Mrs. Trenchard stood there, holding a cane. “Lord Raeburn sent me up to help you pack.”
“Pack?” Hannah still could scarcely believe Dougald would be so brutal.
“Pack to go back to London.”
Last time Hannah had left Dougald, it had hurt, yes, but she’d been willing to leave to preserve her self-esteem, her will, her independence. If she left this time, what would she have but broken pride, a crushed spirit, and dreams of a family that could never come true?
Dreams of a family with Dougald. Dougald, who had proved himself to be cruel and mean-spirited with every word he spoke. Dougald, who had read her mind and all of her fears and taunted her with each one.
Hannah frowned.
He accused her of abandoning him. Of abandoning their marriage without really trying to make it work.
But she had tried. She had! And just to show him he was wrong…“I’m not going,” she said.
Consternation filled Mrs. Trenchard’s face. “Miss Setterington?”
Carefully Hannah swung her feet onto the floor.
Dougald wasn’t cruel or mean-spirited. He was cold. He was difficult. He was driven by demons she didn’t understand. But he would never set a trap for her to fall through! The idea was ludicrous. “I’m not going. He can’t make me.”
Mrs. Trenchard licked her lips. “Miss Setterington, while I hesitate to disagree with you…yes, he can.”
Ignoring her, Hannah stood, testing the strength of her ankle. Testing the strength of her resolve.
Mrs. Trenchard showed her a letter. “I wrote this for you. A letter of recommendation. The highest praise for your skills.”
Hannah took the letter, glanced at it, tossed it on the bed. Something was going on. Something she didn’t understand, but she wasn’t leaving the aunts before the Queen’s visit. She wasn’t leaving before she had met her grandparents. “Thank you, Mrs. Trenchard. But I’m not going.”
With desperation in her tone, Mrs. Trenchard said, “The master is adept at getting his way.”
Hannah hobbled a short step forward. Satisfied that her ankle would not collapse, she held out her hand for the crutch.
Dougald was chasing her away for some reason. Perhaps because he was finished with her. But perhaps something more was occurring. Something concerning her grandparents, or the aunts, or Hannah herself. Perhaps Dougald had found a lover he desired more than he desired Hannah. But whatever the reason, Hannah wasn’t leaving Dougald until he was suffering as she suffered.
When Mrs. Trenchard brought it, Hannah looked straight at her. “Nothing and nobody is chasing me away from Raeburn Castle until I am ready to leave.”
22
Dougald stood behind his desk and stared, slack-jawed, at the impassive Mrs. Trenchard. “Miss Setterington dared defy me?”
“Do you wish me to have the footmen carry her to the carriage and from there onto the train, my lord?” Mrs. Trenchard used the same tone she might have used to offer him a warm cognac.
He grimaced, uneasily aware he had mishandled the task of ejecting Hannah.
He had said more than he planned and fiercely meant what he said.
He had reproached her for abandoning their marriage. He hadn’t proposed to say that, or even realized how deeply he resented her desertion. But once he’d started talking, his condemnation had been both damning and truthful, revealing to both her—and him.
“Miss Setterington is not so tall that two hefty footmen can’t remove her on my order,” Mrs. Trenchard said.
“No doubt, but I have no wish to see her dragged away while the aunts cry and wring their hands.” He ran his hands through his hair. “Where is she now?”
“She dressed in her work clothes and made her way to the butler’s pantry. She said her foot hurt and she couldn’t go any farther, so she stopped there to count the silver.” Mrs. Trenchard shook her head. “It needs counting, but I didn’t want to let her, my lord. It’s a risky business, putting the Raeburn silver in the hands of a disgruntled domestic. Still, I thought you’d want to be notified about her defiance at once.”
“I doubt Miss Setterington will develop any great attachment to the Raeburn silver, no matter how disgruntled she is. Thank you, Mrs. Trenchard.” He tugged his jacket into proper position. “I’ll deal with the matter.” When he had left Hannah in her bedchamber, he would have sworn she was leaving, that he had succeeded, as he always did.
