Relentless Lord (5 page)

Chapter Seven

Hannah claimed the first opportunity she came across to retire early that night. She occasionally felt Lord Whitely watching her after their stroll, but she refused to glance his way again. The man had managed to make her already conflicted feelings even more complicated.

She had come to England to please her parents. They felt it important once she reached marriageable age that she have the opportunity to meet proper English gentlemen. Hannah had known the moment she was first presented to her uncle she would not be the success her parents envisioned. But she had been determined to do her duty and experience a full Season before returning home. After only a few weeks, she wondered why she’d even bothered.

Her debut was a dismal failure.

And now, she also had the disconcerting attention of Lord Whitely to contend with.

The more she tried to ignore him, the less she wanted to. Although a great deal of her internal conflict came from the rather intense physical attraction she felt for the man, the rest had to do with the fact that she was coming to appreciate his humor, his easy manner and the way he made her feel. She was more relaxed and like herself in his company than she had been in the last two years.

After changing into a lawn nightdress and brushing out the length of her hair, Hannah stretched out on her bed. Her thoughts were in turmoil over the feelings she was developing for a very improper gentleman, but the night was warm and deep. Sleep claimed her with little effort.

It could not have been much later when Hannah was abruptly brought back into full wakefulness. Tension slid along her limbs, but she did not alter the pattern of her breath nor move a muscle beyond a tightening of her hand beneath her pillow. Something had stirred her from her sleep. She was just not sure yet what it was.

She listened for a moment. There it was again, a light scratching at the door and a murmured, “Hannah.”

It sounded like Beatrice.

Hannah swept from the bed and went quickly to open her bedroom door. Her cousin stood in the hall, still dressed in her evening gown and wringing her hands as though she would twist them off.

“Oh, thank goodness, Hannah, you have to help me,” she muttered while her eyes darted desperately down the hall.

“Beatrice, what is it?”

Her cousin keened softly. “Something awful. Just dreadful. I need your help.”

The woman was distressed beyond reason. “Come in, Beatrice,” Hannah replied in an even tone, hoping to calm her. “We will talk about it. I am sure whatever it is, there is a reasonable solution.”

“No!” Beatrice reached out to wrap her long fingers around Hannah’s wrist. “You have to come with me. Immediately.”

She began to tug violently on Hannah’s arm.

“Wait, I must fetch a robe.”

“No time,” Beatrice insisted, choking on a sob. “It is just horrible. Please, you have to help me.”

Alarmed at her cousin’s odd behavior, Hannah allowed herself to be pulled down the hallway, hoping they were just going to her cousin’s bedroom.

They were not.

Beatrice kept a death grip around Hannah’s wrist as she tugged her all the way down the hall to a servant’s stairway at the back of the house. Down they went to the ground floor, Beatrice shushing Hannah every time she tried to question what had happened or where they were going.

They continued along a narrow, darkened corridor, one that looked similar to the one Hannah had gotten lost in the night she’d met Lord Whitely. Hannah rushed along behind Beatrice, her bare feet making barely a sound. Wearing only her nightdress with her hair falling free down her back, she was grateful for the lack of light as they made their way past a series of rooms that opened off the corridor. She had no idea if it was late enough to assume everyone was asleep and sent a silent wish that they would not have the misfortune to encounter anyone.

A faint glow could be seen up ahead, signaling the end of the corridor. Beatrice stopped in front of a room several paces from the reach of light. She finally released Hannah’s hand and pointed into the unlit room.

“There. You have to see for yourself.”

Hannah couldn’t help but be suspicious of her cousin’s motives. Beatrice had not exactly been a friend to her since she arrived in England. But as she glanced at her cousin’s pale face, nearly twitching in her anxiety, she knew she would have to at least take a look. She could not imagine it was anything truly awful.

“Are you coming with me?” she asked.

Beatrice shook her head and backed away, saying in a quivering whisper, “I cannot.”

Hannah nearly rolled her eyes, but she knew that if she were ever to get back to her bed, she was going to have to play this out.

