Hoping there might be a way to escape once she was outside on the stoop, Felicity snatched up her portmanteau and shawl, ducked her head and willingly followed Mrs. Cobson through the tiny door and down two flights of canted, squealing stairs to the vestibule into the waiting grip of Mr. Cobson himself. Flanked now by both Cobsons, she was whisked out the front door and handed up into the cab of the brougham. The carriage door slammed behind her and was locked down tightly from the outside. Shutters shot across the window glass in the doors, restricting her view of the outside world to a pair of small round windows set into either side of the carriage wall. A perfect prison cell on wheels! Claybourne must practice this sort of kidnapping regularly.
Before she could bang a protesting fist against the ceiling, the carriage shuddered forward into the smoke-bound fog.
“Damn the man!” He couldn’t just deliver her to a prison without a trial; there were laws against such things. And yet she believed Mrs. Cobson, that Hunter Claybourne could, and would, do anything he wanted without the slightest twinge of conscience or consequence.
But in the next moment, the brougham turned sharply away from the Queen’s Bench Prison, crossed London Bridge, rolled up King William Street, and finally stopped in Cornhill Street across from the front of the Royal Exchange, and opposite the majestic edifice the Bank of England.
The Bank of England? Had Claybourne learned of the thousand pounds her uncle had put into the bank for her? Did the piggish lout think to make her entirely penniless before dashing her into prison?
The carriage door opened to Claybourne’s stone-faced footman, but instead of crossing the busy confluence of Threadneedle and Cornhill, she quickly found herself escorted in a grip of iron, up a wide set of granite stairs and into a cavernous lobby. What wasn’t fashioned of icy-white marble was severe mahogany or excessively polished brass. She felt altogether drab and powerless in her durable, pale-blue traveling suit that she’d been wearing for well over 24 hours.
“Where have you brought me, sir?” she asked the footman, who’d taken over as her jailer.
“The new Claybourne Exchange, Miss Mayfield,” he said without expression, though he knew her name.
Claybourne. She might have known he’d have his own exchange arrogantly taken root smack dab in the middle of the City’s financial district. Cold, lifeless, pretentious. Claybourne’s signature—down to the thin-lipped doorman. Her courage fueled by a rising outrage, Felicity followed a crisp-collared clerk up the wide marble stairs and through a set of double doors and into a dark paneled reception area.
“This way,” he said, striding past a large, unoccupied desk—doubtless his own, toward another set of doors. He rapped twice, then waited.
“Come.”
Felicity knew the voice from last night’s terror; its rumbling, cool disdain reached past the lock and the brass hinges and angered her all the more.
The clerk swung the door open to a dimly lit office. Dark drapes hung heavily against the windows, shutting off any light that might filter in from the foggy morning, an effect no doubt fashioned by Claybourne to beat down the spirit of his victims.
“Go right in, miss.”
Claybourne was standing behind his enormous oak desk, glaring at her as if he had heard her thoughts through the mahogany door. Gone were the greatcoat and cape, replaced by an expensively tailored frock coat of the finest wool. The white of his shirt darkened his features by contrast; his hair curled willfully against his high collar and across his forehead. Yet for all Claybourne’s frosted glaring, Felicity felt a breathy warmth rise up into her collar. His mouth was too perfectly formed and perilously fascinating.
“Come here, Miss Mayfield.” His command rolled across the room, buffeting her courage like a winter wind.
“Felicity’s here?”
She finally noticed the withered figure hunched over the desk in front of Claybourne. The tousled-gray head lifted, and the man looked up at her through watery red eyes.
“Mr. Biddle!”
“D-Dear Felicity…” Biddle gathered himself up from the chair on a pair of wobbling legs.
Felicity dropped her portmanteau and her shawl and ran to him, throwing her arms around his startlingly reduced frame. He smelled of stale cigar and even staler beer. “Has he beaten you? What’s happened here? Have you come to save me from Claybourne and his scheming!”
“Oh, my dear girl,” Mr. Biddle muttered and hid his brow against her shoulder.