Except he seldom won with Hannah. Hannah repeatedly thwarted him—but not this time. Her life was at stake. He had to send her away. It was for her own good. Someday she would appreciate his consideration and understand that he hurt her to help her.
She had to understand, because for the sake of his family name, he needed a wife.
Yet as he strode down the corridor, he worried. Yes, he needed a wife. He needed an heir. He already had Hannah; in the last few days they had sufficiently, repeatedly and amazingly proved that they functioned well in bed together. They would produce an heir, one hoped, in short order.
He stopped outside the open pantry door. The small room was used as storage for crockery, livery, napkins, a few extra chairs, anything the servers might need. Shelves lined one wall, a table stood against the other.
If he had upset Hannah so much she would never again welcome him into her bed, he faced several options, none of them attractive.
He could divorce her and marry a new wife.
He could employ the full force of the law and compel her to return to him.
Or he could woo her.
Wooing Hannah would be an inefficient use of his time. She was already his. But the other two options repulsed him, and he knew without a doubt he would never find another woman to grace his bed like Hannah. When he and Hannah mated, they consumed each other with fire and pleasure. He had to have Hannah, and he had to have her willing.
To have her and have her willing, he could, of course, use the logical method. When he had dispatched the gallowsbait who tried to murder her, then he could find her in London or Surrey or—heavens, he hoped he hadn’t chased her out of England completely—and explain that he had rejected her for her own good.
No doubt she would slam her door in his face—or preferably on his fingers.
She sat on a stool, her back to him, facing the sideboard. Her crutch leaned in the corner. Silverware covered the narrow surface of the sideboard in a glittering array, and as he watched, she sorted spoons, stacked them together, and placed them next to the stacks of forks already neatly arranged on one end. A few tendrils of hair had escaped from her chignon and touched the nape of her neck where he longed to touch, and his gaze bored into her with heated intensity.
For now, to get rid of her, he knew what to say. In his diatribe in her bedchamber he had, after all, forgotten one very important and insulting issue.
With one hand he pushed the door back so hard it slammed against the wall.
She didn’t jump. She did pause.
In a contemptuous, infuriating drawl, he said, “I suppose this is about your piddling little stash of money.”
Her shoulders stiffened. Deliberately, she turned to face him. She wore a plain, brown wool gown and, as an accessory, held a fine silver meat knife in her hand.
“My lord Raeburn,” she said, “what are you talking about?”
“You.” He stepped inside. “Still here. That’s what I’m talking about.”
“That surprises you?” She swiveled on the stool until she fully faced him and, twirling the knife, she leaned her elbows negligently back against the sideboard. “But why, my lord? When have I ever done what you told me to?”
He had come in here determined to play the game he had begun so well in her bedchamber, and thus save his wife from the threat of death. But she sat there so insolently, like a hooligan of the streets, uncaring of him, his authority, his sacrifice. Stepping inside, he shut the door. “You will this time.”
She smiled, if he could call that a smile. “But Dougald, I’m your
wife. I’m back with you after abandoning you for so many years. Surely you’re glad I took your message to heart and am refusing to leave.”
Blast. He had said the wrong thing. This was what came of allowing oneself to experience disorderly emotion.
Worse, he felt the rise of more emotion in his gut and in his heart. “I don’t want you here.”
“Let me try my feminine wiles on you.” She batted her eyelashes and in a croon, said, “Darling, let me stay with you forever.” The picture was spoiled by exaggeration—and her continued spinning of the knife.
He took a step toward her. “Hannah, if I have to send Mrs. Trenchard and some footmen up to your room to pack your bags, you’re going to be humiliated.”
“You’ll have a difficult time explaining your action to the aunts.” She slid off the stool. “You will admit, the aunts’ tears could make you very uncomfortable. There—is that manipulative enough for you?”
“The time when you could manipulate me is past.” Not true, but she was better off not knowing that.
