Hannah's Promise

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  “More’s the pity for his mother.”

  “Exactly.” Slade then turned to help a visibly miffed Hannah off with her cloak, also giving it and Olivia’s thin cape over to the man.

  The frail butler, toppling under the garments’ combined weight, staggered forward a step. Only Slade’s quick hand on his arm saved him from landing on his thin beak of a nose. “Thank you, sir. Herself is in the drawing room with Esmerelda. They’re both pretending to nod in front of the fire. But one fears they’re actually devising new methods of torment for the unwary.”

  “Then we’re just in the nick of time.” Slade turned to Hannah. “Isabel and Esmerelda are quite the rounders. You three should get along famously.”

  “Oh? Especially if I don’t … piddle on the carpet?”

  “No. Especially if you do.” Grinning at her wide-eyed look, Slade nevertheless noted the gray pallor of her tired face. The poor thing was nearly done in. She needed to rest. He turned to Olivia. “Pemberton will direct you to your room. Have him light my room as well. By the way, he likes to order everyone around, but we all ignore him. So you may as well, too. Right, Pemberton?”

  “Correct, sir. One fears the shock of being obeyed would put one in one’s grave.” With that, Pemberton edged in a snail’s-pace shuffle toward the coat closet.

  Behind him, and gripping the two small bags she’d packed for herself and her lady, Olivia shrugged good-naturedly at Slade and Hannah. Then, shifting the carpetbags to one hand, she put her free hand to the thin old gentleman’s elbow, easing his way. “Come along then, Pemberton. We wouldn’t want to grow roots, now would we?”

  “One wouldn’t think so, miss.”

  His hands at his waist, Slade watched the unlikely pair until they disappeared around a corner. Only then did he look down at Hannah, standing quietly next to him. Her face was still splotched from her recent emotion and her hair was coming all undone. But it didn’t matter. She was still beautiful. In spite of himself, Slade felt his heart swell at the nearness of her. “Well, what do you think?”

  “I think that little man is older than God.”

  He chuckled, as much at the expression on her face as at her wry comment. “We’ve often suspected as much. I’m the third generation of Garretts he’s confounded.” Then, something new in the way she looked at him caught his attention. His smile faltered. “You’re looking at me as if I just grew a tail.”

  “If you did, it wouldn’t surprise me.” Her saucy expression then changed to thoughtful. “You’re just—You’re more like—Oh, I don’t know how to put it. It’s nothing. Never mind.” With that, and accompanied by the silken rustle of her aquamarine gown, she moved with a gliding grace around a centrally placed walnut table. There, she reached but to fondle a delicate figurine.

  Slade contented himself with quietly watching her. His brain warned him against her, but his body warmed to her. With her every movement, with every curving, graceful feature of hers he outlined, sharp darts of desire coursed through him.

  Perhaps sensing the thickening awareness in the air between them, she stilled and looked up at him. The emeralds at her ears and throat caught the chandelier’s light, sparking fire against her dark hair and velvety complexion.

  Caught unawares, Slade stood up straighter. The jewels. The gown. They were mere afterthoughts on her. She needed no such adornment. His hands itched to rip the dress off her, to throw her naked onto the table, and to finally make her understand what she did to his control.

  Because even without touching her, he could feel her body against his. He could taste her skin. His hands longed to shape themselves to the firmness of her high breasts. Hurting from simply looking at her, Slade fought his own sexual nature. In another moment he’d leap across the space between them, freeing her soft and silky hair from its pins, and take her—

  She made an abrupt movement, as if breaking a spell. And indeed, she did. If she only knew it. “You’re different here … in this house. Somehow. That’s what I’m trying to say. And I certainly shouldn’t add this next, but this being the night for me to speak my mind…” She allowed her sentence to trail off as she looked down and then up again at him. “Your way with Pemberton. Your care with Olivia. And with me. I find I almost like the man I see.”

  “Almost?” In an agony of lust barely controlled, Slade smirked at his own expense. “You wouldn’t like the man I am at all, if you could read my mind just now, Hannah.”

  She frowned, looking contrite and hesitant. “I don’t suppose I blame you for feeling the way you do.”

