Rules of Attraction (8 page)

"Killing you would certainly solve all my problems. As long as I didn't get caught, I'd be no more notorious than I already am." Then he laughed. A husky, illused chuckle. "Of course, I mention it only as one of our options. I would never truly harm you in any way… my love."

Swine! To jest about her death now, tonight, the first time they'd seen each other in nine years! To mention a cold grave while the fog swirled outside and the only soul who knew her true identity and background was the very man who menaced her. If she wanted proof that he truly did not love her, had never loved her, his words, his laughter provided that proof. Well. She would not sit here and allow him to torment her. She had had a difficult trip. Merely seeing him had been a horrible shock.

She'd had enough. Enough of his threats, his sneers, his taunts, his reminiscences. She wanted to rush at him, to shake her finger in his face, show him his mistake in thinking he could humiliate her. Her, the headmistress of the Distinguished Academy of Governesses and the businesswoman who had guided the school to success!

Enough of being afraid.
She
wasn't afraid of anyone. Certainly not a man, a coward! who stalked her, who threatened to make her perform her marital duties unwillingly, who found joy in intimidating her.

"I didn't dream about you at all." Striding over to him, she stood over the top of him and looked down at him. Tilting his head up, he looked back.

Handsome? No, not any longer, but intense, burning with… with some emotion. Ardor, maybe. Hatred, perhaps. She would probably never know. The passions that lived in him were now disciplined, allowed out only on a short tether.

Masculine? Yes, shadow and candlelight sculpted his features, leaving no kindness, no tenderness, no soft curve… except for his mouth. That mouth… the lips were buttery-soft, plush and downy, especially when they kissed her neck, her breast, her thigh.

Tall? Yes, but she was, too. When they married, they stood together in the reception line and people had told them how well they looked together. A few indiscreet and rather tipsy gentlemen had brayed about how they would make beautiful children together.

They hadn't; she had quite consciously left before a child tied her to the man who had manipulated her. Disappointed her. No, during the long years alone she wisely never imagined anything about him. She didn't like the weeping that would inevitably follow.

Yes, this was Dougald, and she would
not
be afraid of him. Wedging her knee on the seat between his thigh and the chair arm, she asked, "If you don't want me to be your wife, why did you bring me here?"

He observed her as he would observe a cat he had vexed— with caution, yet without worry. For how much damage can one little cat cause?

His mistake. She was strong. She could taunt and threaten and intimidate, too. Better, she could make him want her, and she could take command.

"I want you," he answered. "To care for my aunt."

"You could hired a local woman." Placing her hand on his shoulder, she leaned closer to him and had the great joy of feeling him draw back slightly. Her aggressive rush had at least puzzled him. "You went to a great deal of trouble to get me."

"Perhaps I've grown parsimonious in my old age. After all, I don't have to pay my wife."

His breath brushed her face, the heat of his body burned through his waistcoat. His hands rested on the arms of the chair, seemingly at rest, apparently uninterested in lifting toward the body so close above his own.

"Slave labor," she accused.

"Almost as good," he said. "The loving labor of a spouse."

Sarcastic creature! But she didn't fear to confront him. "Or perhaps you have some other plan…?"

"Anything is possible." He sounded vaguely bored. "But what is definite is that you're going to stay, and you're going to work, and you're not going to know my plans until I want you to."

"Maybe." She leaned all the way down, close enough to look right into his eyes, close enough that their lips almost kissed. "Maybe not."

Then she closed the gap— and kissed him.

She tasted the surprise on his lips. Good! Good. She'd taken the smug swine unawares with her sudden move.

Taken herself unawares, too…

Her eyelids fluttered closed.

His lips were the same. Smooth, wide, sensual. As a young girl, she spent hours exploring his lips, trying to identify why his kisses so enchanted her. She had never succeeded, and now as she rested her lips on his, then slanted her head to fit them closer together, she wondered if she should actually taste him. Open her lips over his, invite him inside, and if he resisted, she would take the initiative, go deep into the wine-scented cavern and show him just how much his wife she really was….

No, she shouldn't. That would lead them places she didn't want to go. Instead she would keep it light, remember the impulse that had led her here and understand she strove to take the upper hand.