Though she hadn’t seen the man for a few months, she’d remembered him taller and more solid. He trembled now as she patted him on the back and glared up at Claybourne, who’d stepped away to stand like a monolith in front of the green-tiled room heater. He didn’t look at all contrite for scaring the poor man speechless.
“Dear Mr. Biddle,” she said, seizing his bony arms and straightening him so she could look into his eyes. “You’ve come all the way to London to help me. How can I thank you?”
Claybourne snorted. “Your Mr. Biddle answered my summons, Miss Mayfield.”
“No wonder he’s in such a state if you summoned him the way you did me.” She released her hold on Biddle to take a more square-jawed stance against Claybourne’s imperiousness. “Mr. Claybourne, I gave you my answer last night. I will not marry you. Put me into debtor’s prison; pluck out my fingernails one by one; I don’t care. I have not changed my mind. Nor will any threat you level my way change it for me.”
He took two deliberate steps toward her, making him all the more impossible to ignore. “I brought your Mr. Biddle here to ensure that you do change your mind.”
Felicity leaned against the desktop, hoping to look unconcerned, trying to steady her breathing. “Mr. Biddle will have no better luck convincing me to marry you than you did yourself. He is our family solicitor, nothing more. His opinions have no bearing on mine.”
“Felicity…” Mr. Biddle’s wheedling voice could barely support her name. He was frightened to death by Claybourne and wasn’t going to be any help at all.
“It’s no use trying to warn me of the horrid conditions in the Queen’s Bench, Mr. Biddle. I’ll need a bit of help from you now and then. A basket of bread, fresh fruit—”
“Felicity, you don’t underst—”
“But I do, Mr. Biddle. Uncle Foley will be home within a year, and we will use his new fortune to pay off the debt to Mr. Claybourne, with interest, and then I will be set free. The matter will be settled without me having to marry anyone as vile as Mr. Claybourne.”
Claybourne stirred again, an avalanche poised to descend.
“That won’t do, Miss Mayfield.” The oppressively tall man took another of his studied strides toward her, and she held her breath. “I am no longer interested in the money you owe me. Nothing will satisfy me, unless it’s your shares, immediately, and the full ownership in the Drayhill-Starlington. I will have them by whatever means.”
“You can’t have your way in this, Mr. Claybourne! Not now. Not ever! You’ll have to settle for repayment in cash when my uncle returns.”
Mr. Biddle was tugging at her sleeve, whimpering like a child. But Claybourne was bearing down on her, his voice a rumbling in her chest, and roaring through her veins.
“I will have the shares, woman, or you, your precious uncle, and that cowardly little man hiding behind you will find your carcasses in prison for the rest of your paltry lives!”
Chapter 3
“Leave him alone, you coward!” Felicity planted herself squarely between Claybourne and Mr. Biddle. And it was a very good thing, because Claybourne began to advance on them with his next breath.
“Biddle cheated me, Miss Mayfield.”
“He did not! Would not, would you, Mr. Biddle?”
“Well, I—”
Felicity shoved Mr. Biddle and his unhelpful stammering behind her and continued backing away from Claybourne’s seething glare.
“And your uncle cheated me, Miss Mayfield.” She stuck out her hand to hold Claybourne in check,
but her palm met a wall of shifting brawn, one that was moving ever forward.
“He did not cheat you! At least, if he did, I’m sure he didn’t mean to. Did he, Mr. Biddle?”
“Well, he—”
“And now, you, Miss Mayfield, are cheating me.”
Claybourne had driven them both all the way around the desk. Mr. Biddle grunted as he plopped down in the chair. Another step backward and she would be sitting in the poor man’s frail lap.
“I have never cheated anyone, Mr. Claybourne, at any time in my life!” Feeling hugely overpowered and wishing for at least a hint of support, she stepped around the chair and turned Biddle’s scratchy chin toward Claybourne. “Tell him, Mr. Biddle! Please.”
Claybourne stared unwaveringly back at her. “Yes, Biddle, do tell me.”
