Rules of Attraction (20 page)

"It is not I who erred, Dougald."

His smile disappeared, leaving the grim-faced stranger. "I know that. I have punished the other culprits."

What did he mean? Of whom was he speaking? Charles?
Himself?

"No one defies me, Hannah. Remember that."

No, he didn't punish himself. He was too conceited for that. "
I
did."

"Nor does anyone force my hand," he continued. "I will not have a scene tonight. We will talk when I choose, and no sooner."

She pounced on that. "You admit we will talk?"

"Actually… when I deem the time is right, I will talk and you will listen."

Blast the man and his everlasting impassability! He drove her to fury as no one else could. Coming to her feet, she rushed toward him. He didn't step away from her— why should he? She couldn't harm him. He let her grab him by his lapels. "You haven't changed a bit. You are still the same old Dougald, dictating and ordering and deciding. You haven't learned anything. But"— she shook him— "you don't seem to realize. I am different."

"You're older. You're thinner."

"I'm richer." She looked up at him, her chin jutting out. "I don't have to put up with your nonsense, Dougald. I have enough resources to support myself."

"Money?" He touched her under the chin in slow, light, sweeping strokes. "You have money?"

She ignored his caress. After all, she was very much in earnest. She wanted him to hear her, to know she had succeeded without him. "I've been accumulating money since the first time Lady Temperly paid me. I didn't have much at first, but I saved every spare tuppence."

He nodded. "In an account in the Bank of England."

"Yes. Finally, when I sold the Distinguished Academy of Governesses, I deposited all the profit. I don't need your job. I can get a train ticket. I can hire a carriage. I can go somewhere and live like a lady, and you can't stop me."

"Not even if I explain to the constable that you are my wife?"

His words halted her rush of words as water extinguishes a flame. But the way he said it, the way he looked at her, and the artistry of his fingers along her jawline and down her throat— ah, she wasn't chilled. Not now. He looked down at her as if he owned her, and recognized his possession. Acknowledged his ownership. She whispered, "Why would you do that?"

"Do you really imagine I would let you go to the train station? Let you leave me again?" He laughed, brief and harsh. "When in truth you are my spouse, and a man has the right to control everything about his wayward, fickle, heedless wife?"

Love, or the illusion of love, wasn't enough. It had never been enough. The golden hours were long gone, the hope was dead and the passion… well, if the passion was not completely vanquished, that simply meant she should stiffen her spine, lift her chin and call on her defenses to sustain her.

"I would find a way to escape you, Dougald. You know that. I did it before."

"But if you do, my darling, you will be as you were before. Without resources, without friends who can help you, and you're really quite a well-known figure around England now." He cupped her chin and held it still. "I would find you."

At his words, laced with lambent amusement, a chill snaked down her spine. "What do you mean, without resources?"

"Your account at the Bank of England? The one where your savings are deposited? I have closed it. Everything a woman owns is under the control of her husband." Smiling down into her appalled eyes, he placed his hands on her waist. "What is yours… is mine."

Like an inept dancer, she moved stiffly, her knees locked, her feet stumbling, as he twirled her out of the door and into the corridor.

"Sleep well, my darling." He kissed her on the lips, stepped into his suite and shut the door in her dazed face.

* * *

Hidden by the shadows of the corridor, a figure observed as Hannah backed away from the door.

This development bore watching.

16

H
annah drove the pony cart through the cool April sunshine up the road toward Burroughs Hall. She had dressed in her best day costume: a chestnut-colored satin gown with full, tiered and embroidered skirt, a black-velvet jacket and her matching chestnut bonnet with ruched ribbon trim. Her black-leather gloves were steady on the reins, and to the onlooker, she knew she appeared to be calm. A calm belied by the number of times she had changed her clothing that morning, and by her heart, which insisted on thumping in a disturbing and unsteady beat.

But as the pony moved steadily toward the black-metal fencing that surrounded her grandparents' estate, Hannah practiced speaking the unspeakable.
Sir and madam, I don't know if you are aware of my existence, but I'm the daughter of Miss Carola Tomlinson and your son, Henry.

