Ever His Bride

by Linda Needham

  “How did you find me?”

  The woman must believe herself invisible in her travels, rather than the uncommon passenger she is. “You leave crumbs at every stop, my dear. And the telegraph is a powerful tool for reaching ahead.”

  “That doesn’t explain what brings you here.”

  He snorted and unfolded the Times. “I’ve come on business.” Had left London by an express car late last night, hadn’t slept a wink since.

  She glared at him as she hung her shawl on a hook behind her. “I hope you don’t expect me to return to Claybourne Manor with you.”

  “Go wherever you like.” He forced his attention away from the cynical shake of her head and went back to the news of the day. But his gaze was drawn to her movements. She leaned back against the side wall of the compartment and stuck her legs out in front of her on the seat. So comfortable, so settled. So like a stream that easily found its way down the mountain, no matter the obstacle in its path.

  Where the devil had she been the night before? He’d wandered the shadowed halls of Claybourne Manor, dodging sticks of furniture he’d never seen before, following fragrant trails that lead to clouds of cut flowers. Twice he’d started toward her chamber, only to remember that she was gone.

  “This woman in Leicester,” he said, lowering the newspaper to study her more closely. “How do you know her?”

  “Is this an investigation, or are you bored, Mr. Claybourne?”

  It had taken Hunter years to train his staff not to answer his questions with other questions. She did it constantly. He’d been allotted only a single year with his wife—chances were slim that she would change in so short a time. He decided to look bored.

  He gave a half-shrug, yawned too easily. “Just idly curious, Miss Mayfield.”

  She studied him, her gaze touching his eyes, then riding leisurely across his mouth until a quickening rose up in his chest. She offered him a grudging smile.

  “Fair enough. Mrs. Paget’s late husband was my father’s surveyor.” She gathered her stockinged feet up under her skirt and covered her legs with a blanket. “We knew everyone along the railways. Mother died when I was six. From then on, I traveled with Father. I lived where he lived; learned geology, surveying, drafting, geometry—”

  “Geometry?” He greatly doubted this store of knowledge; the woman had a mind that ran three miles ahead of itself. Couldn’t imagine her fastened to a chair for hours on end, writing out mathematical problems.

  “Don’t look so skeptical, Mr. Claybourne. I learned from Father’s engineering crews, and from him, of course. I actually helped survey now and again when a team was short a member.”

  “You surveyed for your father?” A female surveyor? It wasn’t possible. Yet she seemed unconcerned with his disbelief, paying no attention to him as she tucked herself deeper beneath the blanket.

  “And I did some drafting, too. I liked that best. In any case, it’s left me a very good judge of railways.”

  “You think so?” Now he was certain she was taking him down a spur line only to dump him off a cliff. Let her play out her little game. It was actually beginning to amuse him. “Then what of this railway? The Blenwick Line?”

  She clicked her tongue. “Constructed too quickly, in order to service the lead mine industry. The grade is too steep for the size of the locomotive, and the curves are too tight.” She turned and shook her head. “Frankly, Mr. Claybourne, it’s a bit dangerous—”

  “Explain yourself.” He sat forward, his elbows on his knees, ready to watch her bragging come to a sputtering halt. Instead, she sat up and squinted out the window into the darkening evening and seemed to be making a calculation of some sort.

  “The first bridge over the Wear is too narrow, and this grade is too great. The roadbed should have been dropped or cut through a tunnel, or should have been half again as long to accommodate the steepness of the grade. A one foot rise for every one hundred feet of distance would have been adequate; one-in-sixty is just too much strain on a curving iron rail. But of course, a tunnel is much more expensive and, as you know, the shareholders must have their profits—”

  “And you’re so sure this is a one-in-sixty?”

  Her nod was emphatic and troubled. “Father would never have allowed the track to be laid.”

  “Yet you ride on the Blenwick.” He didn’t want to make much of her speculation, but she seemed so sure of herself, and still not at all concerned whether or not he believed her.

  “I plan to make certain that my readers know the dangers to be avoided, along with the sights to be seen. I’ll recommend the post road that runs through the valley.”

