A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  This, however, wasn’t disdain. It was indifference.

  Blinking back the damned useless moisture stinging her eyes, she set her bag atop her trunk and did another survey of the room, of the men clanging tankards and drinking down their ale.

  “You are being rude,” she said to the innkeeper.

  “I’m being rude? I am? You’re the one who waltzed in here and demanded a room like the fine lady you are.”

  “I didn’t waltz. A waltz is a dance. And, hunched over, I dragged my own trunk.” Alas, the implacable proprietor proved a good deal too indifferent to her accomplishment. One that suddenly felt very small with the way he looked at her. And suddenly, the thin thread of control she’d managed to hold on to snapped. “And I didn’t demand anything. I asked.”

  “Asked, and I said, ‘Don’t have any.’” With a shrug that added a finality to the exchange, he made to step around her.

  Heart racing, she slid herself into his path, inadvertently knocking into a patron, with the legs of his chair precariously tipped back.

  His seat went toppling down, along with him in it. “Wh-what now!” the fellow bellowed.

  She winced, as the young, pock-marked fellow found his feet, and furiously righted his chair. “My apologies,” she said quickly, striving to be heard over the din of the taproom, before turning her attention to the proprietor.

  The now-glaring proprietor. “Now you’re upsetting my patrons.”

  “I’m not…” She flashed a smile meant to charm. “That is, not intentionally.”

  Alas, she’d the same ill luck in terms of charming this person as she had anyone else in England. Arms folded, a dirty rag hanging from his hand and a pitcher in the other, he gave her another hard look. “Step out of the way, lass.”

  There was no way she could. There was no place to step. “I have no place to stay.”

  “Not my problem,” he shouted, either to be heard over the revelry or because he was displeased? She opted to let herself believe it was the former, because the last thing she could afford was to be a woman, alone and with no protection, angering a man, who by his flushed cheeks might or might not have been consuming spirits.

  “No, it is not your problem. But surely there is someplace I might s-stay?” Panic and desperation lent her voice a slight tremble, and perhaps he wasn’t heartless, after all. For there was a slight faltering in the man’s skin-roughened features.

  “Got the stables,” he said gruffly. “Yer free to claim those. No cost to ye.”

  “The staaaables!” she croaked, her voice climbing an octave, and that shock served to sever whatever brief generosity she’d managed to secure from the proprietor.

  His thick eyebrows snapped together. “Too good for ye, aye? Then take it upon yourself, lass, to go ask one of them out there to give up their room instead.” He slashed a hand over the crowd, and the moment she looked off, he took advantage of her distraction. Stepping around her, he rushed off.

  Well, that was fine. She’d gotten herself this far, and she’d gotten her trunk inside. Granted, it was in the middle of the tavern entryway, but regardless, it was in. And there had to be someone amidst the crush of bodies present who was decent enough and… well, not rude.

  Lowering her hood and shoving her bonnet back, Claire did a sweep of the taproom, angling her head to look around the men who stood closely, quickly scanning past those sloppily clanging tankards, searching for…

  She froze as the crowd parted slightly, revealing a lone figure seated at a table in the middle of the room.

  No.

  Absolutely not.

  Impossible.

  She’d gone from being the daughter of an earl to being the daughter of a criminal. She’d lost everything. Not once had she sought to reckon with the universe. But this? This, she absolutely forbade.

  The impossibly large, bear of a broad-shouldered man stared boldly back, a tankard in his hand, his pose relaxed, the boredom to his posture at odds with the tension thrumming through her. Caleb Gray.

  And then, he grinned.

  Wonder of wonders, as she’d believed the bounder impossible of such a feat.

  Bloody hell on Sunday. “You have to be jesting,” she whispered.

  He would prove the one person she knew who should be here.

  The one person in the world who she disliked, and who disliked her, surprisingly, with an even greater intensity. But who hadn’t disliked her so much that he hadn’t minded kissing her, of course.

