Chapter 25

25

She would never be pleasured again. Morosely, Hannah sat in the afternoon sun in the aunts' workroom and stitched the pieces of Prince Albert's face together. The weight of a man, the press of his chest against hers, the sounds, the smells, the friction, the closeness…never again.

"That's Prince Albert's eyebrow, not his chin!" Miss Minnie plucked the weaving out of Hannah's hand.

Miss Minnie was certainly cantankerous today.

Hannah moved to sit next to Aunt Spring.

"Would you thread me a needle, dear?" Aunt Spring suggested.

The first time Hannah had left Dougald and his lovemaking behind, she had been stoic—because, she now realized, she'd been too much of a looby to realize what she was giving up. Now she knew. The scrape of a morning beard across her breasts when he suckled her. The texture of rough hair against her palms when she stroked his chest. Silken strands of his mane falling around her face when he kissed her. And he'd allowed Charles to cut his hair!

To put in a proper appearance before Her Majesty, Charles had said.

To spite her, Hannah thought.

"Not that color, dear." Aunt Spring pointed at the gold thread. "That color. Wherever is your mind?"

Hannah blinked at her.

"Never mind." Aunt Spring gave her a gentle push. "I'll get one of the serving maids to thread my needle."

Hannah made her way to the looms.

Although if Dougald had been happy these last four days, Hannah had seen confounded little evidence of it. Rather he looked haggard, as if he'd been getting little peace and less sleep.

Hannah hoped so. She hoped he was miserable. She hoped every time he saw her at the breakfast table, every time he heard her call to the aunts, every time he thought of her, he felt guilty, distressed, angry…but she couldn't lie to herself. Actually, what she wanted him to feel was the torments of the flesh. She hoped he looked at her and his cock rose and crowed.

Heaven knew she'd been dressing to encourage his refractory instincts. Every night she stayed awake late, stitching on her gowns—lowering the necklines, tightening the waists, adding a ruffle of lace on her petticoats or her pantalettes. Every day she made sure he viewed her cleavage, her ankle…her smile. He would never know she suffered when she gazed at him, imagining how empty her flesh would always be, how she would wither and grow old alone, without the comfort of a husband. A lover. Dougald.

The treadles thumped and the shuttles flew as Aunt Isabel and Aunt Ethel wove the last bits of the Queen's tapestry.

The old women's shoulders sagged, their eyes were bloodshot, but their lips were set in firm determination. Two days hence, just before noon, Queen Victoria would arrive in her royally outfitted train car. With the help of the maids, who fetched and carried anything the aunts might need, and Hannah, who organized and lent a hand, the tapestry would be complete and hanging on the wall in the great hall, majestic in its splendor.

Hannah was satisfied she had done her part—in between imagining, with the faintest of smiles, how she could further torment Dougald. She had to move quickly; she had little time, after all, before she would leave Raeburn Castle. She had little time before she saw the Queen again, before she was introduced to the Burroughses and told them who she was.

Her eyes narrowed. Dougald had better be willing to produce the packet of love letters as proof of her parentage, or she would be forced to…to…stay here until he did.

She laughed bitterly.

Aunt Ethel's loom slowed. "What's so funny, dear?"

Hannah stared at her. "What?"

Aunt Ethel handed her a piece of the weaving that would soon be placed within the tapestry. "Dear, your needlework is so delicate. Minnie outlined a crown there to be stitched. Would you like to work on it?"

"Of course, ma'am, to help you is what I'm here for." Hannah took the tapestry and dipped the already threaded needle into the weaving

Dougald would produce her father's love letters to her mother, because he had made it clear he would do anything to get rid of her.

She had abandoned him.

She hadn't really tried to make their marriage work.

Which just showed that man had rats in his garret. She'd done everything she could to make their marriage work, and nothing he had said had caused her the slightest doubt that her efforts had been of the highest order. No doubt. Not the slightest.

He'd been the one at fault. For everything!

"Dear, what are you doing? It's supposed to be a crown of beaten gold, not a raw nugget."

Aunt Ethel snatched the tapestry away from Hannah while Hannah blinked in astonishment. A quick glance showed the needlework to be slightly less than perfect, yes, but she considered the aunts to have been remarkably unappreciative of her efforts to help them. Oh, perhaps she had been a little distracted, but surely—

Aunt Isabel's shuttle slowed. "Miss Setterington, dear, would you please go elsewhere? It irritates me when you sit there in a brown study. Brace up, girl! The Queen is coming!"

Hannah dragged her attention to Aunt Isabel. "I irritate you?"

Something about her expression must have alarmed the two old ladies, because Aunt Ethel muttered, "Now you've done it."

Aunt Isabel waved her hands. "No, no, not irritate. Only when I'm peckish, then everything irritates me."

"And Isabel must be hungry, for she's been as cross as the colonel's cat," Aunt Ethel said. "You'd be doing me a favor, Miss Setterington, if you would seek out Mrs. Trenchard and see if tea is on its way up."

