Rules of Attraction (35 page)

The candlelight changed Hannah's hair to molten gold, gave her eyes the curve of mystery and blessed her with a ethereal glow. But Hannah was not ethereal, and the problems between them wouldn't be solved on some heavenly plain.

They had to talk.

He didn't want to. While it was easy to blurt out truths in a rage, this conversation involved painful truths, confessions and possibly even emotion.

But if they didn't communicate, they would separate again. He couldn't bear that.

Hannah tilted her head, her eyes wide with alarm. "Dougald, what's wrong?"

"We need to—"

In a loud, nervous voice, Seaton asked, "Lord Raeburn, shouldn't you send someone to arrest Mrs. Trenchard?"

Dougald wanted to snap at Seaton. Tonight, he wanted to be free of the duties of lordship. For a few hours, he would like to be alone with his wife to talk, and then, if everything went well, he would pleasure her until he had imprinted himself onto her forever.

"That woman killed two earls of Raeburn," Seaton insisted. "You have to arrest her."

Dougald gazed at the aunts. Miss Minnie, Aunt Ethel and Aunt Isabel sat on the floor beside Aunt Spring. Aunt Spring, who had been the catalyst for so many dreadful events, and who cried now for her baby, her lost love and an old friend. He glanced at Charles, still holding two full candelabra and looking as aghast by the emotional events as only Charles could look. He watched Hannah, whose tears still trembled on the tips of her lashes. And he thought about the broken old woman who even now made her way down the stone steps to the kitchen.

Dougald was the lord. The babe needed to be removed and placed in a proper coffin. The chaplain would have to be called to minister to Aunt Spring. Mrs. Trenchard… he would have to decide what to do with Mrs. Trenchard. Dougald couldn't escape his duties tonight.

His talk with Hannah would have to wait.

"Charles, will you follow Mrs. Trenchard?"

Charles placed the candelabra on a table and hurried out of the chapel.

To Seaton, Dougald said, "You don't need to worry. Mrs. Trenchard wouldn't hurt you, and I doubt she is going to run before morning."

29

T
he funerals were over. The mourners were gone. Only the flowers remained with drooping stems and faded scent. The flowers, and Dougald and Hannah.

They sat side by side, alone in the chapel, not touching, while the awkward silence stretched so long Hannah wondered if she should pretend an emergency and escape out the door.

Finally, Dougald commented, "A grim day."

Grateful that he'd spoken at last, Hannah said, "I don't know. More than Mrs. Trenchard and Aunt Spring's baby were buried today."

He turned to her, black brows raised, complexion pale. "What else?"

Hannah realized that, after last night's events— the discovery of the tiny coffin, Mrs. Trenchard's confession, the fainting spell she had suffered, her fatal fall down the stairs— he might well be alarmed to hear anything had been buried without his knowledge. "I just meant a weight has been lifted from Aunt Spring and all of the Raeburn lands. The mystery is solved, the stain dissolved, and tomorrow is a new day." She smiled at him in the hope he would smile back. "Tomorrow we will welcome the Queen of England."

"Because of you, my dear." He didn't smile, and his formal praise chilled her. "Because you listened when Aunt Spring spoke of her lost love."

He wore a black suit and an implacable expression. Yesterday's ease between them had vanished. She didn't know why. She had seen his transformation occur here in the chapel the night before. He had been staring, intent, focused only on her. Then Seaton had spoken, and the Dougald who held her hand, who listened when she spoke, who respected her opinion, vanished. In his place was the old, remote, responsible Dougald, lord of the manor and master of organization.

Did he regret the things he'd said yesterday? The truths he had revealed? Had she said something which made him realize how deeply he rued their marriage?

Did he intend to tell her to leave today?

For her part, Hannah behaved like any wife who was about to be cast off. She sat serenely, her back straight and her hands at rest, and worked to retain a pleasant expression. In short, she behaved with dignity and grace. "Aunt Spring is just vague, not crazy. She cried last night over both bodies, she buried them in the family plot today, and soon she'll be upstairs with the other aunts putting the finishing touches on the tapestry."

