“I… was,” he began, these precious first words hanging in the damp air like a benediction. “I was … a student here.”
“Dear God, Hunter.” Felicity’s whisper brushed at him from across the room. He heard admiration and dread. A prayer and a song.
“It was … a very long time ago.” He had to struggle to put order to his thoughts; there were too many that wanted the light of day.
“Hunter, do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes. Finally.” He heard a sob catch in her throat, or had it come from his own? “You, see … children. I learned to read here … at the Beggar’s Academy.”
“Mr. Claybourne?” Lady Meath had come to the edge of his vision, her grim frown a dark reminder of his folly. Ruination would come swiftly now. But he ignored her for the wonder in the children’s faces and the light in his wife’s eyes.
“And I studied my sums … because I knew—” His voice broke into jagged pieces, but he cleared his throat and a rebellious kind of bliss tumbled over him. “Because it was … and it still is .. . the only way out, my young friends. The only way.”
Robin Hood dropped from Giles’s hand. “You, sir?”
“I was a pickpocket, Giles. A thief and a stray.” Hunter knelt down to the boy, felt the childhood elation of comradeship, of belonging. “But I didn’t let them beat me down, lad. Do you know who I mean?”
Giles’s mouth hung open and he nodded. “I do, sir.”
“I fought them, and I won. And now I build grand fortunes for them, lad, and even grander fortunes for myself.”
The room had gone completely silent.
Hunter stood up and glanced at Felicity, his champion. He loved her eyes: a meadowland, and the sea. Her hair had come free of its pins, her breathing reduced to quaking. She was beautiful in her tatters and in her frowning distress.
“Hunter, do you know—”
He laughed and knew he must sound completely mad. “Well, Mrs. Claybourne, haven’t you read that thing yet? It needs signing.”
“Sorry, Mr. Claybourne, I’ve been distracted.” Nearly struck dumb. Felicity’s extraordinary husband had just confessed his closely hoarded past to the world via Lady Meath and Lady Oswin and all the children, and now he was impatient with her? The man was as imperious and coldly unpredictable as ever! He was standing behind Gran— an odd-looking pair, Hunter in his fine, starkly black coat, and Gran’s worn-through linsey nearly obscured by all the children in her arms.
“Read it, madam,” he said again, cocking his head. “Or didn’t you learn how? What sort of school did you go to?”
The children giggled, and Gran smiled. And Hunter seemed to like that immensely, gaining some kind of power from it. In fact, he seemed a bit unbalanced. Now he was taking his time coming toward her, sauntering almost, his gaze heating her as it fixed on her mouth and then her eyes.
“Hurry, please, Mrs. Claybourne.” He was standing in front of her, his voice gathered low in the space between them. He was close enough to kiss her, poised and looking down at her as if he would. Yet he only lifted his hand; brushed his fingers against her cheek.
Unable to escape him, she fixed her concentration on the separation papers, the breaking of her heart.
Transfer of Title, just as he had said. But there wasn’t a single word about a separation. Only—
“My railway shares … ?” He’d come here about her miserable railway shares? “I told you I won’t fight you, Hunter.”
“You’d better not. Read it.”
Bloody tyrant. “Just as it says here, the Drayhill-Starlington will officially become yours a year from the date of our marriage, at which time—” But then the words took off on some jumbled track, and her heart went with them.
“At which time, my love, my wife,” Hunter whispered, as he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, sending her pulse singing, “I, we, will take on as equal partner, in said railway, the institution known as the Beggar’s Academy. You’ll have your funding, madam, and then some.”
This still made no sense, nor did his delicious mouth against hers. Her head was reeling and she shoved him away.
“But, Hunter, you told them all about yourself. What will they say? Lady Meath and Lady Oswin … didn’t you see them there?”
“Good God, woman, do you think it matters anymore?”
“Hunter, what happened? What did Meath do to you?”
