“Of course,” Aunt Spring agreed.
Hannah wondered if he thought she would be grateful for his defense, when in fact she would never have been so shockingly frank if he hadn’t provoked her. But no—he stood aloof from the madness of the proceedings. He didn’t care whether she was grateful. He simply didn’t like his choice of companion questioned.
“Minnie, you always worry about the proper phrase and don’t think about the hateful message.” Aunt Ethel’s blue eyes snapped. “Miss Setterington seems to be a lovely woman, and she sews, which is of the utmost importance to us. You’re just jealous because you suffer from those fainting spells and you can’t continue ordering us about yourself.”
Miss Minnie’s complexion turned waxy, and she sank down in a chair.
“Look at that.” Aunt Ethel became all solicitousness and bustled over. “You’re having one right now.”
As Aunt Ethel waved smelling salts beneath Miss Minnie’s nose, Aunt Isabel smiled at Hannah and nodded. “I hate it when my garters slip down around my ankles, don’t you?”
Aunt Spring brought a rug and placed it around Miss Minnie’s shoulders. “If you’d just tie them as I taught you, Isabel, they wouldn’t make that disgraceful popping noise and fall apart!”
“Ladies!” Miss Minnie said weakly. “At least remember there is a gentleman present!”
Hannah found herself forgetting her resentment of Dougald and glancing toward him in helpless mirth. He still stood, feet braced apart, observing the elderly ladies with wary fascination. No wonder he wanted help with this distant relative removed and her companions.
Hannah caught his eye, and for one moment it was just as it had been during the early days of their marriage. They shared silent amusement, and then…then she didn’t know what happened. The din of the ladies’ voices faded; the room dimmed. For her, nothing existed except the steady gaze of his eyes, the lonely soul she could see within, the twining of their beings…
In a rush, sound and heat and reality returned. She blinked and returned to the library to hear Aunt Spring say, “I believe you’re right, Minnie. We are going to have to keep an eye on those two.”
8
“Here ye are, Miss Setterington. The bedchamber was aired and dusted this morning, and clean linens placed on the bed.” Mrs. Trenchard fit a large iron key into the lock and opened the door at the very end of the wide, shadowy corridor in the east wing of Raeburn Castle. She gestured for Hannah to precede her, then bustled into the minuscule bedchamber behind her. “Sally unpacked for ye and brushed out yer clothing and hung it in the wardrobe. There’s water in the pitcher and should ye require more in the morning, catch one of the upstairs maids and they will oblige ye.”
“Thank you. This will do nicely.” The single candle Mrs. Trenchard held barely lit the bedchamber, but Hannah could see that it wasn’t what she was used to. She had been the mistress of her own home in London. Her suite had been large and bright, with a stove that heated the room, three long windows dressed in velvet drapes, and a broad, high bed with three pillows all of her own covered with ruffled slips. Through a door, her sitting room had contained a small desk where she could write letters and tally accounts, if she wished for privacy, and a comfortable chair where she could curl up with a book, should she desire. She’d had little time for such dalliances, but the chance for indulgence, when it came, had been a treasured one.
This room was adequate for a servant, nothing more, a dark, chill, old-fashioned chamber filled with discarded furniture, the single window framed by faded drapes. The bed was narrow, the counterpane drooping with age and the single pillow flat. She supposed she should be grateful that she was not to sleep in the attic with the other servants.
As Mrs. Trenchard lit the branch of candles on the table beside the narrow bed, she said, “You’re on the back side of the castle here, the old part of the castle.”
Hannah shivered as the wind outside slapped the window, and the curtains billowed slightly.
“Filled with drafts, this place is.” Perhaps Hannah’s distaste showed, perhaps Mrs. Trenchard still wished to apologize for that trip through the fog. In any case, she said, “I assure ye, Miss Setterington, I’ve had the chimney cleaned, but the fireplace still smokes.”
Hannah looked at the small pile of embers on the miniature hearth. As far as she could tell, they gave out no heat, and the thin wisp of smoke billowed out with every gust. “I’m sure you’ve done what you could.”
