have to do with this?”

  “Where is he now?” he asked evenly.

  “My uncle is two days out of Portsmouth, sailing for San Francisco and the gold fields.” Then she chided herself for confessing the information. Dear Uncle Foley would be helpless against such a powerfully coercive man. “What could you want with—”

  “You gave Foley Mayfield the legal authority to sell the shares held by you as the sole owner of the Drayhill-Starlington Railway.”

  So that was it! The great financier had come sniffing out an easy profit. “Mr. Claybourne, is this about the shares my father left to me when he died?”

  “Your uncle was acting as your agent under your instruction in the matter of the railway?” Claybourne stepped away from the side table and moved toward her.

  She quickly countered his approach, feeling every bit the trapped rabbit. She left the chair and caught her foot on the sideboard, causing the prisms dangling from the lamp to chatter.

  “Did you give your uncle permission to sell your shares?” His voice had grown darker, steadier.

  “Of course, he had my permission. I signed a promissory note indicating that I owned the shares and the railway and that he could act as my agent.” She backed toward the hearth. Claybourne was mad. And he knew entirely too much about her and her family. “The papers are quite legal, Mr. Claybourne, drawn up by Francis Biddle, a solicitor of good repute. The shares were valuable, I’m told, but they’ve already been sold—”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Then why—”

  “Your uncle sold the shares to me, Miss Mayfield. I paid him thirty thousand pounds for the privilege.”

  The hearth light seemed to intensify and Claybourne’s shadow threw itself against the water-stained ceiling. The enormous shoulders she’d thought hunched were actually broad and carelessly hooded by a half-cape. His hair was dark and unfashionably long, and he was watching her.

  “Well, then the shares now belong to you, Mr. Claybourne. I don’t see what—”

  “No, Miss Mayfield. The shares still belong to you.” He started toward her, motion without perceptive movement.

  “Don’t be absurd, Mr. Claybourne. You gave the money to my uncle: a great stack of it—piled into a satchel.” She backed away from his towering height until the fire became too warm at her back and she had to stop. “I saw the bank notes with my own eyes, in his satchel, just before he sailed to San Francisco.”

  “I’m sure you did.” And now he was the whole of her vision, bearing a lime-laced heat all his own, despite the fog-born chill that had hidden itself among the folds of his cloak. “How old are you, Miss Mayfield?”

  “That’s no business of yours—”

  But the horrible man reached out and wound his huge hand around the ribbon at her neckline and pulled her closer, till his breath heated her hairline and her brow. He was blended spice and damp fog; his face was dark planes and brusque angles.

  “How old?” his demand lingering between them.

  “Twenty!” she whispered, then flinched as the word brushed back against her mouth. “I’m twenty.”

  He drew her closer still, until his teeth near blinded her in the firelight. “Then you have committed a felony, Miss Mayfield. Those shares aren’t yours to sell until you are twenty-five.”

  Now she knew the color of his eyes, as she knew the color of cold malice. Her heart beat madly beneath the heel of his hand, thumping out her fear, confessing her shame.

  “This can’t be true—”

  “Oh, it’s true, my dear little thief. And now you will marry me, or I’ll see that you spend the next five years in debtor’s prison.”

  Chapter 2

  “Marry you?” Felicity wanted to cower and run from those glacial eyes but forced a bravado she didn’t feel

  “Marry a misbegotten heathen like you? I will not!”

  Claybourne straightened as if she’d slapped him—which she would have done, if she thought that a mountain could be moved.

  “Will you not, Miss Mayfield?” His touch frosted her skin as he drew his finger along the ridge of her jaw. “This maiden’s blush of yours will soon pale to chalk inside the damp walls of the Queen’s Bench. Dare you risk it?”

  “You’ve got the facts wrong, Mr. Claybourne. The shares and the railway were mine to sell whenever I wanted. Now, let go of me.”

