Now he knew there were worse things than gossip.
The road wound toward Presham Crossing and beyond that the sea, and he followed it as he always did on those nights when memories and frustration drove him from his bed.
He never thought he would live under a cloud for so long. He had thought the slip of a girl he had married would be easily found, and he had feared only she would be hurt or, in her innocence, be taken advantage of. Instead she had vanished. Vanished except for a single letter.
He had worried. He had searched. He had hired detectives and raged at Charles. Nothing had yielded a single sign of her until…until that check had arrived. By then he had grown so used to having his servants and his colleagues cower from him he no longer cared. He was a loner, cold, disciplined…a man like his father.
More than anyone, he had realized the need to bait his trap carefully. He had feared to rush Hannah, to tip his hand, for if the girl without a pence or a friend could escape him, what could the woman do? She had her connections. He knew about them all. He knew that Queen Victoria favored the Distinguished Academy of Governesses with her approval. He knew everything about all of her friends, everything about her financial situation, the name of her dressmaker, and her shoe size. Because he wanted revenge.
Not because he cared for her. He didn’t still care for her. Not like a husband. Not as if they were lovers. No, time and distance had accomplished their purpose. He grasped that when he’d received her money. He had stared at the check and realized this was it. The moment he’d plotted for for so many years. The moment that she delivered herself into his hands. And he’d been calm. No fury lit his fuse. No passion rioted through his veins. He had been calm. Absolutely calm. Calm.
Except at night. Except in his dreams. Except when his thoughts drove him from the bed to ride as he was riding now.
Damn the woman. Didn’t she realize this was his chance to exact revenge? His chance, not hers. She had no right to kiss him, to torment him with the fragrance of her curvaceous body, the glint of her subdued, golden hair, the demands of her satiny lips. He was the one who had the right to torment.
But had he succeeded?
He held her in the palm of his hand, he knew it. She couldn’t leave. No matter what he did or said, she wouldn’t leave. Not until she’d discovered the truth about herself, about where she’d come from and who her people were. She’d been searching for that knowledge her whole life, and he had the power to give it to her.
But he wouldn’t. Not yet. Not until he had what he wanted from her.
Which was revenge.
Surely she owed him that.
Sensing Dougald’s abstraction, the stallion reached out with the bit. Dougald reined him in, controlling him with his knees and his gloved hands. The people on the estate expected the lord of Raeburn to ride like a damned centaur, and he hadn’t disappointed them. In fact, he suspected he had exceeded their expectations, thank God. They’d already had enough shocks, with the last lord taking a tumble down the stairs and the one before that found at the bottom of a sea cliff.
Poor buggers. Couldn’t hold their liquor, either one of them.
Anyway, a mere horse could not challenge Dougald’s authority; for nine long years no one had challenged his authority. Grimly, Dougald lifted his gaze toward the black-velvet sky. Everyone knew him to be his wife’s murderer, so they would never tell him nay for fear he would exact a dreadful retribution on them.
Only Hannah didn’t cower from him. If she realized how carefully he planned her retrieval, how thoroughly he plotted his revenge, how the years had chilled his rage, she would cower.
Instead she kissed him.
His groin tightened at the memory. After all the hell she had put him through, and she dared to kiss him.
Dougald wanted to bellow. But that was no longer his way. Instead, he gave the stallion his head, and they galloped along the curving road toward the sea. The air cleared his head, the exercise brought his blood surging in his veins, but the demons that had driven him for so many years traveled with him. Always they were with him.
When he crested the hill above the Atlantic, he brought the horse back to a walk and rode the path that wound among the rocks on the beach and then back up into the meadows and windblown trees.
In his youth, the demons had held sway. He learned to fight in those years. He drank, he whored, he almost died.
But it wasn’t him who died, it was his father.
Dougald had never again allowed his demons to be free.
Yet tonight Hannah, with her full breasts and upright figure and provocative poise, threatened to cut them loose. Damn her, it wasn’t supposed to be this way.
His grandmother had picked her out, told him she would do well as his wife, and he had accepted that. Hannah had been but a girl, then. What difference had it made to him, when at the same time he was trying to learn his father’s business and save it from the rivals who would have wrested it from him?
By the time Hannah was old enough to wed, he was used to the idea. He saw nothing wrong with the arrangement and, in fact, liked that he would have a wife who elicited no response from him except indifference. He thought, fool that he was, that Hannah would see the advantages to their union and accept it meekly.
Instead, she had challenged him.
My God, could he ever forget the first time she’d fled from him? Even better was what came after…
“You’ve never been kissed,” Dougald told her. He didn’t wonder, he knew. He could tell by Hannah’s amazement, by the way her large brown eyes glanced about the train car as if she could find answers there.
“I don’t think that matters.” She wet her lips. “I should sit up now.”
Carefully, lovingly, as he smoothed his hands down her arms. She was such an innocent, politely suggesting that she be allowed to sit up when she should have been squalling like a banshee. She didn’t understand that by running away she had brought herself to his attention and challenged his possessiveness. By the time she realized it, it would be far too late for her. “But I want to kiss you. I want to be the first.” He slid his lips across both her eyes to close them. “You will let me do that, at least.”