  Slade’s eyebrows shot up in amusement. “You don’t?”

  “No. How could I? Not thirty minutes ago I accused you of—”

  He held up a hand, feeling desire and humor wilt. “I know what you said. If a man had accused me of those things, he’d be spitting his teeth out. Or lying out in the street. But those words between you and me … with everything else there is between us? Mere grist for the mill. Now, come on, I’ll take you in to meet the old dragon. And then we’ll go on to bed.”

  When her eyes widened and she clutched at her gown’s skirt, Slade thought about his words, and added, “Your own bed. Alone. Now, come on. This way.” He held his hand out to her, indicating she should precede him.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she did as he bade. And made him sorry. A delicately perfumed scent, warmed by her body, wafted to his nostrils when she passed him. He rolled his eyes at his own weakness, but was then completely undone by the sight of her slender, innocent nape as he walked behind her. With her head bent forward the slightest bit, with her hair upswept, exposed along her neckline was a fringe of tiny, down-soft curls. Exposed also was the shadowed cleft of her graceful neck where it met her regal head.

  Overwhelmed, undone, and before his better sense could stop him, Slade reached out to her, clasping her by her shoulders. A tiny gasp coupled with her start of surprise. Slade turned her to him. Hazel eyes, so open and yet so injured, and fringed with the blackest of thick lashes, silently questioned him.

  Without uttering a word, he dragged her against his chest, encircling her in his embrace. She fit there so perfectly, despite remaining perfectly still and rigid, her arms at her sides. Slade couldn’t even detect her breathing.

  Forcing his words out, denying the raw wound this new tenderness wrought as it ripped through his soul’s armor, Slade righted the one wrong that he could. “Hannah, you’ve got to believe me. I knew nothing about … your mother and your father. Not until you said it tonight—I didn’t know. I swear it. I’m no fan of your father’s, but I wish to God I could have been there to spare you that sight. Or to prevent it from ever happening.”

  She stiffened even more. Slade held her fast against him, sensing the building storm. And then, like a young, wind-battered willow, she broke. Slumping against him, she encircled his waist with her arms and clutched at his clawhammer coat. Gasps of agony escaped her, echoing in the foyer. Like a child, she called out for her mama and her papa. She pressed into him, seeking his warmth. And his strength. Through tearful sobs she spoke of blood … blood everywhere. She even cried for someone named Old Pete.

  A rock-sized lump lodging in his throat, Slade bent his cheek to the top of her head. He brought his hand up from her back to brush aside emotion-dampened tendrils of hair from her brow. His eyes blurred with a moistness he would not acknowledge. And still he held her. And still she cried.

  In another moment, approaching footfalls caught his attention. From all directions, the Garrett household was responding. On the stairs were Rowena and Serafina, twin spinster-sister maids, concern etching their wrinkled old brows. Others, all of them just as aged and in various stages of bed dressing, toddled down after them. Even Olivia and Pemberton once again stood in the foyer, holding on to each other.

  Not to be left out, from the deepest recesses of the house came the waddling, arthritic cook, Mrs. Edgars, and her entire gray-haired entourage. And off to the right, in the drawing room doorway, I
sabel stood, one hand to her matriarchal bosom, her other clutching at Esmerelda’s collar. The impossibly huge mastiff wrinkled her brow in apparent concern.

  With a nod of his head, Slade sent a silent message to his grandmother. She nodded. Letting go of the dog’s collar, she went into action, silently shushing everyone and shooing them back. But Olivia, sighting on the dog and clearly terrified, took up residence at Slade’s side. She clutched at his coat’s hem and refused to budge. No one else obeyed Isabel, either. Including the calculating Esmerelda, who elected to sit on her haunches beside Olivia and eye her consideringly.

  And so it was with such a grand and silent audience that Slade picked Hannah up, cradling her in his arms while she turned her bleak, tearstained face against his lapel.

  With Isabel leading the pack, Slade carried Hannah’s whimpering form up the stairs. The two old maids scurried ahead of him, shooing all from his ascending path. On the second floor, the sisters let him pass, and then fell in line behind their mistress, the tongue-lolling Esmerelda, the lady’s maid Olivia, and joined the ranks of Isabel’s gray-haired, concerned domestics.