“The aunts need me.”
“They have Mrs. Trenchard.”
“With all due respect to Mrs. Trenchard, she has too many duties already.” She took a limping step toward him. “Without me, the aunts haven’t a hope of finishing the tapestry in time. And Her Majesty expects me to be here. After all, I did send the invitation.”
He wanted to take Hannah by the shoulders and shake her the insolence right out of her. “Her Majesty will scarcely notice your absence. We’re having a tremendous reception with the entire neighborhood attending.”
“There we have it.” She leaned her free hand on the shelf and glared at him. “You can stop pretending, Dougald. I know what you’re doing. You’re removing me so you can monopolize the Queen’s attention.”
Her accusation surprised him so much, he didn’t even have to think to be insulting. “Don’t be ludicrous. I don’t need the Queen’s patronage for prestige.”
“Then what is it? You’re sending me away for some purpose.”
He barely restrained a gasp. How did she know? What did she know? “I told you my purpose. I’m done with you.”
“Because you’ve found my replacement?”
What was she babbling about? “Your replacement?”
“The girl you want to marry.”
“I’m…married.” And confused.
“A small obstacle for a tactician such as you. Did Charles find her for you? A pretty young girl who knows her place, right?” Hannah waved her arm in a grandly scornful gesture. “That’s the plan, isn’t it? You get rid of me, obtain a divorce and marry your little hussy.”
“Contrary to what you seem to believe, divorces are not easy to obtain, nor are they cheap.” He realized this was not the subject to discuss right now with the wife he was trying to save and ultimately planned to keep.
“Did Charles advise you on how to get rid of me? Did he tell you what to say?”
“Why would I need Charles to do that?” He concentrated on wounding her once more, on chasing her from Raeburn Castle. “You’re a simple woman.”
Hannah appeared unscathed by his derision. “So you’re trading the simple woman you have for a simpleton you can command.”
“This is a stupid conversation,” he snapped. “I am not going to remarry.”
“Then it’s the other.” She glanced away, her lips trembling. “The final revenge, the greatest of all, the opportunity to crush Hannah into the ground and know she will never rise again.”
They stood three feet apart, and the air between them quivered with heat and hostility. “You have lost your mind.”
“My grandparents are coming to that reception, and you are not going to cheat me out of meeting my family.”
He’d forgotten about her grandparents. He knew she looked forward to and dreaded the moment she would meet that family. They were the anchor in his scheme to keep Hannah tied to this place, and in a brief moment of insight, he wondered if he had forgotten the Burroughses on purpose.
Did he, after all, hate so much to think she might belong somewhere but with him?
“You are more cruel than even I realized,” she said.
“Then leave.”
“I’m not leaving.”
He took another step. The small distance between them was closing fast. “You are trying my patience.”
She laughed caustically. “Piffle. You have no feelings; therefore, you have no patience.”
“I have feelings,” he ground out.
“No. A man who would seduce a woman to use and humiliate her has no feelings.” The hand with the knife lowered, and her grasp changed to a fighting grip.
He looked at the blade. “Where did you learn to hold a knife like that?”
“Some of the girls I taught at the Distinguished Academy of Governesses had skills I thought it best not to question.” She limped up to him, so close her bosom almost brushed his chest, and pressed it against his ribs. “I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable.”
“No.” It made him furious, and he caught her wrist in his fingers before she could even lunge. “Your student didn’t teach you well at all, if she didn’t teach you not to threaten unless you mean to follow through.”
“You know me.” She twisted her wrist and in as sarcastic a tone as he’d ever heard her use, she said, “I’m a quitter.”
“Not just a quitter,” he taunted. “A whiner, too. You whine until a man can’t hear himself think.”
She tried to lunge at him with the knife, a futile endeavor, but while he was distracted by her effort, she managed to place a solid fist in his stomach. The breath gushed out of him.