  “I see. So, your father illuminated the shortcomings of the Blenwick Line?”

  “No. I can tell by the pull and the speed—and that occasional shudder.”

  “Which?”

  She held her hand up and listened for a moment to the steady clatter of the rails. “There, did you feel that?”

  He had, and was amazed.

  “Thank you,” he said, pulling a notepad and pencil from his coat pocket. The problem was at least worth investigating.

  “Thank you? What for, Mr. Claybourne?”

  He jotted a reminder to himself, then looked up at his inquisitive wife. “Because I have been offered a quarter interest in the Blenwick Line and I hadn’t decided if I should invest or not.”

  She gasped. “Don’t.”

  “I won’t.” He allowed himself to smile at her earnestness, oddly pleased that she would care to advise him against ruin. When she smiled back, his heart took a capricious leap.

  “Well, that’s a relief, Mr. Claybourne. You see, the Blenwick is one of Hudson’s lines.”

  “Yes, I know. And at the moment, some of his railways can be bought for a song.”

  “Far less expensive than a marriage, Mr. Claybourne.”

  He caught himself smiling again. “Touché, madam.”

  “So you’ve come here on business, after all?” She seemed charmingly humble all of a sudden. She buffed her toes back and forth against the leather upholstery, putting him in mind of a cat having found the most comfortable place in the house and claiming it for herself.

  He would make the most of this windfall peace. Better to keep the cat’s claws retracted. He settled back against the seat, trying to maneuver the conversation around to the gold band in his pocket, and the meaning it might convey between them: business only, yet a symbol to others.

  “I’ll admit, Miss Mayfield, that my timing is somewhat tied to your venture. Your mention of Northumberland reminded me of the Blenwick prospectus, and—”

  “And so you found yourself with a ready excuse to follow me, to see that I stayed out of trouble?”

  He’d landed right in her trap, and yet found it surprisingly comfortable. He could escape at any time, and he decided to relax into it. “In truth, Miss Mayfield, when you declared that you were bound for four weeks of rail travel, I thought you a novice at this sort of thing.”

  “Me, a novice?” Her laughter warmed the whole of the car. “I’d hate to calculate the miles I’ve traveled on the rails. I sleep best on a rocking train. Though I must admit I’ve never, ever traveled in this kind luxury—a whole bench seat to myself, paraffin lamps. Second-class is the best I’ve ever been able to afford. When I’m tired, I usually lean forward and fall asleep with my head against the back of the seat in front of me. Makes a terrible dent in my forehead.”

  She laughed again, and he laughed along with her, a disquietingly comfortable feeling that shed the tension from his shoulders, yet stung the corners of his eyes.

  He envied her ease, her ability to bend to the pressure of the moment. Train travel always meant more time for him to work without interruptions. He sat as he always did, in the center of the seat—usually surrounded with charts and graphs and proposals, but enveloped now in the scent of lavender, and the lure of her voice. And he hadn’t given a thought to a single investment.

  The car had beco
me exceedingly warm, the ring seeming to produce a strange heat of its own. He stood and shrugged out of his coat, leaving himself in his waistcoat and shirtsleeves. He loosened his stock, then sat down and leaned against the same wall his wife had claimed.

  “When I was fifteen,” she said, pulling a magazine out of her portmanteau, “I made a list of all the places I had lived. There were forty-three. But that was nearly five years ago. I’m afraid to add the rest to the figure.” She rolled her head to smile at him as he stuck his legs out across the bench opposite. They could have been sharing some strange, upright bed.

  She drew in a deep breath and pulled the blanket around her legs. “I confess that I love the look of trains, and the sound of trains, and the smell of trains. Is your mother still alive, Mr. Claybourne?”

  The question hit him like a punch to his gut. He felt her steady gaze on him, but could only look at the back of his hands, past the scars on his knuckles.

  “No, she’s not.”

  “I’m truly sorry, Mr. Claybourne. Did she pass on recently?”

  He had recovered enough from the first blow to shake his head and return her steady gaze. “No.”

  “Then she died when you were young?”

