Who was again staring at her, clapping her hands together, and calling her Esmerelda. This instance marked the third time in less than an hour that she’d heard that name—and in more and more curious circumstances. Not knowing quite how to proceed, Hannah nevertheless took the initiative. “Um, Mrs. Garrett … I presume? My name’s Hannah, not Esmerelda.”
Swathed in bright red wool, the spry, amply bosomed robin smiled as she toddled in her direction. “Of course it is, dear. I’m speaking to the dog.” She pointed to a man-sized, richly upholstered chair off to Hannah’s left.
“The—?” The woman thought the chair was a dog? Completely in a stew now, Hannah glanced to her left. Yes, a normal-enough chair. With four wooden legs. And four huge paws. What could she—?
Hannah froze. Four huge paws? Suddenly wary, she edged backward one step and then over one to her left. Her heart stopped—she gasped to prove it—and then stumbled back, her hands now crossed over her chest. How long had this … this horse been sitting there?
“Now, see here, Esmerelda. You and your infernal sneaking up on people are going to be the death of someone.” The white-haired woman fussed over to the dog—which even seated was nearly as tall as her—and clutched at its collar. As if that would hold the animal in place. She then grinned at Hannah. “She’s perfectly harmless. Come here and let her smell you.”
Hannah recovered enough to back up even more. “I’d prefer not to.”
The woman laughed at her, waving her over to them. “No, no. Don’t be afraid. Come here. Esmerelda is quite the sweet puppy.”
Hannah stayed firmly in place. “Puppy? That anim—she’s a puppy?”
“Why, yes. A mastiff puppy. She’ll be quite large one day.” She turned to Slade. “How old is she now? Nine or ten months?”
Hannah followed her gaze, looking too at Slade. What the Sam Hill was wrong with him now? He was looking at her as if she’d grown a third eye.
“Ten months, Grandmother,” he finally said, seeming to shake off his lethargy. Coming to stand beside Hannah, he put a hand to her elbow and smiled down at her. “Forgive my manners.” Then he looked up at the red-clad woman opposite them. “Grandmother, allow me to introduce you to Hannah—”
“I know who she is. Hannah Wilton Lawless.” Then her gaze swept over Hannah approvingly. “You may call me Isabel. After all, if you’re going to be my granddaughter-in-law, we should—”
“Grandmother!”
“Granddaughter-in-law?”
Isabel released the dog’s collar to put her tiny fists to her nonexistent hips. She settled her fractious attention on Slade. “Did you not say to me, less than five minutes ago, Slade Franklin Garrett, that you would have this girl?”
“I did, but I never meant for you to blurt it out like that.”
He’d shared his horrid plotting with his grandmother? Hannah was too surprised to do more than stare transfixed at Slade’s reddening face, even when his grandmother next spoke.
“Well then, boy, there you have it. Now it’s out in the open.”
Hannah watched Slade’s face harden into cautionary lines as he stared at the tiny old woman. Speaking in a syrupy, singsong voice, as if he were trying to talk a small child into handing over a loaded gun, Slade entoned, “I see your game now, Isabel Winifred Garrett. I’m warning you—it won’t work.”
Isabel Winifred Garrett, for her part, crowed triumphant. “Balderdash! You wouldn’t be warning me if you didn’t think it would work. So, ha! You’re caught in your own trap now, grandson mine. Now, quit being such a sore loser and bring the girl over here to meet Esmerelda. We can’t have her pouncing on your fiancée every time she enters the room.”
Pouncing on his fian—her? Hannah snapped her attention back to the dog. Which eyed her with a certain amount of detached, tongue-lolling disdain. Clearly, the animal was wondering how she would taste. More than a little undone, Hannah backed squarely into Slade, forcing him to steady her with his hands at her shoulders.
But having done so, he set her aside abruptly and rounded on his grandmother. Hands to his hips, his booted feet apart, he struck a defiant pose. And got no further than opening his mouth preparatory to saying something, when a great rattling of dishes out in the hallway announced the imminent approach of someone. Hannah, the dog, and the two Garretts looked in the direction of the noise. Almost immediately, Isabel’s face lit up. “Oh, good! Serafina and Rowena bring tea. Won’t you have some, dear? We can discuss your wedding.”