“But in all fairness, most of the other fireplaces on this wing smoke, too, His Lordship’s included.”
Dougald slept close. Hannah’s gaze slid to the door. A large key stuck out from the lock, and she would use it.
“No improvements here yet. He’s done the dear old ladies’ rooms in the west wing so they’re comfortable.” Mrs. Trenchard shook her head. “I just can’t imagine why he insisted ye stay here instead of there.”
Hannah could have told Mrs. Trenchard why the master assigned her this chamber. He wanted her close to him where he could torment her. He wanted her miserable in any way possible. He wanted her to see that he had the master suite with the big double doors while she had the small, dark hovel.
“Of course, give the devil his due, he did say ye deserved to be away from Miss Spring and the ladies, at least at night.” Mrs. Trenchard ran her finger along top of the headboard, then squinted at her finger. Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll send Sally up tomorrow to finish the cleaning.”
Hannah felt sorry for the unknown Sally, and sorrier for herself. Thinking of the long line of closed doors along the corridor, she asked, “Who else sleeps in this wing?”
“No one else. Just ye and His Lordship.”
“And Charles.”
Mrs. Trenchard lifted startled eyebrows. Had Hannah revealed too much knowledge of Dougald’s private habits or too much interest in his valet?
“No, not Charles,” Mrs. Trenchard said. “He sleeps in the west wing, too.”
Hannah was startled in her turn. To be always close at hand, Charles had always slept in a chamber off of Dougald’s bedroom. Hannah had hated it, afraid to make a noise or raise her voice, always aware that Charles was hovering,
Then Mrs. Trenchard said, “Ah…” in a knowing voice. “Now, Miss Setterington, don’t ye worry. M’lord is not the kind to make a move on one of his servants. Been here a year, and there’s not been a single fuss about him among my girls.”
“What a relief,” Hannah said dryly. A relief to know he hadn’t bothered the serving maids. A further relief to know Mrs. Trenchard hadn’t realized the real source of Hannah’s discomfort.
Another blast rattled the sash, and she went to the window and parted the drapes. The wind from the west had picked up, blowing the fog away. The stars glittered coldly in the black sky, the waning moon rode on the remnants of cloud, and she looked out over the shadowy hills and dales of Dougald’s estate. The occasional tree reached its bare branches upward to scratch the heavens, the land rolled on to an empty horizon, and a road—the road that had brought her from the railway station in the opposite direction—wound away toward the unseen sea.
A gust rattled the aged casement, and Hannah shivered as a blast of cold air embraced her.
Mrs. Trenchard came to her side. “’Tis a plunge from this window, so I’d not advise you to open it and lean out.”
Looking straight down, Hannah could see the castle wall stretching straight down into the shadows. The ground seemed dark and too far away. Very far away. Dizzy with a rush of vertigo, she swayed forward, closed her eyes, then leaned back. “It is very high. There’s the kitchen level, the main level right below us, I’m on the third level…”
“Don’t forget the dungeons below the kitchen,” Mrs. Trenchard advised. “They haven’t got any windows and they haven’t been used for a hundred years, but trust me, they’re still there, dark and dank. I know it every spring when I send a crew down to clean them. Of course, we keep the wine down there.”
&
nbsp; “Of course,” Hannah said, thinking how grateful she was she didn’t have to go clean the dungeons. “Were they used a lot in the past?”
“The earls of Raeburn have had their ruthless moments,” Mrs. Trenchard admitted. “Don’t like to be crossed, not any of them. The first lord was a baron, came over with the Conqueror, and word is he took the land and made the dungeon and threw the Saxon lord right in there and left him to die.”
“Lovely,” Hannah muttered.
“By the time of the War of the Roses, the lords had won the title of viscount and the fourth viscount—he was not a pleasant man at all.”
“Seems to be a trait of these lords.” Although Hannah would not mention Dougald by name.
Mrs. Trenchard shrugged. “There’s been the usual mix of good men and bad, but this one threw a Lancastrian into the dungeon and took his wife to use as leman. He would have lost the castle but when the king won all, His Lordship declared he had always been loyal and King Henry decided to believe him. Easier than trying to dislodge him, it was.”
