Rules of Attraction (18 page)

She had to put up with his staring at her. He watched her endlessly, his green eyes relentless. He listened when she spoke. He made a general nuisance of himself with his inarticulate attentions, which she knew must be aimed at making his criticism clear. If only she could speak to him freely, without the gleeful eavesdropping of the aunts and Seaton. Then she would tell him she didn't give a damn about his attentions, and he could just stop trying to make her apprehensive because it just wasn't working.

Dougald and Hannah were performing a dance, one where she pursued and he evaded, and dammit! she didn't want to pursue him.

Struck once more by the injustice of the situation, she sank down in the front pew and stared forward. Did the Dougald she married no longer exist? Had he ever existed, or had he been a figment of her imagination? For she didn't recognize this difficult, brooding lord who seldom bothered to hide the dark corners of his soul. If she had just been introduced, if she didn't know the truth, she would easily believe that he had killed his wife.

Perhaps she would be wise to use caution when speaking to him.

If
she ever got to speak to him.

There had to be a solution to this situation. Perhaps she could find it here. For all six hundred years, the altar had been the heart of the castle. The steps were worn with the tread of hundreds of feet shuffling forward to receive communion. The altar itself had been formed of oak, and cleaned and waxed diligently so that the pure golden grain still shone, and a shining white, crisply ironed, and embroidered cloth draped over its edges.

This chapel had seen birth and death, heard prayers and curses, and within its walls countless baptisms had been celebrated, countless funerals had been performed. Beside those life-changing events, Hannah's current adversity could not compare, but still she bowed her head and asked for guidance.

When she raised it again, she looked around eagerly, expecting to see a celestial solution presented before her. Instead she observed, in a gleam of blue light from the window, a rough place in the wall on the left side of the altar. It was near the floor— one of the carved panels looked as if it had rotted away from the wall.

She glanced toward Dougald's office. The door remained stubbornly closed, so she went to investigate the damaged plank. Kneeling, she saw that the panel had indeed been scarred with rot or— she rubbed at it when her fingertips— some sharp object had been used to gouge the edge until it separated from the plaster beneath.

What had happened here in some musty corner of history? Had a child carelessly done this with his toys? Had a resentful servant sought to destroy a piece of the lord's chapel?

Hannah caught the edge of the board with her fingernails. Yes, it was loose, and as she pulled it back, she saw, not plaster as she expected, but a shadowed cavity between the board and the stone castle wall. Perhaps something was hidden here—

She needed a candle to peer inside, but as she half rose, she hit her head. Hard. So hard she fell to her knees and for a moment, just a moment, saw nothing but swirling black and red.

When she recovered, her forehead rested on the floor and she heard Charles calling her.

"
Madame. Madame
! Are you ill?"

He was bending over her, and all she could think was that her head hurt and she felt silly. "I hit my head," she said.

Charles took her arm and helped her to her feet. "On… what?" He sounded amazingly skeptical.

She looked up to see, but blinked against the glare of light from the stained-glass window. "I don't know. I didn't even know I was under anything, but when I tried to stand…"

Charles helped her to the pew. "Sit,
s'il vous plait, Madame
, you look quite peaked."

"I tell you, I hit my head on something!"

"I believe you," he said in a soothing tone that irritated her yet more. He didn't seem concerned with her condition, he was too busy craning his head around, and just when she was ready to snap at him to leave her alone, he pointed toward the floor. "Look, that's what it was."

"What
what
was?"

Leaning over, he picked up a carved, wooden curlicue. "This must have fallen off one of the rafters."

Cautiously this time, she looked up and scanned the beams. "I don't see any place it could have come from."

"It's very dark up there, and the carving is old. I will tell my lord Raeburn that he should renovate the chapel soon before someone is hurt."

She glared at Charles.

"Hurt further," he amended. "May I suggest you go upstairs to your chamber and sleep? I will explain to the aunts that you have taken ill, and have a repast sent up on a tray. You should rest after such a blow on the head."

Contrarily, his kindness made her testier— she knew very well what it meant. "Will his lordship speak to me?"