  Innocently asked questions, an innocent moment; he would make no more of them than that. “By coincidence, Miss Mayfield, I, too, was six when I lost my mother.”

  A fact that seemed to quiet her for a time.

  Felicity felt a sudden, quite unexpected bond of sympathy with this keen-edged husband of hers. A softness moved across his mouth as he watched out the window, and at the fine lines at the corners of his eyes. She had expected to spend the trip to Blenwick boiling with anger, pressed under the thumb of his rude threats. But he’d been almost pleasant, and here he was offering answers that hadn’t a thing to do with his financial empire. She decided to press on while he was open to her questions.

  “Did your father ever remarry?”

  “No,” he said, his profile carved once again in granite, his eyes flinty.

  “Is your father still alive? And is he very much like you?”

  “My father is gone, as well.”

  Claybourne lifted his newspaper abruptly. Time to quit before his mood darkened.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Claybourne. I’m afraid I carry around a bucket of questions, and I sometimes forget that people would rather I not toss it over their heads.’’

  The train shuddered and the brakes squealed.

  “Damnation!” He jumped to his feet and threw open the door to the night air before the train came to a stop.

  “Take care, Mr. Claybourne.” She made a grab for him, and caught a handful of wool at the seat of his trousers.

  He looked over his shoulder at her. His eyes blazed. “Not now, wife!”

  She uncrumpled the fabric as if it were afire. Not now? What the devil did he mean by that? She tried to ignore the shape that seemed to have branded itself into her hand: slopes and vales, hard muscle and heated flesh. The blasted train had ground to a halt in the middle of its route, yet here she was staring at her palm, memorizing the contours of her husband’s backside.

  “Traction problems?” she asked, rubbing her hands together to erase the image.

  He popped back inside and closed the door. “Too dark to see much ahead. Though we’re just above a river.”

  “The Wear. Sorry,” she said, shoving her hands beneath the blanket to hide the phantom imprint.

  “You’re sorry?” he asked, his wind-whipped hair flopped across his brow. “It’s hardly your fault—”

  “No, Mr. Claybourne, I’m sorry that I grabbed your …” She made a lame gesture toward his backside. “Your trousers. I didn’t mean … Oh, just drop it.”

  An artful smile perched at the corner of his mouth, ready to pounce upon her discomfort. “Drop my trousers, Miss Mayfield?”

  “That’s not what I—Mr. Claybourne!”

  The miserable cad threw his head back and laughed outright, leaving her with a too-intriguing image of her husband without his trousers. She’d never seen any man in such a state of undress, so the best she could manage was bare legs and shirttails. And that was quite enough to imagine. Enough to singe her ears!

  She threw off the blanket and popped up from her seat to retrieve the basket above his head. “Well, at least we won’t starve, Mr. Claybourne. You’ve brought enough food for a banquet.”

  “Mrs. Sweeney’s doing,” he said, unsnagging the basket from the rack and setting it on the seat in front of her. “She wanted you to try her new currant cakes.”

  Claybourne was throwing off a scorching heat, his head bent near hers to accommodate the low ceiling and to peer into the basket. He smelled wonderful, of lime and the cool night air that still clung to his hair.

  His breathing riffled her sleeve, heating through the weave to her skin. She willed her fingers to stop shaking, willed herself to think of something besides his mouth and the calling curve of his upper lip. This was the same contemptuous man who vilified the wretched, who had threatened to keep her in prison, and who seemed compelled to repeat both themes on a daily basis.

  She righted her thoughts. “Mrs. Sweeney has made something other than bread and stew? I’m astounded.”

  He planted a boot on the seat and seemed exceedingly interested in her expedition through the cups and containers. He must have been interested, or he wouldn’t be standing so very close. Perhaps he was hungry.

  “She mentioned that the recipe is from a cookbook you gave to her.”

  “The menu at Claybourne Manor needed variety.” She could feel him looking at her, frowning, she was sure, and near enough to kiss. To kiss?

