Rules of Attraction (32 page)

"I thought you were supervising in the garden," she said, then cursed herself for her inanity. It was only that— he had looked as if he'd been about to embrace her. He'd spoken to her without being forced by the demands of society. He'd come at her summons. Except… "I didn't ask you to come here. You asked me."

"I assure you, I did not." Spreading his note wide, he showed it to her.

She glanced at it.
Dougald, Meet me in the east wing tower. I have something of great importance to tell you
. "That's not my handwriting."

"It isn't?" He frowned and inspected it. "If you say so, but how was I to know? It's not as if you wrote me every week while you were abroad."

She contained her impulse to throttle him and pulled his note from her pocket. "Here's yours."

He looked it over. "Not my handwriting," he said in a clipped tone. "But how would you know? I couldn't write you. I didn't know where you were."

How he provoked her! "I came up here because I thought you wanted to consult me about some detail in regard to the Queen's visit. I should have known you wouldn't be so logical as to ask my opinion just because Her Majesty and I are acquainted and I might know something about her preferences."

"And don't you love to remind me of that." He crumpled the note he held and dropped it to the floor.

"You left me and did so well for yourself you're now a woman of independent means who has friends of the highest caliber. Whilst I have remained in northern England and garnered a reputation as a murderer." He placed his hands on the wall on either side of her. "
Your
murderer."

She crumpled her note, too, and tossed it at his chest in a telling and, she freely admitted, petty gesture that relieved a great deal of her aggravation. "I am not boasting"— maybe a little— "and it's not my fault you didn't deny that you'd killed me."

"For all the good that would have done me. No one would have believed, except for those few who took the occasion to laugh at me because I couldn't even keep my wife at home. I ought to take this occasion to fling you out this window…" His voice trailed off. His brow knit.

"Go ahead, bully. Try and throw me to my death. Another Raeburn wife destroyed. Another tale added to the legend of the earl of Raeburn's lousy—" A thought occurred to her, and she stopped. "Dougald, if you didn't write and I didn't write, why are we up here?"

"Blast!" He leaped for the trapdoor and stopped short. "It's closed."

She approached slowly. "Closed. Who closed it?"

Kneeling, he tugged at the handle. "There's the question, isn't it?"

She didn't care for his tone. He acted as if he knew something. Something he hesitated to disclose. "Dougald, what are you talking about? What's going on?"

He braced himself and pulled without replying.

"Dougald, who sent the notes?"

Stepping on the trapdoor, he looked first at a large, scratched hutch, then at a smaller cupboard, then glanced at the lighter furniture in the tower. "The same someone who is trying to kill the earl of Raeburn and his wife."

She lifted her hand, then let it drop. "That's you and me." Suddenly she made sense of this last ghastly week. "That's you and me."

"Exactly." He pointed. "Please, would you hand me that table?"

She stared at the simple wooden end table with the broken leg. "What are you going to do with a table? Decorate?"

"I will hit whoever sticks his head through this trapdoor."

"Oh." The table was small and light, and Dougald was clever to think of it.

"In the meantime, I'm using my weight to thwart any attempts to enter."

She picked up the table and carried it to him. "But nobody knows that I'm your wife. Except—"

"It's not Charles." He positioned the table beside the trapdoor and cautiously stepped off. "I wish you would get over your unhealthy prejudice against him."

"Unhealthy? Charles gave me that note. He had to have known it wasn't from you."

He barely glanced at her. "We'll ask when we see him, but I'm sure there's a logical explanation."

He might have been a parent using his most strained and patient voice, but she recognized his tactic. He was trying to distract her. "Someone is trying to kill the earl of Raeburn— and you were beat to a pulp. Someone has already tried to kill you?"

"Um… yes." He hefted the table in one hand. "I don't know why he locked us in, though."

Horror and fury mixed in her mind. "To give me time to get to the bottom of this!"

Keeping his gaze on the trapdoor, he said, "You know everything now."

"Do I? Have there been any other attempts on you?"

"No, but I've been very careful." He flashed her a smile. "Thanks to you, I haven't been riding out at night."