  And though in need of help she might be, in search of someone to give up their rooms in exchange for payment, hell would freeze over before she went to him. Nay, after the last time, when he’d pinned her against the wall and kissed her until her toes curled and ached, only to mock her for that passion? Absolutely. Not.

  With a toss of her head, she grabbed her valise in one hand, and leaving her trunk where it lay, she set out in search of a patron who’d be good enough as to give up his rooms.

  Chapter 6

  Caleb didn’t smile.

  It wasn’t a rule, per se. But rather, a habit.

  Life hadn’t really given him much reason for that upward tilt of his lips.

  But this? This was too much to not manage a whole damned laugh.

  Of all the people to find their way inside this godforsaken tavern, it would be her.

  When he’d arrived in Europe, hoping to escape the betrayal that had met him in America, he’d singularly failed to find it, in his work, in this new place… until Poppy. Just recently married—and, at the time, unhappily at that—and wholly uninterested in impressing him with her artwork, she’d been the first distraction he’d found. And he’d be forever grateful for it. That distraction had also brought her peculiar family… and the very lady here now.

  He did a search for Poppy—the one person, aside from Wade, whom he didn’t dislike. She’d of course be here, with her fool of a husband, who’d left her long enough to serve in the military while Caleb had been there providing Poppy with art lessons. He waited for the pair to stroll through that door, all nauseating love and cheer. Sentiments he possessed not because of any feelings for the young woman, but rather, since he’d learned his brother had wed his betrothed.

  Except, several moments later, when the entryway to the inn remained conspicuously bare, he frowned as it became clear…

  Lady Claire was decidedly not with her sister-in-law. He narrowed his eyes. Where was the girl’s maid? Or servant? Or… companion? Or anyone?

  Caleb did a search of the room and instantly found her. Attired in a chartreuse satin cloak amidst a sea of drab browns and grays and blacks, she stood out like a damned sore thumb.

  And the men had begun taking note.

  He sharpened his gaze on her as she flitted from table to table like some tavern girl, minus the pitcher to refill glasses, gesturing wildly as she spoke.

  What in hell was the lady doing?

  Caleb angled his head, studying her much the way he examined potential subjects for his canvas.

  Was she… drunk?

  Or mad?

  Or…

  Just then, the lady set her valise in the middle of some fellow’s table. She proceeded to fish around the floral embroidered case before plucking something out.

  An enormous velvet sack stuffed with coins. She shook it before the ruddy-cheeked fellow’s face. Either, one, she didn’t know what a drunk man looked like; two, she didn’t have the sense the Lord gave a chicken; or three, it was a combination of the previous two.

  She gave the bag another shake, and the patron made an unsteady—and successful—grab for the sack. At the tables around them, the increasingly rowdy crowd laughed uproariously as Claire attempted to recapture her bag.

  Caleb sighed. Yes, he’d venture it was a mix of all damned three.

  He was already coming to his feet and cutting a path through the packed taproom. Caleb was a number of inches taller than the tallest man present, and men hurriedly stepped out of his way. He dismiss
ed the not-unfamiliar wary glances they shot his way before they rushed off in the opposite direction. All the while, Caleb kept his eye on Poppy’s sister-in-law.

  Holding her purse out of reach, the drunken young man tossed it to his companion at the opposite end of the table. Grinning a black-toothed smile, the other patron effortlessly caught it in one hand.

  Claire whipped about, turning her ire and efforts from one man to the other.

  This time, when the sack went flying, Lady Claire shot a hand out with impressively catlike reflexes and caught her purse.

  The patron’s shouts rose above the din. “Hey, now, lass. We had a deal, and you stole my purse.” And then, he took her by the wrist.

  Narrowing his eyes, Caleb cursed and lengthened his stride, stopping just beyond the brave, bold, or witless lady’s shoulder.

  “I demand you release me this instant,” Claire was saying. “We do not have a deal until you provide me a key.”

  The young man’s gaze snagged on Caleb, and his laugh cut off as he swallowed wildly. And then, abruptly, he released her.

