Chapter 18

18

As Hannah stood in the small dining room, she could hear the chatter of eager voices from inside the breakfast room. She could hear the carpenters' hammers from the drawing room. And in the corridor she watched as seamstresses carried bolts of upholstery cloth up the stairs. The excitement of the Queen's visit permeated the castle on every level. Yesterday Hannah had worked far into the evening to organize the aunts' rapid completion of the tapestry. Then last night she had been awake because of…other matters.

As she primped in a gold-framed mirror hung on the wall, she smiled wickedly at herself.

Other matters which would not be repeated.

Her smile faded.

Because in the end, she didn't know whether Dougald's passion was false and his seduction part of some pernicious, covert plan to weaken her resistance and force her to be the wife he demanded.

Work and sleeplessness had taken their toll, and now worry added its weight. A weary reflection peered back at her from the mirror, so she pinched her cheeks to bring up some color. Everyone was involved in the excitement of the Queen's visit. No one would be looking at her anyway.

Unless Dougald did, and she didn't know if, after last night, she could meet his gaze.

She hadn't experienced this mixture of jubilation, confusion and misery since…since they had lived together as man and wife. She had to keep in mind he was not the man he had been.

But neither was she the same woman. She didn't know what was going to happen, but she knew that, if they were to reconcile, it would not be on only Dougald's terms. No amount of seduction or coercion would commute the misery that would ensue.

The babble of voices in the breakfast room rose to a new level. She had to go in and face them, and after all, no one within knew what had occurred in Dougald's bedchamber last night except her…and Dougald.

And he wouldn't say anything to compromise her. She clenched her teeth. If anything, he hated this obsessive passion more than she did.

Giving her cheeks one last pinch, she stepped through the door. She made her way past Mrs. Trenchard, who held a steaming teapot, past Dougald at the head of the breakfast table, past the aunts and Seaton.

Aunt Spring held a sheet of paper from which she read aloud, speaking loudly to made herself heard over the hammering in the drawing room. "I've written invitations for the Hendersons, the Gilmores, the earl of Nasker, they're such dears, always gracious, Mr. MacAllister and his new wife who is much too young for him, the silly old goat, Sir Preston and Lady Susan, the Howells, I hope she's still not suffering from her confinement, Sir Day and Lady…Good morning, Hannah, dear. You look dreadfully tired this morning."

So much for Hannah's hopes of an unnoticed entrance. "I feel fine, Aunt Spring."

Aunt Spring ignored her protestations. "Don't you think she looks tired, Dougald?"

Dougald didn't look up from his full plate. "She looks fine."

"Miss Setterington is lovely as always, Aunt." Seaton sounded shocked at Aunt Spring's frankness.

"Of course she is, dear." Undeterred by Seaton's rebuke, Aunt Spring placed her list of guests on the table and examined Hannah with interest. "Circles under her eyes don't detract from a young lady's appeal. Don't you agree, Dougald?"

Dougald grunted, apparently unperturbed by the aunts' ceaseless attempts at matchmaking.

Hannah sank into her chair, perturbed enough for the both of them.

Aunt Isabel jumped into the silence. "Yes, dear, I think circles under the eyes add an air of mystery."

"She has a lot of mystery about her today," Aunt Ethel observed.

Miss Minnie opened her mouth to speak, and for a moment Hannah hoped that sensible woman would turn the conversation.

Hannah was destined to be disappointed.

"Dougald appears to be weary, too," Miss Minnie observed. "We worked late last night preparing menus for the Queen's reception. Perhaps Miss Setterington worked late last night helping Dougald prepare the Queen's welcome."

Aunt Spring straightened in her seat. "Yes!"

"Absolutely!" Aunt Isabel smiled brightly.

"A lot of mystery," Aunt Ethel repeated.

Dougald chewed, swallowed and patted his lips with his napkin. Looking down the table from his position in the master's chair, he said, "I can unequivocally say Miss Setterington and I were not working together last night to prepare the Queen's welcome. Miss Setterington has her tasks, I have mine, and I have no interest in working with Miss Setterington at all."