"So you like my Aunt Spring?" Dougald asked.

"Very much." Hannah watched as the afternoon sun radiated through the stained-glass windows and striped Dougald's black suit and beloved features with azure and scarlet and gold. "The aunts are lovely, and none of them seemed particularly surprised by the tale of Aunt Spring's baby."

"She had told them."

"That's not the kind of tale a woman will tell. It's hard to talk about something so painful, but the truth was there if you listened."

"Are you saying I don't listen?" he asked abruptly.

His defensiveness startled her. "Not at all."

"Because it's probably true. My father never listened, and I have worked to be like him. Until recently, I succeeded rather well." He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs, and stared at the altar. "Did my grandmother ever tell you the tales about my father and me?"

Hannah's breath caught. Dougald was going to talk about himself. About the past. To
her
. Striving for a faintly humorous tone, she said, "No, in fact when I asked, she said your father was a saint and as a child you were a saintlet."

He chuckled, as he was supposed to, but he still didn't look at her. "She would. Grandmama perceived her function in the family as peacemaker and developer of the icons, and if she had to lie to fulfill her duty, it was a lie well told."

Hannah noticed Dougald's hands. They were clasped, and his knuckles were white with tension. This was difficult for him; so difficult, she wanted to pat his hand and tell him
never mind
. But she didn't. He wanted to tell her something. He actually sought a conversation not precipitated by a fight or a bullet wound. "I had suspected you weren't the saintlet she claimed," she said.

"Not to speak ill of the dead, but I had my reasons." His mouth set in its usual stern line. "I don't remember my mother. My grandmother gave me affection. But my father was a tyrant, without love for me or interest in my doings except as they advanced the family name."

"So you rebelled."

"You've heard the rumors."

"A few," she admitted. "Years ago, and more recently from Seaton."

"Seaton." Dougald smiled, but not pleasantly. "If he knew the details, he could dine out on them for years."

"Are the details so dreadful?"

"My father insisted on hard work and abstinence. I scorned him. My grandmother blathered on and on about the family honor and tradition. I hated it. Everything they said seemed so old-fashioned and restrictive. I knew what I wanted, and it wasn't the life of a businessman, dressed in a black suit and hung by the cravat around his neck." Flinty-eyed, Dougald touched his formally tied cravat. "No, my family was rich, so I lived the good life. By the time I was fifteen, I nightly drank myself into oblivion, I smoked cigars until I reeked and visited the finest whores. I was
tough
. I was a
man
."

Hannah couldn't imagine Dougald behaving with such abandon.

He glanced up to see her incredulous gaze fixed on him, and added, "Until my father cut off my allowance."

She winced.

"I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe he would do that to me. I hated him so much."

"I understand that."

He stared at her. "You?"

"I had a father, too," she explained. "He didn't marry my mother."

"Perhaps he wanted to, but couldn't defy his parents."

"The grandparents I will meet tomorrow." She almost wished she could put that encounter off until she had developed more confidence, or a tougher spirit, or at least the worst of this emotional tumult had passed.

In his most pessimistic tone, he said, "We are a pair."

"Don't sound so cheerful."

He didn't in any way respond to her jocularity.

With a sigh, she asked, "So you went home?"

"Me? Not me. Father was trying to bring me to heel. I was determined he would not succeed."

She could imagine the younger Dougald, choking on his pride. "Did you live with friends?"

"When the family money was gone, I didn't have any friends."

He didn't sound bitter, but his friends' desertion must have taught the youth a savage lesson. "What did you do?"

He sliced a glance at her. "I sank to the depths. I was a blackguard of the first water. I led a coterie of thugs. We fought other thugs, attacked any dandies foolish enough to be out after dark, and stole whatever happened to be at hand, and when I was caught…" His voice faded away.

Her heart leaped into her throat. They hanged thieves. "You were caught?"

"The magistrate had to show me the gibbet before I gave in and sent a message to my father." He straightened up without expression, said, "My father died of the shock. Clutched his heart and keeled right over."