  He glanced down at his fist, still balled beneath her chin, and crushing her silk ribbons. His gaze slowed as it returned to her face, lingering too long on her mouth before finding its way to her eyes. Firelight imbedded gold in the faint stubble that bristled his jawline. Yes, he looked quite mad.

  Claybourne released her roughly and she scooted away to the safety of the ladder-back chair, her heart and her pulse doing some kind of spiraling dance together.

  “Brava, my dear. You perform outraged innocence with rare precision. As precisely as your uncle performed his thick-headed simplicity. Well done.” Claybourne slammed his palms together twice in mock applause.

  “I am outraged, Mr. Claybourne!”

  “So am I, Miss Mayfield. No one steals from me. No one.”

  “Sir, you are a lunatic!” She clutched the crinkled ribbon at her throat, remembering the heat of his hand, the silk of his breath. “My father left those shares to me as my inheritance. They were mine to spend or to invest as I pleased.”

  “Do you read, Miss Mayfield?” Claybourne’s hand was steady as he held out a sheaf of papers toward her.

  “Of course, I do!” Felicity reached across the distance and snatched the document.

  “Then you can see for yourself, paragraph three: the Bank of England has legal hold of your shares, in trust, until you reach the age of twenty-five. Or until—”

  “Until I reach the age…” Terrified by his calculated certainty, she hurried along in the paragraph, sure that she would find the error in his interpretation. Her father wouldn’t have done this to her! And then she saw it, the terrible phrase laid down like a whispered curse from the grave.

  “Until I reach the age of twenty-five, or until I’ve… been married for the period of one year.” Her knees came unstrung as the life seemed to drain from her, leaving her wanting air and hope and grasping for the back of the chair. Then let her gaze rise to meet Claybourne’s.

  He seemed an ill-bred bear who’d wandered into the Cobsons’ parlor, his savagery disguised as patience as he waited to snag a tasty morsel from the tea tray. His head was cocked, his shoulders bent forward, his hands clasped behind him—prepared, she was sure, to strangle her.

  But the pompous man was right about this damnable clause. According to the document, she had no right to the shares for another five years. She was too far from the hearth for the heat that sizzled the tips of her ears to be anything but shame.

  “I knew nothing of this, sir. Tru
ly. I would never have agreed!” An uncomfortable memory of her uncle’s vacillating gaze as she signed the Power of Attorney suddenly clarified. Uncle Foley had deceived her!

  Claybourne shrugged and sighed. “Whether you knew of it or not is immaterial. You and your family have committed a fraud against me. I want my money returned immediately.”

  “Thirty thousand pounds!” She covered her mouth and laughed again at the absurdity. She had a thousand pounds to her name, money left over from the sale of the shares. The rest she had invested in her uncle’s venture. “Mr. Claybourne, I haven’t got that kind of money. I’ve barely enough to last me the week.”

  “Then I will take your shares.”

  Now the man was being stupid, and she fixed her most scathing gaze on him. “Sir, you know very well that I cannot give you either at the moment. But rest assured that my uncle will return within a year. He expects to quadruple my investment, with the picks and shovels and other indispensable goods he plans to buy in San Francisco then sell to the miners in the gold fields. Allow me that short time to repay you, Mr. Claybourne, and I will double your money.”

  But Claybourne had gone deadly calm.

  “Your uncle is an ass.”

  “How dare you! Uncle Foley is a kind and gentle man who helped my father when times were lean—”

  “He’s a witless felon, who will be stripped of his money—my money—long before he arrives in San Francisco to purchase his wares. He’ll be lucky if he isn’t murdered in his sleep.”

  “How dare you!”

  His gaze was the sort of terror that beckoned. She couldn’t look away.

  “Thirty thousand pounds, Miss Mayfield, in a satchel? Do you know what a man will do for that kind of money? Do you know how low he will sink to attain it?”

  “I don’t, Mr. Claybourne, but obviously you do!”

