Rules of Attraction (6 page)

And he saw her. Sitting in the open door of a car, dressed in one of his boyhood outfits, her feet swinging, her eyes wide and excited.

Beautiful, silly girl. He had sheltered her for five years, knowing she would be his one day, pleased with her intelligence, obedience, and femininity. Now the child had vanished, replaced by a woman whose curves no amount of schoolboy clothing could disguise. Errant strands of blonde hair dangled beside her face. A brilliant smile lifted her lips, as though the thought of escaping from him and from her obligations brought her joy.

Proof positive that she didn't comprehend the dangers that faced a young runaway.

Breaking into a run, he raced for the back of the train. He barely caught a handhold on the last car. He hefted himself up onto the platform. Balancing on the narrow, shaking boards, he studied his predicament. Hannah's car was the third from the end. The train was gaining speed. Metal rungs were fastened on the side of the car. He could climb up, crawl along the roof, jump between…

Standing there, he laughed aloud. He hadn't done anything so dangerous, so impetuous, in all the years since his father's death. These types of feats should have been performed by the much younger Dougald… he laughed again. Perhaps, after all, Hannah would prove his salvation.

The train rattled and puffed as he climbed the ladder straight up the side. The metal rungs jiggled in his palms and beneath his feet. Yet better the shaking rungs than the roof where he had no handholds… he crawled up onto the heated metal flat. The wind blew in his hair. The top of the car gave him a good view of Liverpool and the approaching countryside… and of his height about the ground.

He laughed again. Madness. This was madness.

Yet he couldn't let Hannah go. He had held her when she cried for her mother.

He crawled along the roof of the car, right down the center. At the junction between that end car and the next, he stood and eyed the distance between them. Below, the connector rattled and shook. The rails whisked away behind him.

He'd been a wild lad, and in those days he would have considered this a lark. Now he was a respectable businessman, and he understood consequences. If he missed this jump… Taking a breath, he leaped. He landed on all fours, the metal roof shuddering beneath his weight. But he made it.

Staying low, he raced like some primal beast toward the next jump.

Yes, now he understood consequences, even if Hannah didn't. Perils lurked out here, and how would she avoid them? Her earlier life hadn't been easy, but since he had taken her under his wing, she'd had only the best. Food. Clothing. Education. Finishing school.

The train was going faster. The gap between the next cars seemed wider. But this time he barely allowed himself a breath before he jumped.

Then he looked around. This was it. Hannah's car. He was on top. She was inside. The door was open, and the only way in was a simple bit of acrobatics… which he hadn't performed in years.

This time he didn't laugh. He swore. He inched toward the side. He peered over the edge. Hannah's feet no longer dangled outside. Apparently, as the train had gained speed, she had moved back. Wise girl. Wise… well, no. Not so wise. She didn't know not to challenge Dougald Pippard.

She might not realize it, but he had bound her to him, and with the most honorable of intentions. Now his duty— nay, his affection— demanded he protect her, even if he had to protect her from herself. He smiled. Yes, she was his. She just didn't know it yet.

Grasping the door sill, he steadied himself, then vaulted around and down
—

Inclining his head, Dougald lifting his glass and toasted the memory of that wonderful day when youth and love and adventure had been theirs.

Hannah seemed unimpressed with his salute. "So Charles hired the men who followed me in London… they were yours, of course?"

His appetite faded, and he replaced his spoon. "Of course."

"You set a trap."

"As soon as the situation here had stabilized, I called Charles back and hired the detectives to… make you nervous. Then I offered a job which I knew would appeal to you. It was only a trap if you sprung it." Putting his foot against the table leg, he shoved it aside. The dishes rattled, the silverware shivered, but he cleared the space between them so he could see her without hindrance. See her, dressed in those plain black work clothes. Always she disguised herself… on the train in boy's garb, today in a caretaker's severity. Always her beauty shone through. Nothing could hide the translucent skin, soft as a child's, or the wealth of golden hair, or the lips which beckoned a man to kiss them. If a man looked beyond her countenance, he saw the curvaceous figure… oh, not as rounded as in earlier years, but increasingly alluring in its slender grace. She walked, she moved as she always had; as if the Almighty had created her for Dougald's pleasure, and used her to entice him away from sin and into holy wedlock. The Almighty's plan had worked almost too well, for when she left him, she took with her every delight. She left only darkness.