"One of the maids—"

"No, not one of the maids!" Aunt Isabel caught herself. "I mean…I swear the maids wander off, their minds on their shattered love affairs, and they never deliver the message, and we're up here famished. Please, Miss Setterington, we trust you."

That made sense to Hannah.

Miss Minnie and Aunt Spring came to stand by the looms and watch her as she drifted out of the chamber in search of Mrs. Trenchard.

"She's walking well," Aunt Ethel said. "Her ankle has healed nicely."

"Yes, but she's brooding." Aunt Spring held her needle, gold thread dangling. "Now we have Dougald and Hannah brooding."

"I've had to take out every piece of work she's done for the last two days, and there's no time for this." Exasperation sounded plain in Miss Minnie's voice.

"I vow, when she hurt her foot she lost her mind," Aunt Ethel said.

Aunt Isabel's chin set. "Perhaps we should sit them both down and give them a good lecture."

Aunt Spring patted Aunt Isabel's shoulder. "Now, dear, we shouldn't interfere."

"But we will," Miss Minnie said. "If they don't work it out on their own soon, we will definitely interfere." She swept them all with a leveling glance.

"Please do remember my conviction."

"Minnie, I told you, that's the balmiest thing I've ever heard," Aunt Ethel said.

"I never wager unless I'm sure I'm right." Miss Minnie cracked a rarely used and utterly complacent smile. "Now, back to work, ladies. We have the Queen's tapestry to finish."

***

Charles caught Hannah as she descended the stairs. "Mademoiselle Setterington, I was given a message for you from His Lordship."

Hannah stared down at Dougald's valet. He stood a step below her, allowing her an exceptional view of his bald spot. He had been hanging about a lot lately. She'd glimpsed him watching her as she walked the corridors, she'd seen him peering at her when she spoke to Seaton, she had even had him escort her from her bedchamber to the breakfast room.

If she'd been in the mood to care, his obsessive gawking and his constant presence would have annoyed her. But what did it matter if her old enemy hated her for not leaving as his master demanded? She would be gone soon enough, and Charles could find Dougald a real wife, one who was dewy and meek and deferential. And stupid. And ugly. And infertile. With a hidden mean streak.

Cheered by the thought, Hannah said, "I thought His Lordship was out inspecting the gardens." Then she wished she had kept her mouth shut, because if she didn't care she wouldn't have remembered Dougald's schedule.

"Oui, Mademoiselle Setterington, but one of the maids brought me this and asked that I give it to you." He offered the folded paper. "As you know, I live to serve you and the master."

Hannah wondered if wild laughter was inappropriate, then decided it was too much effort. "Very well." She accepted the note with ill grace and stuffed it into her apron pocket.

"Aren't you going to read it?"

"It's not sealed, so I'm sure you read it. What does it say?"

Charles snapped to attention. "I do not read the master's letters to his beloved wife."

"Sh." Hannah glanced around. A maid knelt on one of the upper steps, scrubbing and waxing. In the corridor, a footman balanced on a ladder, dusting the cornice. If they had heard Charles identify her as Dougald's wife, they gave no notice.

"Madame, we cannot keep your title a secret. Everyone must know soon."

"Not until I'm gone."

"You're not leaving."

"Indeed I am."

Charles stepped closer and lowered his voice. "His Lordship cannot wed another woman because of the shameful rumors of your murder. If you divorce, it will be expensive and disgraceful, and again he will not be able to wed. So one way or another, you must stay."

Hannah watched his expressive nostrils quiver. Charles wanted her to stay? How unlikely. Yet…why would he say it if it were not true?

She knew the answer to that. She wanted to leave, and Charles made it his policy to want the opposite.

Hannah snorted.

"Completely unladylike," Charles scolded.

"I have to find Mrs. Trenchard." Turning her back on the pompous little gump, she hurried down the stairs.

"In his note, His Lordship might be expressing his desire to see you immediately," Charles called.

She walked backward down the corridor. "He doesn't always get what he desires."

"If I can help it…"

She turned the corner into the sparkling clean great hall and Charles's voice faded. Did he always have to have the last word?

Yet…she slowed. Curiosity nibbled at her. Why had Dougald sent her a note? She drew it from her pocket. He had scarcely spoken to her these last days, and now he had taken the time to write a note and send it in from the gardens. What did it mean? Was this a drastic attempt to get rid of her before Her Majesty arrived? Or did he yearn to beg her pardon, to beg her to stay?

Moving as cautiously as if the note contained an ambush, she spread the sheet and read the simple message.

Hannah, come to the tower room in the east wing. I have an idea for the Queen's visit, and I wish to consult with you.

Not an insult. Not a plea. She stared at the thin, black handwriting. Just a request that she attend him. Consult with him…consult with you. He never wished to consult with her, so what did this mean? Was it some kind of apology? Did he want to get her alone and beg her forgiveness?

Outrageous. Absurd.

She liked the notion.