  When he reached the door he wanted, Slade stopped and turned to face it. Several gasps sounded at his choice of rooms, as he knew they would, but Olivia innocently leapt forward to open the door, pushing it inward and then stepping back. Slade crossed the threshold and, without looking back or uttering a word, caught the door with his foot and nudged it shut behind him. Directly in the faces of everyone in the hallway.

  Knowing they wouldn’t dare interfere—not even Isabel—Slade marched straight to his bed and deposited his droopy-eyed burden on the quilted counterpane. Walking around to the other side, his gaze never leaving the sight she made on his bed, he shrugged out of his jacket, loosened his clothing, and then bent to draw his shoes off. Taking a deep breath, he perched next to Hannah’s huddling body. Her back to him, sound asleep, her breaths came in a sob-stilted rhythm.

  With practiced hands, Slade unfastened her gown and likewise her corset. He’d never understand why women wore these instruments of torture—torture for the men trying to divest their women of them, that is. There. Now she could most likely breathe. Not daring to undress her further, except for her dainty shoes, he scooted up against the mound of pillows at his back. Then, with great tenderness, he turned Hannah into his arms.

  Refusing to think about what it was he was doing, he resettled them both. And then, crossing his legs at the ankles, he simply held her, content to rest his cheek against her hair. He closed his eyes. His last wakeful thought was When she wakes up tomorrow, what then?

  CHAPTER SIX

  Lying on her stomach, her legs kicked out wide, Hannah greeted the day slowly. Frowning, she realized that her limbs felt weighted. As if she’d slept in one position all night. She bobbed her eyes open and then immediately closed them. Not that there was any bright light to assail her morning vision. There wasn’t. It was just that her eyes burned and itched.

  She tried to turn over so she could rub them, but something restricted her movement. She lay still, focusing on that something. Then, it came to her. Why, she was fully dressed. Right down to the emeralds poking at her collarbone. She lay momentarily still, frowning.

  Then, she flipped over and, after a protracted battle with the tangled yardage of her skirt, sat straight up, her legs out in front of her, her bustle riding up to poke at her back. She braced herself with her hands behind her on the bed’s coverings.

  Looking down at herself, she saw long, tortured curls of her hair hanging all about her. Which mattered not. No. It was instead the gown’s bodice flopped down to her waist and her loosened corset poking out lewdly, as if offering a view of her exposed bosom, which rendered her aghast.

  Hannah quickly drew the two up and against her skin. Remaining absolutely motionless for a moment, she took advantage of the thin, gray light filtering through the drawn curtains into the … she slowly looked around her … large, completely unfamiliar, and very masculine room. At least she was alone. But where was she?

  As if in answer, the door across the room, in a direct line with the foot of the bed, opened. Hannah clutched tightly at her ruined bodice. A long shadow fell into the room, bleeding across the carpeted floor and then onto the bed. Hannah blinked, trying to adjust her vision. Then, seeing who stood there, she let out her breath and fell limply back onto the pillows beneath her. Her stiff dimity bustle threw her immediately onto her side in one ungainly motion.

  Olivia bustled in, going immediately to work picking up and straightening as she chattered. “Oh, good, miss, you’re awake. You had us all quite worried. It’s after noon, you know. Allow me to straighten up a bit in here, and then I’ll help with your toilette.” Casually strolling by on her way to a huge armoire, the lady’s maid half turned to Hannah. “By the way, I posted that letter you gave me. And no one’s the wiser.”

  Hannah watched the girl walk by. She heard her words, absorbed them. But found she could do nothing but stare at the maid’s back as she continued past. She had a million questions for her, but the words simply wouldn’t come.

  Olivia didn’t seem to notice or to mind the lack of a response. Across the room now, she bent over to retrieve a shirt and then popped up, turning a bright smile on Hannah. “Oh, miss, I do love it here. There’s plenty of good food and everyone is most kind. Not like some other place I could name. I was always hungry and cold there. But there’s more—Mr. Garrett says I may have Wednesday afternoon and all of Sunday off each week … if you agree, of course. He’s paying me twice my wages to stay on with you. Isn’t that lovely?”