Hannah entered the room. A pair of tall windows allowed the faintest shimmer of moonlight into the space. Since Hannah’s eyes were already accustomed to the darkness, it was more than enough to see that she was in a sort of music room. She scanned the shadows for some evidence of what had so distressed Beatrice. All was silent and still, with nothing seemingly out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing that could have caused such a panic in her cousin.

To be sure, Hannah decided to make a full circle of the room before returning to Beatrice to ease her cousin’s mind and find out specifically what had roused the other woman’s fright.

Just as she came around the piano set in the far corner, she sensed a shift in the room. She looked back toward the doorway and stopped suddenly at the sight of Lord Whitely.

Tilting her head, Hannah scowled. “What on earth…?”

He came forward, and though Hannah’s skin tingled and the hairs on her arms rose, it was not from fear. Rather it was the sort of magnetic attraction she had come to expect whenever in the company of this man.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in a harsh whisper.

His steps hesitated and his open expression shifted into one of bewilderment. “What do you mean? You sent me a note, asking me to meet you.”

She shook her head. “No, I did not,” she muttered. The truth hit Hannah like a searing arrow to her center. “Beatrice.”

What trouble had her cousin concocted now?

Hannah rushed forward, intending to brush past Lord Whitely to confront her cousin, who had conveniently disappeared.

He caught her arm at the last moment, drawing her to an abrupt stop at his side. “Wait. Listen,” he whispered into her ear.

Hannah ignored the way contact with his body sent a shiver of pleasure through her. Now was not the time to allow her wayward desire to interfere. Blocking the sound of her swiftly beating heart, she finally detected the sound of approaching voices and recognized her uncle’s heavy tone.

She looked up at Lord Whitely, panic infusing her blood, urging her to run. His gaze was trained on the open doorway, the muscles of his jaw repeatedly clenched and released.

The voices neared and Hannah heard her uncle say, “I do not appreciate this rude interruption, Beatrice. What could you possibly have to show me?”

“You will see, Papa,” Beatrice replied with a rushed urgency.

Hannah could picture her deceptive cousin trying to rush Lord Tremaine down the hall. But Hannah’s uncle was not easily manipulated. He would be walking with his typical sedate pace regardless of Beatrice’s urging.

Hannah’s gaze darted about. There may still be time for her to get out of this.

If she could just find a place to hide.

Whitely tightened his hand around her arm as he stepped around to face her. “Hannah,” he whispered.

Something in his voice sent a shiver through her center. She pushed her hair back from her face and looked up to meet his eyes. She had never seen such a serious expression on his face. Her heart stopped for a breath.

“It is too late,” he murmured just as Hannah’s uncle stepped into the doorway.

“What is the meaning of this?” he bellowed. “Hannah?”

She could not move. She knew exactly what her uncle saw. A young woman, barely dressed, standing in intimate proximity with a man known for seducing innocents. Her stomach twisted. Beatrice had warned her, hadn’t she?

Anger and frustration clutched at her.

“Step away from my niece, Lord Whitely.”

He did, but not before he whipped off his coat and drew it around Hannah’s shoulders to provide her with at least that bit of modesty. She automatically gripped the lapels to hold the coat secure. It still held the warmth of his body and carried the essence of his scent. For some reason, that gave her a reminder of herself.

She would not be cowed by this moment.

Another of her father’s rules came to mind.
When disaster strikes, as it sometime must, remain unbroken. Calmly assess the damage, make a plan and then execute it.

As Whitely stepped back, she turned to face her uncle. She refused to allow her gaze to drift even momentarily toward Beatrice, who hovered behind her father.

Hannah had no idea her cousin was such an accomplished actress.

Lifting her chin, Hannah waited for her uncle to speak.

“Go with Beatrice back to your room. You are not to leave, do you understand? I will speak with you in the morning.”

“Yes, Uncle.”

Hannah walked past him into the hallway. She ignored her cousin as she strode swiftly down the narrow hall to the stairs she and Beatrice had come down only minutes earlier. But Beatrice would not be ignored. She fairly danced along beside her. Finally, Hannah could take no more. “Why?” she asked bluntly.