Hannah stared at the woman. Slade would kill the poor, dotty creature if she persisted in this vein. Even now, just standing next to him, she could actually feel the steam building up in him for an eruption. She had to make Mrs. Garrett understand—before there was violence. “There’s not going to be any wedding, Mrs. Garrett. Surely you can understand why, my name being what it is. Now, I don’t know what he’s”—she jerked her thumb over at Slade—“told you, but I have never agreed to such a … such an arrangement.”
Isabel Garrett raised her eyebrows and smiled angelically, nodding as if she understood. “I see. Then it is your habit, Miss Lawless, to be carried upstairs by a man not your husband—in front of a score of witnesses—and then to follow up that scandalous breach with spending the night in his bed, all without benefit of clergy? Well, now I understand. We’ll speak of it no more.”
She blithely turned her back on a slack-jawed Hannah and a red-faced Slade, and headed for her chair in front of the fire.
“Stop right there!” This was the first time in her life that Hannah’d bellowed.
Unfortunately, it had the disastrous result of causing Rowena and Serafina, two wizened old mirror images of each other, to stop right there. They collided, with the silver tea service between them, as they rounded the corner into the room. Hannah and Slade rushed to right the silver and the sugar and the creamer and the cakes and the cups and the maids on the highly polished wood floor before tea was served.
In the midst of this flurry, Hannah looked up to see Isabel Garrett smiling broadly at her as she patted Esmerelda’s head. “I thought as much, my dear. Now, come sit by me and we’ll discuss the details of your wedding.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Wind and rain be damned. Hannah tromped down the central stairway and whipped her lined cloak around her shoulders. Sip tea and discuss me marrying Slade Garrett. After fastening the cape’s frog closure, she pulled the hood up over her hair. Did no one think she had a mind of her own?
Because it sure seemed that everyone was trying to run roughshod over her. Why, just to get out of her own bedroom, she’d had to promise Olivia she’d be back in time to dress for supper. Servants and butlers and lady’s maids. Telling her when to dress—even what to wear. Telling her when to eat—even how to eat. And when to rest. Let’s not forget those enforced naps. These highfalutin Easterners would never make it out West where a body stayed up and busy all day and saw to her own needs—or they went untended.
Her thoughts having carried her down to the first-floor landing, she turned back sharply to her right and nearly collided with the fragile Pemberton. Stopping short, she met the butler’s equally startled gaze. “Why, good afternoon, Pemberton.”
“A subject worthy of debate, miss.” He began immediately to fall forward. She reached out to steady him, but then realized he was merely executing a respectful bow. She jerked her hands back before he straightened up.
Hannah then frowned at the ancient old gentleman as he oh-so-slowly looked her up and down with his faded-blue eyes. “What is it, Pemberton?”
“Why, I believe it’s a cloak, miss.”
Hannah swallowed the burst of laughter in her throat. “No, I meant, did you need me for something?”
“One would think so, wouldn’t one?” With no further ado, he stepped around her and continued on his way.
Hannah pivoted to look after him until he finally disappeared around the other side of the stairs. Shaking her head, she set off again on her quest for the outdoo
rs. She stalked down the dim hall to the narrow door at its end. The final barrier to her freedom. And exactly where her calculations said it would be. Reduced now to muttering, she fumed about her need for fresh air. Preferably air unbreathed by any Garrett. Or their dog.
Hannah gripped and turned the polished knob. The door opened a fraction and then slammed shut in her face. Yelping out her surprise but refusing to be denied, she renewed her efforts. This time she shoved a shoulder against the door, forcing it open.
The blast of cold air which greeted her, wet with stinging, wind-whipped rain, snatched the door out of her hand and sent it slamming outward against the white stone of the mansion. Hannah gasped, clutching at her flaring cloak as it too took wing. Hastening outside, lest the door take a notion to swing back in her face, she stepped onto the tiny landing, grabbed the resisting door with both hands, pulled on it with all her might, and finally succeeded in flinging it closed behind her.
