A Groom of Her Own (Scandalous Affairs Book 1) Read online

  Her back knocked against the door, rattling the panel and putting an end to her retreat. And she gave thanks when he stopped several paces away. Seven inches past five feet, she was taller than many gentlemen, but always managed to feel small before this towering bear of a man. Her entire body went on alert, aware of him and his nearness. She wet her lips, her unease having little to do with his outrage and everything to do with him… and the pounding of her heart in response to him.

  “You talked her out of it.”

  She gasped. “No!” Indignation drew that exclamation from her. “Never. I would never—”

  “You didn’t write your brother and summon him back from Ireland? Warn him about an interloper…” She widened her eyes. “You didn’t go about trying to end my lessons with her?”

  Claire winced.

  “Yeah, I know about that.”

  So… that was the reason for his animosity. Or one of the reasons, anyway. Given it was increasingly more likely his beloved United States of America would rejoin the king’s empire than she’d be joining him in Paris, she’d be better served leaving and ending this already-bad exchange. “That wasn’t my intention.” She took an even breath. “Yes, I did summon my brother home.”

  “Who ended her lessons,” he bit out.

  Claire frowned. “She chose to reduce her time with you and spend more with Tristan.” Giving up her spot at the door, she marched the remaining steps over to him. “They are in love.”

  “Love.” He wrapped that word in the harsh rasp of his deep baritone.

  She lifted her chin a fraction. “I’ll not apologize for reuniting my sister-in-law and her husband.”

  He lowered his face close to hers. “No, but you should apologize to her for forcing her into a staid, dull, tedious English life,” he said with a bluntness that sent heat rushing to her cheeks, “when she could have had a real future as an artist.”

  Unlike Claire. His meaning was clear. She bit the inside of her cheek.

  Their breathing rose hard and fast, falling in time into the same harsh rhythm. Their eyes locked. His eyes drifted to her mouth, and then he lifted his gaze back to hers.

  She spoke softly. “You’d turn me asserting myself into something bad, Caleb.”

  “I’d take you maneuvering and conniving to get what you want at all costs as something reprehensible,” he said flatly.

  She gasped. “I’ll have you know, Poppy’s decision, whatever it may be, had nothing to do with me.”

  “No. You just lamented your tedious state to her,” he shot back, immediately knocking her off-balance again. “I’m sure that didn’t have anything to do with her suggesting she stay behind and you go.”

  Claire stared at him, stricken.

  She’d confided in Poppy, just as she had her sisters, about her frustration. “No,” she said, shaking her head hard, refusing to believe she’d somehow altered Poppy’s plan. “She wouldn’t do that.” Except, she would.

  “Wouldn’t she?” he asked quietly, and his snapping and snarling had been easier than this echoing of her own guilty musings.

  She faltered, and needing space between them, she moved away several paces. “I won’t have you make my motives out to be mercenary, Caleb.”

  He shrugged, that lift of his broad, wide shoulders worse than his earlier condemnation.

  Claire hesitated. “You won’t even look at my work? And consider my request?”

  Caleb laughed, a rusty chuckle that grated on her last nerve. “You’re dying to show me what’s in your notebook. I don’t need to even see it. I’ll bet every last canvas I ever painted on that you’ve got yourself one of your mother’s fine vases filled with some wildflowers, and because you didn’t paint the hothouse ones, you think you’re somehow bold.” He approached her, and she made herself hold her ground. “Maybe you even have them outside…” he whispered in his graveled tones as he circled behind her and paused, placing his lips near her ear.

  Of their own volition, her eyes slipped shut. Why should she respond so to his nearness, when his words were cruel?

  “Or next to a window to make some kind of artistic point about how the flowers deserve to be outside, but are trapped inside.” He came to stand before her, their bodies nearly touching, his gaze a hot, piercing caress. His throat moved. “You’re no artist, Claire. You’re a pastel and paint miss who has no place in an art room.”