“You never should have made your debut during
my
season. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be constantly known for having such an odd cousin? You are all anyone talks about. It has been dreadful.”

“So you sought to ruin me?” Hannah asked, incredulous over how someone could be so devious.

“Oh, you were doing that already on your own, dear cousin. I simply hastened the inevitable end. Whitely of course will refuse to do the honorable thing as he has so many times before. And you will be married off to some poor sop willing to take damaged goods. I will have the rest of the season to myself. It is perfect.”

They had reached Hannah’s bedroom. She couldn’t hold in the anger frothing beneath the surface any longer. She turned and met Beatrice’s smug grin.

“Beatrice, you are a bitch,” she said simply before she closed the door in her cousin’s outraged face.

The crude words gave her some satisfaction, but not nearly enough. Stalking across her bedroom, she tossed Whitely’s coat onto her bed and lit some candles.

She was not going to stick around to be humiliated by some forced sense of morality when she had done absolutely nothing wrong.

She stalked to the wardrobe, pulled out an armful of gowns and dropped them on the bed next to the borrowed coat. Then she stomped over to her luggage trunk, which had gratefully been left in a corner of the room. She grabbed the leather handle on one end, hauled it out and began tossing her gowns in one at a time.

She would need to get a servant’s help to carry the thing downstairs once it was packed. And she would need to ask for the use of a carriage to take her to the village. She had some pocket money. Hopefully, it would be enough to buy a seat on a coach traveling to London. Once there, she would have to visit her uncle’s solicitor if she were to obtain the funds for passage on a ship leaving England.

That may prove to be difficult if her uncle refused to release the money, but she would deal with that obstacle when and if she reached it.

She never should have allowed her parents to convince her to come to England. It had been a disaster from day one. Tonight proved it. She did not belong here.

Hannah whipped around the room, collecting her possessions and tossing them into the trunk. In her irritation, she was unmindful of their care. Her only thought was on getting the task done and now.

“You will never get everything to fit if you continue to pack like that.”

At the sound of Whitely’s voice, Hannah spun around with a startled jump.

He had somehow managed to enter her room and close the door behind him without her notice. Seeing him in her bedroom—still in his evening wear sans coat, his mouth curved in amusement, his eyes so vividly green they seemed for a moment to light the room—Hannah acknowledged once again her fierce attraction for him. It was strong enough to distract her from her current purpose. Potent enough to slice through her anger.

The tension suddenly released from her shoulders and spine, making her slouch. She dropped the hairbrush she had been holding into the trunk before pushing the wild fall of her hair back over her shoulders.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“Me? Oh, I just came for my coat,” he answered with a casual swagger as he walked toward her.

Hannah watched him, the emotions that had been crowding her chest now tightening in her belly. “You should not be here.”

He arched his brows. “Afraid I’ll ruin you?”

She laughed. It was a high, nervous laugh that did nothing to ease the wash of awareness claiming her. It was as if all of her anger and disappointment took a sharp turn in his presence. The heat coursing through her now had nothing to do with her previous frustration and everything to do with desire.

She felt a bit mad in that moment and honestly did not care. In fact, she rather welcomed it.

“Yes,” she admitted. “I suppose that ship has sailed, hasn’t it?” She lifted her chin. “What did you say to my uncle?”

“Not much. It is you I would prefer to talk to.”

“Does he know you are here?”

“No.”

He had been slowly approaching her as they spoke. As he answered her last question, his attention dipped below her chin. Wonderfully intricate sensations trickled through her body in reaction to the change in his expression and the intent light that entered his gaze.

The ties at the neck of her lawn nightdress had loosened while she had been flying about the room. The gown had slid off her shoulder to catch on the upper swell of her breast.

She remained still as stone while he lifted his hand. She thought for a second he would replace the gown where it had slipped from her shoulder, but the moment his fingers brushed her bare skin, he seemed to change his mind.