Claire looked to Caleb once again. “I am doing this. Unless you have reasons that I should not?” she ventured. Reasons that mayhap included… her and him?
Her breath hitched painfully. Good God, where had that mad thought come from?
“Yeah, that’s the thing I really need to talk to you about, Claire,” he said quickly. “You see—”
The driver drew the door open.
“Just a minute!” Caleb snapped, and the servant immediately fell back.
“What is it?” Claire asked softly.
Except, it appeared they were out of time, after all.
“You’re late,” the gentleman—her husband-to-be—called up.
Claire frowned. Well, this was a rather auspicious beginning that highlighted all the reservations Caleb had and the ones she likely should have carried.
And then she registered another peculiar detail—the upward inflection of his tone, which wasn’t quite the King’s English, with shades of nasality.
“I said I need a minute,” Caleb barked.
Her heart knocked around her chest at that possessive display on Caleb’s part, even as she should worry about how this looked and the questions her fiancé would likely have.
The panel was again drawn open, this time by Claire’s husband-to-be.
“Yeah,” the gentleman shot back. “Well, ye don’t have many minutes—oh.” His gaze landed briefly on Claire, and a frown furrowed his brow before he glanced Caleb’s way. “Your bride—”
His bride?
“—is yet to arrive, but likely due any moment. I’ve had the household readied as much as possible given the constraints I’m—”
“For the love of God, Wade, this is not the time for this,” Caleb hissed.
And then all manner of peculiar details began to assemble themselves. This man was not her husband-to-be, but rather, Wade Harrison, the man with whom she’d corresponded. And he and Caleb knew each other. And they were speaking about a bride—
Claire’s heart forgot its function, and she felt her eyes drifting wide as she stared unblinkingly at Caleb.
A guilty-looking Caleb.
Your bride is yet to arrive, but likely due any moment.
Maybe it was the length of the journey she’d undertaken, or the muddled state of her emotions and thoughts since she’d met up with Caleb at the Rotted Rooster, but none of this made sense.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her voice threadbare.
The gentleman, Wade, looked at Claire, then Caleb, and then promptly drew the door shut.
“What is happening?” Her pitchy question echoed around the carriage.
The moment Wade had gone, Caleb spoke. “I was trying to tell you,” he said gruffly. “The man you were headed to meet and marry… may have been me?” He flashed a grin that could be described only as sheepish.
No. It was… impossible. She was coming to meet an English, landholding gentleman who would turn the management of his estates over to her and allow her a new future. “Is that a question?” she demanded, her voice climbing several decibels.
Caleb grunted. “Not a question. It’s me. I’m the fellow.”
Claire rocked back on the bench as her mind tried to play catch-up with all the terse words he’d spilled. “What game are you playing?” she demanded. “If you’re doing this to prevent me from meeting the man I’ve agreed to wed because of Poppy—”
“This isn’t because of Poppy,” he interrupted. “And it’s not some ploy.” Fishing a note out of his jacket, he handed it over.
Claire stared blankly at the folded velum, and then ripping it from his fingers, she snapped it open and read the handful of sentences.
Your bride is due to arrive at the coaching inn the first week of the month. For the love of God, man, this time don’t be late.
~W
Claire recoiled, and a shocked hiss of air spilled from her lips. Her body went hot, and then cold, and then back to hot again. Energy whipped through her. She needed to escape. To run. To flee.
Reaching past him, she shoved the door open, and ignoring his calls, Claire grabbed her valise and jumped down.
Except, the long carriage ride had done her muscles no favor, and as the graveled ground rushed up to meet her, she stumbled. Tightening the death grip she had upon her belongings, she took several steps forward to put distance between herself and Caleb Gray and his carriage and this… sudden mess that was her life.
Nay, not sudden. Her life had been a mess for some years now.
She stared blankly at the horrified servants staring back at her, the stone keep framed perfectly behind them, and Claire came to an abrupt stop.
Wade, whoever the hell he was, said something to the staff, and the small collection of men, women, and children rushed off.
“In fairness, you didn’t use your name,” Caleb called after her.
In fairness… he’d somehow pin this on her?
“To protect my identity until I was wed,” she cried, shaking the page at him. “And you concealed yours.”
“I didn’t need to be some source of gossip for the British.”
Well, they’d been alike there.
Claire’s eyes slid shut. Her bag slipped from her fingers, and just like that, the light she’d found from the dream that had sustained her these days went out. There was no Night’s Keep. There was no husband. There was just Caleb Gray. The man who didn’t like her, and who might or might not love Claire’s sister-in-law, and who’d deceived her. After all they’d shared…
Oh, God. Those latter details were the silliest, most wrong ones to focus on. What he felt or didn’t feel about Claire was second to just one sobering, staggering truth—she’d come all this way to begin a new life, and now there was nothing.
Claire forced her eyes open, aware of Caleb, silent and brooding, staring at her, his gaze as unreadable as it had always been—nay, as it was before these past days together.
Bringing her shoulders back, Claire collected her valise and then stalked toward what would have been home. She had to figure out just what in hell she was going to do now.
Chapter 17
Caleb had known Wade for almost all of his adult life. They’d been best of friends, through the worst of hells. That friendship had continued beyond the moment they’d been sprung from the British prison ship and continued to this day.
To this very exact one.
He was going to kill him.
Pacing back and forth across the floor of what might have been an office—it was nigh impossible to tell with all the coverings draped over the room’s furnishings—Caleb paused periodically to glare at the other man.
Tugging the fabric from some furniture and tossing it into a heap on the floor, Wade looked way more focused on righting the damned household than fixing this damned mess.
“This is who you picked?” Caleb raged. “The Baroness of Bolingbroke’s sister-in-law?”
Wade caught two ends of a dusty cloth and yanked it off with a crisp snap, revealing an enormous mahogany desk. “She wasn’t listed as a Poplar.” His friend lifted his shoulders in a shrug and then tossed the white sheet atop the mound in the corner of the office.
A shrug?