She shook her head no.
His lips crested her cheekbone and pressed one corner of her mouth, feathering light touches on and about her lips, teasing her, enticing her. She had skin like velvet, softer than any he’d ever touched, and he relished the sensation. Slanting his face, he pressed his lips to hers. He kept it tender, gentle, and she rewarded him when she relaxed with a sigh.
Sweet thing. Gentle. Soft. Yielding. She was perfect for him. He touched the crease of her mouth with his tongue. That surprised her. She jumped, and he touched her with his lips closed once more in reassurance. Forging ahead, he ran his tongue over her upper lip. Her eyes grew wide as if she didn’t know what to think, and she put her hands on his shoulders and gave a push. Her fingers lingered, touching his bare skin, then she hastily dropped her hands away and turned her face to the side. “You should replace your shirt,” she said severely.
“I will.” Catching her chin, he turned her face back toward his. “When we’re done.” He laved her lip again.
And she showed her defiant character by lifted her mouth to his and biting his lip.
He jerked back and dabbed at the damage. “Witch!”
She rose onto her elbow and scanned his face anxiously. “Are you hurt?”
“Yes.” He leaned so close they were lip to lip. “You’ll have to kiss it better.”
Her gaze dropped, her dimples quivered, and she laughed.
He captured her mouth again and tumbled her back, and this time she let him kiss her without inhibition. Dougald moved slowly, touching her teeth, touching her tongue with tiny flicks of his, letting her taste him…If he could keep her distracted, move her from one sensual threshold to another, he could stay ahead of her morals and her doubts. His kiss so captivated her she was oblivious as he unlaced her shirt
.
This was so easy, like taking comfits from a baby. And so difficult, for all he could think of was his own body’s sudden drive to be inside her. Damn the woman, didn’t she know what she was doing to him with her charming ineptitude?
No. No, of course she didn’t.
She noticed what his restless hands had accomplished. She tried to push at him again. Again she broke contact in a flurry, acting as if the touch of his bare skin burned her.
He hoped they burned together.
Gazing into her velvet brown eyes, he did his best to mesmerize her with a gentle voice. “I like you to touch me. Your touch is a pleasure. You stroke me and I purr…touch me as I touch you.” He opened her shirt wide, revealing her to the air and sunshine—and saw, for the first time, her perfect breasts.
She tried to scoot away, but he couldn’t allow that. Not now. Throwing a leg over her, he kept her in place while he looked…and looked. Dear God, what breasts. They rose from her chest in sweet cream mounds, pale, delectable…his. Lightly he touched her, just the tip of her nipple with the tip of his finger.
In fierce and desperate earnest, she put her hands up to shove him away. “Someone will see in!”
“No.” He let her hold him back. “Look out. We’re crossing Chat Moss. There’s no one.”
It was true. They were passing over the vast peat bog that had caused the rail designers such trouble, and as far as he could see were shrubs and herbs and the occasional tree that reveled in the damp.
“We’re safe.” He caught her wrists. “Now watch. Watch.”
Hoisting himself above her, he lowered himself. Her nipples touched first, nestling into the rough hair that covered his pectorals. His heart leaped with excitement. He wanted to overwhelm her, give her no choice…he wanted to crush her to him, take her now. His mind chanted encouragement. So he shook as their stomachs pressed together, and he fought every fierce, masculine instinct as he slowly flattened her breasts with his chest.
Overwhelm her, yes. Give her no choice, start this relationship as he meant to go on, yes. But he couldn’t frighten or hurt her, and from the look on her face she was frightened.
He released Hannah’s hands, and they sprang up to push ineffectively. She pushed and shoved until he slid his arms around her, under her shoulders, and trailed his fingers through the hair at the base of her skull. Then she quieted, resting cradled in his arms, staring at his face as if some feature there fascinated her.
Good. That was good. He couldn’t help but smile and some of his triumph must have shown, for she dropped her gaze and squirmed as if she wanted to get away. He was taming her, gentling her to his hand, but he could see that she knew it and resented it.
“Sh,” he whispered, although she’d made no sound.
“How do you do that?” she demanded belligerently.
He had thought her a girl, but obviously she was a woman, for she asked a question and expected an answer when he had no idea what she was talking about.
“How do you make my senses shut down?” she asked. “I can’t hear, or see, or smell, when you touch me. I can only touch…”
Her voice trailed away, and he asked, “And feel?”
“Yes,” she was whispering again. “And feel.”
Focusing her eyes on his face, with a tentative finger she traced the accent line of his cheek, the scar beneath his eye, the velvet of his mouth.
“Have you got it worked out, now, sweetheart?” Dougald asked.
In a voice rife with tragedy, she said, “Yes. I’m a wanton.”
“I can only hope,” he teased.