Mr. Biddle withered and whined, then dropped his arms onto the desktop and his head into his hands. “Dear, dear, Felicity. Please forgive me.”
“Forgive you?” She got down on her knees to be closer to his disturbing weeping. He’d been her father’s trusted solicitor. He was supposed to be strong for her, not the other way around. “Forgive you for what? Tell me!”
“I’m sorry, child,” Biddle said with a whine, his soggy words muffled by his too big collar. “You see I… I knew about the stipulations in your father’s will before we sold the shares.”
His words hit her like a blow to the belly. “That can’t be true, Mr. Biddle.”
“Your Uncle Foley knew as well. We were partners.” Biddle rocked his head back and forth across his folded arms, and his whining turned to keening. “I’m sorry, Felicity. I’m so sorry.”
Whatever misty ray of hope she’d held out for Mr. Biddle’s intervention evaporated. She’d never felt so forsaken in all her life.
“You and Uncle knew you were cheating Mr. Claybourne! Deliberately?”
Claybourne shifted, the rigid stretching of boot leather, the whisper of wool against wool, a mountain settling back into place following an earthquake. For once he seemed to restrain himself from speaking.
Biddle lifted his chalky face to hers. “We did it for you, Felicity.”
“You and my uncle committed a felony for me? Well, why stop at larceny? Why not murder and treason while you’re at it?”
“Felicity, please listen. Foley needed a lot of money, needed it quickly. He had a chance to buy a cache of mining tools in San Francisco and sell them in the gold country. It’s a sure thing. My own money’s tied up in this, too.”
“So you thought you’d help Uncle Foley steal from someone else to finance your scheme. Mr. Biddle, my father would be outraged! I am outraged! We trusted you!” Too disgusted to continue looking at him, she took refuge in pacing in front of the massive desk. “Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused?”
“It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.”
“How could it not? Did you think that Claybourne wouldn’t come looking for his money when the Bank wouldn’t give him the railway shares? That he’d let Uncle Foley run off to the gold fields?”
“We hoped Mr. Claybourne wouldn’t mind waiting out the stipulation in the will, then shares would be his out right.”
“When? In five years when I’m twenty-five?”
“Before then, surely!” Biddle smiled up at her, his head canted like a rooster. “You’re a beautiful young woman, Felicity; we thought someone would marry you before too long. My very own nephew, Bernard is in the market for a wife!”
“Are you completely mad, Mr. Biddle?” Had the whole world fallen into madness? “And you, Mr. Claybourne,” she said, whirling on the man, wondering where her fearlessness had come from. “You are at fault here, too!”
“I’m at fault?” Claybourne’s face darkened, and he grew as still as a frozen pond, his teeth shining white in his scorn.
“If you were duped by my uncle and Mr. Biddle, it happened because of your own sightless greed. You risked thirty thousand pounds on a mere promissory note. Shouldn’t you have had the ownership certificate in your hands before surrendering a tuppence? Why take such a risk, Mr. Claybourne? Even I know better than to exchange bank notes for a worthless piece of paper.”
Claybourne suddenly had her by the ribbons again. This time he’d planted his other hand in the middle of her back and trapped her against the desk, his face so near she could smell the lime of his shaving soap, could feel the startling, rock-hard press of his thigh through her skirts. She was scandalized and frightened and utterly bewitched by his simmering strength.
“My reasons are not your concern, Miss Mayfield. You and I will wed this day, or you and Biddle and that thieving uncle of yours will spend the next twenty-five years in prison.”
“You can’t do that! There are laws—”
“Yes, there are laws against felony fraud, punishable by long prison terms. I have the right, and the means to prosecute. And I have every intention of doing so if those shares are not in my possession by close of business today. Do you understand me, Miss Mayfield?”
He was so powerfully close, was such a breath-stealing presence, she could barely hear for the thundering in her ears, would remember his heat and her terror till her dying breath. Yet she understood his ultimatum very well, marriage to him or prison for her entire family. Twenty-five years meant that her uncle and Mr. Biddle would die in prison. She couldn’t let that happen. A year and a day married to Claybourne couldn’t be any worse than that.
