A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1)

by Christi Caldwell

  Claire’s heart shifted in her chest. “He did?” Incredulity pulled that next question from her in the form of a whisper.

  “Aye. Put a request in to one of the villagers on the account there are no women here,” she said. “To help you bathe and dress, Mrs. Gray.”

  The moment the small army of people had gone, Claire shed her night shift and wrapper. Shivering from the chill of the room, she allowed the young woman to help her into the steaming bath. The moment she sank under the folds of the water; it closed over her shoulders; the splendorous heat brought her eyes briefly shut. “What is your name?”

  “Dahlia.” The young woman fetched a small vial from inside her apron and sprinkled the contents into the bath.

  The fragrant hint of roses immediately rushed up to greet her.

  “Thank you, Dahlia,” she murmured. “I am… ever so grateful.”

  “The rose water was Mr. Gray’s idea. Asked if I had some for you. Said it was your favorite.”

  “He did?” she whispered. He knew that? How did he know that?

  “Found yourself a good one there,” the girl said with a dreamy smile.

  With Dahlia flitting about the room to fetch a dress and undergarments from Claire’s trunk, a stunned Claire sank deeper into the water until it closed over her shoulders.

  This considerate, thoughtful side of Caleb was a new one.

  Well, to her, anyway.

  When she’d observed him with Poppy, he’d been patient and warm—granted, his usual teasing self. None of those sentiments, however, had been turned Claire’s way.

  They’d butted heads from the start. Their mutual annoyance with each other went back to their first meeting when she’d laid an envelope on a table he’d been sketching at and offered him all the money she’d saved to instruct her. He’d called her privileged. Entitled. From that moment on, there’d never not been a cross exchange between them.

  Until they’d met up by chance at this inn along a barren country road.

  He’d gone through all this trouble for her? Why? It didn’t make sense.

  Particularly after his fury at her deception. She’d been certain he’d rather see her hang than help her. And to undertake all of this?

  As Dahlia helped scrub her hair, Claire considered her lie of omission to Caleb.

  He would have been well within his right to be as surly as he’d always been toward her. Nay, even more so. Yesterday, she had behaved shamefully, not because she’d known pleasure in his arms, but because of the fact that she was to be married. Granted, it wasn’t to be a real marriage. The husband she was going to meet had made it starkly clear just what their union would be. There was to be no romance. Or love. Why, he not even required or expected her to be faithful to him. Even with all that, it had been wrong to find pleasure as she had with Caleb.

  Pride, however, hadn’t let herself share with Caleb any of what her upcoming marriage was to be. She’d not been able to bring herself to speak about the manner of union she’d agreed to. Not one built on the love she’d dreamed of for herself, the kind her brother had managed to find with Poppy. Not one where she’d found a man with common interests as her own, and they’d found joy in sharing those pursuits together.

  She’d had to let go of those hopes and had accepted this new path forward. One that would see her as more than the poor, unwed sister looked after by her brother and his benevolent wife. For, even as they would undoubtedly support Claire financially, and in every other way there was to be supported, she didn’t want that existence for herself.

  Being wed to a man who’d entrust his properties to her, allowing her to use her mind and skills, was the next best thing, to her, she could hope for.

  She’d made peace with her future. And after replying to that advertisement her sister had shown her that not-so-long-ago night and beginning the process of wedding a complete stranger, she’d even come to look forward to it. For the independence it would bring. For the freedom it would allow her. For the burden she’d not be.

  Or, she’d thought she’d been content, until Caleb had put a question to her about the gentleman she was running off to meet.

  She’d been unable to get out the complete truth, and not even a version very close to it.

  Nay, hers would be a marriage of convenience in every sense of the word.

  And yesterday, after knowing the bliss of sexual fulfillment she’d found in Caleb’s arms, and then conversing afterward about her views on art, she’d had a taste of everything she was giving up and a glimpse once more of the future she had envisioned for herself. How perfect their time together had been—until it hadn’t. Until the tension had reared its head, along with the reminder of what awaited her.

  Finished bathing, Claire stood and accepted the young woman’s hand with a word of thanks. After she’d dressed and had her hair plaited, Claire quit the rooms and headed to the taproom for her morning breakfast.

  And if you’re being honest, you’re hoping to steal one last glimpse and exchange with Caleb Gray before you board the mail carriage for the final leg of your journey.

  Yes, there was that, too.

  Whatever the past between them, Caleb was also the sole familiar face she had on this long, lonely journey. He’d always given her honesty. He’d been a friend to her family when the respectable world had slammed every door in their faces. As such, she’d come to rather… admire him. Even as he never had and never would, ever, hold her in any such regard.

  Claire reached the quiet taproom. Usually at this hour, the other riders in the mail carriage would be taking their breakfast.

  This time, however, there remained but one lone patron. Caleb was seated at the same table he’d occupied last evening, his head down, his hand flying back and forth over his sketch pad.

  And Claire stood frozen by the sight of him. He was wholly engrossed, several dark strands tumbling over his brow, softening his otherwise harshly formed facial features. Four lines creased his high brow, a mark of his concentration, and it was a connection to the page she could understand. But she, however, had never seen him this way.

