Rules of Attraction (36 page)

"Of course not, and I didn't tell her." She remembered the times she'd wanted to speak, but she had recognized the burden her mother carried. "What choice did she have?"

"None." He frowned. "But I don't understand what this has to do with our marriage. I never worried about your legitimacy.
I
never reproached you. I would have killed anyone who did."

"For my sake?" Stiffening her spine, she asked the difficult question. "Or because no one should slander
your
wife?"

"For you… because… it was never…" He stammered to a halt. "I… don't know, Hannah. Even at that time, even when I was a selfish youth, it wasn't all for the sake of my pride. Now… now I don't give a damn what anyone else thinks of you. All I care about is what I think, and I think you're a remarkable woman."

She chuckled, just a little. "Now
that
I believe."

"That you're a remarkable woman?"

"That you don't care what anyone else thinks."

"Then believe this— nothing less than a remarkable woman could have turned me from my well-planned revenge."

A fine declaration, and one she would treasure. Sincerity shone from Dougald, brighter than the colors of the stained-glass window. He was proud of her, and if she wished, she could stop talking now. They had said so much. She didn't have to tell him everything. Didn't have to expose every shameful reminiscence. "I know who I am," she said. "I know what I've done. I've founded and run a successful business in a man's world. I realize how I've grown from the girl who left you and our marriage."

Dougald had been so brave; could she do any less? He wouldn't turn away if she showed him the ugly secrets chained in the dungeon of her soul… would he?

She wanted to laugh, but contained herself. Perhaps her ugly secrets didn't reside in her soul, but in her gut, for her stomach twisted with protest when she imagined telling him the truth. "If you say I'm remarkable, then I would not disagree with you."

"That's my Hannah," he approved.

When he found out who she really was, he would probably turn away. Wetting her suddenly dry lips, she finished, "Most of the days."

"I knew there had to be a catch."

"Sometimes, somebody says something, and all the fear and guilt comes flooding back. When I was a child, I would make friends tentatively. They'd like me. We'd laugh together. We'd eat together. I'd think, 'This time will be different,' and then they would turn on me when they found out." Hannah tried to look at him, but although she'd been as intimate with this man as any woman could be, her gaze skittered away. Physical intimacy, she realized, could not compare to the sharing of thoughts, memories, feelings. "You can't beat a dog every day without it sooner or later attacking."

He leaned back, watching her through that enigmatic, knowing gaze. "Last night, I thought you were going to jump at Mrs. Trenchard."

She had hoped he wouldn't notice. Foolish Hannah, Dougald noticed everything. "I haven't heard it for so long.
Bastard
. She called me a bastard." She touched her forehead, her lips, her throat. Her gestures betrayed her agitation, but she couldn't stop. She had to move, had to shake off the pain, or all the old rage would rise in her. She feared it would take possession, and she'd be the young Hannah once more— desperate to please, afraid of rebuff, always searching for a home and a family of her own. "I thought I had come so far." Dropping her hands into her lap, she said in a low, intense voice, "But when Mrs. Trenchard said that, I just wanted to make her stop before everyone knew… before they all turned on me…"

"They all… the aunts wouldn't turn on you. They adore you."

"I know. I know! But I didn't think, I just wanted to fight or to run away."

"Oh." He understood now. "Like you did with me."

"I expected you to hurt me. As I got deeper and deeper in love with you, I realized that when you turned on me, my pain would be devastating." It hurt now to tell him how vulnerable and frightened she had been. And to know that, with him, she still was. "You almost did me a favor when you refused me my dress shop. My dream wasn't really destroyed. You gave me the excuse I was looking for. The excuse to leave."

He stood up, then sat back down. "My God, we could never have stayed together."

"No." She was glad he realized the truth, and knew that she realized it, too. It had taken both of them to end their marriage. "Before we could ever succeed, I had to learn I could make friends, that I was not just the poor little bastard the world despised. You… you had to learn that you didn't want to be your father."

