Ever His Bride

by Linda Needham

  He swallowed his own answering smile. “You see, Miss Mayfield, I’m not an illogical man. Your offer is sound and I accept it. And if you’ll come in here out of the hallway, I’ll finish buttoning your dress.”

  “My … ?” She leaned forward at the door.

  Hunter stood up and came around his desk. “You’ve missed a button.” She didn’t move. “I’ll fasten it if you’d like.”

  She seemed stunningly shy all of a sudden but came toward him with her chin held high, her feet still bare. He made a turning gesture and she presented her back to him.

  “I’m going into London again tomorrow, Mr. Claybourne.”

  “You think so?” The faint spray of honey-colored freckles across the rise of her shoulders caused him to wonder at the nature of her travels. Hours in the sun, perhaps?

  “I need to spend some time in the British Museum Reading Room. By latest count, it has nearly a half million books.” She swept her arm along her nape, lifting the wildest of the escaped strands of hair off her neck.

  And there it was again, the urge to kiss her, to unbutton where he ought to be buttoning, to slip his hands inside her bodice and hold her against him, to turn her in his arms and press his mouth against hers.

  “And which of all these books do you intend to read?”

  When she spoke again her voice had grown silky and low. “Oh, anything I can find about Northumberland.”

  He thought he heard her sigh as he finally, reluctantly, fastened her dress closed. It was another moment before she dropped her arm and turned to him. He thought she would flit away, but she looked up at him, her lips newly moistened and lush. The high crest of her cheeks had pinked, and the green of her eyes had taken on the dappled hues of the forest.

  “For your travel guide,” he repeated for her, for himself.

  “Yes, Northumberland. I rarely travel there. That’s George Hudson’s territory,” she said, leaving him for the wall of books opposite the windows. He stood in the middle of the library while she studied the titles, her back straight and her profile perfect. “Father disliked and distrusted Hudson for the man’s loyalty to profit over safety. He’d be very happy to know that the Railway King’s reign is ending.”

  “You know about Hudson’s imbroglio, then?” Very much impressed that she should know about such things.

  “I know the man personally. That he used capital to pay out dividends to his shareholders, then paid a pauper’s salary to his staff. He always took the lowest bid in his construction materials. And spread rumors that my father drank himself to death.”

  Hunter had heard the same, and now felt uncomfortable with the knowledge. “How was it he died?”

  “The doctors said it was a cancer of the brain. A year ago last autumn, Father went blind in his right eye.” She ran her hand along the back of a small, bronze buck. “Two months later he lost the feeling in his leg on the same side. But he loved his railways, and worked until the week before he died.”

  When she looked up at him, her eyes were pooled with tears. “I miss him very much.”

  Hunter chided himself for having asked; he wasn’t the comforting type. She seemed an island to him, or an elusive meadow, a place of native beauty that he could never quite reach, never fully comprehend. And he dare not try. In the name of his fortune, he had already risked a marriage with her; he would not, could not risk anything deeper. George Hudson had failed because he had risked too much; he would not be such a fool with this woman. He would increase his vigil and keep his distance.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Miss Mayfield.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Claybourne. But that’s why I need to go to the Reading Room. To learn as much as I can about Northumberland before I arrive.”

  “And you’ll be home by afternoon?”

  The woman set her jaw and then answered, “Late afternoon.”

  “Very well. Branson will see to your transport in the morning.” He sat down at his desk and raised the newspaper between them.

  “I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Claybourne.” He heard her flounce to the door then stop.

  He looked up at her over the top of the Times. “Yes?”

  “Will you be taking dinner with me in the dining room tonight? Mrs. Sweeney is serving stew.” She offered an overly gracious smile.

  “Not tonight, Miss Mayfield.” He lowered his gaze to the newspaper; another day of marital bliss down, only a few hundred left to endure.

  Chapter 9

  Feeling very much dismissed, Felicity shut the door over-hard as she left, then leaned against it.

  “Miserable hermit!” she said, not caring who heard her, hoping he had.