  Claire flinched. “Well…” She drew her sketch pad close to her chest, putting it up as a barrier between them. “That was—”

  “Claire,” he began, and she hated the remorse there even more than his hateful words, which had been so much worse because of how true they were. “I didn’t—”

  “Good evening, Mr. Gray. If you’ll excuse me.” With that, Claire hurried for the door and left.

  As she took flight, something more than humiliation and hurt fueled her steps. And that was determination to prove Caleb wrong.

  Chapter 1

  London, England

  Winter, 1828

  Claire Poplar had taken her fate and her future into her own hands.

  Or, waiting in this particular museum, it felt very much like she had.

  Nor, for that matter, was it the first time she’d done so. With the same gentleman, no less.

  Given that she’d become a social outcast, for her parents having been only just outed for their role in stealing a title from a distant relative, there wasn’t much for Claire to do these days.

  There were few invitations to balls.

  There were even fewer soirees.

  They were even less dinner parties.

  Invitations to each had dwindled and dwindled… until there were none.

  Which had left her with an inordinate amount of free time.

  That inordinate amount of free time was what even now had her finding the courage to visit the small museum on the fringe of London. It was a place, over the past month, she returned to every day, because surely an artist whose work was on display would pay a periodic visit.

  Alas, with the exception of a handful of visitors in and out of the studio, the museum was largely a ghost town.

  Which didn’t make much sense to Claire. The artist in question had created work that had commanded some of the greatest fanfare in London. Why he should deign to have his exhibits here, where few came to patronize, eluded her.

  But then, the gentleman himself was a peculiar one.

  And ornery.

  And when he wasn’t ornery, he was rude and more than a little insulting.

  He’d been quite clear in what he thought about her and her talent.

  As hurt as she’d been at the immediacy of the words about her work that he’d leveled her way, he’d given her purpose, too. Something to bury her entire self into—improving and sharpening her skills.

  Removed from the emotionality of the moment, Claire had also come to see that she was not the only person to offend him. Everybody agitated him.

  Nay, not everybody. He had been incessantly patient and pleasant and teasing with just one—her dearest sister-in-law, herself a great artist, Poppy.

  But surely he would at least consider this latest request she would put to him. That was, if he ever deigned to visit the museum displaying his work.

  “I like this one.” Her sister Faye spoke in haunting tones, and Claire looked over to see which painting fascinated her younger sister, whom she’d dragged along with her each day.

  Of course, it made sense…

  A ship ablaze in the middle of a turbulent sea. One could just make out the features of the tiny figures sketched upon that canvas. The silvery thrust of sabers as they connected with their marks and the crimson drops of blood were an eerie capture of whatever battle these men fought.

  “It is gloomy and dark,” Claire found herself saying, shivering within her cloak.

  Faye drifted closer, until her nose nearly touched the soldiers engaged in the sword fight. “That is why I like it.”

  Faye, o
ften gloomy and also more than a bit dark, would. When all the ugliest, darkest, most horrifying details of their family’s crimes had come to light, Faye had descended into a deeper melancholy.

  How Claire hated to see her this way. As one who carried the same guilt and regret, she knew all too well the sentiments insidiously consuming Faye. “You should find… something more cheerful,” Claire gently urged her sister.

  That said, they’d have to visit another museum to find such work, given cheerful and light was decidedly not what renowned artist Caleb Gray was famed for. Often, his works merged dark and light shades. His subjects straddled misery and deeper misery, some being gloomier than others. This particular portrait, however, was absent of any shred of warmth. There had to be something appropriate at this museum, however.

  “How about…” Claire searched her gaze around. “What about…”

  She already knew she searched in vain. After visiting this same museum for the past month, she’d examined and re-examined the twelve portraits hanging in this modest room and knew happy options were slim. Then she froze, her stare locking on a painting she’d not before seen.

  Wait a moment…

  “They are all dark,” Faye murmured. “I like—”

  “There’re thirteen!” Claire exclaimed.