"I didn't
learn
I didn't want to be like my father. I just learned that because of you, I
failed
to be like him. How could I be cold, indifferent, unloving, when I had you to snap at me and nag at me and take me to the heights of passion?" Carefully, he picked up her hands and rubbed them between his own. "There is a wise adage that says you can never cross the same river twice. You can go to the same spot on the bank, but the water that was there before has flowed on to the sea. We're standing on the bank of a river, and we've been here before. But it's not the same river."

"We're not same people." She returned the clasp of his hand. "I would like to cross the river with you again."

A smile broke across Dougald's face. An open smile, one that united the old, charming Dougald and the new, taciturn Dougald. "Are you asking me to marry you?"

She stilled. For one moment, she remembered how he had plotted his revenge on her. The recollection of his searing diatribe rose from her memory and romped like a drama across the stage of her mind.

If she surrendered to him now, he would have succeeded. She would be his forever, to hurt as he wished.

But the Dougald who held her hands had had faith in her beliefs. He had showed her his past. He listened when she spoke. Although she didn't approve, he had even taken a bullet for her. She had to return that faith. Perhaps it wasn't love or anything more than passion, but it was Dougald, and he was what she wanted.

So she took a breath and she said, "Remember when you told me you wanted to make me fall in love so you could subjugate me to your marital demands?"

He shifted warily. "Yes."

"Well… you've succeeded in half your plan."

He understood at once. Gathering her into his arms, he held her tight, his cheek on her hair. "You have made me happier than I have been in my whole life. I wish that I could… wait." He stood up and dragged her with him. "Come on." He pulled her out of the pew and to the front of the chapel. He positioned her directly in front of the altar, then took his place beside her.

She had stood in front of a church with him one other time. Then the pews had been filled with the best families in Liverpool, her gown had been of the finest blue velvet, and a minister had stood in the pulpit.

This time the chapel was empty of witnesses, she wore her black mourning gown, and only the two of them would know what they said this day, yet she understood what he proposed.

This time, the vows would be real.

Taking her hands again, he faced her and stared into her face for a long moment. "There have been times this week when I thought I would never know love again. I woke with the hope of seeing you. I bathed with the memory of your smile. I walked the corridors while imagining you walked with me. My soul bled every time I glimpsed you— the froth of lace, the satin of your cleavage, the narrowness of your waist. I told myself that I only wanted you in my bed, but every day I moved closer to the truth. I wanted you for my wife."

She should have been triumphant. She had tried to make him suffer, and she had succeeded. But he had suffered enough in his life, and she would never be the cause of his suffering again.

Dougald's eyes were solemn, his voice deep and vibrant. "I want to talk to you. I want to listen to you. I want to walk with you and, yes, I want you in my bed. That's what I want today. That's what I'll want in a hundred years. If you will promise to be my wife forever, I will pledge myself to your happiness. Please, Hannah, will you be mine?"

She wanted to tell him. That he had been everything to her— guardian, lover, husband. For years he was the man whose memory she fled. For years he had been the man she remembered. Since she had come to Raeburn Castle, he had been her nemesis, her defender, and nothing more and nothing less than her man.

Yet she could barely speak. All she could do was take his face between her palms, look at him with tear-filled eyes, and whisper, "Forever. I am yours forever."

30

T
he train had arrived. Queen Victoria was on her way in the carriage he had had brought in from his home in Liverpool, and Hannah paced into the newly constructed foyer on the main floor of the castle. "It's raining. How dare it rain today of all days?"

"This is England," Dougald replied. "Her Majesty has been damp before."

Hannah gave him a look that plainly told him what she thought of his good sense, and waited while the aunts came in and lined up.

Dougald didn't know which made Hannah more coltish, the prospect of presenting Her Majesty with the tapestry or knowing her grandparents would be present at the reception following. Certainly she marched up and down the line of aunts, giving them an oration that would have made Nelson proud and examining each for appropriateness of dress.

The aunts, bless them, were so nervous they let her.

