Cracked panels she’d expected.
Just as she’d expected a husband.
Neither of which there would be now.
Claire briefly closed her eyes. And certainly there wouldn’t be anything with Caleb following that volatile exchange just prior to his bringing her to pleasure. Yes, that moment in his arms had been splendorous. But ultimately, they’d proven harmonious in matters of passion, but at odds in every other way.
You think, what? We spend several days together, and you suddenly know me? Well, you don’t, Claire. You know nothing.
Sucking in a shaky breath, Claire rested her forehead against the crack upon the window.
He wanted nothing to do with her… beyond sating each other’s desire. That much was clear. And yet, that didn’t stop her from wanting him anyway.
Her heart spasmed. God help her, she yearned for him. The man who spoke to her about demanding more and expecting more for herself than the business arrangement she’d set out in search of. His rejection had been the most painful one, and yet, the most beautiful. Caleb was correct. Claire did deserve love and a very real marriage, one that was a joyous partnership like the one she’d witnessed between Tristan and Poppy.
He’d been right about so much. She wasn’t responsible for her parents’ crimes. She was not undeserving of happiness because of the bad decisions other people had made. Even as it had been easier to live in guilt.
Yes, the guilt would always be with her… and regret and pain for her family’s involvement in Lord Maxwell’s disappearance. But she did not own those crimes and mistakes. Her mother and father had been the ones who’d acted in evil. Not Claire. Not Tristan. Nor Faye, nor Christina.
A lightness filled her chest as that realization… set her free. She’d accused Caleb of running, but mayhap she’d been able to recognize that in him as she herself had been fleeing.
Claire saw that and, more important, now believed that—because of Caleb. He’d opened her eyes to so much.
It was just one of the reasons she’d fallen so desperately in love with him.
Claire went motionless. Close to the window as she still was, the now-warmed glass panel reflected her wide, unblinking eyes and slack jaw. Her breathing grew raspy in the empty corridor.
She couldn’t love Caleb Gray.
Her body hummed with a restless energy, prompting Claire back into movement.
It was preposterous. As he’d pointed out, they were constantly at war. A small half laugh, half sob spilled from her lips. But the advertisement that had led to their chance meeting at the Rotted Rooster had been fate’s way of bringing them together.
And that was just one of the reasons why, even after their tumultuous exchange that afternoon, she was eager to see him again. On the morn, they’d head back to London, and at the end of that final leg of her journey, they would part ways for a final time. Until that day, however, she wanted to steal as many moments as she could with him.
Claire reached the dining room and came up short in the threshold of the doorway.
There were two occupants in the room. The woman, Sarah, who’d been assigned as her maid, sat at the opposite end of the table, knitting, a temporary companion for the night.
And the gentleman was not the particular gentleman she’d been expecting, the man she’d been so desperately wanting to see.
“Miss Poplar,” Mr. Harrison greeted, dropping a slight but respectable bow.
Unlike Caleb, who didn’t bother with that expression when he greeted any English person, considering the bow second only in silliness to the curtsy. And she found that was just one of the many things she’d come to love about Caleb. He didn’t bother with useless societal norms. He didn’t stand on ceremony. He just… was. And he treated her like anyone else.
Claire made her way over to the place setting that had been set out across from the still-standing Mr. Harrison. As she took her seat, she glanced around the long, mahogany table, but there were no additional place settings, just the two.
Not three, which indicated there would not be another joining them this night.
This, her last night. And it appeared then that there wouldn’t be any more opportunities to steal time with Caleb here at Night’s Keep. That the moments had come… and gone. There would, of course, still be the carriage ride back to London, because he was too honorable to let her return on her own. Tears stung her eyes, and she stared down at the silverware, blinking several times in a bid to rid herself of those useless crystalline drops.
Feeling Mr. Harrison’s stare on her, she made herself attend the one person who apparently would be her dining companion that night. Claire drew forth from a lifetime’s worth of agonizing training in decorum and smiled at Caleb’s man of affairs.
Several maids came forward with the evening fare, which they proceeded to dish onto Claire’s and Mr. Harrison’s plates. The experience here was so unlike the formal dining her mother had insisted on over the years, with courses brought out one at a time in slow succession, turning what should have been a functional experience into a tedious, interminable one. As Claire sliced into the tender shoulder of roast beef, she briefly paused. She could have been so happy here… together with Caleb. Without all the ceremony of London.
“Disappointed, I take it?” Mr. Harrison called across the table, bringing Claire’s head snapping up.
“On the contrary. The meal is quite perfect,” she assured.
His narrow lips twitched. “I was talking about the company. As in… finding me here.”
And not Caleb.
What he was saying registered, and Claire felt a mortified rush of heat splash her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re suggesting, Mr. Harrison,” she said in a brusque manner intended to put him off.
Except, he only grinned. “I meant you were hoping to find Caleb, and not me, here.”
Oh, good God. Under the table, she curled her toes tightly into the soles of her slippers. She’d been so very transparent in her feelings for Caleb that this man—a stranger—had seen it.
“No,” she blurted. “Not at all.”
He snorted.
And it was that rude little intake of air that snapped her patience. “Tell me, Mr. Harrison, is bluntness a trait of all Americans?”
Taking his glass of claret, he held it aloft. “Only in the good ones,” he toasted, following that declaration with a wink, startling a laugh from Claire.
Just like that, the gentleman managed to diffuse both the humiliation of getting caught pining for Caleb and the misery of finding him absent on their last night together. And Claire did the only thing one could do when being called out so spectacularly. She lifted her glass in a mock salute, as well.
“It’s not you, you know,” he explained after he’d returned his glass to the table. Grabbing his fork and knife, he proceeded to cut a piece of roast beef. “He finds himself lost in his art… all of the time. It has nothing to do with you.”
“You mean it has nothing to do with him disliking me?” she countered drolly. For whatever bond they’d forged, they still, as he’d pointed out, remained at odds over so much.
Wade pointed his fork her way. “Absolutely he does not dislike you. No way. He’s a surly bastard with everyone—”
“Ahem.”