"Dougald, that is so impolite," Aunt Spring rebuked him.

"You'll hurt the dear girl's feelings," Aunt Ethel said.

"No, he won't," Hannah hastened to assure them.

Dougald flashed a glance at her. A rather warm, angry, passionate glance that confused her, brought a blush to her cheeks and made her wish she had skipped breakfast altogether.

Dougald went back to his meal.

Seaton glared at his downturned head. "Lord Raeburn is impolite. Miss Setterington doesn't deserve to eat breakfast with a barbarian."

Looking up, Dougald grinned at his heir. "Or with a murderer, either."

Mrs. Trenchard gasped.

Aunt Isabel asked, "Did he just admit he murdered his wife?"

Hannah stared at her husband. When he smiled like that, all fierce mockery, she remembered the reasons she suspected him of every evil intent. Sitting there surrounded by the evidence of his wealth and ancestry, his green eyes glittered with ice, his teeth glinted white, and he looked like some vengeful medieval lord.

"No, Aunt Isabel. I didn't murder my wife." He didn't look at Hannah as he spoke. "Yet."

"Yet?" Aunt Isabel's voice boomed louder than ever. "What does he mean, yet?"

"Yet." Miss Minnie stroked her chin thoughtfully.

Putting down his fork, Dougald smiled evilly at Aunt Isabel. "You know, if you think I murdered my wife, it would seem the height of cruelty to throw Miss Setterington at my head."

It was one thing to know the matchmaking was happening, another to speak of it. Hannah could have cursed him, but instead she said, "Come, Lord Raeburn, they have done no such thing."

No one paid the slightest bit of attention to her.

Aunt Isabel's mouth opened and shut. Then she stammered, "I…I never thought of that." Her brow wrinkled as she thought.

Dougald waited, his gaze flicking around the table, a beastly smile curving his mouth.

"I hate to say it, but—you have a point. Very well. I will acknowledge that you didn't murder your wife." Aunt Isabel sighed. "But the notion was so mysterious and romantic."

Dougald's smile disappeared. "Murder isn't romantic. Murder is the instrument of a weak mind."

Seaton stood and rapped the table with his knuckles. "I, for one, will not change my mind. His Lordship did kill his wife."

"Seaton, you know you're only saying that because it makes such a good story," Aunt Ethel said.

"What's wrong with that? A rattlepate with no story is no rattlepate at all." Seaton pushed at his chair, and a footman rushed to pull it back for him. "I am off to visit the Sheratons. I will be gone overnight. Farewell, until tomorrow." He stalked from the room in high dudgeon.

Dougald watched him narrowly. "A weak mind," he repeated.

Aunt Spring chewed her thumbnail. "But Dougald, dear, you did have a wife. What happened to her?"

"That is the mystery." With a brief nod, he began to eat once more.

Hannah could have thumped her head on the table. Why had Dougald made such inflammatory remarks? Why did he reveal so much yet so little? Was he mocking her and her ardor?

Was he threatening her again?

She didn't know. She didn't know anything, and the truth was that, while she wanted nothing so much as to make love with him, she didn't trust him. How could she? In the six months they had lived as man and wife, he had hurt her so badly.

Hannah stood before the desk, confronting her husband of five months. "Ever since your grandmother died, I've had nothing to do."

Dougald smiled, his affection for his grandmother clear. "You did a wonderful job in her last illness. She told me how much she appreciated your care. She told me we settled on the right wife."

Like a sword to Hannah's belly, the words sliced her wide. More and more, the reality of their marriage had been laid bare. Everything she had accused him of on that train had proved true. She had been chosen to be Dougald's wife by his grandmother. Because he had done as his grandmother advised in the matter of his nuptials, he had saved himself time and worry. Thus he had been able to spend more time on his business, and the achievements and riches he coveted fell more and more his way.