  Dear God, whatever made her think a thing like that? Oh, but the idea had been in her head since he’d thrown her into the coach. She hated to admit it, but she’d actually been thinking of her husband’s kiss ever since Mr. Denning had registered their marriage in his book. Unfinished business, she supposed; a misplaced hope for something better to come of their union. Now there was a fool notion! Yet Claybourne was her husband, after all, and he was patently attractive.

  And right now his breath was lifting the hair at her temple …

  Completely unstrung, she popped open a crock of strawberry-sharp preserves and dipped her finger into its coolness. It was a tangy distraction on her tongue, but couldn’t overtake the rising heat caused by Claybourne’s close study of her face.

  He seemed very interested in watching her draw her finger from her mouth, even sent his tongue to dampen his lower lip as if he were tasting the strawberries, too.

  “Mrs. Sweeney doesn’t read,” he said, lifting his dark gaze to hers.

  “Then how, Mr. Claybourne, did she know what to put into the recipe?” She knew her cheeks had gone stark pink and the rest of her face pale.

  He had such fine lips.

  “Branson probably helped her.”

  She giggled like a schoolgirl and tried to recap the jar. “I didn’t think they liked each other very much.”

  “Perfect enemies.”

  She found her gaze wandering freely to the crook of his knee, so near her hip, and to the inciting fit of his trousers. Which reminded her of the shape of his backside against the flat of her hand, the very hand which was cupped at the moment around the smoothly rounded underside of a crock of strawberry preserves, whose lid refused to cooperate—

  “Here!” She handed the crock to Claybourne and fixed her attention on the rest of the basket. Popped open the tin of cakes and took an impatient bite of one, determined to admire them no matter the taste. “Mmmm. Not bad at all,” she mumbled past the crumbs. “Care to try for yourself, Mr. Claybourne?”

  She lifted the cake to his mouth, but the train jolted forward and he was launched backward like a rocket into the seat behind them.

  “Damnation!” he bellowed.

  She had easily kept her feet. But her husband now slumped low in the seat; his knees were jammed against the front of the opposite s
eat. Globs of strawberries speckled his waistcoat and shirtfront from the crock which he still held valiantly in his hand.

  “How do you do that, Miss Mayfield?” He righted himself, but didn’t stand.

  “Do what?”

  He looked altogether bewildered and pointed to her feet. “The train tossed me like a pebble and yet you never moved.”

  Felicity found a spoon and sat down on the seat beside him, unsure exactly what she planned to do next. “I don’t know, Mr. Claybourne. I guess I can read the rails like a fortune teller can read the future.”

  She moved toward him with the spoon, and he flinched. “What are you doing, Miss Mayfield?”

  “You’re covered in preserves. Hold still.” She held off a sudden fit of giggling. Hunter Claybourne, the scone.

  The man glanced down at his shirtfront and scowled, then watched dutifully as she ladled the globs of strawberries into a napkin.

  She kept her eyes downcast and businesslike, hoping he wouldn’t feel the pounding of her heart, that he couldn’t guess that she was thinking about what it would be like to unbutton his waistcoat and shirt, and lick the strawberries from his chest.

  Heavens above! Marriage had begun to cloud her judgment.

  Hunter hoped his wife didn’t know that he was wondering how her tongue-glistened mouth would feel gliding across his naked chest in a lingering quest for strawberry preserves. Her gaze was fleeting, but frequent and warm, her breathing as unsteady as his own.

  “Did Mrs. Sweeney make these preserves, Mr. Claybourne?”

  “How the hell would I know?” Good God, he didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Every scrape of the spoon was a scrape across his nerves. Then she scraped past the pocket that held the wedding band, and paused there to wipe across the opening with her finger.

  Hell and damn, he should have left her in the third-class car. Should have ridden there himself, where the wind and rain might whip some sense into his head.

  But now she was bent over him, scraping the spoon across his collar bone, her ear exposed and lovely, his breath riffling the sprung curls at her temple. He was vividly aware of the pressure of her thigh against the inside of his, the brush of her skirts against the woolen fabric that shielded his lust from her tender sensibilities. He hoped to hell she wasn’t as aware as he. She’d think him a fiend, and throw herself from the car if she knew.