Rules of Attraction Read Online Free PDF Page A

with very little effort he could reach out and touch her. If she weren't careful, he would touch her, and her skin would flush and her blood heat, and how long could she conceal her body's response from him? "Charles knows what?" she repeated.
    "Everything."
    "Of course," she said bitterly. "You would never keep a secret from Charles."
    "Yes." He loosened the buttons on his black-silk waistcoat. "I would."
    Alarm rioted through her veins. His white shirt was shut to his throat, his cravat and collar securely fastened, but the sight of him making himself comfortable recalled other times. Earlier times when she sat on his knee and opened his clothing and to his chest and dark curling hair, and he would have to lock the door to keep out any intruders… she took a shuddering breath. She never thought she would say such a thing, but thank God for Charles and the incoming meal!
    Cautiously, she asked the first of her questions. "How did you find me?"
    "The money."
    She bit her lip. She had been afraid of that. "The money I sent to pay you back for my education?"
    "For that reason, I am grateful for it." He didn't look grateful. He looked incensed. "As for the cash, it was given to charities."
    "I didn't care what you did with it. I had sworn I would pay that debt somehow, and when I could, I did."
    "And I told you a wife does not reimburse her husband as if he were a dependent."
    "I owed you," she said stubbornly. "I was supposed to pay you with children and companionship, and I did not."
    "Yet."
    That one short word hung like a sword over her head. Did he imagine she had learned meekness in the years she'd been away? Or was he simply willing to call forth the fullness of the law to force her to return to him as his wife?
    Moreover, no matter how she wished to, she couldn't board the train and ride away. Not just because he would stop her. He would, of course, but she had outwitted him before and although it would be more difficult this time, she could do it again.
    No, she had a mission in Lancashire. She had to stay here until she'd found what she sought. So she sparred with Dougald and hoped that when she escaped him she would do so unscathed. "So that is your plan for me? That I should become your wife once more and give you children and companionship?"
    "My wife is dead, or so they say. How ever would we explain that?"
    He hadn't answered her question. Wretched man, he was determined to make her wiggle like a worm on a hook. "A great many things would have to change before I once again took my place as your wife."
    "I agree, but I daresay what you think and what I think should change are entirely different things ."
    "What you and I thought about anything was always different, my lord. To that we can attribute the failure of our marriage."
    "Dougald Pippard does not fail."
    "There." She pointed at him. "That's exactly what I mean. To you, this marriage is yours and yours alone. Never mind that I make up the other half of it."
    Dougald observed the finger pointed at him, and with a lazy flip of the hand, said, "You are quite correct. Better that I had said, 'Dougald Pippard and his wife do not fail.'"
    That was not better, and he knew it. "I am not simply a part of you, indistinguishable from your being," she said. "I have a name."
    "Indeed you do. Mrs. Dougald Pippard. Or rather I should say— Lady Raeburn."
    "Hannah," she said through gritted teeth. "My name is Hannah."
    He ignored her. "In the eyes of the law, you are indistinguishable from me. Mine to do with as I wish."
    A threat again. Not physical this time, but a threat nonetheless. Always before, he had manipulated, maneuvered and intimidated her into the place he wanted her to occupy. Either he had decided subtlety was wasted on her, or the years had hardened him. "I was never yours to do with as you wished. If you for one moment imagined that, then I must again say it is no surprise that our marriage failed." She waited with what she thought was admirable calm for