Ever His Bride Read Online Free Page B

severe
mahogany or excessively polished brass. She felt altogether drab
and powerless in her durable, pale-blue traveling suit that she’d
been wearing for well over 24 hours.
    “Where have you brought me, sir?” she asked
the footman, who’d taken over as her jailer.
    “The new Claybourne Exchange, Miss Mayfield,”
he said without expression, though he knew her name.
    Claybourne. She might have known he’d have
his own exchange arrogantly taken root smack dab in the middle of
the City’s financial district. Cold, lifeless, pretentious.
Claybourne’s signature—down to the thin-lipped doorman. Her courage
fueled by a rising outrage, Felicity followed a crisp-collared
clerk up the wide marble stairs and through a set of double doors
and into a dark paneled reception area.
    “This way,” he said, striding past a large,
unoccupied desk—doubtless his own, toward another set of doors. He
rapped twice, then waited.
    “Come.”
    Felicity knew the voice from last night’s
terror; its rumbling, cool disdain reached past the lock and the
brass hinges and angered her all the more.
    The clerk swung the door open to a dimly lit
office. Dark drapes hung heavily against the windows, shutting off
any light that might filter in from the foggy morning, an effect no
doubt fashioned by Claybourne to beat down the spirit of his
victims.
    “Go right in, miss.”
    Claybourne was standing behind his enormous
oak desk, glaring at her as if he had heard her thoughts through
the mahogany door. Gone were the greatcoat and cape, replaced by an
expensively tailored frock coat of the finest wool. The white of
his shirt darkened his features by contrast; his hair curled
willfully against his high collar and across his forehead. Yet for
all Claybourne’s frosted glaring, Felicity felt a breathy warmth
rise up into her collar. His mouth was too perfectly formed and
perilously fascinating.
    “Come here, Miss Mayfield.” His command
rolled across the room, buffeting her courage like a winter
wind.
    “Felicity’s here?”
    She finally noticed the withered figure
hunched over the desk in front of Claybourne. The tousled-gray head
lifted, and the man looked up at her through watery red eyes.
    “Mr. Biddle!”
    “D-Dear Felicity. . .” Biddle gathered
himself up from the chair on a pair of wobbling legs.
    Felicity dropped her portmanteau and her
shawl and ran to him, throwing her arms around his startlingly
reduced frame. He smelled of stale cigar and even staler beer. “Has
he beaten you? What’s happened here? Have you come to save me from
Claybourne and his scheming!”
    “Oh, my dear girl,” Mr. Biddle muttered and
hid his brow against her shoulder.
    Though she hadn’t seen the man for a few
months, she’d remembered him taller and more solid. He trembled now
as she patted him on the back and glared up at Claybourne, who’d
stepped away to stand like a monolith in front of the green-tiled
room heater. He didn’t look at all contrite for scaring the poor
man speechless.
    “Dear Mr. Biddle,” she said, seizing his bony
arms and straightening him so she could look into his eyes. “You’ve
come all the way to London to help me. How can I thank you?”
    Claybourne snorted. “Your Mr. Biddle answered
my summons, Miss Mayfield.”
    “No wonder he’s in such a state if you
summoned him the way you did me.” She released her hold on Biddle
to take a more square-jawed stance against Claybourne’s
imperiousness. “Mr. Claybourne, I gave you my answer last night. I
will not marry you. Put me into debtor’s prison; pluck out my
fingernails one by one; I don’t care. I have not changed my mind.
Nor will any threat you level my way change it for me.”
    He took two deliberate steps toward her,
making him all the more impossible to ignore. “I brought your Mr.
Biddle here to ensure that you do change your mind.”
    Felicity leaned against the desktop, hoping
to look unconcerned, trying to steady her breathing. “Mr. Biddle
will