Luckily, he dwelt well in darkness. He plotted to overcome the past. He planned for the future. And every scheme had worked, for she sat before him now. "If I had a doubt, it was that I could frighten you into giving up your precious Distinguished Academy of Governesses. After all, it offered what our marriage did not— work, and more work."

"You dare." She viewed him as if he were a monster… wise woman, for the years of loneliness and disgrace had created a monster within him. "Dare to accuse me of your own sins. You also worked, my dear. Worked endlessly while expecting me to allow you to care for me."

"Like a wife!" The heat with which he answered surprised him. He hadn't indulged in such useless indignation for years.

"Like a feeble-minded incompetent," she shot back at him.

"Your mother spoiled you for leisure."

Her voice rose. "She worked all the time, and I wanted to help her!"

He shifted in his chair, wanting to demand she see matters his way, knowing the futility of ever having Hannah see reason. "I know. Your desire was admirable. Your ability to adapt to my desires was not."

"Mother taught me that work is virtue. That truth did not change because my circumstances did."

"And you have spent your life chasing after virtue like a kitten after an elusive butterfly." Dougald leaned his head back and watched her through slitted eyes. "Yet you abandoned your marriage and disregarded your wedding vows. Where's the virtue in that?"

She twined her shaking fingers together. "No more virtue than seducing an eighteen-year-old girl."

"You were eighteen and leaving me. Seduction was the fastest way to get control of you."

"Ah. Seduction saved you the time you would have spent on courtship." She bit off the words. "An admirable shortcut, my lord."

He laughed, a brief, hard laugh, and used his knowledge to hurt her. "I didn't have to seduce you. I didn't have to be so kind. I had already bought you— from your mother. Remember?"

5

D
ougald had never been cruel before. He had been manipulative, unscrupulous, and thoughtless, but never had he taunted Hannah with the desperate events that had brought her to him. "My mother didn't sell me to you. She placed me with you. There is a distinction." Hannah took a breath, trying to ease the constriction in her chest. "I considered myself one of your philanthropic undertakings. You had so many."

He shrugged. He had never talked about the people he helped— the orphans he had placed with families, the women he had found jobs for, the men he had trained.

"Besides, what else was my mother to do?" Hannah's voice trembled as she remembered that dreadful time. "She was dying."

"Exactly. She did the best she could for you in the circumstances." He sat so still, watching her, weighing her reactions, seeing the sorrow the memory of her mother still brought her. "And you are wrong. She knew exactly what I wanted from you. She and Grandmama set it up between them."

She couldn't help but mock him. "But you, you poor little thing, didn't realize their plan."

"Indeed I did. They told me they had arranged a marriage for me with you. You were thirteen then, a pleasant child, handsome. Your mother was of good Lancastrian stock, and she assured us your father, also, had been healthy and of sound mind. Although the particulars of your birth were not savory, illegitimacy was not a great enough matter to disrupt our plans."

She had never heard the story of her betrothal. Not quite like this. Not explained so bluntly, so indifferently, without the patina of regard to ease the dose. "I still don't understand why an adult man would allow his grandmother to make a match for him."

"Arranged marriages are a tradition in the Pippard family. They are always successful." His mouth curled in self-derision. "Why should I have been any different?"

She knew it was stupid when she said it, but she had to. "Because people don't do that anymore."

"Nonsense, my dear, of course they do. You've been in society enough to know how ridiculous you sound. How young." He chuckled, a laugh rusty with disuse. "In some ways, at least, you haven't changed."