Charles actually managed to appear contrite, and even wrung his hands. "I'm sorry,
Madame
, he hasn't the time."

"I don't really
want
to see
him
. You know that, don't you?"

"I do understand that,
Madame
."

"I just have a single question which only he can answer."

"Perhaps if you told me the inquiry, I could pass it on to him…"

She hissed.

"Or perhaps not," he allowed.

"He's playing a game, and he's going to lose," she said.

"I fear you are right."

Charles was humoring her, and that made her even more irritable. Dougald
was
playing a game, but she didn't have a chance of winning, and she and Charles both knew it. "He isn't going to like what happens next."

Charles bowed. "Do your worst,
Madame
."

Infuriated by his civility— her head ached too badly to deal with an amicable Charles— she stood. Ragged bits of black crossed her vision, and for a few humiliating moments, nausea threatened.

"I think I should escort
Madame
to her bedchamber," Charles said.

"That won't be necessary, my dear man." She took deep breaths and steadied herself. "It will take more than a blow to the head to stop me."

"I see that."

She suspected sarcasm, but it was too much effort to respond. Slowly, carefully, she made her way out of the chapel, down the corridor, up the stairs and, after only a moment's hesitation in which she debated whether she should return to the aunts, she proceeded to her bedchamber. There she took out her portable secretary, sat down at the table by the narrow bed, and started a letter which began, "My dear and gracious sovereign, Queen Victoria…"

14

"E
thel, dear, I think this white yarn will be better for the dear prince's cravat." Aunt Isabel's voice echoed loud and clear in the aunts' workroom.

"No, dear, I want to weave a block with this darker thread because I'm starting the shadow." It was Aunt Ethel's turn at the loom, and she defended her choice fiercely.

"I think a few more white—"

"No, dear, that was the mistake we made the first time—"

Aunt Ethel and Aunt Isabel were in the best-lit area with the best ventilation— the area where the tapestry was constructed. Miss Minnie, Aunt Spring and Hannah sat by one of the large windows, catching the light of the westering sun on their handwork. Hannah ducked her head to her embroidery and smiled as she listened to the two ladies argue about Prince Albert's cravat. The four aunts were like children, eager to squabble, stubborn and determined on their own way. But one common goal united them; they wanted the Queen's tapestry to be perfect, and they worked it one piece at a time.

Aunt Spring clucked her tongue as she polished one of the handsome stones she had collected from the creek bed. "I told Isabel not to go over there until Ethel had finished."

Miss Minnie put down her sketch pad and removed her spectacles. "I wish they wouldn't override my decisions. I plotted every color of thread to be used." Rubbing the bridge of her nose, she said, "I suppose I should go handle this."

Hannah covered Miss Minnie's hand. "Let me."

Miss Minnie relaxed back into her chair. "Would you, Miss Setterington? You have a diplomatic touch I seem to lack."

She seldom commended anyone, so Hannah glowed beneath the gruff praise. Rising, she walked where the two ladies debated the virtue of bleached white versus unbleached white. She interrupted them without remorse, for if left to themselves she would never get a word in edgewise. "The light is fading, but from what I can tell, the work is progressing well."

"I had hoped to finish this row before I quit," Aunt Ethel lamented.

Stepping back, Hannah viewed the whole panel of the tapestry. In the three weeks she had been at Raeburn Castle, they had taken the panel containing Prince Albert out of the tapestry, unwoven it from the top to his shoulders, and begun the painstaking process of recreating his visage and the background. Each block of color had to be separately woven and sewn to the next block; each mistake compounded itself, but the aunts' work was meticulous and painstaking. Hannah was the overseer. Miss Minnie was the artist. The other three aunts took turns working on the loom. Hannah had hoped to keep them busy at least until the following Christmas, but with their enthusiasm the tapestry would be finished again by autumn, or even late summer.

"Of course, Aunt Ethel, you must do what you wish, but in this light…" Hannah shook her head. "I fear such hurry is what caused the problem with Prince Albert the first time."

Aunt Ethel put down the bobbin. "I
was
straining my eyes."