She started back.

Of course, she wouldn't forgive Dougald. He didn't deserve forgiveness—stupid man who thought she was responsible for part of their breakup. It wasn't true. It just wasn't.

As she approached the stairway, she looked for Charles, but he had disappeared. She breathed a sigh of relief; she didn't want him to know she had given in and read Dougald's note. Stopping, she read it again. Why in the east wing tower?

Hannah passed the maid on the stairway.

Perhaps Dougald thought of taking Queen Victoria to the top to show her the view.

As she trod the corridors to the east wing, Hannah saw only one footman, carrying a bucket of sudsy water.

Perhaps Dougald had heard how Queen Victoria liked to hear local legends. Perhaps he had some fanciful notion of telling her the tale of Lord Raeburn's bride and how that wife had loved unwisely, been imprisoned by her husband, and jumped to her death. It wasn't a bad idea; the picturesque tale would probably enthrall Her Majesty.

Hannah had never been in the tower; the tale of old Lord Raeburn's rage with his young wife was too close to her own story, and Hannah had taken care to busy herself elsewhere. But now the door to the tower stairway stood open, and when she walked through it, she found herself transported back to the fifteenth century.

Romantic nonsense, of course, but the west wing's tower had been used for years by the aunts, making it look well tended in contrast to this east tower. The west tower had plaster on the walls and a wooden stairway no older than Aunt Spring herself. In this tower, the only illumination came through the narrow, long slits in the stone, remnants of the days when archers repelled a siege. In the dim half-light, the winding stairway clung to rough stone walls. The steps themselves looked as if they might had seen Lord Raeburn drag his French bride into her prison. And that prison was reached, not by a new and civilized landing and stairway, but by a trapdoor and a wooden ladder. The whole structure seemed steeped in a hoary chill. The light from the chamber above shone only faintly, and inside, Lady Raeburn's ghost probably still wept for her lost lover.

Hannah shivered. Romantic nonsense, indeed, but she didn't like this place.

Whatever Dougald wanted to consult about, the answer was no. Queen Victoria wouldn't want to see the view, she wouldn't want to hear the tale of the Raeburn bride, and most important, she wouldn't want to climb that ladder. Hannah didn't want to climb the ladder, but curiosity drove her.

Was Dougald already up there?

The memory of her accident proceeded with her as she tested every step. Her ankle still ached faintly; her wariness increased as she climbed.

If Dougald was in the tower, wouldn't he have already acknowledged her presence? She wasn't being quiet. As she got closer to the top, she called his name. "Lord Raeburn?" Then, as she put her hand on the ladder, she said, "Dougald?"

No answer, but the note hadn't said he would be there when she arrived. Should she have waited at the bottom and gone up with him? Cautiously she clung to the railings as she took each creaking rung. When she popped her head into the tower room, she realized the chamber was a twin to the aunts' workroom in size, but in every other way it was neglected, unused, sad—and empty of Dougald.

She climbed the last few steps. A few old, broken pieces of furniture had found their way up here. The floorboards were bare of everything, even dust. The windows gaped without glass or draperies, and had only shutters to keep out the weather. The thatched roof thinned in places; sunlight trickled through carrying motes that drifted without aim. Hannah thought of herself as a sensible, no-nonsense woman, but the age and emptiness fed a soul-deep sorrow.

The gaping maw of the trapdoor made her ankle ache, and prudently she closed it. Moving with the stealth of a mourner at a funeral, she moved across to the south-facing window and unlatched the shutters. They swung wide, opening the room to sunshine. The sense of abandonment deepened. The view faced the empty side of the castle where no gardens grew and no people wandered. This tower had paid the price for its notoriety.

She wanted to look beyond, to see the panorama beyond this room. Yet she well remembered how the wall dropped from her bedroom window, and this would be worse, much worse. So she leaned back, then lifted her gaze toward the horizon. There she could see the bluish haze of the sky over the ocean, then the waves on the beach, then the undulating hills, and in the valleys the fields bright with the earliest spring growth. She could have made Lancashire her home. She could have loved this combination of land and sea. She could have…she did.

She did love this place, and she would come back—if all went well and her grandparents would have her. And Dougald would be here, at Raeburn Castle, perhaps married to another woman, perhaps steeping in his own bitterness. Hannah couldn't save him. She couldn't even save herself.

Leaning against the casement, she crossed her arms across her chest and stared fixedly at the vista. How she hated to admit it! Yet what good did it do to lie to herself? The truth was, and the irony was—the lies she had told herself at eighteen were true. At eighteen, she had given herself to Dougald because she loved him. And here, in Raeburn Castle, she had given herself to Dougald because she loved him still. No matter how angry she was, no matter how he'd hurt her, no matter who was responsible for the ruin of their marriage—she would always love him.

The metallic squawk of a hinge had her whirling around. Dougald stood there, holding a piece of paper out to her. With knit brow and wary gaze, he asked, "Hannah? What did you want?"