  When she’d snuck into her family’s ballroom that her sister-in-law had converted to an art room, Caleb had always been advising Poppy with his arms crossed, while Claire had secretly watched, straining to steal her sister-in-law’s lessons for herself.

  There’d also been that time of their first disastrous meeting when she’d availed herself, uninvited, to his canvases and seen his partially finished renderings.

  Never had she seen him in the throes of a creation.

  His fingers glided upon those pages with an ease and skill of a man who might as well have been born with a pencil in his hand.

  Those hard lips that had been on her mouth and on her body last evening remained in a compressed line, with his flawless bottom white teeth holding it in place as if he sought an absolute stillness so as to not be distracted from—

  Just then, he looked up, and Claire felt her cheeks burn hot at being caught observing him. For a brief moment, she thought about turning on her heel and climbing the stairs to oversee the packing of her things. But that would be an act of cowardice, and she was many things, but a coward was not one of them.

  Holding her head high, she made her way over to the table.

  The moment she reached his side, he snapped the book shut, as effortlessly stealing her right to view his work as she had his last evening.

  But then, you only did so because you were sketching you and him together…

  Claire reached his table.

  “Had a plate made up for you,” he said by way of greeting as he packed his art supplies away in a familiar-looking army sack she recognized from her brother’s time serving in the King’s Army. Coming to his feet with an unexpected gallantry, he tugged a chair out. “It’s not terrible.” He motioned to her plate. “But it’s not great either.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured and took the seat nearest him and that bag. She took in the boiled eg
gs, bacon, sausage, and buttered toast, and then folding her hands on her lap, she lifted her gaze to his. “For so much,” she added. “For sending Dahlia. For the rose water…”

  Wonder of wonders, the unthinkable—nay, the impossible—happened. Caleb Gray blushed.

  “Nothing really.”

  “The small acts are oftentimes the greatest ones,” Claire said softly. “Alone here, away from my family, I…” And that was it. As she said it aloud for the first time, a wave of emotion buffeted her, and she blinked back tears she knew he’d despise and she hated just as much. Claire again made a show of studying her plate. “It was wonderful seeing a familiar face and knowing this kindness.” It had been so bloody long since she’d known any of that from those outside her immediate family.

  “Probably would have preferred a friendlier face than my mug,” he said with his usual humor, and she knew what he was doing, knew he was attempting to diffuse her misery while sparing her pride, and her heart filled in the oddest way for this man before her.

  She managed a smile. “No, your… mug does just fine, Mr. Gray.”

  He chuckled. “That’s likely the first you’ve felt that way?”

  Claire infused a twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, undoubtedly.” She softened that with a wink and then reached for her fork. Claire glanced about for a knife.

  Wordlessly, Caleb pushed an oddly-shaped blade with a rounded tip toward her.

  She eyed the peculiar knife a moment before accepting it to carve up the sausage. Spearing a piece, she lifted the fork to her mouth.

  “Not too late,” Caleb murmured, freezing her in midbite.

  She stared across the table at him. Claire had three choices—feign confusion as to what he was saying, ignore him and bring them back to the adversarial pair they so oftentimes were, or appreciate his honesty and return it with a directness of her own.

  Perhaps any other time, she would have chosen either of the first two options.

  This time, however, was different.

  He wasn’t mocking.

  He wasn’t cold and mean.

  Why, it would have been easier if he had been.

  Because this concerned version of Caleb Gray was bringing her near to blasted tears time and time again.

  “You’re assuming I am having regrets. I’m not.” Attempting a breeziness she didn’t feel, Claire gave a toss of her head. “At all.”

  Not in the way he was thinking anyway.

  Lowering his elbows to the table, he leaned in. “You don’t seem convincing to me, Claire. You know what you seem?” He didn’t allow her to answer. “Scared. Lonely. Sad.”

  Under the table, she curled her toes tightly into the soles of her serviceable leather boots. How did he see all that? “You can’t know that,” she said, glancing down at her fork.

  He remained silent until she picked her head up. “I’m an artist, Claire. The same as you.”

  It was the first time he’d called her an artist, and that, coupled with all these kindnesses and concern from the unlikeliest of man, pushed her closer to the brink of tears. “I’m a pastel and paint miss who has no place in an art room,” she reminded him, echoing those words he’d tossed at her the day she’d arrived in Poppy’s makeshift art room only to find herself alone with his work before he’d arrived. “Either way, that doesn’t give you insight into—”

  “These little lines here.” His quiet interruption cut across the remainder of her challenge. Caleb touched the pad of his thumb to the right corner of her mouth, that callused finger brushing against her lips. “Most people carry their tension here.” He moved his finger back and forth across the middle of her brow. Even his artist’s touch, methodical and measuring as it was, crippled the pattern of her breathing. It cinched her chest and made it a fight to keep her lashes from fluttering closed as she recalled all the power he was capable of with that touch. “But you? You pucker right here.” He caressed the tip of his index finger between her eyebrows, sliding that touch off the end of her nose. Caleb lingered there, his gaze holding hers, searing for the power of his stare. “It’s in your eyes, too, Claire. It is in your eyes.” With that, he drew his hand back, picked up a piece of untouched toast from his plate, and took a large bite.