  “—them,” her sister finished over Claire’s interruption.

  When had that addition taken place? It could mean only that the artist himself had been here at some point, delivering that painting. And as he’d not been here yesterday, he might be here now. Excitement clamored away in her breast. But first, there was the matter of finding Faye joyful work. Taking her sister by the hand, she dragged her over to that piece in shades of yellow and orange and crimson. The great splash of color was…

  Claire sighed.

  “A fire,” Faye said softly. “I rather like it.”

  Of course she did.

  Claire angled her head, taking it in as she did. “It is… a sunset.”

  “It is a fire,” her sister insisted.

  Pressing her lips together, Claire exhaled an exasperated sound through her closed mouth. Yes, her sister wasn’t wrong. “It is a fire,” she relented.

  “Do you suppose the artist might sell it to me?” Faye wondered aloud. “I’d like to hang it up and see it every day.”

  Claire slid a pained glance her youngest sibling’s way. “A painting of a fire?”

  “It’s raw,” her sister murmured. “Untamed. Dangerous. Beautiful.”

  Claire didn’t disagree with those descriptors in terms of the untamed. And yet, the last thing her sister needed was to spend day in and day out with a gloomy painting that portended death and dying.

  I should have come alone. It was just that whenever she went out, she thought it was better to take her sister with her so that she wasn’t her usual downtrodden self with their miserable mother making things even more awful for Faye.

  Although, Claire was beginning to wonder why she herself even bothered coming here. Why, when the person she sought out proved as elusive as the suitors she’d once had, as invisible. Invisible was what she was, too, since the scandal. And something even worse—a burden. A poor relation. The spinster aunt shuttered away with her mother and also-unmarried sister and brother and his wife. Of course, neither Poppy nor Tristan would ever or had ever made Claire feel anything but wanted. It was more a matter of pride and a desire for some form of control in her life that accounted for those sentiments.

  Claire gave her head a shake, returning her focus to the matter at hand.

  The more pressing problem being that Caleb Gray was invisible. The gentleman, when he wasn’t in London, was traveling about the Continent. It was as though he refused to settle. He was a mystery that no one could really sort out. Other than Claire’s sister-in-law, Poppy.

  There’d been a time Claire had secretly envied her that closeness. Solely because of that artistic connection they shared.

  Liar, a taunting voice needled in her head.

  Claire did another unnecessary sweep of the empty room. “He’s not here.” And it was the last day of the exhibit. She’d expected, in the month-long display of his work at the exhibit, that he would’ve spent at least one day here.

  “Who isn’t here?” Faye asked, still riveted upon the brightest red on the canvas.

  Oh, bloody hell. Not that she need worry, too much. If one was going to be caught speaking aloud to oneself, Faye was the perfect person to be doing it with. It still did not mean, however, that she willingly wanted to speak about Caleb Gray with even Faye.

  “The driver,” Claire said quickly. “We should be…”

  Her sister was already starting for the door. “Such a shame. I really would have liked to buy it.”

  Then came the tinny, forlorn sound of the bell ring as Faye let herself out and left Clare alone.

  “Going,” Claire finished dryly to herself. She reached for her hood to draw the fabric up and stopped, as in the glass windowpanes, she caught the figure behind her.

  His face bronzed as if by the sun, his jaw too large, his nose too hooked, he would never, ever be considered handsome in the traditional sense of the word. It was perhaps that incongruity that lent him an air that made a lady look. All that unfashionably long hair, with so much texture and curl to those dark strands; it made a lady’s fingers twitch with the need to touch. And those eyes. Those eyes gave a woman pause, too. A blue so dark it flirted with blackness, adding to the air of mystery that was Caleb Gray.

  Which was the sole reason she found herself fixed to the floor, unable to move.

  Furthermore, who, at nearly a foot taller and surely seven stone heavier than Claire, was capable of walking about so stealthily?

