Chapter 2

2

Dougald. Dougald Pippard. Not the marquess of Raeburn. Plain Mr. Dougald Pippard, a wealthy Liverpool gentleman and entrepreneur.

But he stood with his back to the window, and there could be no doubt. This was her husband, for his vivid eyes glowed with triumph. He had always been a keen observer of human emotions; now, she knew, he marked the winds of recollection and shock that swept her.

Yet when she had caught her breath, he said only, "You're late."

Late. Yes, nine years late for a meeting with the man she had married. Married despite her misgivings, and only after she had run away for the first time. She had caught a train, he had caught her and…"You're not the earl of Raeburn." Her voice didn't sound like her own. Too deep, for one thing, and very steady, considering the circumstances. "You can't be."

His lips, the narrow, chiseled lips over which she had once loved to linger, moved in slow, precise enunciation. "I assure you, I am."

"How? But…how?" A shudder rattled her.

His eyes narrowed. "Come to the fire."

She didn't wait to be told twice. Her instinct might be to flee, but her good sense told her he had set this trap with care and guile, and he would relish the chance to do whatever a man did to his runaway wife. So she would not incite him.

Besides, she was cold.

But her defensive instinct could not be denied. She couldn't persuade herself to take her gaze off of him for even so long as it took her to walk to the fire. So she sidled toward the cluster of chairs and tables around the hearth, watching him endlessly.

The years had wrought changes. So many changes.

When Hannah had first come to live under his roof in Liverpool, her mother had gone to work as his housekeeper, and she had been a skinny, wide-eyed twelve-year-old. Yet even then she had been fascinated by his face: the bold, French cheekbones, the strong jaw, the plain, short nose and the large ears. His skin had been brown, but his eyes were a beautiful gold-speckled green that bespoke some Scottish ancestry. His lashes were long and black and silky. His hair was fine and black and shiny. And he had been so tall: To the youthful Hannah, he had been the essential mix of Viking and Celt and salt-of-the-earth English. His genteel family had lived in the Northlands for two thousand years. They had adapted and adopted every new wave of migration while retaining their own Celtic roots, and Dougald liked to boast he was related to every family north of London.

Now time and experience had refined his features, giving them a bleakness that matched the bare, grim rock of the castle he called his own. His skin seemed stretched thinly across his bones, his gaze chill with intent, and his hair…dear God, a streak of white iced each temple.

The past nine years had not been kind to…whatever title he called himself.

Yet beneath her fright and dismay, treacherous desire rose in her.

Did he want her still? Would he want her tonight?

And would she fight, or would she want him in return?

She tripped on the fringe of the carpet, and that brought her back to the here and now, to the reality of the predicament in which she found herself and to the relentless observation of…her husband. She wasn't really close enough for the fire to do her any good, but the scent of the burning wood filled her lungs with the promise of warmth. If she remained where she stood, she could keep an armchair between them. A feeble defense, but at least a defense. Clutching the upholstery in her trembling fingers, she asked, "Tell me. How can it be that you are the earl of Raeburn?"

"I was fifth in line for the title. Somehow, the others died, and here I am."

He had always smiled before. He'd always had charm and confidence. The confidence was still there, but the charm and smiles had disappeared as if they'd never been. She should know him, but seeing him was like facing a stranger…a stranger who held rights over her. A stranger who had watched her grow up and who knew her only too well.

But she wasn't an overly polite, tentative eighteen-year-old anymore, either. She held advantages of experience and composure he could scarcely guess at. Schooling her expression and her tone to match the one she used to interview prospective governesses, she said, "You were a cotton merchant."

"I still am."

"You invested in railways."

"A risk which paid off royally."

"You weren't in line for any title."

"Obviously I was." He gestured around him. "I'm also the fourth in line for a barony." He shrugged, his broad shoulders moving up and down in a gesture of disdain. "Yet I can't imagine anything more pathetic than a man who gets his self-respect by boasting of a distant, noble connection."

She could. During the time she'd run the Distinguished Academy of Governesses, she'd met plenty of men who thought an obscure connection to William the Conqueror made them respectable enough to do whatever they wanted with her girls—or with her. She had always disabused them—vain, selfish gentlemen that they were. Too bad this lord was forged from a different metal. A little vanity and selfishness made a man easier to handle.

"You're late," Dougald repeated his earlier complaint. "I expected you over an hour ago. And don't tell me the train was not on schedule. It always runs on schedule."

"Your man failed to meet me promptly." She shivered again, chilled by a sense of lingering cold and the frost emanating from Dougald.

"My man?"

"Alfred."

"Alfred met you?" His voice didn't rise, but his tone didn't bode well. "In his cart?"

She remembered only too well his temper, so she carefully explained, "Mrs. Trenchard said there was a misunderstanding."

"Yes, I would say there was." Ruddy color lit his cheeks.

For a moment Hannah thought he looked much as the young Dougald had before he flew into a rage, and she took comfort in sighting the man she had known so well.

Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

Then he took a moderating breath. "My fault. I've been here only a year, and Mrs. Trenchard doesn't yet know which of my comments she should disregard."

The man she had married seldom acknowledged fault. Now he accepted blame, yet the housekeeper feared him so much she'd abused a fellow employee. "What did you say to her…about me?" Hannah asked.

"The truth."

Uncomfortable, to know yourself discussed before your arrival. "Did you tell her I was your wife?"

"Haven't you heard? My wife is dead, murdered at my own hands." He held them up, fingers shaped as if they cupped her neck. "I wouldn't deprive the people hereabouts of the pleasure they gain in repeating the tale."

Gruesome, to hear her own death discussed in such an inimical tone. "Why…how did such a story start?"

Unmoving, he ignored her question while measuring her with his gaze. "Sit down."

"Dougald, how could you have let such horrible gossip spread?" she insisted.

"Take off your hat. Remove your gloves and your wrap. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. You'll be here for a long, long time."

Straightening her shoulders, lifting her chin, she said with chilly, preemptory precision, "I don't intend to stay."

His jaw hardened and he pressed his lips together. Abruptly, he strode across the room, taking huge steps, right toward her. Chills chased up her spine, but she held her ground. He halted in front of the chair, blocking out the fire's light. "You keep this chair between us like a shield that will protect you."

His large hand reached out to her. She watched it and schooled herself not to flinch as he touched her. Touched her for the first time in so many years.

He cupped her jaw, his blunt fingertips brushing her ear, his palm lifting her chin. He wasn't rough. He touched her as if she were still the tall, impressible girl he had married, and that one, meager contact brought her a pleasure as sharp as pain.

"You hide behind that chair, but if I wished, I could pick it up and fling it across the room. I could take you to the floor and have you now, darling, and all your cries would be of delight." His thumb slid up and caressed her lips, and for the first time he smiled, a rapierlike smile of pernicious resolve. "But that would be too easy, so have a seat."