It seemed she’d learned a few other defenses from the girls in her Academy. With practice, she could be lethal. Luckily, she hadn’t had practice, and he wanted to subdue her in the quickest way possible. Plucking the knife out of her fingers, he threw it against the sideboard. It stuck, quivering, in the wood.
“There,” he said. “Now we can talk like reasonable people.” Gathering her into his arms, he kissed her.
She didn’t want to be kissed. She tried to jerk her head away. He pulled her closer, bent her over his arm, forced his kisses on her while savoring the sensation of her body against his.
Rather distantly he wondered at himself. He had thought that, after years of loneliness and isolation, he had learned discipline. He had thought of himself as relentless, scheming, destitute of passion, warmth and humanity. It would seem he had been wrong. He was passionate, warm enough to forge steel, and all too human.
Then she bit him, right on the lower lip.
He lurched back and glared at the woman he still held.
She glared back at him, bosom heaving with the effort to get her breath. Her lips, reddened and cherished by his, were firm. Her steady chin was lifted. Her eyes were a mix of chestnut color and turbulent passions. He could have sworn she watched him, judged him and made a decision.
In the inflexible tone of the world’s sternest governess, she said, “Dougald, let me go this minute, or I’ll never be able to get you out of your clothes.”
In a scorching flash of truth, Dougald realized he loved her. All this time, all these years, he’d been telling himself the plotting and the intriguing had been to get even with Hannah for making a fool of him, when in fact he’d been in love with her all the time. He didn’t want to subdue her. He wanted to make her his.
But…why was she doing this now? Why wasn’t she scratching his eyes out?
Why did he care? If she was going to undress him and seduce him, even if it was to distract him so she could plunge a knife in his heart—well, there were worse ways to die.
Shedding his jacket as he went, he grabbed one of the spare dining chairs and stuck it under the door handle. Returning to her, he stood quiescent as she unbuttoned his waistcoat. He helped her peel it away. He tried to tear the cravat off his neck.
She stopped him by the simple expedient of putting her han
ds over his. “I want to undress you.”
The most beautiful words in the English language, spoken by his wife. I want to undress you. Was she giving him another chance? Was she in love with him as he was with her? He didn’t know, but somehow it felt impossible that he should love so strongly that each breath, each heartbeat, each thought was dedicated to Hannah, and she did not return his regard. He loved her. She wanted him. Therefore, she loved him.
She untied the intricate bow and unpinned his starched collar. “There’s something so tantalizing about the first glimpse of indecorous male skin. It’s so soft right here”—she stroked the curve above his breastbone—“and gets to be deliciously wicked almost immediately.” Her hand spread his shirt and burrowed down into the hair on his chest.
What maggot was in his brain that he thought he could send away a woman like this? Even for her own good?
She stroked him with her palm, with her fingertips, finding the sensitive places he knew of, and a few he didn’t.
He eased the buttons free on his trousers.
She pulled his shirt over his head, then kissed the length of his collarbone—and lightly bit his nipple.
He grabbed her waist. “Woman, I ought to—”
She turned her back to him. “Unbutton me?”
He did, and with complete efficiency. After all, anything worth doing was worth doing well. “This is the ugliest dress you own,” he said conversationally.
“I’m glad you hate it.” It fell to her feet. “I picked it out for just that reason.”
Their battle still raged, and the reminder renewed his disquiet. He had started it; he’d kissed her. But she had readily joined him; she had demanded his clothing. So she wasn’t going to change her mind…was she? She wasn’t going to slip away and leave him wanting, and justify her actions by telling him he deserved it…was she? He needed to unlace her corset and untie her petticoats, and that would take time. Time for her to think. To remember what he’d done since she’d been here. To remember what he’d said in her bedchamber.
He didn’t want that.
A pile of folded white linen napkins caught his gaze. They stood stacked on a shelf, pristine and orderly, and an idea sprang into his mind full blown. Without considering the wisdom, he seized the corner of a napkin.
Rules of Attraction Page 22