Or—
Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs, twenty-eight years ago, your son Henry loved my mother, Miss Carola Tomlinson, and I am the result.

Or—
No doubt you've dreaded this day…

That was it, really. If her grandparents knew of her impending birth and had still sent her mother away without a shred of mercy, then they would not now want her in their lives. And even if they did, would she want them? Could she forgive them the misery of her early life and the sorrow of her mother's early death? Mama had been only thirty-one when she died. Hannah was almost that now, and to think of death when she felt herself to be just reaching the peak of power, knowledge and strength— that would a bitterness beyond hope.

The main gate stood open, the house visible through the trees. Somewhere in the vicinity of her heart, a pressure built. A breathlessness and an ache of dread. And just before Hannah would have entered, would have taken that final, irrevocable step to fulfill her dream, she pulled the reins to the left and swung onto the side of the road. Stopping the pony, she climbed out of the cart onto the grass, damp with the previous day's showers. Holding the reins in her hands, she stepped forward until her face was pressed between the metal bars.

She stared at the brick house, built in the Palladian style of the last century, mellow with ivy and crisp with white trim. It wasn't too large, perhaps twenty rooms, the home of a well-to-do country family. The scythed lawns and mature trees framed the building, and like trim on a package, blooming roses climbed on arbors around the grounds. Burroughs Hall was beautiful, every orphan child's fantasy.

Hannah couldn't bring herself to drive forward, climb the stairs and lift the knocker. Her fingers tightened on the cool bars. Her parents had met there. They had fallen in love there. She had probably been conceived in one of those rooms close against the roof. But she didn't belong. How could she? Her grandparents had driven her off before she had first seen day's light.

The front door opened, and Hannah tensed. Who would it be? A man in an old-fashioned blue-satin livery and a powdered wig stepped onto the portico.

Hannah relaxed. A footman. He lifted his hand, and from the back came the jingle of tack and the clop of horses' hooves. An open carriage drove up to the stairs, a young coachman in the driver's seat. The footman and the coachman spoke. Hannah was too far away to hear even a whisper of their conversation, but she thought… surely this meant… yes, there he was, an upright old gentleman bristling with mustache and eyebrows, dressed in a brown suit. He walked out of the house, licked his finger and raised it to the wind. He nodded as if pleased, then pulled a silver watch from his pocket, opened it, and turned impatiently toward the door. In a deep, impatient voice, he called, "Alice, do you always have to make us late?"

A stooped lady dressed in maroon silk with a feathered bonnet joined him. Her feathers shook in a constant tremor. Hannah could see her lips moving, but she spoke like a lady should, quietly, and Hannah couldn't hear a word.

Her throat dried as she stared, for the first time, on her only relatives in this world.

She didn't think to move, to go forward or to go back. She could only stand and stare as the footmen placed the steps beside the coach and assisted first the elderly lady, then the old gentleman into the vehicle. The footmen shut the door, and only then did Hannah realize she should— no, she must— conceal herself. Quickly she led the pony and cart into the bushes, and the branches still rustled behind her as the carriage passed on the road.

Then, like the cowardly fool she was, she rushed back out and stood on the road, watching them ride away.

Her grandmother and grandfather, and she couldn't even find the courage to show herself to them.

* * *

That night, as Hannah trudged to her bedchamber, the floorboards creaked wearily beneath her feet, and the corridor smelled of ancient grievances. The candle she held burned fearfully, afraid to light the corners or reach to the towering ceiling, and her loneliness weighed on her as never before.

"Because the loneliness has been compounded by cowardice," she said aloud. She could blame Dougald for frightening her too much to go on, but that wasn't the whole truth. Throughout the years, whenever she imagined meeting her family, terror had always mixed with the anticipation. Perhaps he had heightened the terror with his well-placed barbs, but if she were brave, she would have gone forward anyway. She opened the door to her room. "Don't let me hear you whining about your desolation anymore, Hannah Alice." In her inner eye rose the vision of her grandparents as they stepped into their carriage. "Not when you let such a golden opportunity slip away from you."

