Rules of Attraction

by Christina Dodd

  “Thank you, I am well. When Mrs. Trenchard checked on me this morning, she said I could rise tomorrow so long as I use a cane.” Hannah chafed at the time in bed. “How is the work on the tapestry going?”

  “We have less than five days until Her Majesty’s visit. I don’t know if we can finish in time.” Aunt Spring shook her head dolefully. “Not without the case of yarns we need. Oh, but you said it came.” She put her finger to her chin. “Where did you put it?”

  Hannah pleated the folds of her skirt and wondered why she ever thought she could lie to these women. For the first time since her mother died, she faced chiding eyes and felt the sting of guilt. “I dropped it when I fell. Perhaps someone else picked it up.” The yarns had been scheduled for delivery yesterday. The case had to be in the castle somewhere, didn’t it? Heaven help her if it had failed to arrive.

  “We’ll ask Mrs. Trenchard.” Miss Minnie made the simple sentence sound threatening.

  But Hannah approved of that idea. Mrs. Trenchard would lie for her if necessary. Mrs. Trenchard wouldn’t want the aunts worrying, either.

  “Yes, I’ll speak to Judy,” Aunt Spring said. “She and I are like twins.”

  Taken aback, Hannah blinked. “Like twins…how?”

  “My mother died, you know, so her mother was my wet nurse.” Aunt Spring pointed to herself. “We’re the same age.”

  “You…are?” For some reason, Hannah had thought Aunt Spring to be older than Mrs. Trenchard. Mrs. Trenchard was so sturdy and capable, able to propel a staff of fifty servants, while Aunt Spring was…Aunt Spring. Vague, eccentric, eternally kind.

  Aunt Spring forgot the drive for truth and perched on the edge of Hannah’s bed to gossip. “We were raised like sisters. In my youth, dear Judy was my constant companion. She always watched out for me, even when I was grown. Even after she was married. Why, if not for her, I could have never met Lawrence in secret—”

  “Miss Spring!” Mrs. Trenchard stood in the doorway. “Ye’re not to say such things. We don’t want yer reputation to suffer.”

  “Pshaw. What matter is my reputation? Lawrence was my true and only love.” Then, in a sudden switch to a pragmatism, Aunt Spring said, “I’m far too old to marry, anyway.”

  Mrs. Trenchard edged into the tiny, crowded room. “Now, Miss Spring, that’s not true. Men are lined up just waiting for ye to give them the nod.”

  “I haven’t laid eyes on any of the old dotards,” Miss Minnie said tartly. “Spring has faced that her matrimonial prospects are finished, Trenchard. Why can’t you?”

  A retort clearly hovered on the tip of Mrs. Trenchard’s tongue, but something—respect for Aunt Spring or fear of Miss Minnie—stopped her. After a silent, uncomfortable moment, she said, “Miss Setterington, I have come to examine yer foot. Lord Raeburn wants to know if ye can rise today.”

  “I remember!” In a sudden return to business, Aunt Spring put her hands on her hips. “Judy, how did Miss Setterington get hurt?”

  “I told you,” Hannah said, “I tripped going up the stairs.”

  “I asked Judy,” Aunt Spring said irritably.

  “I wasn’t there when Miss Setterington fell.” Mrs. Trenchard twisted her hands in her apron and refused to meet Aunt Spring’s gaze.

  “You found her at the bottom of the stairs?” Miss Minnie asked.

  Mrs. Trenchard looked around as if she were trapped, and her Lancashire accent broadened. “Not quite at the bottom.”

  From the doorway, Dougald said harshly, “That’s enough, aunts. I’d like to speak to Miss Setterington.”

  Four sets of bright eyes fixed on him.

  “Go ahead, dear,” Aunt Ethel invited.

  “Alone,” he clarified.

  “I can’t believe you expect us to let you do that,” Miss Minnie said in her severest tone.

  “It’s most improper,” Aunt Isabel added.

  “But we will allow it!” Aunt Spring jumped to her feet. “Come on, girls. Let’s leave these children alone.”

  With indecent haste, the aunts filed to the door. One by one they squeezed past Dougald.