He only held her and brushed his lips against her ear. “I’m afraid I took the easy way, love. I let all the rats scurry out of their holes and into the sunlight. But please don’t despise me for it. I shall hold them to their word.”
“To their word, Hunter?” She had no idea what he was talking about, only that he seemed inordinately pleased with himself. “What have you done?”
“I’m thinking of running for the Commons. Do you suppose anyone would elect a true man of the streets?”
Lady Oswin appeared at Hunter’s elbow. “Oh, if I could vote, Hunter Claybourne, I would cast my ballot for you!”
Lady Meath was behind her, her eyes damp and her hair sprung from its golden pins. “We won’t tell what we’ve heard here, Mr. Claybourne. Not a word.”
Hunter only grinned. “Then, I’ll have to.”
“Hunter, are you sure?”
He gazed down on her, held her face between his huge hands. “I love you, Felicity. I have been censured, and my name reduced to nothing. I’ve lost an irreplaceable position as Commissioner of Railways—one I thought meant more to me than anything else I could have imagined. But then … never in all my life could I have imagined such a priceless treasure as you. I am nothing without you and your goodness.”
“Oh, Hunter!” He cradled her head against his chest. She soaked up his scent and the magnificent feel of his arms, and then his salty-sweet mouth seeking hers.
Then he was kissing every inch of her mouth. “I will promise to amass great fortunes, my love, if you’ll promise to spend them for me. I’m no good at that, and you seem to know where it will do the most good. But just now, I want to take you back to our home—”
“Home? And what if I’m not sure I want to go there?” Her eyes blazed as she pulled herself away to look hard at him.
Hunter panicked. “Not go home?” He never considered—
“You dismissed me, Hunter! You got angry and then dismissed me, as if I were a housemaid caught stealing the silver. I will never be dismissed by you again.”
“Oh, my love, you never were.” His heart was pounding a terrified dirge. “Turning from you was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life. And I could never do it again. I never will.”
“Then from now on, when you get angry with me, Hunter, you will take your miserable hide out to the clearing and chop yourself a cord of wood. Then you’ll come back inside, and we will discuss the matter rationally. And we will love each other through it all. Is that clear?”
“As crystal, madam.” He cradled the back of her head. His eyes went wonderfully soft, and the light of his heart blazed there. “I will be your husband irrevocably and forever more, my love. If you’ll have me.”
Felicity was about to answer when she felt a tug at her skirt, and looked down at Betts. “Yes, love?”
“Is the big man happy again, miss? Is he?” She looked so full of hope.
Gran was grinning, nodding her gray head in twinkle-eyed mischief. Lady Meath and Lady Oswin were gripping each other’s hands, and the children were all waiting.
Felicity smiled up at Hunter; touched his mouth with her fingers just to assure herself that he was real.
“Oh, I think Mr. Claybourne is going to find himself irrevocably happy.”
Then he kissed her madly, while the whole of the Beggar’s Academy looked on and applauded.
Epilogue
“Did you ask after the ship’s load line, Giles?” Hunter crossed his arms behind his head and lay back against the soft grass. The March sun was marvelously warm on his face, and the sweet, ric
h aroma of Felicity’s herb garden made him grin with lusty memories.
They’d had to modify their lovemaking in the last month, when her child-ripe belly had become unwieldy. In the process, he’d discovered that his wife was as inventive as she was passionate. She’d wanted him to meet her here, and so he would wait, most happily.
“And what would a load line be, Mr. Claybourne?”
Hunter watched out of the corner of his eye as Giles stretched out noisily on the grass, matching Hunter’s own pose, even to the bent knees and the fingers laced across his chest. It seemed he’d grown a full six inches since Felicity had brought him to live with them.
The first few months had been rocky, with Giles following him around, baiting him like a belligerent shadow and then darting away. But the boy had excelled with the tutor, showed a remarkable skill with numbers, and he’d recently taken up reading the Times and asking perceptive questions about shipping news.
“If you’re going to invest your shillings in a cargo, you’d best see how the ship lies in the water when its full.”