She would ignore her own quickened breathing, the faint sheen of perspiration this contact brought her, and just touch his face with her hand. Just touch him softly… he'd shaved his chin. He'd shaved not long before she had arrived, because his black beard was nothing but a velvet burr against her fingertips. A burr on that broad jaw. She spread her fingers, seeking to touch more, and she located his cheekbone. Her thumb slid across, once, twice. The skin there was always smooth, a pleasure to stroke. Her fingertips rubbed his ear, circling each ridge, holding the lobe, then lightly massaging it.

Beneath her other hand, his shoulder flexed. Yes. A caress on the ear had always disturbed him. Always brought his body surging toward hers.

She broke off the kiss and straightened up. Prudence. A chance to grasp at discretion.

He wasn't surging toward her. He hadn't moved at all. His hands still rested on the arms of the chair, his thigh still pressed against her knee, he still watched her… still watched her.

Her lips felt swollen when she asked, "Shall I stop?"

"No."

"This is insane."

With heartfelt sincerity, he said, "To hell with sanity."

Yes. Yes. Perhaps she was deranged, but this asylum imprisoned two. Here, between the two of them, uncontrollable emotions rose and tossed them on the seas of passion, and no matter how he wished it otherwise, he responded to her. In this matter, at least, his discipline was inadequate.

Her hand slid into his hair, along his temple and into the silky strands. She sifted them through her fingers. Streaks of white. Dear heavens, he had streaks of white mixed with the shiny black, and he was but thirty-six. Between her fingers, she fancied she could feel the difference in colors. Certainly she could feel pain, loneliness, worry.

Had he suffered? How she hoped so!

Stroking the hair away from his face, she bent toward him again. His lips… sweet. Remarkably sweet for such a bitter man. With her eyes and her lips closed, she could almost taste him through the faint brush of his breath. Almost taste him…

Almost wasn't enough.

Softly she opened her lips on his, showing him, coaxing his mouth open. He was an apt student, ready to follow her example, just as if he'd never done this before, never seduced her, never brought her to whimpering pleasure just so he could bend her to his will…

Damn him. Her fingers clenched in his hair. Her palm leaned hard against his shoulder. She pressed her tongue into his mouth, taking pleasure in overpowering him.

And he… Dougald wouldn't stand for that. Of course not. He answered in kind, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, fighting with her for mastery. His hands spanned her waist, holding her in place.

As if she would try to get away now! Now, when she had him just where she wanted him, beneath her, kissing on her command. She had taken the initiative. Let him try to wrest it from her—

A firm, chilly, disapproving voice broke through Hannah's stupor. "We are going to have to keep an eye on those two."

7

D
azed, Hannah broke the kiss. She looked into his eyes. For one unguarded moment she saw passion and fury. Then he blinked and…

Nothing. She could read nothing there; if he had experienced any emotion—
any
emotion— he hid it well.

Deliberately, she blanked expression from her face, cleared her mind, and looked toward the source of that voice.

In the doorway. Four elderly women of various sizes and shapes stood just inside, observing Dougald and Hannah with expressions ranging from disapproval to bright-eyed interest.

"What a relief!" one round-faced, swarthy darling loudly said. "Dear Dougald has been here almost a year and hasn't shown a speck of interest in women. I had begun to worry that he danced to a different tune."

"Isabel, I vow you are too blunt." A white-haired lady shook her head reprovingly.

"You wondered, too, Ethel!" In contrast, Aunt Isabel's hair was completely, suspiciously black.

"Yes, but I wouldn't say so."

"He probably didn't hear me."

"He would have to be deaf not to."

"Oh, pshaw!"

While they squabbled like children, Hannah pushed herself away from Dougald— in a cooler moment, her plot for revenge seemed ill-advised and to have gone sadly awry— and stood on her own two feet.

Dougald rose and without primping— his hair appeared to be quite mussed— said, "Good evening, ladies." He walked toward them, grave and tall and apparently not at all perturbed to be caught kissing a stranger.

"How are you, dear boy?" The diminutive, gray-haired lady stood on tiptoe. Dougald leaned down. She kissed him on the cheek and patted his head. "Have I told you how happy I am to have my nephew here at last?"