  Aunt Isabel was the last one out. In a piercing whisper, she said to Dougald, “By the way, dear, you might think of moving dear Hannah to a different bedchamber. This one is frightfully dilapidated.” With a quick glance back at Hannah, she added, “Perhaps your bedchamber would do.”

  As Aunt Isabel whisked from the room, Hannah considered banging her head on the bedpost. Bad enough that Dougald should ask to see her alone, but for the aunts to agree! For Aunt Isabel to say something so salacious! And all in front of the housekeeper. Hannah didn’t know how to meet the woman’s gaze.

  Before Dougald could step forward, Aunt Ethel returned. “Come along, Mrs. Trenchard.”

  “She will stay,” Dougald said. When Aunt Ethel would have challenged him, he turned his dark head and looked at her.

  She skittered back as if she had discovered in his face the venom of a serpent. In a frightened whisper, she said, “As you wish, my lord.” With one wide-eyed glance of sympathy at Hannah, she hurried away.

  As he turned back, Hannah saw why. He stood on the threshold, a solid, black-clad entity with a grim face and flat green eyes. “Lord Raeburn? Is anything wrong?”

  He ignored her. “Can she rise today, Mrs. Trenchard?”

  Mrs. Trenchard took Hannah’s hurt foot in her hand. “Aye, my lord. That she can.”

  A remarkable diagnosis, Hannah thought, considering she hadn’t even looked at it.

  “Very good,” he said. “Mrs. Trenchard, you may go.”

  “Wait.” Hannah caught the housekeeper’s hand.

  “Did the tapestry yarns arrive?”

  Mrs. Trenchard glanced nervously at Dougald, but she answered, “This afternoon. They’re up in the workroom now.”

  “If the aunts ask, I was carrying them yesterday when I fell.”

  Mrs. Trenchard nodded, then hurried out of the room as if the hounds of hell chased her.

  Something was going on that Hannah didn’t understand. She struggled to turn and put her feet on the floor. “Dougald. What is it?”

  “Don’t get up yet.” He didn’t move, yet he exuded menace. “Keep your foot up on the pillow as long as you can. It’s a lengthy train ride back to London.”

  “Back to…London?” She didn’t lie back down, didn’t notice the cool floor against the soles of her feet. She didn’t notice anything but Dougald, filling the doorway.

  “I’m sending you back.”

  She blinked. “You’re jesting.”

  “I don’t jest.”

  “Then why are you saying such a thing?”

  “Because I’m done with you.”

  She caught her breath. Such a short, brutal sentence. So effective.

  So wrong. “Done with me? Done with me for what?”

  “Come, Hannah, you’re not usually so dense. I made my plans. I succeeded with my plans.” He smiled, the smile of a buccaneer who delights in inflicting pain. “I’m done with you.”

  Sensations, impressions, confusion whirled in her brain.

  “I admit I intended to use you longer, but look at you!”

  Hannah glanced down at her bedraggled dressing gown.

  “You’ve fallen. You’re injured. You’re no good to me in bed—not for any reason. You can’t care for the aunts in your condition, and as for our little bouts of passion…well, I certainly don’t desire you when you look like that.”

  Catching her lapels, she pulled them up and close to her throat. Still not comprehending, she tried for a humorous tone, “I’m not at my best, but—”

  He interrupted ruthlessly. “And I’m sure you suspected my intentions.”

  “Your intentions?”

  “You must have wondered if my passion for you matched yours for me.”

  Her chest tightened. He was speaking to her fears.

  He stepped into the room and slammed the door. “Your passion was very affecting. Very moving.” Li
ke some silent-footed predator, he slipped to the end of the bed and leaned over the footboard. “Very piteous.”

  “Piteous!” The swine!

  “Can you think of a better word for a woman who lusts for a man who encourages her only for revenge?”

  “That’s not true.” She knew it wasn’t true. “You’re lying.”

  “You did suspect me of leading you on.”

  He waited until she admitted, “Yes.”

  “You’d have to have been a fool not to, and Hannah, I know you’re not a fool.” His hands gripped the finials with white-knuckled care. “Or at least…not a fool about anything but me.”

  “Again.” She was beginning to believe what he so enjoyed telling her.

