Rules of Attraction (3 page)

Certainly he did not turn when Mrs. Trenchard curtsied and announced, "Miss Hannah Setterington, my lord."

For one moment he stood stiffly, a lonely figure waiting for… something. Then in a low, deep voice he commanded, "Leave us."

Hannah's breath caught.

That voice. That tone.

Her heart gave a thud. Then another. Then another, marking each second, each excitement, each fear.

From the back he looked like… and the reflection in the glass seemed to be familiar.

But she knew how wrong she could be. When
he
dwelt in her thoughts, all men looked like him.

And yet… and yet…

Vaguely, she heard the door shut. Slowly, he turned to face her.

And the foreboding which had haunted her for nine years became reality.

This man had never killed his wife.

Because
she
was his wife.

2

D
ougald. Dougald Pippard. Not the marquess of Raeburn. Plain Mr. Dougald Pippard, a wealthy Liverpool gentleman and entrepreneur.

But he stood with his back to the window, and there could be no doubt. This was her husband, for his vivid eyes glowed with triumph. He had always been a keen observer of human emotions; now, she knew, he marked the winds of recollection and shock that swept her.

Yet when she had caught her breath, he said only, "You're late."

Late. Yes, nine years late for a meeting with the man she had married. Married despite her misgivings, and only after she had run away for the first time. She had caught a train, he had caught her and…" You're not the earl of Raeburn." Her voice didn't sound like her own. Too deep, for one thing, and very steady, considering the circumstances. "You can't be."

His lips, the narrow, chiseled lips over which she had once loved to linger, moved in slow, precise enunciation. "I assure you, I am."

"How? But… how?" A shudder rattled her.

His eyes narrowed. "Come to the fire."

She didn't wait to be told twice. Her instinct might be to flee, but her good sense told her he had set this trap with care and guile, and he would relish the chance to do whatever a man did to his runaway wife. So she would not incite him.

Besides, she was cold.

But her defensive instinct could not be denied. She couldn't persuade herself to take her gaze off of him for even so long as it took her to walk to the fire. So she sidled toward the cluster of chairs and tables around the hearth, watching him endlessly.

The years had wrought changes. So many changes.

When Hannah had first come to live under his roof in Liverpool, her mother had gone to work as his housekeeper, and she had been a skinny, wide-eyed twelve-year-old. Yet even then she had been fascinated by his face: the bold, French cheekbones, the strong jaw, the plain, short nose and the large ears. His skin had been brown, but his eyes were a beautiful gold-speckled green that bespoke some Scottish ancestry. His lashes were long and black and silky. His hair was fine and black and shiny. And he had been so tall: To the youthful Hannah, he had been the essential mix of Viking and Celt and salt-of-the-earth English. His genteel family had lived in the Northlands for two thousand years. They had adapted and adopted every new wave of migration while retaining their own Celtic roots, and Dougald liked to boast he was related to every family north of London.

Now time and experience had refined his features, giving them a bleakness that matched the bare, grim rock of the castle he called his own. His skin seemed stretched thinly across his bones, his gaze chill with intent, and his hair… dear God, a streak of white iced each temple.

The past nine years had not been kind to… whatever title he called himself.

Yet beneath her fright and dismay, treacherous desire rose in her.

Did he want her still? Would he want her tonight?

And would she fight, or would she want him in return?

She tripped on the fringe of the carpet, and that brought her back to the here and now, to the reality of the predicament in which she found herself and to the relentless observation of… her husband. She wasn't really close enough for the fire to do her any good, but the scent of the burning wood filled her lungs with the promise of warmth. If she remained where she stood, she could keep an armchair between them. A feeble defense, but at least a defense. Clutching the upholstery in her trembling fingers, she asked, "Tell me. How can it be that you are the earl of Raeburn?"

"I was fifth in line for the title. Somehow, the others died, and here I am."