  The Times rustled behind the thick panel of carved oak, and a chair scraped. She jumped away from the door and watched the latch, thinking it would shift and then she’d be confronted with Claybourne’s scowl.

  Anger. At least that would be something she could understand and rail against. It was his granite moods that disturbed her, the unpredictable times when his jaw would harden and his eyes shade over.

  And his gaze could alight on her mouth and linger like a kiss—a kiss she wasn’t entirely sure she would turn away from.

  A moment passed and she heard him settle back into his chair.

  Wretched man! Hunter Claybourne might have money to burn, but it certainly wouldn’t keep him warm on a cold winter’s eve.

  The following morning, Felicity left the British Museum Reading Room after just an hour, quite relieved not to find Branson hovering outside, ready to report her whereabouts. She had assured him that she wouldn’t need his services until noon. She found a shop nearby and bought three shirts for Giles, then took a hackney to Threadneedle Street, where she hoped to catch sight of him as he went about his daily thieving in front of the Bank of England.

  She hadn’t been there more than a quarter of an hour when she nearly crashed into the boy as he dodged past a coffee seller’s rickety cart. He was in a guilty hurry, stuffing a pouch into his shirtfront. But he hadn’t seen her.

  She hurried after him and almost called out to him, but she suddenly wanted to know where he lived, where he laid his head at night. If she stopped him now to give him the shirts, he might turn her away. So when Giles went north at Bishopsgate, she followed him all the way to the alleyways off Shoreditch Road.

  Where she lost him in the blink of an eye.

  “I’ll see if Mr. Claybourne is in.”

  “Lanford,” Hunter muttered as he heard the voices on the other side of his office door. The man probably only wanted to gossip over George Hudson’s troubles. It seemed the only subject of interest in Threadneedle these days.

  “Show him in,” Hunter said, before Tilson had gotten the door completely open.

  “I thought you’d like to be the first to know,” Lanford said, as he strode into the room. “Hudson’s put the Blenwick Line and three other railways up for sale. Seems he needs some ready cash to settle a suit against him. One of his shareholders wants to know if you’re interested.”

  “In one of Hudson’s ventures? I think not.”

  “It’s going for pennies on the pound.”

  “Not my pennies.”

  “The Bank was considering it, but if you’re not interested, Claybourne, perhaps we shouldn’t be either. By the way, is your wife in the City today?”

  Hunter hadn’t paid much attention to the man until that moment. Miss Mayfield had been a plague upon his thoughts through the course of the morning. “She is, Lanford, though it’s none of your business.”

  “Visiting somewhere nearby?” Lanford cocked his head toward the door.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because I just saw her in Threadneedle Street.”

  He couldn’t ignore the heavy stone that dropped into his gut. Lanford was lying, or mistaken, or—

  “Granted, I saw her only from my window, but she’s not a woman easily mistaken …”

  “When did you see her?” He hoped his uneasiness di
dn’t show; his pulse had come to a standstill.

  “Most recently … maybe an hour ago.”

  “Most recently? How many times did you see her?”

  Lanford shrugged and smiled, seeming to dote on this clandestine information. “A dozen or more. She had a bundle under her arm.”

  “What kind of a bundle?”

  “Couldn’t tell. Though not a baby, surely. Too soon for that, eh, Claybourne?” Lanford lifted his brows.

  “Go on,” he said, as evenly as he could manage, given the urge to toss the man from his office window.

  “A bundle wrapped in brown paper. And she walked up Threadneedle,” Lanford said, tracing the air with his finger, “then down again, weaving in and out of the foot traffic as if she were looking for someone. I say! Where’re you off to in such a rush, Claybourne?”

  But Hunter was already in the outer office. “Get Lanford out of my office, Tilson. Immediately. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  Damn the woman! She had confessed outright that she was going to give a shirt to that Pepperpot brat the very next time she saw him. And now he would bet the Drayhill-Starlington that she’d come to Threadneedle looking for the boy!

  Hunter took the back stairs to his private carriage house at the back of the Exchange, roused Branson from the cab, grabbed the reins on his own, and launched the brougham into traffic.