  “Yes. Again. But the first time I seduced you, it was for marriage. This time, it is for divorce.”

  She wanted to slap his smug face. To straighten her shoulders and spit defiance. But he shattered her with his malevolence. “You made no false promises this time.”

  “Absolutely not! You do remember how very careful I was not to talk to you any more than necessary during our nights.”

  “Because…because we busied ourselves with other things.”

  “Because I know how very much you hate when I make promises that I don’t keep.” He shook the bed frame, and it rattled. “It’s almost as bad as making wedding vows and abandoning them.”

  He still didn’t understand. Refused to understand. “I didn’t abandon them. You drove me to leave you.”

  “You could have been stronger. You could have been tougher. You could have forced Charles to bend to you.” His voice grew lower, deeper, more intense with each accusation. “You could have made me listen to you.”

  She felt like he’d slapped her. “But—”

  “You gave up. In six months, you gave up.”

  “I didn’t want to.” She hadn’t wanted to. “It wasn’t right, I knew it, but I could never win against you and Charles.”

  “Win! It wasn’t a bloody war, it was a marriage, and you had power you never tried to use.”

  Stung, she bounced up. “What power? I had no power. I tried everything.”

  “Did you try feminine wiles?”

  She was disdainful. “They’re not honest.”

  “Honest, hell!” He pointed a blunt finger at her. “Six months, Hannah, to abandon the most sacred vows a man and a woman can make to each other. You slept in my bed. I was in thrall to your body. If you’d spoken to me in the dark of night after you’d made me the happiest man in the world, I would have done anything for you.”

  “And you would have cried manipulation.”

  “Probably. I was young. I was stupid. I was stubborn.” He sneered at his younger self. “But I would have listened, and you would have got the right to run your household, own your dress shop, become the woman you wanted to be and the wife I dreamed of. But you…you were too proud to used the weapons you wielded so well. You just whined. Whining is so much more honorable than feminine wiles.”

  “I didn’t whine! I tried to make you listen—”

  “To words. And when words didn’t work, what did you do?”

  She had to swallow around an upswelling of tears. “You’re twisting everything. It wasn’t my fault!”

  “You abandoned me. You left me alone. You left me to face misery and injustice and charges of murder.”

  He meant it. She could see pain in him, pain such as she’d never imagined this cold, cynical man could feel. He hated her. He blamed her.

  “I have waited years for this moment, my dear.” His voice got softer, deeper, more menacing. “Years for the moment I would stand in front of you and watch you break into little pieces.”

  She couldn’t comprehend a Dougald who reeked of complicity and cruelty. Yes, she had doubted him the night she arrived at Raeburn Castle. Yes, she had occasionally wondered if he meant his threats of mayhem and abuse. But somewhere in her soul she still cherished the image of Dougald, undressing on the train, joking about his own intense desire, at pains to put her at ease. Always she had thought of that Dougald as the real Dougald. Not the man she had left. Not the man who was lord today. “Did you plan this?”

  “Every bit of it,” he answered steadily.

  “Except for my fall through the landing.”

  He looked away. “Are you sure about that?”

  She sucked in a single, shocked breath. “Dougald,” she whispered. “You didn’t really try to hurt me?”

  When he returned his gaze to hers, only a tiny rim of green showed in his eyes. The rest was black, a fathomless, cruel, black hole that opened, not onto his soul, but onto pain, bitterness, nothingness. “I told you before. I already stand accused of your murder. I’ve already served my time in hell. Why should I not kill you? As long as I don’t get caught, I’ll be no more notorious than before.”

  She stood up. The agony in her ankle caught her by surprise. She fell back on the bed in pain and in shock.

  He came around the foot of the bed so quickly he looked like he would pounce.

  Shrinking from him, she scrambled backward toward the head of the bed.

  He smiled, a quick, insincere, upward motion of the lips. “Put like that, divorce sounds like quite the bargain, eh?”

  “Get out,” she ordered. “Get away from me.”

  Stepping back, he bowed. “As you wish, Miss Setterington. I won’t see you again before you leave.”

  There would be no farewell from him, just as she had not said farewell that first time, so many years ago, when she had left for London.