"Come on, dear." Aunt Isabel hooked her arm through Aunt Ethel's and drew her to her feet. "Let's go see if Mrs. Trenchard is sending supper up to us, or whether we have to change to go down to the dining room."

They went off, amiable as always, and Hannah contemplated the letter she had posted to London over a week ago. If only Her Majesty would reply, how happy the aunts would be! It wouldn't be the same, of course, as having Queen Victoria view the tapestry in all its majestic glory, and sometimes Hannah dreamed of the scene with the Queen overcome by the honor done her, thanking the aunts in her own gracious manner, while Hannah stood beside the Queen and smirked at the incredulous Dougald.

Good sense always pulled her from those reveries and slammed her back into reality. A reality where Queen Victoria would never have time to make such a gesture. A reality populated by kind old women, a cox-comb of an heir, Charles, a variety of servants who didn't know exactly how to treat her— and a husband who had trapped her, threatened her, and now steadfastly ignored her.

A reality she couldn't leave because if she did before she met her grandparents, she would be eternally regretful. Even if in the end they rejected her.

"It is looking well, isn't it?" Aunt Spring stood by Hannah's side and lightly touched the tapestry.

"It's going to be perfect." Hannah gazed at the kind, short, graying lady beside her. Miss Minnie sat with her eyes closed, gathering her strength for the rest of the day, and this was Hannah's chance to ask, uninterrupted, the questions that had plagued her since her first morning here. If she wished to take matters into her own hands, this was the moment. "Aunt Spring, have you invited the Burroughses to visit?"

"Oh, dear, was I supposed to?"

Hannah bowed her head in a brief moment of heartache. This was why Aunt Spring needed a companion. Sometimes she forgot things. Little things, like speaking to Hannah about the Burroughses. Big things, like where her bedchamber was located. Everyone helped her. The other aunts, Hannah, Mrs. Trenchard, Sir Onslow, the servants… but she couldn't be left alone anymore, or she might lose herself in the corridors of Raeburn Castle.

"I can invite them if you like," Aunt Spring said. "Do you know them?"

"Not personally. I know of them."

"Perhaps your parents knew them?"

"Yes."
Oh, yes.
"My parents."

"The Burroughses are a lovely couple, a little older than I am." Aunt Spring moved a little closer to Hannah and whispered, "I don't like to gossip—"

All the aunts loved to gossip.

"— But they used to be quite high in the instep."

Hannah knew. She knew better than anyone. "Why?"

Aunt Spring shrugged, showing an earl's daughter's hint of haughtiness. "The usual. They've money, and their families have been here since the dawn of time. But they were both the last of their lines, and only had a single child, and he died without an heir. They are quite alone now." She sniffed. "I told them they shouldn't have chased that young woman away, but they didn't listen to me."

Hannah longed to hear the story from an outsider's viewpoint, to find out what really happened in that summer twenty-eight years ago. So she asked, "What young woman?"

"Miss Carola Tomlinson."

The name resonated with Hannah.

"She loved Henry so much."

"Henry." Hannah tasted the name. Her father's name was Henry.

"He loved her, too, but he was one of those young men who loved… without character." Aunt Spring fiddled with the frame of the loom. "She was so comely."

Hannah remembered watching her mother, thinking she was the prettiest lady she'd ever seen. Only when Hannah had grown older did she observe the lines of worry and the dark circles that too much work put under her eyes. "Yes."

"But she had no family. She was just a governess to a neighboring family."

Hannah flinched.

"So they sent her away, and he let them." Aunt Spring raised tear-filled eyes. "He sank into bad company, and died in a pub brawl not three months later."

"So he couldn't ever come after her." Hannah knew he was dead; her mother had told her, although how she had discovered that Hannah never knew. But somehow it helped to think he had been unhappy with his decision, and to imagine that perhaps, if he had lived, he might have worked up the nerve to defy his parents and wed Miss Carola Tomlinson. As to whether he had known about Hannah's impending birth… that, she feared, would be a mystery, at least until she spoke with her grandparents.