"I still miss Grandmama." He looked down at the stack of papers, but not before Hannah spied the glint of sentimental tears. "I could always talk to her. She was a very wise woman."

You could talk to me now. Hannah wanted to, but she didn't say it. She had learned the futility of making such statements. She hadn't proven herself to Dougald—mostly because he wouldn't give her a chance.

"Did I tell you I was grateful for the time you spent in the sickroom?" Dougald asked.

"Yes." They had rushed the marriage ceremony because of his grandmother's ill health. Hannah couldn't be sorry for that. As the old woman lay dying, she had been grateful to know her grandson was settled. "Yes, you did."

"You're still pale from the strain." Opening his desk drawer, he pulled out an envelope of cash. "Take this and go shopping. That should relieve your ennui."

She put her hands behind her back, lacing her fingers, determined not to take his offering. She needed to make him understand that an application of money wouldn't cure their problems. "I don't suffer from ennui. I suffer from inactivity. When your grandmother was ill, I had her to care for, but now that she's gone, I need something to do. You promised me a dress shop."

Sternly, he said, "You are the wife of one of Liverpool's prominent businessmen. I would look like a fool if you opened a dress shop."

"You promised!" "I didn't promise. You said you didn't want to prostitute yourself for a dress shop." Placing the envelope on the desk, he slid it toward her. "You said you saw no reason to compromise your principles for money."

It was true. On the train, she had said those things. Then he had seduced her, and in her infatuation and her rush to wed, she had assumed things. She had assumed he would want her to be happy. She had assumed he would trust her to know what would make her happy. She had never thought he would deliberately twist her words so she would have to dance to his tune. "I don't understand why you care what others think."

"I'm still a young man. The memory of my wild years follows me yet. If I am to be successful, I must have the respect of my colleagues." He gestured dismissively. "I don't know why I bother to try and explain. Just trust me, dear. I know what's best."

"You are successful."

"Not the most successful. Not yet." He declared his goal with an insouciance that belied his determination. "You'll be happy when you have children to raise. I need an heir, you know, and you—you want that family. A baby would be yours, and he would love you."

She hated when he did that. Used her desire for a family as a weapon against her.

He smiled at her, clearly thinking she would melt at the thought of a child. "Have you missed your monthlies yet?"

"No." No, thank God. The idea of raising a child in a household in which she had no authority and a neglectful husband terrified her.

"If I can get away early tonight, we could try to create a child."

She shook her head. "You have a meeting."

"That's right." He frowned at his calendar. "Tomorrow night, then."

Frustration roiled in her. She couldn't continue like this, cared for and disciplined like a lapdog. "If I can't have my dress shop, at least let me take over the direction of the servants. Charles ran the house while I cared for your grandmother, and now he won't relinquish responsibility!"

Dougald shuffled papers. He had lost interest in her plight. "Most women would be glad to be relieved of all responsibility for their households."

Do I look like most women? You should have married someone else.

She'd said it all before, innumerable times. He didn't listen to her. He didn't even seem to hear her. He just indulged her with endless patience, patting his little doll on the head. Now, wearily, she said, "I have nothing to do. I can't live like this. I'm warning you, Dougald, if something doesn't change soon, our marriage is going to fail."

She succeeded regaining his attention. His head whipped around, his face reddened, his eye narrowed. "Are you threatening me?"

"I'm trying to talk to you."

His voice rose to a shout. "Talk to me? You're nagging again!" He visibly controlled himself. "There's nothing to be done. We're married until death do us part. Make the best of it."

So she had made the best of it, but not as he had imagined she would. Before she could become pregnant and trapped for eternity, she had left him. Taken the money he showered on her in lieu of affection or trust, and left him.

She faced the same trap now. She looked toward the head of the table. Dougald sat there, calm, remote, un-conquerable. They didn't talk. He didn't offer her any more understanding or kindness than before, and time and again he had proved that, for him, coition did not equal love. Yet she understood what so many women had found out to their dismay—love was not necessary. When two people indulged in intercourse, a child would result.

