Rules of Attraction by Christina Dodd

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
    W hatever 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 into 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,