He had always smiled before. He'd always had charm and confidence. The confidence was still there, but the charm and smiles had disappeared as if they'd never been. She should know him, but seeing him was like facing a stranger… a stranger who held rights over her. A stranger who had watched her grow up and who knew
her
only too well.

But she wasn't an overly polite, tentative eighteen-year-old anymore, either. She held advantages of experience and composure he could scarcely guess at. Schooling her expression and her tone to match the one she used to interview prospective governesses, she said, "You were a cotton merchant."

"I still am."

"You invested in railways."

"A risk which paid off royally."

"You
weren't
in line for any title."

"Obviously I was." He gestured around him. "I'm also the fourth in line for a barony." He shrugged, his broad shoulders moving up and down in a gesture of disdain. "Yet I can't imagine anything more pathetic than a man who gets his self-respect by boasting of a distant, noble connection."

She could. During the time she'd run the Distinguished Academy of Governesses, she'd met plenty of men who thought an obscure connection to William the Conqueror made them respectable enough to do whatever they wanted with her girls— or with her. She had always disabused them— vain, selfish gentlemen that they were. Too bad this lord was forged from a different metal. A little vanity and selfishness made a man easier to handle.

"You're late," Dougald repeated his earlier complaint. "I expected you over an hour ago. And don't tell me the train was not on schedule. It always runs on schedule."

"Your man failed to meet me promptly." She shivered again, chilled by a sense of lingering cold and the frost emanating from Dougald.

"My man?"

"Alfred."

"Alfred met you?" His voice didn't rise, but his tone didn't bode well. "In his
cart
?"

She remembered only too well his temper, so she carefully explained, "Mrs. Trenchard said there was a misunderstanding."

"Yes, I would say there was." Ruddy color lit his cheeks.

For a moment Hannah thought he looked much as the young Dougald had before he flew into a rage, and she took comfort in sighting the man she had known so well.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

Then he took a moderating breath. "My fault. I've been here only a year, and Mrs. Trenchard doesn't yet know which of my comments she should disregard."

The man she had married seldom acknowledged fault. Now he accepted blame, yet the housekeeper feared him so much she'd abused a fellow employee. "What did you say to her… about me?" Hannah asked.

"The truth."

Uncomfortable, to know yourself discussed before your arrival. "Did you tell her I was your wife?"

"Haven't you heard? My wife is dead, murdered at my own hands." He held them up, fingers shaped as if they cupped her neck. "I wouldn't deprive the people hereabouts of the pleasure they gain in repeating the tale."

Gruesome, to hear her own death discussed in such an inimical tone. "Why… how did such a story start?"

Unmoving, he ignored her question while measuring her with his gaze. "Sit down."

"Dougald, how could you have let such horrible gossip spread?" she insisted.

"Take off your hat. Remove your gloves and your wrap. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. You'll be here for a long, long time."

Straightening her shoulders, lifting her chin, she said with chilly, preemptory precision, "I don't intend to stay."

His jaw hardened and he pressed his lips together. Abruptly, he strode across the room, taking huge steps, right toward her. Chills chased up her spine, but she held her ground. He halted in front of the chair, blocking out the fire's light. "You keep this chair between us like a shield that will protect you."

His large hand reached out to her. She watched it and schooled herself not to flinch as he touched her. Touched her for the first time in so many years.

He cupped her jaw, his blunt fingertips brushing her ear, his palm lifting her chin. He wasn't rough. He touched her as if she were still the tall, impressible girl he had married, and that one, meager contact brought her a pleasure as sharp as pain.

"You hide behind that chair, but if I wished, I could pick it up and fling it across the room. I could take you to the floor and have you now, darling, and all your cries would be of delight." His thumb slid up and caressed her lips, and for the first time he smiled, a rapierlike smile of pernicious resolve. "But that would be too easy, so have a seat."

3

H
annah felt the stroke of Dougald's fingers on her face and stared at his grim, savagely satisfied features. All trace of the youthful, charming pirate had disappeared, leaving her confronting a brute so intent on vengeance and so puffed with importance he threatened her with subjugation and tyranny.