  Felicity bit back her revulsion as she picked her way along a fetid and tightly curved lane that had led her off Shoreditch Road and into Bethnal Green. Giles couldn’t possibly live here; his eyes were too bright, his wit too quick!

  She’d heard of the slum and its grinding poverty, but she could never have imagined a wretchedness so deep as this. She stepped around a heap of withered vegetables and the dirt-colored man who guarded it as if it were a mountain of gold. A somber-faced child hung fast to his hand—boy or girl, she couldn’t tell, for the matted hair and the ragged clothes. Broken crates and sprung barrels narrowed and twisted the passage, home to rats and a playground to more children than she’d ever seen in one place.

  She’d eaten a currant cake in the brightness of Threadneedle Street, and now it threatened to rise in protest over the reek of offal and stagnant water that pooled beneath her shoes. And still she hurried deeper into Bethnal Green, ashamed of her disgust but more determined than ever to find Giles.

  As she rounded a corner into a crowded square, her feet slipped out from underneath her, laying her out flat on the cobbles.

  “Careful, miss.” A young woman with falsely rouged cheeks smiled down at Felicity, helped her to her feet, and handed her the bundle of shirts. “‘Fraid yer lovely dress is ruint f’good.”

  Felicity swallowed back her nausea. “It’s all right. Thank you.” Her elbow ached, but she had only wounded her pride and filthied the front of her skirt and bodice, pink linen turned to brown muck. “You’ve been very nice.”

  She would have asked about Giles, but the young woman had disappeared in the next moment, lost in a street that teemed with gin shops and old-clothes stores, with sad-faced people who wore one rag atop another.

  Finding Giles wasn’t going to be easy.

  She tucked the bundle against her and tried not to look too closely at the odd characters huddled in the doorways, and leaning drunkenly against lamp posts.

  The lane bent again and she found herself at the center of an intersection, facing a ramshackle building whose second floor listed against its neighbor.

  THE BEGGAR’S ACADEMY. As tumbledown and dreary as it looked, it was her first sign of hope. If Giles lived here in Bethnal Green, and if he attended school at all, this was probably where she would most likely find word of him.

  The rickety door hung open on a single iron hinge. She heard young voices beyond, and another older, more soothing one. The shadows weren’t inviting, but the lack of an invitation rarely stopped her. She stepped into the barren anteroom, and then deeper into the gloom.

  An elderly woman sat in a chair at the far end of the long, narrow room, reading aloud by the light of a single candle and surrounded by bedraggled but enraptured children.

  Such a forlorn place for a school. It wanted windows, and chinking for the walls. A coat of whitewash and a few more lanterns would help dispel some of the shadows. And food in the bellies of the lank-limbed children, and fresh country air in their lungs—

  Wherever would one begin to put it right? She swallowed hard against the currant cake and the teary lump in her throat then turned to leave.

  “Do come in, miss.” The old woman had risen on a cane. “I’m Gran McGilly. And you’re welcome here at the Beggar’s Academy. What is it we can help you with?”

  “Oh … hello.” Felicity tried not to stammer at being caught in midflight. “I’m Felicity Mayf … Felicity Claybourne. I’m sorry to interrupt. I was looking for someone—a young boy, nine or ten years old, I think. Giles Pepperpot. Do you know him?”

  Gran McGilly laughed broadly and gathered an armload of boys and girls as she hobbled toward her. “Everyone knows Giles. Don’t they, loves?”

  The children giggled and agreed as they swarmed around Felicity, small ones and some closer to her own height, every one of them dressed in castoffs.

  “Is Giles here?” She looked for him among the upturned faces and cast a hopeful smile over them, ashamed at herself for wanting to run from the horrible smell of unwashed bodies and filthy clothes. She had an uncharitable thought about protecting her purse, but dismissed it entirely.

  “Giles doesn’t have time for us anymore.” Gran McGilly grunted softly as she sat down at the worktable. A little girl scrambled onto her lap. “All full up with schooling, he says. He’s a very busy lad, you know.”