I have.
She wanted to insist he acknowledge how much she had changed. But in this matter, at least, she still believed what he did not. "For a twenty-one-year-old man to agree to train and educate a thirteen-year-old girl for no other reason than to have a wife at hand when he chooses to wed— that is obscene."

He was still smiling, if you could call that arduous bend of the lips a smile.

"You must admit," he said, "that most marriages are forged of some ingredient other than mutual affection. Greed, usually, but occasionally expediency."

"Expediency would have been your motivation," she accused.

He tossed the accusation right back. "Yours, also. I doubt you would have enjoyed being thrown out in the street when your mother died."

"You and your grandmother were not the kind of people to pitch me out." Whatever Dougald and Mrs. Pippard had been or done, she knew that for certain. "But even if you were, I would have found a position somewhere doing something."

"You were always so convinced of your infallibility."

"Of my infallibility?" She was startled. "I don't think so. Of my competence, yes."

"Think about it. Think about it now, using what you've learned of the world. The best you could have done was become a maid, probably in the kitchen. You were pretty and refined. You wouldn't have been like the other maids, so they would have made fun of you. The men would have been after you. All the men, from the footmen to the master and his sons." His hard tone and rough-gravel voice could only come from a man repelled by the thought of such concupiscence. He pressed her for admission. "I saved you from all that."

"You're right, of course." She owned up to it freely. "So I thank you. But what you have never understood is that my gratitude to you for the education and the finishing school could have been repaid by the sweat of my brow, not with my body."

He stared at her body now, then flicked a glance at her expression of fierce intent. "You have never forgiven me for taking your virtue from you."

She hated that he talked about the day she had worked so hard to forget. "I was so young, Dougald, and you swept me away with your sweet words and your attentions."
Your kisses.

"You had found out about the arrangement, and you were leaving me." His voice lowered to a whisper. "On the train. Remember the train…"

They were rumbling along, headed for Sankey viaduct, and she tilted the bottle of wine once more, tasting the flavors of grape and oak, thinking that Dougald hadn't had very much of it, she'd been so intent on filling her belly. But looking him over now, watching him munch his apple, she didn't think he appeared to be thirsty. In fact, he didn't appear to be missing anything; he was a good-looking man, tall, dark and handsome, and if a girl dreamed of a man, he would be the ideal man to dream of. But he was too old for her— what was he, twenty-six? And so damn complacent and self-assured. It was frustrating, that a man with so much presence, a man who could sweep any woman off her feet, should choose a girl that he did not have to exert himself with. Such a shame; it was probably a sign of some spiritual deficiency on his part.

"What kind of spiritual deficiency?" his warm, deep voice asked.

Hannah blinked. Had she spoken aloud? My heavens, she had had too much wine.

"Probably a little too much wine," he agreed. "What kind of spiritual deficiency do I suffer from?"

"Wanting to… marry someone without taking the energy to court her." His steady green gaze mesmerized her. "Why would you abandon the thrill of the chase?"

"I chased you, didn't I?" Dougald asked seriously.

"That's not the same, as you well know." She frowned. "I've watched you conduct business. You're an aggressive, arrogant competitor, and opposition whets your appetite."

He inhaled, expanding his chest fully. "You're opposing me. You've fulfilled my fantasy."

"Oh." Hannah swigged a drink from the bottle and passed it to Dougald. "Quite unintentionally, I assure you."

He stuffed the remnants of their lunch in the sack, closing that subject for the moment. Stretching hugely, he unbuttoned his shirt and rubbed his chest with the flat of his hand.

She covered her eyes with her hands. "Mr. Pippard. Please, this is improper!"

With a lazy purr, he said, "Surely not so improper between a man and his betrothed."

Dropping her hands, she glared at him. "Yes, it is, and you cannot make it the contrary by decreeing it so."

"You would be surprised what I can decree. Did you bring a blanket?"