So she had to be wise. If he came to her room, she had to turn him away. And if he did not—well, that was fine.

She certainly wouldn't go to him.

"This mattress is lumpy." As Dougald shifted, trying to move the snarled mass of feathers beneath him out from under his spine, he wondered why in hell he hadn't had his bed replaced. If Hannah was going to continue to visit him in his chamber, he would have to improve conditions.

"You said it didn't matter." Hannah snuggled her head on his bare chest. "You said you didn't sleep anyway."

"I don't. But I'm in bed now, and I'm uncomfortable."

"I suppose we could do this somewhere else."

"Your bed is lumpy and too damned narrow."

"I didn't mean in my room. I meant in here." She lifted her head and gazed around at his dismal furnishings, then lowered her head and sighed. "Never mind. It's all awful."

Dougald looked around. She was right. It was all awful, but even if he were inclined, there was nothing to be done about it. He had hired workmen to restore the castle's beauty. He had them laboring from dawn 'til dusk and beyond to prepare for the Queen's visit. He didn't have time for the frivolity of fixing his own bedchamber, regardless of the pleasures he and his wife shared, albeit clandestinely, in the darkest part of the night.

He frowned. He hadn't yet gained the discipline he sought. When she came to him tonight, he should have turned her away. Instead he told himself that, because she had come to him, he had won a victory. Yes, that was how he would choose to view this. As a victory.

Lifting himself, he dumped her backward on his bed. Leaning over her, he said, "I can make you forget your discomfort."

She linked her hands behind his neck. "Yes, do. But tonight is positively the last time."

Hannah picked her way through the ladders and Holland cloths along the upstairs corridor on her way to the aunts' workroom. She had taken to arriving at the workroom early every morning. Then Hannah had a moment of quiet to organize the day's weaving before the laborers arrived for the day's work. A moment she didn't know if she wanted. After all, when she was busy she had no time to think of Dougald and the wretched weakness he engendered in her. When the sun was high and her lusts satisfied, she resolved to stay away from him, refuse his attentions and take what pleasure she could from her principles.

But every night for the past week she had tossed and turned, knowing he waited just down the corridor, that he expected her…wanted her. Most nights she clutched her pillow to her chest and stared into the dark. But some nights she rose from her narrow, cold bed and crept to his door. The dark corridor was just as lonely. The endless, empty rooms were just as frightening. But his presence drew her like a moth to the flame, and like a moth she burned in his fire. Madness, but such sweet madness.

And on the nights she didn't go to him…he came to her.

Doubts about his intentions still dogged her, but pleasure and affinity inexorably overlaid the old bad memories. Slowly, hope was growing in her, and she wavered between exultation and incredulity. Was she being a fool to believe they could reconcile, or was she a greater fool to think Dougald planned anything but her subjugation?

But passion was one thing.

Love was another.

Was this emotion that simmered within her love? Not the girlish, immature sentiment she had imagined nine years ago, but a deeper feeling, one that saw Dougald's fears and courage, his imperfections and his strengths, and loved him in spite of, and because of.

She scarcely dared think of what might happen if she loved him.

Stepping through the door that led to the tower, Hannah looked up the rounded turret. The narrow stairway spiraled toward the landing outside the aunts' workroom. The simple wooden steps were shallow and a rough handrail had been erected for the old women's convenience and safety.

Hannah feared Queen Victoria would wish to see where the work on the tapestry had been done. So a hasty coat of paint had been applied to the plaster walls, and the carpenters had begun the job of replacing the treads with polished oak and creating a curving banister of cherry wood. It would be handsome when finished, but for now Hannah stepped carefully, testing each board before she placed her weight on it. After all, the work was being done with undue haste, and one mistake could end in unnecessary injury.

On the landing at last, she gave a sigh of relief. When the aunts arrived for the day's work, they would be safe on the stairway.

The key was in the reticule hanging from Hannah's belt. She reached for it as she stepped up to the door—and screamed as the board cracked, and her foot went down into nothingness.