Triumphant, she turned and skipped down the three steps. The instant her feet touched grass, brown though it was, and not even caring that her hood now trailed down her back with her hair, Hannah flung her arms wide and pirouetted with Mother Nature. She stopped suddenly, sending her cloak swirling around her legs and her ribbon-tied hair over her shoulder to rest against her bosom. It seemed like years since her feet’d touched raw earth. Raw earth, blue sky, rolling hills, tall buffalo grass, wildflowers. A sudden stab of homesickness, so tangible she could almost taste it, assailed her.
In that moment, the rain fell against her face like needles. The cold wind took on a mocking quality. Hannah looked around her, seeing only bordered formal lawns, bare flower beds, precisely cut shrubs, and pruned trees. There was no room here for a spirit to be free. With her thoughts nipping at her heels, Hannah fled down the long gravel path to the far end of the manicured grounds. She didn’t slow her pace until she made a right turn past a copse of tall trees, which ran parallel to a vast gray-green and restless pond on her left.
Hannah slowed her steps. Here was what she sought—a bit of untamed nature to restore her soul. She looked up, up, trying to see to the treetops. Overcome, she closed her eyes, the better to listen to the wind whistling through the arching branches, the better to absorb the lapping sound of water against land. When she opened her eyes and looked down at herself, she saw wind-tossed leaves—wet and mottled but still red and gold—clinging to her cape and the path before her.
A smile carried Hannah’s skittering feet to her destination—a small cottage, the roof of which she’d spied earlier out her second-floor bedroom window. Her gaze went to the latch on the weathered old door. And her smile faded. What if it were locked? Why hadn’t she thought of that while still indoors?
She tried the latch handle. Yes! Luck was with her. She quickly entered, whipping around to close the door behind her. She then turned to face the one silent, staring room of the wood-slatted retreat. Only pieces of sheet-covered furniture, a small stone fireplace, a kerosene lamp, and her. Truly alone. A delicious shiver, perhaps fueled somewhat by the frigid, stale air, wiggled her around in her cloak. Crossing her arms, she rubbed at them and looked around her. A one-room cottage with windows on three sides.
Having now thoroughly taken in her surroundings, Hannah laughed out loud at herself. Now what? She sighted on a rick of stacked firewood. And there, on the mantel—a tinderbox and sulphur matches. No, she didn’t intend to be out here that long. Nor did she want the smoke to be seen from the mansion, for surely curiosity would bring her a visitor.
A sudden vision of rippling muscles under a white shirt, sculpted thighs encased in close-fitting breeches, and snapping black eyes fringed by dark lashes assailed her. As if retreating from his physical presence, Hannah stepped over to a large window which looked out on the pond. Woodbridge Pond? Fascinated, she watched as the wind whipped the water up into lunging, foamy waves that attacked the rocky shore. Lost in the sights before her, Hannah’s unguarded mind again conjured up images of Slade.
So tall and handsome. It seemed the man was always in her thoughts—even when he wasn’t bedeviling her with his presence. She saw him laughing at her. She saw him angered and bellowing. She saw him leaning over her on the bed, threatening her. She saw him protecting her, his hand at her elbow. She saw his gentleness with Pemberton, his kindnesses to Olivia. Then, Hannah saw him kissing her neck, and felt again his arms around her—
The metallic sound of the latch opening, coupled with a blast of cold air as the door flew open, whipped Hannah around. Slade. Hannah stilled, barely breathing, her heart pounding. Coatless, rain-dampened from head to toe, his hair wind-tousled, he filled the doorway, quietly holding her gaze. A blowing leaf flew crazily around between them on a puff of wind. The white sheets covering the furniture billowed out, as did her cape.
The moment lingered. Her awareness of him, like an arcing bolt of lightning, dried her mouth, made her womb feel heavy and soft. He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. All without speaking or breaking the spell. He then just stood there, staring at her. His expression, so open, so naked, struck a responsive chord in Hannah. A frown claimed her features. She had the oddest feeling that she should reach her hand out to him. No. With every ounce of her strength, she resisted the impulse.