But if he was no longer the smiling daredevil, neither was she the soft-spoken innocent.

Wrapping her fingers around his wrist, she moved his hand away. "Be polite and I'll sit. Threaten me again, and I'm off to find Mrs. Trenchard and my supper."

He blinked as if he'd not heard such a contemptuous response in a great many years.

"Step back," she repeated.

He did, one single short step away from the chair.

Interesting. During the whole time she had lived with him, he had never, ever done anything she suggested or demanded, not even step backward to give her some breathing room. As far as he was concerned, he was always right, and he had cajoled or kissed or ignored all of her appeals and complaints. Now she wondered… had he learned compromise? Was he humoring her? Or had she learned to speak with such a voice of command that he actually listened?

Although, truth to tell, he still stood too close. But she would be satisfied with even so small a gain. Lifting her arms, she pulled the long hat pin free. "It was a long trip, and I find I'm feeling peckish. Please call for a meal."

He watched her body greedily, as if her raised arms had allowed him to view her naked glories rather than the formidable black wool of her winter cloak. She wasn't shivering anymore, she noted; the rush of anger and the uncomfortable brush with ancient passions had warmed her, and she was glad to place the hat on the side table and set about making herself comfortable. She unwrapped her soft wool muffler and removed her gloves, and stacked them atop the hat. Then, one by one, she slid the buttons of the cloak free.

"A simple repast will suffice," she said pointedly.

Dougald didn't seem to hear, hadn't even moved. He stared at her bare hands, at her long neck, and most of all at her face, his gaze lingering as if to compare the memory of what she had been with what she had become.

About that, Hannah had no illusions. In her youth, Dougald had told her repeatedly how very much he loved the silky glide of her blond hair, the brown eyes with that startling slant and the smooth skin with that faint hint of toast. She looked, he had said, like an Egyptian goddess.

But it had been nine years since last he'd seen her, and the past three years of hard work had truly wrought changes. Two white hairs hid among the blond strands— she'd found them after a particularly difficult month which involved a seduced governess, an indignant lord, and a swift marriage. Despite the best efforts of her devoted cook, she had lost the plumpness that had given her face its sweet roundness. And as she strode from classroom to classroom, from market to town house, her lush, pampered form had grown sleek and wiry.

So when she slipped her coat off her shoulders, she held it and waited to see what he would say.

He said nothing. He just looked without expression.

Surprisingly enough, she found his indifference lowering. Not that she wanted to reanimate his fiery threat, but she had thought Dougald would always respond to her. Apparently, in some well-hidden part of her soul, she still nourished the hope that he meant his vows of eternal passion.

Tossing her coat across the back of a settle, she said, "As I eat, we can talk."

"About what do you wish to speak, dear wife?"

"You can tell me how you discovered my whereabouts. You can tell me what your life has been." Most important— "You can tell me what plans you have made for me."

He lifted his chin and looked at her with such arrogance, she might have thought him a lifelong lord. "I will tell you what I wish to tell you. No more."

How she hated that arrogance! How often she'd had to face it in her dealings with the aristocracy! So she treated him with the same impatience she had found effective against other, more insolent noblemen. "Piffle. What good will you achieve by hiding the truth from me?"

"What will I achieve? Why, my own satisfaction, of course." He bowed, walked to the door, and opened it. "Charles." He spoke the word with that faint slur the English used when pronouncing the French name. "Charles, Miss Setterington is hungry. Tell Mrs. Trenchard to bring food." He glanced back at Hannah. "Bring a lot of food."

So he had noted her spare figure. Shutting the door, he leaned against it and observed her once more. "Please." He indicated the chair. "Sit."

As long as he got his way, he would play the polite host. Very well; she would remember why she had taken a job in Lancashire. She in turn would play the polite guest and hope that this farce did not assume the proportions of a tragedy.