Hannah sat, stunned, and tried to imagine what the guilt had done to the impressionable lad.

"Charles paid the magistrate a hefty bribe and got me out of the gaol. He took me home to see my father— and there he lay, in his coffin."

"How dreadful," she whispered.

Dougald stared at the flowers, drooping in their vases. "Funerals always make me think of my father."

Comprehension dawned. "You blamed yourself for his death."

"With some justification."

She bristled with indignation. "Of course with
some
justification, but it's not all your fault! You were only a boy. He should have taught you values, and if at first he failed, he should have tried again. He should have hunted for you and persuaded you to come back. He was a successful businessman. His pride could have taken the blow. Instead he died without ever seeing you."

Dougald watched her, his mouth curled in a crooked grin.

"Is that why you always supported the orphans' home, and found decent jobs for the men on the streets and the women in the workhouses?"

"I have a lot of reparation to make."

"And here I just thought you hid a kind streak." She pressed her head to his shoulder, then straightened up. "Yet you were always such an uncompromising businessman."

"Because I wanted to be better than Father, yes. But also, I was sixteen when I took the reins of the business. If I hadn't been ruthless, I would have been wiped out by Father's 'friends.'"

Hannah tried to speak. She
needed
to speak, to tell him what she had discovered these last few days.

But he misinterpreted her attempt. With harsh honesty, he said, "Don't try and tell me you would have stayed if you'd known. You wouldn't have. I was determined to beat my father in every way possible, including as a merciless bruiser. Eventually I would have chased you away."

She tried to speak again.

But he waved her to silence. "You were too young to handle me. You had no mother, no friends, no one to tell you what to do when a man was stubborn and stupid. I shouldn't have married you so young. That was my mistake."

Finally, she snapped, "More than lying to me about my dress shop?"

He stared at her, and when he saw her impatience, he put his hand on his shoulder and leaned back against the pew. "My wound is starting to hurt…"

"So is mine."

He straightened. "Your ankle?"

"No." This time it was her turn to face the front and speak toward the flowers. "The wound you inflicted when you said I abandoned you without trying."

"Oh." Dougald tried to brush her pain away and take responsibility for everything. "That was part of my scheme to drive you away."

"The real part." She faced him again. "Don't lie to me, Dougald. I recognized the truth immediately. I've spent too many years trying to justify my escape to myself. I knew I had done wrong."

"You were young."

"Other women have said their wedding vows at eighteen and meant them. I left because I wanted to go before I began to swell with your child."

He jerked, almost as if he'd been stuck by another bullet. "Sound reasoning."

"Yes. Yes, it was. But the truth is, beneath my original starry-eyed wonder, there lurked the ghosts of my past. Always they whispered to me." With a shaky sigh, she admitted, "I never expected our marriage to last."

His face stilled into the cold mask of the businessman and lord. "I see."

"No, you don't. You and I could not have been more mismatched. You, with so much to prove. Me, knowing that no man would ever want me forever."

His mask dropped away, leaving a man confused. "Not want you? I wanted you all the time. So much I was embarrassed. I feared I was out of control. Didn't you know that?"

"No, and if I had, it wouldn't have mattered. From what I had seen, there was no home in this world that lasted. Not for me, anyway."

"I allowed Charles to run our home, so it was never your home."

"But you were right when you said I could have fought him and won. I had the weapons. I just… thought it was no use." Hannah had heard Dougald's tale, been touched by his trust, and wanted to give him her trust in return. But this was hard. This hurt with the lingering pain of ancient memories. Still she spoke, ignoring the quaver in her voice. "My mother… you knew my mother."

"A good woman."

"Yes, and she raised me the best way she could. She enfolded me in her love. She tried to make me proud and strong, but she had to leave me while she worked." She tried to smile at him. "Do you know, the first words I remember hearing are, 'Hey, bastard, stop that?' My nursemaid couldn't remember my name. Neither could her children. So I was, 'Hey, bastard.'"

He gripped the pew in front of them. "Did your mother know about this?"