“Ah, I see.” Giles rolled up onto his elbow and nodded sagely at Hunter. “Can’t have the ship lying too low in the water. Too risky.”
“Exactly. But don’t count on the shipping company to protect your investment, Giles. You’ve got to learn to protect it yourself.”
Giles’s brow darkened and he plucked at the grass. “But it isn’t my money. Not really. You gave it to me. I didn’t work for it, didn’t earn it.”
Hunter sat upright, wondering where the sudden brooding had come from. “Ah, but you have earned it, son. You’ve made my wife very happy. And that makes you worth more to me than I could ever pay you.”
Hunter watched helplessly as huge tears gathered in Giles’s eyes. The road had been a rough one, but he’d begun to enjoy this fatherly role. Yet he hadn’t the slightest idea how to tell that to the boy. He thought back on what he would have liked to have heard as a child. Then he realized—
“You’ve made me very happy too, Giles. And damned proud.”
“Have I?” Giles blinked and hiccuped, and a pair of huge tears splashed into the grass. “Thank you, sir. I …” He gave a cry and launched himself into Hunter’s arms, all gangly limbed and too big to be weeping.
Hunter’s own throat constricted as he patted the boy’s back and held him. Home. Yes, that was the thing, that was the need for them all.
“This is your home now, Giles. It’s a bit on the grandish side for a pair like you and me, but it’s home. And it’s all right to love till it hurts.”
Giles continued to weep, and Hunter couldn’t blame him. He’d been overcome himself more than a few times in the last few months; it happened nearly every time he laid eyes on his wife. His happiness made his heart ache.
“Hey, now,” Hunter said, lifting the boy off his shoulder. “What say you and I pay a visit tomorrow afternoon to the West India Docks, and I’ll show you what I mean about load line?”
“Really?” Giles sat up on his knees and scrubbed his face with the sleeve of his once-starched white shirt. “You and me, sir?”
“I’ll introduce you to a few of the captains, a few of the owners, perhaps—”
“Yes sir! I’d like that!” Then Giles was looking over Hunter’s shoulder, and frowning.
“Hello, Giles.” Betts plopped herself down possessively in Hunter’s lap, her short legs dangling across his folded ones, and handed him a pink ribbon. “Could you please tie my hair, Papa? You’re ever so good at it.”
He had to swallow hard nearly every time Betts called him Papa. He’d get use to it some day—the sourceless guilt, as well as the overwhelming sense of belonging that fatherhood had brought to him. Three children, and another to come only a week or two from now. Who could have imagined?
“Where is your mama?” he asked, as he gathered Betts’s hair into a short, curly rope at her nape. Her hair had grown from its close crop to her shoulders in bright springy curls, and she was forever bringing him ribbons to tie it all up.
“Mama’s in the kitchen with Andy and Mrs. Sweeney. Do you like lollipops, Papa? Giles does, don’t you Giles?”
“No.” Giles was still frowning, obviously irked that their father-to-son conversation had been interrupted by Betts and her silly ribbons. “We’re going to the West India Dock tomorrow. Mr. Claybourne and I.”
“I’m going with you!”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am. Aren’t I, Papa?”
“She can’t go!” Giles’s face had gone red, and he was up on his knees again. “Tell her she’s too young, Mr. Claybourne, and besides, she’s a girl!”
“Course I’m a girl.” Betts leaned forward just as Hunter had gotten the bow tied, and her silky hair slipped out of the ribbon and fell back on her shoulders. “You and I couldn’t ever get married, if I weren’t.”
“Get married to you!” Giles looked stunned, and Hunter held back his laughter. “You’re a lunatic! I’m not going to marry you! Tell her, Mr. Claybourne!”
“Papa, why does Giles call you Mr. Claybourne and not Papa?” Betts was a master at piercing Giles with her words. She seemed to know just what to say and when to say it.