“Successful kings always decide on expediency,” Hannah observed.
“I suppose. I don’t know much about kings. I only know about the lords of Raeburn. My family’s been serving them as long as there’s been a Raeburn Castle, and even before, I suspect.” Mrs. Trenchard twitched the drapes wider and pointed. “During Cromwell’s reign, the lord was staunchly royal. See the crumbled remnants of the wall there?”
Hannah did. The wide, straight line of rocks and moss rose and fell in a straight line behind the castle, black shadows of the past stretching across the fell.
“Cromwell and his men came with their cannon and battered the curtain wall right down. The lord barely escaped with his life. He fled to the Continent and came back with the Restoration, and his loyalty won him the title of earl.”
“He sounds like a good man,” Hannah said, “staunch and determined.”
“Aye, a good man.” Mrs. Trenchard scratched her chin. “A dreadful husband. He brought himself the prettiest little wife from France, and was so jealous of her that when she flirted with one of his retainers he hung the retainer and locked her into the east wing’s tower.”
“Not the dungeon?”
“He didn’t want to kill her.” Mrs. Trenchard sounded as if she were making excuses for the pitiless rotter. “He just wanted to be sure of her.”
“I can’t imagine she welcomed him into her bed after that.”
“She threw herself out of the window.”
Shocked, Hannah looked out to the ground below, and a wave of vertigo swept her again. She closed her eyes. “How dreadful.”
“Most men don’t want their wives making fools of them. His present lordship is no different in that matter, at least.”
Mrs. Trenchard paused with such significance, Hannah opened her eyes. Mrs. Trenchard was dolefully staring out at the figure of the man on horseback, galloping away from the castle. Broad-shouldered and seething with energy, he leaned forward in the saddle and urged his tall, dark horse onward toward the sea. His open coat flapped behind him, and the stark white moonlight shone on his bare, black hair where the distinctive silver streaks glowed.
Dougald, riding out at night, just as Alfred had said. But what was he fleeing tonight?
Mrs. Trenchard dropped the drape, cutting him off from Hannah’s sight, and turned away from the window. “I suppose ye’ve heard the rumors about the current lord.”
This, Hannah suspected, was the reason for Mrs. Trenchard’s chattiness. “That he killed his wife?”
“Aye, that’s the rumor. Does it make ye nervous?”
“No.” Not when she knew it wasn’t true—or, as Dougald would point out, it wasn’t true yet.
Mrs. Trenchard smiled, obviously pleased. “When I first saw ye, I marked ye for a sensible soul. That man never killed anyone.”
“How do you know?”
“When a soul has killed, there’s a coldness within that shows—if ye know what ye’re looking for. Them’s that commit murder are damned, ye know, and they’ll murder again, if driven to it, because what difference does it make? They know they’re condemned to hell’s fire when they die.” Mrs. Trenchard’s bleak, flat statement sounded like the sentence passed down from the most hard-hearted of magistrates. Then she clapped her hands and briskly rubbed them together. “Well, enough pleasantries. Ye’re tired after yer trip, and ye’ll want to rise early to see the sweet ladies. They’re right excited to have ye here. ’Tis glad I am that ye’ll be taking care of them. They’re kind ladies, but a bit of a handful.”
“I’m sure I’ll enjoy whatever challenge they offer.”
“Aye, miss. I’m sure ye will. After tonight, get to bed no later than ten o’the clock. Those are all the candles ye’ll get this week.” Mrs. Trenchard frowned at the modest pile of books on Hannah’s table. “Ye’ll not get more just because ye’ve stayed awake reading. Remember, we servants aren’t here to burn the master’s coal and tallow. Also we have a curfew here. Nine o’ the clock, and ye should be safe in yer bedchamber.”
“Why?” Hannah foresaw some cold, dark, lonely nights spent huddled in her room.
“The servants feel better with a curfew. The deaths of the old lords have them jittery.”