"Several times, Aunt Spring." Hannah recognized the deep repressive voice. This was the lady who had interrupted them. She sported beautifully styled white hair, and she towered over the diminutive Aunt Spring in both height and breadth. Not that she was fat, but she was big-boned and broad-shouldered, the kind of woman who would have done well caring for the bedridden.

"But Miss Minnie, she may tell me as often as she likes." Dougald bowed to them both. "It is a pleasure to be so precious to my kind great-aunt."

Miss Minnie gave a grunt.

Aunt Spring lightly punched her in the arm. "You see, dear? He is quite a dear boy."

"Yes. He is." Miss Minnie did not so much speak as decree, and she entered the room like a frigate under full sail. "Good evening, Dougald."

Dougald bowed at her, then at the lady with twinkling eyes and a mouth made for smiling who had so loudly doubted his masculinity. "Good evening, Miss Isabel."

Her dark skin and spiny features made Hannah suspect she was Spanish or Italian, and indeed when she spoke Hannah heard the faintest of Latin accents in her low, smoky voice. "Dougald dear, I've told you. You must call me Aunt Isabel. Everyone does." Tweaking his ear, Aunt Isabel winked at Hannah. "You, too, dear."

Hannah contained the bubble of amusement that rose in her chest. They were either giving her time to regain her composure, or they were always overwhelming in their impetuosity.

The white-haired lady whipped about the room at the speed of lightning. Stopping at the vase that Charles had rearranged, she restored the flowers to their original position, talking all the time. "Dougald, did you see my rosebush? I told you if we moved it to that sunny corner it would bloom, and today, even in this wretched weather, there was a most handsome blossom of yellow."

"Good evening, Miss Ethel." Dougald bowed.

"Aunt Ethel, please. The petals are pointed, you know."

She seemed to require an answer to her botanic conversation, but Miss Minnie had already turned to Hannah, "Is this the gel who's supposed to take care of Spring?"

"She is," Dougald said. "Aunt Spring, Miss Hannah Setterington will be your new companion."

Hannah curtsied. "An honor to make your acquaintance, ma'am. All of your acquaintances."

Aunt Spring trotted over, her heels clicking on the hardwood. "My, you're a pretty thing."

"Thank you, ma'am," Hannah murmured.

"Call me Aunt Spring." She placed her hands on either side of Hannah's face, turning it down toward her. "Aren't you tall?"

"I am, ma'am." Almost a foot taller than Aunt Spring, two inches taller than Miss Minnie, and about five inches taller than the other ladies, and they were of average height.

"When I was a gel, I wanted nothing so much as to be willowy like you." Aunt Spring patted Hannah's cheeks. "But Lawrence loved me as I was, and he was quite a handsome man."

"Lawrence?" Hannah had assumed Aunt Spring was a maiden aunt, one of the legion of girls who grew up not blessed by a dowry, never plucked by a suitor.

"My dear love. He was killed in the Peninsular Wars before we could marry." Aunt Spring's cheery face dimmed. "It was a long time ago, but do you know I still miss him? I think I hear him call my name, and I turn around, but he isn't there."

"Stuff and nonsense," Miss Minnie said.

"No, it's not." Aunt Spring didn't hesitate to contradict her formidable friend. "He is with me always, I'm sure. I just can't see him. Isn't it amazing and wonderful to think that love can last forever?"

Hannah looked up at Dougald. Hard satisfaction bracketed his mouth as he watched her with Aunt Spring. "Some love lasts forever," Hannah corrected. "Some love gets bruised and neglected and spoils like an apple."

"You're too young to be so cynical," Aunt Isabel drew near. "How'd you develop such a trait?"

"She's probably been married," Aunt Ethel said. "Women get cynical when they've been married."

"Men get cynical when they've been married, too." Dougald replied.

"What have you got to be cynical about?" Aunt Isabel asked. "You murdered your wife."

Shock rippled through Hannah. For the first time she heard the charges spoken— and she had never expected to hear that from such an inoffensive source. She looked at Dougald, but he appeared impassive. Had he been accused so many times he no longer cared? Did his stoicism hide a need to defend himself?