Hunter had never insisted, but he could guess Giles’s reasons. “Giles is my legal son now, as Andy is, and you’re my daughter, and that’s all that matters. He can call me anything he likes: Mr. Claybourne, Hunter, Father, Papa—”
“Pinchfist!” Betts said, with a boisterous giggle.
“Pinchfist?” Hunter growled and pretended outrage. He tickled Betts’s ribs and raspberried the back of her neck.
“Not fair!” She shrieked with laughter and launched herself toward Giles, her ribbon sailing like a streamer into a bush.
“Don’t—!” But Giles caught Betts square in the chest, and went sailing backward with her into the grass.
“I got you, Giles!” Now Betts was tormenting the boy with her quick little fingers, and he was laughing too hard to stop.
Hunter was about to rise and rescue Giles, when a pair of short, chubby arms came around his head from behind. He saw the red lollipop only an instant before it affixed itself to his forehead.
“It’s for you, Papa!” Andy shrieked, and hugged Hunter tightly.
“Your papa loves sweets, Andy.”
Felicity’s voice swept around him like a vapor, drew him to his feet with Andy clinging to his back.
“You look wonderful, Mrs. Claybourne.” Hunter knew he was smiling like a fool, but it felt good to stand there and just stare at his wife.
“I feel like a steamship,” she said, frowning as she pressed her hand against her lower back.
“Giles and I had just been discussing load lines.”
“Yours is pretty low, Mama.” Giles laughed as he pulled Betts to her feet. “I do believe you’d sink.” He turned to Hunter. “What do you think … Papa?”
Papa. Hunter’s throat seized up for a moment, but he managed to nod, and held out his arm to collect his son against him.
“But she’s a good risk, Giles. I’d put my trust in her every time.”
Felicity felt her eyes well up with tears, but brushed them away so that she could take a good look at her family. Giles was standing close enough to Hunter to be his shadow, and holding Betts’s hand as she beamed up at him. Andy was clinging to Hunter’s neck, his head resting on Hunter’s shoulder.
And Hunter himself stood as steadfast as a spreading oak, grinning at her, the red lollipop still stuck to his forehead. What a dear man she had married. Her champion, her love.
She would have gone to him, but another pain had begun to plague her, a great squeezing pressure low in her back that made it difficult to breathe.
Hunter yanked the lollipop from his forehead and frowned at her. “Felicity?”
She managed to smile, even managed to speak. “Giles, would you take Andy and Betts into the house? It’s nearly dinnertime, and I need to speak with your father.”
“I only have a moment, Hunter—”
Before she could say another thing, Hunter had swept her into his arms and was kissing her.
“I have a great need for you, wife. It seems I can never get enough of you.” His breath was fresh with rosemary. “I think of you all day at the exchange, through those bloody foundation meetings that have become so popular—”
“Hunter, tomorrow is our anniversary.”
“One year; I haven’t forgotten. Couldn’t ever.”
“Do you mind if your gift comes today?”
He looked charmingly confused, and his forehead tasted of cherries when she kissed him there.
“I don’t need a gift, Felicity. I have you.”
“Well, this one is coming today, Hunter, and you do need it. And I know you will love it. As you love all our children.”
“Children?” She saw the light dawn in his dark eyes. He stood away from her and formed his hands across her belly as he had so often. “The baby?”
She nodded. “I love you. Hunter.”
“And you, love, are the stars and the moon to me, and all the goodness in my life.” His eyes were soft and damp now as he enfolded her in his arms, touched his salty mouth to hers.
Felicity kept the rising pain to herself, needing this last, quiet moment with her magnificent husband, the most grand-hearted man she had ever known.
“Oh, Hunter, what lucky children we have.”
“Not half so lucky as their foolish father has been— to have found you—”
“And a railway in the bargain.” She grinned.
Hunter’s laughter echoed across the gardens. And as he lifted his exquisite wife into his arms and carried her and her kisses toward the house, he offered up a prayer for Uncle Foley’s safe return from the gold fields.
Ever His Bride Page 36