  “Does he live nearby? He helped me recently, and I’d like to pay him for it.” She felt idiotic still clutching the bundle to her chest.

  “Like most of the boys around here, he lives where he pleases.”

  “Well, I just saw him … out on Shoreditch—”

  Gran McGilly laughed fondly and pulled a gentle comb through the tangled hair of the little girl on her lap. “Oh, you’ll not find Giles, unless he wants to be found. Keeps himself two steps ahead of the constabulary. But then that’s the fortune of the cleverest boys in Bethnal Green. They either run ahead, or they’ll be run down and crushed.”

  Giles might not want to be found. She’d given him no reason not to trust her—except that she was an outsider. That had become quite clear. She had no idea that he lived in this squalor, that he had attended this very bleak school for beggars.

  Beggars—such an incriminating word for the innocent, dark-eyed children who watched her and touched her muddied clothes as if she were an oddity at the circus.

  “So is this the only classroom?”

  “Room for eighty on a good day. We even board a few here at the academy as well, upstairs mostly—the orphans and the ones who’ve been forgotten.”

  Felicity moved farther into the room, trying not to imagine where the throat-thickening smell of the sewer was coming from. “How many children do you board?”

  “That all depends upon the time of year, and the threat of cholera, the weather, how far the stores can be stretched. We’ve been here nearly thirty years. Begun by the Ladies League of Ragged School Reform, but they’ve long ago disbanded; and I’m afraid we’re sadly overlooked, but for the occasional kind heart.” Gran McGilly gathered up a hank of thin, dull-brown hair from the little girl on her lap and tried to tie it back with a too-short length of twine.

  “Here, use this.” Felicity started to untie the white ribbon from the lacing at her throat, but the woman shook her head slightly, her glance encompassing all the other little girls.

  “Oh, we like our hemp ties, don’t we Floree? No fancy ribbons for us.”

  She’d never in her life felt so inadequate, so of place. Had never imagined a simple ribbon could have such meaning. Gran McGilly was a very practical woman. She would have to be, to run such an il
l-funded school with such a kindly heart.

  “Are you the only teacher here, Mrs. McGilly?”

  “Come, call me Gran, everyone does. There’s four of us who do the regular work. Cooking, washing up, teaching. We make do.”

  The idea of leaving these children in the darkness seemed suddenly heartless and sinful. “Would more candles help?”

  Gran raised her kindly blue eyes. “Candles would be much appreciated, Mrs. Claybourne.”

  A perilous thought came to her. “And what about copper cook pots?”

  “And soup!” little Floree said, rubbing her tummy and rolling her eyes. “Yum! I like ta’tato soup.”

  Gran hugged the girl. “Whatever you can do, Mrs. Claybourne.”

  Tears stung the backs of her eyes. “Good. Then I’ll be back. As soon as I can manage. But just now I need to try to find Giles.” She hurried to the door, and Gran called back the children who wanted to cling. She felt terribly guilty leaving the frail old woman with all her charges, but she had no choice at the moment.

  Felicity gave a feeble wave, then rushed out of the Beggar’s Academy into the congested square, thinking to take a less fetid breath. But the air had thickened with the stink of ale, and with the lewd comments from doorways of places she didn’t want to think about. She must find Giles, and give him the shirts as soon as possible; that would make her feel so much more charitable—and so much less like the callous Hunter Claybourne.

  She hadn’t gotten a half-block through the muck and the unflinching stares when her bundle was yanked out of her arms from behind.

  “Hey!” She’d come too far to deliver these shirts and, by God’s grace, she was going to—

  “Giles! There you are!” She’d never been so happy to see anyone. She reached for him, but he recoiled and backed away a step.

  “Y’ followed me!” he shouted, his face screwed into an angry landscape of grime. “Why, Mrs. Claybourne?”

  She hesitated, Gran McGilly’s warning still sounding. “Well, I …” People were looking at them, looking at her, and murmuring. She felt their stares as she had felt each of Madame Deverie’s pinpricks.