  The air grew still and she knew better than to breathe or to move as he approached her. Obsidian— that was the color. His eyes shone like obsidian, sharp and brittle, offering nothing but blackness. The mocking edge to his humorless smile was in truth a small scar on the upper ridge near the corner. Though why she was looking just there, at the fine fullness of his mouth, when she ought to be preparing for his imminent assault, was a matter she’d have to sort out later.

  “Repeat such words, my dear little felon, and those five years in prison will turn to fifty.”

  “Better five hundred years of prison squalor than a marriage to you!” She hurried to the far side of the room to rid herself of the dizzying sensation of looking up at him. “Sir, before we continue this discussion, I beg your indulgence to speak with my solicitor.”

  “The honorable Mr. Biddle? I think not, Miss Mayfield. Your choice is five years in debtor’s prison, or one year married to me. Take it or leave it.”

  “Married to you? To a foul-tempered monster who would pluck the pennies from his own dead mother’s eyelids? I’ll gladly leave it, Mr. Claybourne.” To make her point, and to keep her knees from knocking together, she sat down.

  But Claybourne’s brow only deepened; his eyes darkened and threatened as he stared down at her. She feared for a moment that he might backhand her. But he muttered a curse, then turned from her and threw open both parlor doors.

  The Cobsons stood frozen in place as if their eavesdropping had been caught in wax by Madame Tussaud herself. Claybourne peered down at them, nearly as tall as the door itself.

  “Evening, sir!” Mrs. Cobson scooted backward and pasted herself against the wall. “We come to ask if you need anything!”

  Claybourne ignored the woman and bent his displeasure on her husband. “Lock her up, Cobson.”

  Cobson brightened. “My wife, sir?”

  “Mine,” Claybourne said.

  “I am not your wife, Claybourne,” Felicity said, feeling recklessly brave as she followed him into the vestibule. “Nor will I ever be.”

  He ignored her and turned to Cobson. “The expense of tracking down Miss Mayfield, should she escape, will fall upon your head, Cobson. I’ll send word as to what to do with her.”

  “Do with me?” She caught Claybourne’s arm to turn him, but might as well have been trying to turn the Houses of Parliament for all she could move him. “I’m not a potted palm, Mr. Claybourne.”

  Claybourne shifted his glare to Felicity and she battled the urge to close her eyes against him. “No, Miss Mayfield. You are a thief.”

  Then he stalked from the house and became a part of the damp London night.

  “He can’t do this to me!” Felicity said finally, trying to shake loose the inconceivable notion of having to tack his name onto her own. Felicity Mayfield Claybourne. The very thought made her face heat.

  “Lock us down tight, Theda,” Cobson said, frowning at Felicity as though she had already cost him a day’s pay. “She’s not to get away.”

  “Yes, yes, Cobby. Go on up, now. I’ll take care of everything.” Mrs. Cobson locked the door and stuffed the key into her pillowy cleavage. She patted Felicity’s arm. “You’re lucky, dearie. We’ve an empty room tonight. Cobby, I put Rawley and Horville in the dormer.”

  Cobson turned on the stairs. “What about that bloody draper and his whimpering family?”

  “Gone.” Mrs. Cobson grinned and shook the purse that dangled from her sash. “His cousin paid his charges to us, as well as his debt to Mr. Nash. Left us before supper, so we got another day’s take without even havin’ to feed them.”

  “That’s my girl.” Cobson’s clomping boots disappeared into the darkness abovestairs.

  “Come along to your room, Miss Mayfield.”

  “I’ll stay down here, if you please.” Felicity pointed to the parlor, a simple room that wouldn’t feel so much like a prison cell.

  “You heard Mr. Claybourne, same as I. Wouldn’t be pleased at all if you were gone when he come back. He paid extra for Cobby to fetch you in from the country. And I’ll not be spending our own good money to fetch you back. Come along now.” Mrs. Cobson took a fingerhold of Felicity’s sleeve.

  “He can’t make me marry him.”