  Claire yanked her hand back. “That is right, you bounder. You should be frightened.” She leaned forward. “Very frightened.”

  Caleb laughed, the sound a rusty, low rumble barely audible above the noise of the room, an expression of mirth he’d believed himself incapable of… until he’d met the unlikeliest of women. It was too much. He couldn’t resist. “Giving the patrons hell, are you?” he drawled.

  Claire gasped. The bag slipped from her fingers and landed with a jingling thunk upon the hard oak table. She spun about, and her expression fell. “You?”

  Only Claire Poplar would find herself alone, harassed by some miserable English fellows, and still bristle with indignation at Caleb’s arrival. He tipped his imaginary hat. “A pleasure, as always.”

  She scowled. “Yes, indeed. A pleasure.”

  “So…what’s the problem, Queen Claire?” Caleb nudged his chin in the direction of the pair of patrons watching them.

  A frown marred her lush, crimson mouth, and despite everything—who she was, where they were, the exchange they were in the midst of—his mind wandered back to the last time they’d met, when he’d had his mouth on hers, and she’d kissed him with a like passion. And—

  “I’ll have you know I do not like that one bit.”

  Yeah. Admiring this hellcat’s mouth and reminiscing about an embrace that had really just been meant to deliver a lesson? He didn’t like it one bit either.

  Caleb forced his gaze over to the quaking, previously smiling pair. “Who would like having to deal with English scum like these two?”

  She paused. “I was referring to your mocking form of address, Mr. Gray.”

  “You know this fellow?” one of the patrons croaked.

  Caleb and Claire answered at the same time. “Yes.”

  “Unfortunately,” Claire said tersely. “Now, if you would sit there and mind your business as I speak to Mr. Gray?”

  The once bold fellows both fell silent, remarkably quelled by the spirited Claire Poplar. And here Caleb had been believing her to be a shrinking English miss. The lady rose some in his estimation. That appreciation lasted no longer than the glare she turned his way.

  “Now, where was I?”

  “You were thanking me for my intervention?” he suggested dryly.

  The lady snorted. “For your interferences, do you mean?” She shook her head. “I assure you I had them quite under control. Isn’t that right?” She put that question to the befuddled-looking pair taking in the exchange.

  The pock-marked fellow cocked his head. “I—”

  “See?” she cut him off. “Completely under control. I no more appreciate being mocked with a taunting form of address than I do being taunted by… by…” Claire waved at the men. “Ones such as these.”

  His mouth tensed. She’d lump him in with these bastards?

  “Furthermore, I am decidedly not a queen. Why, I’ll have you know I’m not even royalty. If you knew anything about British history, you’d know there is a difference between the peerage and the monarch.”

  No, there wasn’t. The people in this godforsaken country were all the same—filled with an inflated sense of self-importance.

  Caleb was half of a mind to let her handle it as she wished. And even as he made to make his excuses, something held him back. It was the glimmer in her pretty blue eyes. A glimmer he’d seen once before, a glint of strength that, if one looked closely enough, revealed a thread of control about to snap. And he proved himself less of a bastard than he believed all these years, letting her to her proud assertion.

  “Go now,” he growled.

  Claire widened her eyes. “I will n—”

  The pair of pock-marked patrons jumped up, and drink and fear made them sloppy of step as they tripped over themselves in their haste to leave. The pair rushed off, stumbling into the crowd, their short frames immediately lost in the crush of bodies.

  “Them,” Caleb said, as endlessly exasperated as he always was with this minx. “I was talking to them, you fire-eater.” He gave his head a hard shake. “Nice to see nothing’s changed with you.”

  A blush bloomed on Claire’s cream-white cheeks, her very pale, English cheeks, and yet, lent that pale red color, she was… actually almost pretty. Not his type, necessarily. But pretty. Stunningly so.

  That appreciation proved a fleeting moment of insanity.