A mistake. Immediately tears trembled on her lashes. He thought himself so clever, yet he had forgotten her mother had been disgraced by passion. That Hannah had lived with that disgrace every day of her life. Smoothing her hair from her forehead, he marveled at the soft texture of each strand. Keeping his voice low and persuasive, he said, “You’re responsive, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of. The release we find in passion is the closest we come to the soaring of the peregrine. You are so beautiful, you touch my heart, my mind. I’ve seen what damage a thoughtless husband does to a marriage. Won’t you trust me? I’ll give you all my attention, my wholehearted commitment. I’ll not cheat you, not physically, not mentally. Marriage is forever, a vow spoken and meant to be kept. We’ll be happy. You have many things you can share with me. Your charm, your diplomacy, your kindness—they will complete my life.”
“What will you share with me?”
My God, her tone was plaintive! Was she thinking? Was she reasoning? Did she realize how painstakingly he planned each move, each word?
So he reached for her soul with a kiss. Their lips melded. He led her through a new dance, one she’d never performed before, and he reveled in her sensuousness. She moaned into his mouth, and tasted of autumn’s apple and summer’s rye, and of Hannah. Each touch of her tongue swirled him closer to bliss.
In one moment of sanity he thought that was wrong. He pulled away and stared down at her. At the doe-soft eye, the damp, full lips, the softly rounded cheeks. She couldn’t lure him. He was older, he was the man. Yet if he weren’t careful, she would ensnare him as surely as he sought to ensnare her. That would be awful. That would be…impossible. Men did not love. Not as women loved. Once he had captured Hannah’s heart, he would hold her in the palm of his hand. That was the way it was supposed to be. That was the way he planned it.
She must have seen some of his consternation in his face, for she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” No, he was doing everything right. He couldn’t fail.
The stars glittered. The harness jingled. The horse snorted. The lane curled up around a grove of trees.
Dougald had done everything right. Like any young, sweet, innocent girl, she had mistaken the passion between them for love. He had taken full advantage of her delusion, and carefully fostered her fantasy. Only after their marriage had she begun to suspect that he didn’t love her. Perhaps, worse, she had begun to suspect she didn’t love him.
But now he would make her love him again, and when she did—Crack!
Tree bark behind Dougald exploded in woody shards. What…? Why? Could it be?
Dougald abruptly came back to the present. The stallion beneath him reared. Hell! Someone was shooting at him. During the brief moment it took to shake off past enchantment—
Crack!
A bullet tore through the air by Dougald’s ear. Taking advantage of the animal’s caprice, he tumbled out of the saddle and rolled away from the slashing hooves. Coming to his feet, he ran in a crouch, keeping his face down and his white shirt out of sight.
“Got ’im!” he heard a man shout.
As his stallion snorted and fought invisible demons, then raced toward Raeburn Castle, Dougald slipped into the small grove of trees beside the path. The salt-stunted trees were thin and windblown, the ground around them grassy, undulating meadow. Not far away the sea crashed against the shore, muffling any other sounds, but in the feeble light of the stars he saw two figures detach themselves from among the boulders and run to the place where he had fallen.
One tall, one short, neither held a pistol but both wore greatcoats with capacious pockets.
The streetfighter in Dougald knew he could take them.
The realist in Dougald recognized an ugly truth. Someone was shooting at him—at the lord of Raeburn. He’d scoffed when Charles said the servants whispered tales of sabotage and assassination. But he doubted this attack could be coincidence.
Someone was trying to kill the lord of Raeburn, and the lord of Raeburn…was he.
The men searched the ground with increasing indignation, coming ever closer to the trees.
Finally, one stood straight and exclaimed, “’E’s not here!”
Dougald smiled as he stepped out behind them. “Yes, he is.”
As they scrambled to turn, he grabbed them by the hair and smashed their heads together. They howled as their skulls cracked. One
went down. He grabbed the other by his rough coat and lifted him to his toes. “What the hell are you doing, shooting at me?”
And another man, unseen in the shadowy, jumbled landscape, struck him from the side. Dougald went down cursing as first the one, then the other, jumped him.
He should have remembered—always make sure of the odds before picking a fight.
10
As Hannah descended the stairs toward the breakfast room, her muscles ached and her eyes felt gritty—the results of the previous long and eventful day. At least that was what she told herself. She didn’t acknowledge a restless night spent chasing demons who turned into Dougald and in turn chased her while the flames of hell licked at their heels.
She had been so foolish—yesterday when she’d allowed herself to be trapped, and all those years ago when the girl Hannah had convinced herself she loved Dougald because he had seduced her—and because she had wanted him to.
Gripping the curve of banister, she frowned fiercely.
All the hard-won wisdom in the world didn’t make a difference. It didn’t matter what her mind told her, or that she looked back on the younger Hannah and pitied her belief that passion equaled love and that men fulfilled their promises, because when she was with Dougald—
“Oh, beauteous maiden who brings forth the morning!”
She gasped and almost tripped off the last stair as a dandy leaped lightly from his hiding place beneath the stairs. A gentleman of indeterminate years, dressed in the latest London fashions, he held a yellow rose he extended with a flourish.
Pressing her hand over her rapidly beating heart, she said in her frostiest tones, “Sir, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“Of course not! I have presumed because I wished to verify that the report was true.”
Who was this little fop who stood an inch shorter than she, wore higher heels on his shiny boots, and took such liberties with civility? “Report?”
“That the fairest lady in all the land had taken up residence beneath the noble roof of Raeburn Castle.”