  “Probably not. But, dearie, he’s a very rich man, is Mr. Claybourne, and very powerful. A fair-enough catch for a woman in such dire circumstances.” Mrs. Cobson took in a breath and started up the stairs, towing Felicity behind her.

  “I’d rather go to prison.”

  “Suit yourself, m’dearie, but I’d think on it. Five years can be a very long time in the Queen’s Bench.”

  A single night at Cobson’s Rest had seemed an eternity. She hadn’t slept a moment and now sat on the edge of the sagging bed, watching the early morning ooze its grayness into the darkened corners of the tiny attic room. She had listened all night to rats scratching their way along the baseboard inside the walls, and to the sawtooth snoring from the rooms on either side of her. The Knotted Mazel would have been sweet heaven compared to the Cobson’s filthy sponging house. Yet, if even half the horror stories she’d heard about debtors in the Queen’s Bench Prison were true, then—

  “Uncle Foley, what have you done to me?” He couldn’t have known what trouble his enterprise would cause her. He’d invariably been there when her father had needed him. His business dealings hadn’t always been sound, but without exception he’d been honest. And his scheme to sell tools and supplies in the gold country had been brilliant. When he’d come to her with the idea of selling off her shares in the railway and setting aside a thousand pounds to keep her in case of an emergency, she’d agreed in an instant. But he couldn’t have known about the rider to her father’s will. He wouldn’t jeopardize her freedom, her life, would he?

  Certainly not! Uncle Foley would return in a year, with more than enough money to repay Claybourne. Then she’d be free of debtor’s prison without having to marry the merciless monster in the process. Surely she could bear up in the Queen’s Bench for a year, use her emergency funds to pay for decent lodgings inside the prison, purchase proper food, blankets and warm clothing from the
wardens. Just one year, one whole year without trees and meadows, without the rumble of the rails beneath her feet, country inns, fetes and fairs…

  And what about the Hearth and Heath! Her readers would soon forget her entirely if she couldn’t report regularly on the quaint places she traveled to. Then Mr. Dolan would fire her! She’d have no money at all! How could she live?

  “Blast it all!” She tried the low-slung attic door again. It was locked, as it had been all night. She gave the panel a good smack with the heel of her hand, then turned back to the bed. She’d given up pacing. The ceiling hung so low and sloped so steeply that her neck had a crick in it. She was hungry and cold, and so deeply in debt she might not see another inn until the middle of the next decade.

  “Miss Mayfield? Are you there, girl?” Mrs. Cobson’s voice from the other side of the door seemed almost friendly in the gloom.

  “Where would I have gone, Mrs. Cobson?” she asked through the keyhole.

  The lock rattled and the tiny door opened. Mrs. Cobson entered in a shuffling crouch, then straightened when the ceiling allowed.

  “You’re to come with me,” she said.

  “Is he here?” Panic raced up her spine, settling like cold dread on her shoulders.

  “Mister Claybourne? No, no. He’s sent for you. There’s a carriage downstairs.”

  “Where is it taking me? I have the right to a trial, and to speak with my solicitor. Mr. Biddle will know what to do. Claybourne can’t simply throw me into prison!”

  “With his kind of money, he can do anything he wants.” Mrs. Cobson snorted and smiled as if such a grimace was meant to comfort her. “But Mr. Claybourne isn’t going to hurt you. His ways are a bit odd, but he’s not a murderer. Leastwise I don’t think he is. Come along, Miss Mayfield.” Mrs. Cobson shook her ring of keys like a dinner bell.

  “I’m not going to marry him.”

  Mrs. Cobson set her fists against her apple-round hips. “Then he’ll probably drop you off at the Queen’s Bench when he’s done with you. He’s paid your charges to us for your time at Cobson’s Rest, and now you’re to be put into his brougham. Where you go from there, I don’t know, and I can’t waste my time caring. Now, do you come with me peaceably, or do I get Mr. Cobson to haul you downstairs like a sack of potatoes?”