Dougald followed Hannah as she tweaked and straightened and generally frightened them to death, and as he passed, he smiled at each of the aunts. "The crimson velvet much complements your coloring, Aunt Isabel. The blue brings out the color of your eyes, Aunt Ethel. Aunt Spring." He took her hands and spread them wide. "The little pink flowers on the white material are so cheerful."

"I like it," Aunt Spring answered. "You don't think it's too soon after the funerals, do you?"

To have had two funerals one day and a celebration the next did seem a little peculiar, but Dougald said, "I think the funerals were extraordinary circumstances, and the Queen's visit is a special moment. Her Majesty would not wish to think she was intruding on our mourning, and we would not wish to make her uncomfortable by unnecessary lamentation."

"So I told Spring, my lord," Miss Minnie said.

"You are very wise," Dougald answered. "And may I say, you look lovely in that gray silk."

Miss Minnie smoothed the skirt. "I haven't worn it in years. It lacks élan."

"But with your dignity, you carry off the older styles." Dougald watched as the aunts got into a little group where they tittered and talked, then he walked to the archway where Hannah stood with her fists on her hips.

"How did you do that?" she demanded.

"What?" He smiled at her.

"Make them relax. I've been telling them to, but they don't listen to me."

"I don't understand it." He stroked a strand of golden hair. "Did I tell you how beautiful you look today?"

Her fists unclenched.

"Your gown is perfect for an afternoon visit from Her Majesty. I would never have thought that color of gold would so perfectly match your hair."

A faint smiled touched her lips, and she glanced down. "I do like it."

"The shimmer of the silk gives just the right touch of elegance to the severe fashion."

"I'm tall. Furbelows look ridiculous on me."

"You have a wonderful sense of style." Taking her hand, he led her to the outside door, a new double wooden affair with a window above and on either side. After a clap on the shoulder of the footmen who watched the road, Dougald told Hannah, "Pretend you are Her Majesty and you have just stepped into Raeburn Castle. What do you think?"

She looked around, and he looked with her. The meticulous work by the carpenters, plasterers and stonemasons exhibited no signs of haste. The rose-marble floor stretched smoothly through the foyer to the hardwood in the main corridor. The carved wood casements shone with polish, and the cream paint was smooth on the walls.

"It's lovely," she said.

"I think we should have some gold leaf done on the soffit— when we have time, of course."

She looked up. "Yes."

"I'm especially pleased with marble detail on the new outside stairs. Too bad Her Majesty won't get to see much in the rain."

Hannah drew her fringed shawl a little closer around her shoulders. "Dougald, are you deliberately soothing me?"

He'd always known she was too clever by half. "Is it working?"

For a moment, she seemed torn between laughter and ire, but her sense of humor won the hard-fought battle. She chuckled reluctantly. "You're a scoundrel."

"An adoring scoundrel."

"You have to stop smiling." She glanced around.

"Everyone's going to know what we were doing last night."

"Let them."

"They don't know we're married yet."

"I rather like that. I haven't done anything illicit for… well, since the last time we were illicit."

"Last week." She thought the man deserved to languish for manipulating her, even for a good cause, so as she left him she cast a flirtatious glance over her shoulder.

She hadn't had occasion to practice flirtatious glances, but this one seemed effective for he straightened, lost his smile, and stalked after her.

Joining the aunts, she said with considerably less formality, "I'm so excited."

"Are you sure Her Majesty will like the tapestry?" Aunt Ethel asked for at least the fifth time.

"It is the most magnificent tapestry I have ever seen," Hannah said. "Only a fool would fail to like the tapestry, and Queen Victoria is no fool."

The aunts exchanged glances, and chorused, "We're excited, too!"

Seaton skidded around the corner at a run. "Am I late?"

"Not at all." Hannah stood in amazement of Seaton's garb. Where other men wore proper, somber colors to greet their sovereign, Seaton strutted like a peacock in a combination of emerald, yellow and dark blue.