  She waited for him to say more. To press her further. But… he didn’t. He’d laid out precisely what he’d seen—with an unerring accuracy—and now let Claire be the one to decide just what she would or would not share. Because of that, Claire found herself speaking.

  “I… don’t really have regrets. I want to marry him.” Caleb gave her a long look over the top of his crusty bread. “I do,” she insisted. “I just… it just occurred to me that I am saying goodbye to my family and previous life.”

  “And it was a comfortable one,” he stated, this time without the usual recrimination when mentioning her birthright.

  “It used to be a good deal more comfortable.” Before she’d learned the horrendous evil her father had been responsible for. An act her mother had not only been complicit in, but had orchestrated. Before she’d learned everything about her life had been a lie.

  “Before Poppy?” Caleb asked, and the frown in his voice pulled her out of her dark musings.

  She bristled. “I would never speak so of Poppy. I love her,” she said simply, and she resented to her core that this man should believe her capable of disdaining Poppy in any way.

  It is also that he should so readily defend her, all the while believing the worst about you.

  Dropping an elbow on the table in a way that would have horrified her mother, Claire pushed a piece of sausage around her plate with the fork in her opposite hand, staring forlornly at the piece.

  “So why so uncomfortable?” Caleb’s chair groaned, indicating he’d sat back. “I saw your residence with my own eyes. Nothing uncomfortable about that.”

  Claire slowed her distracted movement with the fork to a stop and lifted her gaze.

  Caleb’s eyes, brimming with curiosity, met hers.

  Then, it occurred to her that Caleb didn’t know about her family’s past of dark deeds to which Claire and her sisters would be forever linked. As it was all Polite Society spoke of—the tale of Lost Lords, robbed of their birthright—she’d become accustomed to believing it was common knowledge to all. She warred with herself, debating an evasive answer versus the truth.

  For, if he’d hated her before, what would he say if she shared the story about the real Earl of Maxwell?

  “My parents were involved in the disappearance of a young boy,” she said softly.

  His eyebrows shot up, the surprise stamped in his features proving she’d found the one person who didn’t know about her family and the Lost Lords.

  Or, Caleb hadn’t known. Now, he knew just like everyone else.

  Claire released a ragged sigh.

  The passage of time did nothing to lessen the vicious agony of repeating those words aloud. Even with the time that had passed, she would never, and could never, forgive her parents or think about anything beyond that child they’d hurt. The food she’d consumed turned sour in her stomach, and giving up on eating, she pushed the plate aside. Determined to just have it out and said so that there wasn’t a partial story between her and Caleb, she made herself continue.

  “He was an earl. His parents had just died, and the child was ill with scarlet fever.” Instead of being driven by altruism, to help a child, her parents had been consumed by their greed to have more. Hate, so strong for the parents who’d sired her, singed her veins, surely a sin of its own for the intensity of it.

  “It wasn’t enough that my father was a baron. Why, he was next in line to an earldom, and as such, he and my mother hatched this”—fury and resentment brought her lips curving into a painful grimace—“plan to… expedite the child’s…” Oh, God, she still could not bring herself to say it. Her mouth closed up, and she fought to swallow the tears clogging her throat. “The child was taken away, with the world believing he died. And my father ascended to
the boy’s rightful title.” To give her fingers something to do, Claire picked up her fork, her palm clenching and unclenching around the handle. “The truth always comes out, though. The rightful heir never died and was eventually found and restored to his place.”

  “And you and your family were displaced,” he said, and she proved a coward after all, because she couldn’t bring herself to lift her head and meet the familiar disdain she’d see in his eyes.

  The same sentiment she saw in every person whenever she entered a room or attended a dinner or social function. This was, however, the first time she’d spoken aloud all the details of her family’s crime, and there was something cathartic in letting them out, even as she knew she’d be judged for it. Claire managed to nod. “We were displaced…” She laughed with a bitter, mirthless smile. “My comfort was built on other people’s misery.” Claire stabbed a sausage link and glared at the slightly too-well-done slice of meat. “But then, that is the English way, is it not?” She lifted her eyes to his and waggled her eyebrows. “Imperial traders. Merchants. The peerage. Ultimately, all the people here”—even those she respected and admired had shame on their hands—“profit at the expense of those who brought them their wealth.”

  Chapter 10

  Caleb hadn’t just hated the British… He loathed the people in that empire with the fire of a thousand burning suns.

  He hated them for the very details Claire had revealed about her family. The British were ruthless. They took freely. Land. The profits to be made from subjugated men and women and children in those foreign lands.

  They’d even taken him, and countless men like him. Men they’d impressed and used to man their ships so that they could continue to grow their profits and expand that already expansive empire.

  When she’d come to him, almost taking it as a given that he’d provide her with art lessons, he’d seen that request as an entitled demand. And it had been easier to hate her for it. Just as it had been entirely too easy to resent her for loving what he so desperately was trying to rekindle a love of.

  What he never had expected, however, was to hear the words she’d uttered about the English empire from her lips… or the lips of anyone in her country.