  A much younger Hannah stood in the yard of Liverpool’s Knight Arms Inn and watched as the hostlers and the stableboys scrambled over and around the coach, changing the horses for the next stage of the turnpike. It had been a long time since she’d ridden in a public conveyance—since before her mother died. Since before they’d come to Dougald’s house.

  Dougald’s house. The place where the child Hannah had thought she could live forever and be safe. The place the girl Hannah had come as a blushing bride, full of hope that she would at last be part of a family. Now, that cold gray-stone mansion reminded her of nothing but ruined dreams.

  Even on the train with Dougald, she’d had her doubts. Even before they had married, she had wondered if she was making a mistake. After all, her mother hadn’t married because her father had been too weak to defy his family. In a way, Dougald had married for exactly that reason.

  Deep in her heart, she had always expected that Dougald wouldn’t love her. She had wanted it. She had hoped for it. But she hadn’t fought for it. In her youth, she’d been wounded too many times by friends who turned away from the homeless bastard she had been.

  So this morning she had packed her most serviceable clothing, her mementos of her mother, and the money Dougald had given her. Money he pushed at her as a pacifier, and that she had taken these last weeks for just this reason—to leave him. She was running away to London in the quickest way possible. London, where she could disappear and never be found. London, a place of exile.

  As soon as the stableboys had finished their job, Hannah walked up to the coachman. “I have my ticket. My bag is there.” She pointed. “Please load it on the coach. How much longer until we leave?”

  The coachman looked her over, and she knew what he saw. A young lady dressed in the finest of mourning clothes, veil pinned to her hat, blond hair glinting through the gaps. She didn’t have a maid, and that was a mark against her, but apparently her appearance branded her as quality, for the coachman tipped his hat and in a voice of respect, said, “We’re ready t’ go, Miss.”

  “Thank the Lord,” Hannah whispered. She didn’t want to be caught. Probably she wouldn’t be, for Dougald had traveled to Manchester. Charles was with him, but she never knew about Charles. The sly Frenchman had a way of knowing everything about his household, and it had taken all of Hannah’s cunning to escape undetected.

  “Aye, Miss, we’ll get ye t’ Lunnon in time
fer th’ funeral,” the coachman said.

  “Thank you.” She pressed a coin into his hand. “You’re very kind.”

  Opening the door of the coach, the coachman bawled at the passengers, “You gents move t’ ride backwards. We’ve got a lady comin’in.”

  A foppish gentleman stuck his head out the door. “A lady? What do I care if a lady joins us? I was here first.”

  The coachman pulled him onto the ground in one easy motion. “Ye’ll do as I say, or ye’ll ride on th’ roof.”

  The gentleman straightened up to roar an insult, when he caught sight of Hannah.

  She stared at him without expression.

  He stepped forward and offered his hand. “May I assist you in entering, Miss…”

  Mrs., she almost corrected him. Mrs. Pippard. But she caught herself, and in a moment of quick thinking said, “Miss Setterington. Thank you, sir.” She stepped into the coach. On the seat facing front sat a plump older woman and a seedy-looking girl, clutching her valise in her lap. She summed them up in a glance—the lady was trustworthy, the girl was a country miss on her way to the city to make her fortune. “May I?” she asked. They made room, and she squeezed in between them.

  The foppish gentleman settled directly opposite her, and with a smile, he said, “So you’re going to London, are you? What a coincidence. So am I.”

  Hannah knew she was going to have to fend him off. She also knew she could do it. She wasn’t the wealthy, innocent young lady he imagined. She was a jobless bastard, used to traveling the roads, to judging people in a moment, to living by her wits.

  It would take all her wits to hide from Dougald, and hide so well he would never find her. But somehow she would. She was now Miss Hannah Setterington, independent spinster.

  The coach door shut, the whip cracked and, with a jerk, the coach started. Hannah bent forward for one last look at Liverpool, then leaned back and shut her eyes. After only six months of marriage, everything she longed for was gone. She was leaving her dreams of marriage and family and love behind, and she would never think of them—of him—again.

  A sound at the door abruptly brought Hannah back from her black memories to the painful present.