  “Nothing has changed with me?” she shot back, dropping her hands to her hips, and somehow, even with the height difference between them, she managed to impressively glower up at him. “Nothing has changed with you.” The lady hunched her shoulders forward and donned a darker scowl. “Your Majesty this, Your Majesty that,” she said in flat tones that removed her clipped British English so that she might as well have been any American woman schooling a fellow.

  Caleb chuckled. “That is what you’re opting to talk about?” he drawled. “You’ve just had your purse plucked, and you’re more concerned with what I’m calling you.” But then, she’d always been infuriating like that.

  “I am not having my purse plucked.” Lifting the bag he’d wager his life was lighter, she held it aloft and shook it, setting the contents ajingle.

  He nudged his chin at the black velvet bag. “I’d venture you take a look inside that there sack and count your coins again.”

  “Do you know, I will.” Muttering to herself, those mumblings lost to the noise of the room, Claire fished around in the purse. Her lips moved as if she silently counted, and then she gasped. “Why… why…?”

  Caleb lifted an eyebrow, and the young lady immediately clamped her lips. “Problem there?”

  Claire dropped her arm and held the purse behind her back. “Nothing. Nothing happened at all. It is all there.” She gritted out a lie as unbelievable as her presence here. She hurriedly stuffed the sack inside her valise.

  “All right. Out with it, Your—”

  The lady’s gaze flew to his, and she singed him with a glance.

  “Claire,” he amended. Because she was Poppy’s sister-in-law, and as a result of his connection with the baroness, he did have an obligation to get to the bottom of why Claire Poplar was here, alone.

  “Out with what?” she asked, pressing the pearl clasp of her valise shut.

  She was obstinate. Infuriating. And possessed of a biting wit. What she wasn’t, however, was so naïve as to not know precisely what he was asking her. “What are you doing here?” he demanded anyway.

  “Talking to you,” she said, her expression deadpan.

  His mouth ticked up at the right corner in an involuntary smile, a motion so foreign and rare for his lips that the muscles strained under the unfamiliarity of it.

  “A room. I’m looking for a room,” she said, tossing her hands up and inadvertently catching yet another patron. The accidental collision sent ale splashing all over the front of his shirt and floor and table.

  Claire whipped about. �
�Oh, dear. Forgive—oh… hell.” The lady’s words faded to a whisper as she caught sight of the balding man before them.

  Oh, hell indeed. The girl wasn’t going to make it out of here alive.

  Recognition flashed in the other man’s eyes. “You!” he growled.

  “A friend of yours?” Caleb asked dryly.

  It was likely a sign of their tense rivalry that her frown wasn’t for the man calling her out, but for Caleb. She shifted her attention back to the spirits-soaked fellow.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Winters. I did not see you there,” she said.

  “You’ve been nothing but a pain in my arse since you boarded my coach,” Mr. Winters retorted in annoyed tones.

  Ah, the carriage driver.

  Caleb tensed, bracing for blubbering tears and sputtering indignation from the fine lady before him at being called out so crudely.

  Claire swept out from behind Caleb. “I beg your pardon. First of all? Just now, I was entirely contrite. Obviously, I did not intend to douse you with spirits. Though given the early hour we are to depart, imbibing spirits hardly seems the wise course.”

  Caleb strangled on a laugh. This was the man she was relying upon to get her… wherever the hell she was going? The lady didn’t have a lick of good sense when it came to biting her vinegar-soaked tongue. “Why, I have been nothing but pleasant the entire journey and have done nothing… noothhing,” she repeated more slowly, enunciating each syllable and somehow managing to squeeze in a third, “to show even the slightest kindness.”

  “If you have to say you’ve been pleasant, you probably haven’t been,” Caleb felt inclined to point out.

  The patron wearing ale all over his shirt stuck a finger in Caleb’s direction. “Precisely. This gent has it right.”

  “This man is not a gent. He’s an American.”

  “Well, a rude-mannered American is still better than having to deal with you.”

  Claire’s eyes flared wide, her perfectly formed dark eyebrows climbed to her hairline, and then, with a hiss that cut across the revelry of the room, she lunged. “How dare you?”