“Surely they don’t think that Lord Raeburn…?”
“They’re a superstitious lot, they are.” Mrs. Trenchard marched to the door, then paused, her hand on the frame. “Since tomorrow’s yer first day, I’ll tell Sally to stir the fire for ye when she comes up to clean.”
Mrs. Trenchard pulled the door shut behind her, leaving Hannah alone in the barren bedchamber in her husband’s home. Lifting the drapes, she looked again at the road, but Dougald was gone. Was he running from her? From the memories she invoked? From the passion that still existed between them?
Or was he running to escape his own desire to wrap his hands around her throat and murder her?
She dropped the curtain.
Heaven knew Hannah understood running. From him, from them. She had been eighteen the first time she ran from him and his plans. She had been a serious girl who scorned those schoolmates who believed in romance, who whispered about men and what they did in the dark. Everything Dougald had done on that train took her by surprise. Especially those kisses, not the dry pressing of lip to cheek, but that open, wet hotness…Dougald had been, and was, a magnificent kisser.
That didn’t explain her own actions tonight. She didn’t regret standing up to him. Nothing could ease her bone-deep uneasiness at seeing the changes in him, nor her anger that he dared threaten her, but she could only be so wary before her independent spirit reasserted itself.
But to challenge him in such a way…she didn’t even understand it herself….
Whatever had possessed her to kiss him?
9
Whatever had possessed her to kiss him?
Dougald knew he shouldn’t be riding tonight, but he couldn’t retire to his bed. Not when, at last, his wife slept under his roof. The girl he had married was gone, swept away by years and experiences quite outside his own. In her place was the woman he had met tonight—unruffled, reserved, dignified. Composed until he pushed her too far. Then she retaliated with kisses.
Damned fine kisses.
His gaze swept the dim road before him and the tumbled hills around, and he felt, as always, a swell of pride. This was his estate. His lands. His title. The kind of honors that had for generations evaded his family, despite their best attempts. And now, because of a series of accidents—accidents, for he was not responsible for them, regardless of what the servants hinted—fate had handed all distinctions to him. And all Dougald could think about was Hannah, upstairs in the bedchamber not far from his.
He’d placed her there on purpose. He’d wanted her close so he could threaten her with himself, keep her off guard, give her her share of sleepless nights. Now, ironically, he couldn’t sleep.
Leaning into the saddle, he urged the stallion i
nto a gallop. Trying to flee temptation, he supposed. Trying to avoid remembering her body, naked beneath his, and wondering what changes the years had wrought. Trying to escape the hovering notion that she should come to his bed…tonight.
She owed him an heir to inherit the estate, and she would give it to him—but not yet. He hadn’t lived through the cold, lonely years, heard the whispers of “murderer,” seen women flinch when he walked close, heard his business associates stammer excuses as to why they couldn’t invite him to their homes, without developing a plan to deal with his errant wife. All that talk of alternatives had been just that—talk.
Divorce. She dared speak of divorce. There would be no divorce. No murder, either. No, that would be too easy.
But a reconciliation? Perhaps some would call it that. Certainly, he intended to keep her. Eventually, he would use her as his father had said a woman should be used. Without love, without passion, to procreate. And Hannah, earnest, emotional, enthusiastic Hannah, the girl who had dreamed of being part of a family—that Hannah would be miserable.
As miserable as he had been this last nine years.
He couldn’t wait.
He had been so angry when, after they’d been wed for six months, she had run from him. Run from him, as if he were some kind of monster. He knew men who were worse husbands than he had ever been. Men who ignored their wives, who shouted at them, who beat them. And he, he who had been good to the girl—he was left to the laughter of his business comrades. Then…then he’d been accused of her murder.
The bitterness of it. That stupid maid of hers, claiming they had fought before Hannah disappeared.
Of course they had, but what of it? He would never have killed her. Never hurt her, never touched her in anger, no matter how much she tried his patience.
And she had. Always, she had, calling him a liar, demanding that he follow through on his promises. As if he would ever allow his wife to work. He had roared at her when he thought of the gossip that would cause.