Shifting his weight, Slade ran a hand through his black hair and then swiped his sleeve over his rain-soaked face. Hannah drank in his every movement. And realized his presence warmed her like no fire could. Then, he made an abrupt movement, reaching a hand out to her. As if he … knew. But knew what? Hannah could do nothing more than stare at his hand. Slowly, he lowered it. “What are you doing out here, Hannah? You’ll catch your death.”
The spell burst, popping into thin air.
“Me? What about you? At least I have on my cloak.” Hannah turned her back to him. She stared out at the wheeling gulls above the churning water. Slanting a look back at him, she said, “I came out here for the fresh air. And for the time alone.”
“I see. Before I interfere any further, are you armed?”
Hannah turned back to the window. “No. I left my pistol in the house.”
“Good.” His footsteps sounded on the bare floor. He came into her view on her left and then promptly performed an about-face. Bracing his hands on a waist-high table, he effortlessly pulled himself up to sit on it. With his legs spread, his booted feet dangling above the ground, he rested his hands on his thighs. Only mere inches from Hannah now, he faced her as she stared out the window. “You want me to leave?”
Hannah took a deep breath, preparatory to telling him that yes, obviously she wanted him to leave. But instead, his damp, warm, and musky smell assaulted her senses, tightening her stomach muscles. “It’s your property. Suit yourself.”
“Well then, it suits me to stay—until I’m sure you’re all right.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Hannah darted him the barest of glimpses before she resumed her quiet staring out the window. But her gaze was the only thing about her that wasn’t focused on him. An invisible thread, stronger than any spider’s silken web, seemed to be tugging her toward him. She gritted her teeth, resisting his pull.
“Why wouldn’t you be? Well, that was quite an interesting tea we just had, for one thing. And interesting doesn’t begin to cover Isabel and her ancient servants. But perhaps you should know I was sent to check on you.”
Hannah frowned at him. “Who sent you?”
“Isabel. Pemberton. Rowena and Serafina. Mrs. Edgars—she’s our cook. Even Olivia interrupted my reading to let me know—”
“Good Lord, the entire household? Why?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders, rippling his damp and clinging shirt over the hard muscles underneath. “Because Isabel’s told them all you’re to be the next Mrs. Garrett. So they’ve taken you to heart. Then, when they saw you come outside, they informed me I was to come see about you.”
“And here you are. Do you always do everything they tell you?”
Gr
inning, he raised an eyebrow at her. “Don’t you?”
She thought about it and laughed with him. “I guess I do.”
This was amazing. She was actually having a friendly conversation with him. Even though her mutinous eyes insisted on lowering to stare at his crisp and curling black chest hair, just visible through his damp shirt. And darned if she didn’t have her mental hands full trying to keep her eyes from roaming lower. When she realized she was staring … lower, she snapped her head up.
And met the sensuous light in his black eyes. Near to a panic now, she stumbled on. “I don’t know what to make of your grandmother. I would think she’d toss me out the door. After all, I’m … well, if not an enemy, at the least I’m a relative of very bad neighbors.”
“At the very least.” He crossed his arms, giving her a considering stare.
Hannah felt he looked at her as if he were wondering how best to dispose of her body. In the ensuing quiet, sharp needles of rain pelted at the windows. Determined gusts of wind rattled the panes, as if some spirit desperately tried to gain her attention. To warn her? And if so—warn her of what? She blurted out the first distracting thing that came to her mind. “At least you didn’t bring Esmerelda.”
Slade relaxed into a slouching position. “She has more sense than to come outside on a day like this.”
Hannah crossed her arms over her cloak-covered bosom. “Aren’t you the one out here without a coat? At least I had sense enough to protect myself against the weather.”
Amusement softened the lines and angles of his face. He touched two fingers to his temple in a mocking salute to her. “Point taken. Let’s just say my concern for your well-being made me forget my own.”
Hannah chuckled at his outrageousness. “I hardly think so. We both know better than that, Mr. Garrett.”
“Do we?” His smile faltered at the edges, and a look she couldn’t interpret flashed over his face. But then just as suddenly it was gone. “Call me Slade. I’ve asked you to twice already.”
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