The smile was an effort at distraction, too, but nothing could keep her from the truth. "After I fell through the landing, you realized someone was after me, too, and you didn't want me to be hurt so you tried to send me away."

"Yes!" He was obviously relieved she understood. "That's exactly right."

She sucker punched him in the ribs and followed that up with a stiff clip to the cheek.

He dropped the chair and staggered backward.

"You beast. You put me through hell!"

"With good intentions!"

"So I wouldn't be a target and you would be." She heard herself. She was yelling.

Dabbing at his face, he spoke in an absently superior tone. "I knew I wouldn't get hurt and feared for
you
."

"Not get hurt?" She stalked him. "Like you didn't get hurt when those men beat you up?"

"They shot at me first."

His confession jerked her to a halt. "They shot at you?"

Dougald stared at the trapdoor to avoid her gaze. "Yes, and I let us get trapped in here—"

Fury returned with a roar. She rained blows on him, not good, solid punches now, but girlish, rhythmic thumping on his chest, his arms, anywhere she could reach.

He flinched and tried to avoid her.

"You stupid jackass," she railed. "You tiresome cad. You worthless—"

Finally, he caught her wrists. "It's not so bad."

"That's why you said those things to me. You were trying to send me away so I wouldn't get hurt."

He had the good sense to look apologetic. "Yes…"

Apologetic wasn't enough. Apologetic didn't repair the damage he'd done to her soul, to her heart. "Who do you think I am? Some kind of quivering limp piece of flotsam who washes out at the first sign of danger?"

"That's not at all what I think." He glanced at the trapdoor.

"You think I'm a coward." She struggled to be free so she could hit him again. "You think I'd leave you to face an assassin while I run away to the city."

"Hannah." Still holding her wrists, he turned her in his arms so she faced into the room, her back to his front, her arms crossed across her waist and her wrists in his hands. "The last thing I think is that you're a coward. I think you're too brave for your own good. I was afraid you would do something foolish like hunt out the villain, or stand between me and a pistol."

"Don't flatter yourself." Tears sprang to her eyes. Tears of frustration and scorn she told herself. Not tears of hurt. "You said those things to me… you destroyed me… and you think that doing it for my safety is excuse enough?"

"An assassin could have captured you and threatened you."

She understood in a heartbeat. "And you would have had to sacrifice me for the good of the Pippard name."

He dropped her wrists. "Is
that
what you think?"

Blinking to clear the tears from her eyes, she faced him. "When have you ever given me any reason to think differently?"

They faced each other, adversaries still and forever. Perhaps her skepticism hurt him; she didn't know. All she knew was that they were caught in a legendary tower haunted by the ghosts of all the previous Lord Raeburns' accursed marriages, and unless a miracle occurred they would join the infamous and unbroken line. "Dougald, you said you had lured me to Raeburn Castle to use me and since you had succeeded, you didn't want me anymore."

"I didn't…" He held his hands as if he wanted to grab her. "That wasn't quite the truth."

"The truth would be nice for a change."

"You won't think so when I tell you." His laughter contained a sharp blade of amusement, although who it was directed at, she couldn't tell. "I found you in London and trapped you here for one reason— to be my wife. But first, I planned to compel you to fall in love with me. Then I would suitably subjugate you."

"Think well of yourself, don't you?" The trouble was, he could possibly have succeeded. But she would not tell him that. "What made you change your mind?"

"I still wanted you." He sounded gruff and rushed. "I didn't mean to. I thought nothing could lay waste to the discipline I had so carefully cultivated, but you did. Right from the first moment, I hated the way you made me…"

He couldn't even say the word. "Feel?"

He shook his head. Not in denial, but at his own vulnerability. His green eyes glowed, and abruptly he said, "I still want you."

She expected to feel gratification. Instead she discovered she had never truly doubted his desire.

As for love… even in the first flush of their marriage, she had distrusted his love, and with good reason. He had wed her expediently. While fond of her, he had loved money, wealth and power more. Now time and loneliness had left their scars on a belligerent soul, turning his defiance to bitterness— and injustice. "But do you still blame me for leaving you?"