  Then, her face clouded up. “Although I’m not too fond of that Esmerelda.” She appeared to mentally consider the reasons why—without enlightening Hannah. And then she changed course again. “Do you know that everyone here at Woodbridge Pond—except for me and you and Mr. Garrett—is anciently old? Why, I suspect they can remember the Great Flood. Probably came here on Noah’s Ark, they did.”

  Woodbridge Pond! That’s it! Quick on the heels of that revelation came the other images of last evening. The disastrous dinner party, the very short carriage ride. What he’d said about her parents. Her in his arms and crying. And then—she stared, unblinking, at the quilt under her—that was all she remembered.

  Suddenly galvanized, Hannah struggled back to a sitting position, held her bodice up, and stared after Olivia, who continued to bustle and chatter. Hannah reaffirmed for herself what the girl had said. She was at Woodbridge Pond, and it was after noon. After noon! “Olivia!” she called out, stopping the little maid’s happy musings. “Come here.”

  With discarded clothing bundled in her arms, Olivia immediately skittered to her side. She dropped her burden onto the bed and put a hand on Hannah’s arm. “What is it, miss? Are you ill?”

  Hannah thought about that. “No. At least, I don’t think I am.” She focused on the girl, noting that she was completely lost in a clean and starched but oversized gray uniform, topped by an equally large white apron. “Olivia, tell me exactly what is going on.”

  Olivia looked askance at Hannah. “Why, nothing is going on, miss. I’m just gathering the laundry.” As if to prove it, she plucked from off the top of her pile a wrinkled shirt and held it up. “See, miss?”

  Her gaze riveted to the shirt, Hannah tightened her hands on her gathered bodice. But then, heedless of the resulting exposure, she let go of her gown to snatch at the garment. Quickly she sorted it out, finally holding it up and away from her by the ever-so-broad shoulders. “Where did this come from?”

  Acting as if she were humoring a mad woman, Olivia patiently explained, “From off the floor over there, miss. You saw me pick it up. But before that … why, off Mr. Garrett’s back, I’m sure.”

  Hannah dropped her arms heavily onto her lap and stared hard at Olivia. “This is his room, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, miss. You were crying and so overcome. He carried you here himself, he did. Closed the door in all our faces,
too, I can tell you.”

  Mortified, Hannah refused to think about who the “all” was. “And then what happened?”

  Olivia blinked two or three times. “Well, miss, we all went on to bed. And so did you and Mr. Garrett … I suppose.”

  Hannah’s heart plummeted to her belly. “Mr. Garrett slept here? With me?”

  Olivia opened her mouth to answer, but the voice was much too masculine to be hers. “Yes. I did.”

  Olivia’s eyes went as wide as Hannah’s suspected hers were. The girl whipped around, and Hannah jerked her head up. Slade Garrett.

  Exhibiting sartorial splendor, he was clean-shaven, dressed in buff riding pants and knee-high black boots, and a freshly starched white shirt under a dark-brown waistcoat. Looking rested and well and confident in his world, he stepped over the same threshold Olivia had trod only moments ago and approached the bed. He spoke first to the little maid. “That will be all for now, Olivia. Miss Lawless will be fine with me. She’ll call for you in a moment.”

  “Yes, Mr. Garrett.” She grabbed up the laundry, shot Hannah a quick, reassuring smile, and then fled around Slade, practically loping to the open door.

  With Slade’s back to her as he turned to watch Olivia’s hasty departure, Hannah took in his stance, which emphasized the musculature of his thighs and the slimness of his hips. She credited the heavy thumping of her heart and suddenly moist palms to the inappropriateness of being alone with him. Again. In a bedroom. His bedroom.

  When Olivia scurried into the adjoining room and closed the door, Slade turned again to face her. His eyes dipped to her bosom and sudden bemusement etched his features, making him seem almost boyish. He then met her gaze and jerked his thumb at the closed door. “Does Olivia ever walk anywhere? All I’ve ever seen her do is hurry.”

  Caught up in his dark, provocative aura, so reminiscent of a wild, barely leashed creature, Hannah mumbled out her words. “I think she’s afraid of you.”