Her vision disappeared when the single, rickety chair inside creaked, and a dark figure rose.

Hannah gave a squeak of fright.

In a low, furious tone, Dougald asked, "What in hell did you think you were doing, inviting Her Majesty to Raeburn Castle?"

"
Must
you sneak up on me like that?" She laid her palm flat over her pounding heart. Then, lifting the candle high, she illuminated him, his perennial scowl and his black, close-fitting, conservative suit in all its formality. He was such a handsome man, but she had no patience with his endless brooding and his skulking— his appearance now gave her no pleasure.

"Answer me. Why didn't you tell me you invited the Queen?"

"You might have asked me to attend you downstairs. Besides,"— she mimicked him, "I don't want to hear you nag."

"Just answer the question. What in hell did you think you were doing, inviting Her Majesty to Raeburn Castle?"

He ground the question out from between clenched teeth— an interesting phenomenon, and one she'd like to view more of. But for the first time since she'd arrived, she faced the former Dougald, the one with a temper. The former Dougald had never done more than shout at her, but then, he had not been branded as a murderer at that time, either. So she answered with cool civility. "You told the aunts that
I
knew Her Majesty, but you wouldn't speak to
me
to tell
me
what you wanted done about their desire to meet her."

"I didn't expect that you would extend an invitation to my home." He enunciated each word.

"Well, I didn't know that, did I?" She lit her candles, and feeble illumination fell on the neat, narrow bed, the chipped basin and pitcher, the musty draperies. "So instead of doing what you wished, which I would have done if you'd been willing to discuss it with me, I made the aunts happy by writing to Her Majesty. I included their written invitation to come to view their humble tribute to her and her reign."

Dougald withdrew a rich, ivory-colored paper from his waistcoat, and he stared at it as if it threatened to explode.

From here, Hannah could see the royal seal. Her Majesty's polite refusal.

Dougald's reaction to being the recipient of imperial correspondence surprised her. Some people stood in such awe of the Queen, they were unable to imagine having an exchange of letters with such an exalted personage, but she wouldn't have expected it of Dougald. Rather charmed by Dougald's amazement, she gently said, "Yes, Dougald, I admit it was audacious of me, but Her Majesty will not be insulted, if that is what worries you, and the aunts' invitation was charming. They truly struck the right notes of eagerness, excitement and entreaty."

The paper rattled as his fingers shook. "This was your revenge on me for not listening to you."

Ah. So perhaps he was not in awe of the letter, but annoyed with the instigator. Hannah saw the need to pick her words carefully, for while it was true his unresponsiveness had given her an excuse to write the letter, it was also true she had written the Queen while in a rage. "
Revenge
is too strong a word; however, I admit I didn't care if you were perturbed. I didn't appreciate you treating me in such a cavalier manner."

"Cavalier?"
he roared loudly enough that she started.

When she recovered, she shook out her skirt in a display of assurance, but she kept him in her wary gaze. "Goodness, Dougald, there's no reason to take on so! You've got an answer, and that's good. Now we have something to show the aunts. They'll be disappointed, of course, but having a letter addressed to them from the Queen should soothe the sting of rejection."

Dougald lifted his head and stared at her.

Impatiently, she exclaimed, "Dougald, I don't know why you're acting this way. At least she didn't accept!"

"She did."

Impossible
. Hannah opened her mouth to say so, but nothing came out.

"Yes, exactly!" he said, just as if she'd spoken. Opening the letter, he read, " 'Her Gracious Majesty, Victoria, Queen of England, accepts your courteous invitation—' "

Still mute, still numb, Hannah shook her head.

"She accepted, Hannah, accepted. She'll be here in a fortnight!" He flapped the letter at her. "Do you realize the work this castle needs done to it just to make it livable? Not to mention to make it suitable for a royal visit!"

She nodded.

"I'll have to hire every able-bodied man for miles around just to finish the projects I've already started." His voice rose. "To put up the wood panels, to finish the painting in the corridor and the great hall, to make bookcases in the library. To finish the new foyer and construct stairs so Queen Victoria doesn't have to come in through the kitchen."