The glow in his eyes dimmed. His elegant lips thinned. Once again he looked like the cold, emotionless lord who had welcomed her to his castle and threatened her with murder— and worse.

When he didn't reply, that was answer enough for her. In a low voice, she protested, "It wasn't my fault our marriage ended. How can you believe it was my fault?"

Still he gave no explanation. He refused to admit he was wrong.

Another glance at his cold expression changed her mind. He refused to
accept
he was wrong.

The creak of a hinge sounded loud in the telling silence.

Annoyed, distracted, she glanced around. She looked once. Twice.

The trapdoor lurched upward.

She pointed. "Dougald? Who—"

Dougald pushed her aside. She landed on her weak ankle. With a cry, she went down on one knee. Pain burned through the abused muscles and tendons, but she caught herself before she fell. She clutched the windowsill, and dragged herself back up in time to see the chair shattering on the trapdoor.

Alfred. Alfred, big, healthy, dirty. He ducked, then he was back, a pistol cocked and in his grip.

In a swift gesture Dougald grabbed him by the hair and the collar and dragged him into the tower chamber. Like a troll caught in a trap, Alfred howled, a mad light in his pale blue eyes. The pistol spit fire; the thunder rolled around the stone walls. A flurry of black thread and red blood exploded into the air above Dougald's shoulder. "Damn you!" Dougald recoiled.

The single-shot pistol was useless now, so Alfred struggled, hitting Dougald with the smoking barrel. Still Dougald dragged Alfred with him.

Toward the open window.

Hannah wanted to scream with fear, but drops of blood spattered the floor. Dougald had been hit. Alfred landed a blow on the side of Dougald's head. Dougald staggered like a man in distress and Alfred slithered from his grasp.

Dougald needed help.

Hannah sprang toward them. She struck Alfred from the side, knocking him into the wall.

Reaching into the pocket of his grubby jacket, Alfred pulled forth another pistol.

"Don't!" With both hands extended, Hannah shoved at him.

The pistol wildly wavered. "She's goin' t' kill me," Alfred said. The barrel straightened and pointed at her.

As Alfred's finger tightened on the trigger, Dougald shoved him out the window. The shot echoed up, bringing a flurry of thatch raining down on their heads.

But Dougald and Hannah watched in horror as Alfred fell silently, all the way to the ground.

Hannah turned away before he landed. "God rest his soul."

"I don't know that God will even see him." Dougald pulled his head in. "For the murder of two lords and the attempted murder of you and I, I imagine he will receive damnation."

Hannah thought about the events of the last minutes. "It wasn't Alfred who committed those murders," she said with conviction.

"No. Not on his own." Pale and sweating, Dougald leaned against the wall. "I fear there'll be no rescue for us. No one saw him fall."

"Dougald!" Hannah wrapped her arms around her husband. He hugged her back, and the sensation of his arms around her gave her a warmth she had not experienced for two days. For too long, and now he was shot. "Sit down."

"Yes." Slowly his eyes closed, and he folded over onto the floor. "I think I must."

Frantic, she tried to hold him up, but his weight and the revived throbbing in her ankle dragged her down with him. Cradling his head in her lap, she moaned. "Are you dead?" She groped for the pulse in his neck.

It raced beneath her fingers.

"You're
not
dead." Stating the obvious gave her a bizarre kind of comfort.

His head lolled sideways into her torso.

In a frantic bargain with the Almighty, she said, "If You will just allow Dougald to live, I'll be just the kind of wife he always wanted." She ran her hands over his shoulders, but she couldn't find the bullet hole. Yet she had seen that spray of thread and those drops of blood, so she searched again. "I'll do whatever he says, if you'll allow him to keep"— she found the place where the bullet had struck him— "breathing,"

She looked into his face.

He watched her through those marvelously piercing eyes. "Would you repeat that, please, with your hand on a Bible?"

The bullet had sliced through the fleshy part of his shoulder above his collarbone and exited within an inch of its penetration. She knew it hurt him; it most certainly had not killed him. "You… you're barely injured!"

He shifted, trying to make himself comfortable. "It burns like hell."