“Unhand me, Mr. Claybourne.”
“Your answer, woman.”
She lowered her gaze from his impossibly dark eyes and watched the muscles tighten beneath his clean-shaved jaw. Marriage to Hunter Claybourne? What kind of life would that be? Waiting at home for a bleak winter storm to blow through the house and freeze her to death. Hiding from him and his ever-present wrath, from this reeling sensation.
But what choice did she have? None that she could see from the vantage point of his snarl. Still, there must be a way to protect herself and her family, to see that he didn’t grind her into gravel. She’d learned a very long time ago that with the right amount of leverage, she could move whole mountains.
“My answer, Mr. Claybourne, depends upon two things.” When he didn’t speak, or move to release her from his too-private embrace, she continued, trying to ignore the compelling sensation of his sultry wrath breathed across the bridge of her nose. “If I consent to this… marriage, you will immediately indemnify my uncle and Mr. Biddle against this felony. And we will agree upon a marriage contract, set down in a legally binding document, drawn up by Mr. Biddle. What do you say to this, Mr. Claybourne?”
Hunter Claybourne wanted nothing more than to order the vexing woman out of his office and out of his life, and yet he could not even bring himself to release her. She was lithe curves and warm, indignant sighs. She was a summer day, the sunlight on his cheek. He had imagined she would be a faded copy of her uncle; ungainly limbed and overly adorned; instead, she was unstudied grace and accidental elegance. She regarded him steadily, her mouth newly moist and altogether too rosy.
Careful man, the ice was thin here, and slippery. He’d been too long without a woman, and this one was too near.
“Well, Mr. Claybourne?” she asked, with a fractious lift of her delicate chin.
Hunter released her abruptly, and stepped to safety behind his desk. “Are you ready, Biddle,” he asked, clamping his hand down on the old man’s bony shoulder to keep the bumbling bastard from scrambling out of the chair.
“Yes, sir?” Biddle asked, looking up at him with those watery blank eyes as Hunter slid a sheet of paper onto the blotter.
“You will write out this contract as dictated by Miss Mayfield.” Hunter met the young woman’s eyes, intending to send her a silent challenge, but finding meadow-green fire that set his pulse to racing. “Your first article, Miss Mayfield?”
“Now?” She looked convincingly startled, touched her slender fingers to her ivory throat, then slipped them through the loops o
f the untidy bow at her neckline. “Mr. Claybourne, I need time to think this through.”
“You have one half-hour.”
“Before what?”
“Before I call the bailiff.” Hunter welcomed the throbbing that had come to play against his temples. The woman was no more than a headache to him, and it was best to be so starkly reminded of the fact. “Your first article, Miss Mayfield. What is it to be?”
She straightened and primly laced her fingers together among the soft folds of her skirts. “Firstly, Mr. Claybourne, this marriage will last one year and one day, and will end abruptly in divorce the moment my shares in the Drayhill-Starlington Railway become yours.”
“Done. Write it, Biddle.”
Biddle was already scrawling his way through the first line, flinching each time Hunter moved a muscle. The man had been a cowering wreck from the moment he had arrived and now looked like a dog awaiting a well-deserved beating.
“Secondly, Mr. Claybourne,” the woman said, pacing away from the desk toward the window, her hips swaying slightly until she turned to him, “since I make my living writing travel articles for the Hearth and Heath, I must be free to plot my itineraries as I see fit.”
He’d been prepared to agree to most any of the woman’s pointless requests, but he paused, unable to imagine such an occupation. “And this travel takes you where?”
“To the very type of place you had me kidnapped from yesterday. To inns and oddities along the railway lines.”
He’d no idea where Cobson had found her, and cared not at all. And yet now that she’d mentioned this traveling, riding trains into the countryside— “Do you travel alone?”
“Certainly alone, Mr. Claybourne.” Impatience flecked gold into the crystal green of her eyes. “But it’s no use questioning me on the subject. My freedom to travel is not negotiable—”
Ever His Bride Page 3