  Either way…here he was. At last. She’d been deliberately searching him out for weeks now. To no avail. As such, his unexpected presence should be met with only a grand relish and excitement. Her patience had paid off. Only, unease warred with nervousness and not the expected triumph.

  Caleb Gray. So he wouldn’t speak first. That was fine. She might be a social outcast now. But her mother had forced Claire to suffer through enough deportment and propriety lessons to face anyone, in any setting.

  “Mr. Gray,” she greeted him, with a slight inclination of her head.

  A cool smile creased his lips, and when he spoke, he didn’t even acknowledge or bother with pleasantries of his own. “Telling people what they should like and not like, are you, Your Majesty?”

  Blast him and that infuriating moniker he affixed to her whenever they crossed paths. Where he called Poppy princess, an entirely too familiar endearment, there could be no doubting that his form of address for Claire was intended only as an insult.

  “You were eavesdropping on me?” Outrage pulled that question from Claire.

  “While you told your sister what she should and shouldn’t like?” Caleb Gray dropped a hip against the wall. He didn’t come any closer, and she far preferred it that way. Not that she was afraid of him. She wasn’t. She just didn’t much like how she couldn’t sort out her thoughts whenever he was near. “Yeah, I heard that.”

  Yeah.

  Those lazy American speech patterns. She couldn’t sort out whether she liked them. Hated them. Or whether she was intrigued by them. Not him. She was certainly not intrigued by anything about the man before her. Other than his work, that was.

  “Very well, Mr. Gray. Your work here is outrageously gloomy,” she remarked, smoothing the pockets along her cloak. “More so than—” His usual work. Claire bit her lip lest she reveal just how much she’d been examining his work. And looking for him.

  “You’ve come to offer me artistic tips?” Mockery laced every syllable of those seven words, and she felt her cheeks heating up with an aggravating blush. As if he worried that his insult hadn’t been clear enough, he chuckled.

  Hmph. Yes, well, he’d made no effort to conceal just how little he thought of her artistic abilities. “I don’t think you take gui
dance from anyone,” she said in the haughtiest tones she could manage. “Even if you could use it,” she added, just because she’d never been able to not bait him.

  “Oh?”

  She’d gone too far.

  He pushed himself away from the painting of an anchor as it fell toward an ocean filled with drowning and struggling men, and she could well connect with the unlucky fellow on whom the anchor was bearing down. He took a long, slow step her way. “Got a problem with my work, do you, Your Majesty?”

  There was a warning there.

  She dampened her lips. Now she’d gone and made a muck of it. What was it about this man that made her lose control of her own tongue?

  Caleb stopped before her.

  She edged back several steps, just so she didn’t have to crane her neck quite so much. “Not all of it.” She paused. “This particular display, yes.”

  He folded those enormous arms across an even more enormous chest. “And yet, even though you don’t like my work, it hasn’t stopped you from coming to visit my exhibit every day for the past month.”

  Claire froze.

  He knew that? How…?

  And then it hit her! Why, he’d known she’d been seeking him out and had made no attempt to meet her. The bounder. Claire sputtered, “Why, you have been avoiding me.”

  “Successfully, too,” he said in his flat, sarcastic, and very boorish way.

  But then, he was an American. What else could one expect?

  Refusing to let him get his usual rise out of her, Claire gave a toss of her head. “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘too successful,’ as we are meeting face-to-face now.”

  “I started to take the hint that you weren’t going away.” The absolute absence of a smile, or a wink, and the overwhelming amount of sarcasm disabused her of any possibility that he was jesting.

  Claire gasped. “You’ve known I’ve been searching for you,”—it had actually been longer than a month, but she’d sooner lop off her painting arm than admit as much—“and you’ve made no effort to see me.”

  “No.”

  She waited for him to clarify. When it became abundantly clear he had no intention of doing so, she tapped her slipper. “No, you didn’t know? Or no, you did know and made no intention of seeing me, Mr. Gray?”