Rules of Attraction by Christina Dodd Read Free Book Online Page B

Dougald's pleasure, and used her to entice him away from sin and into holy wedlock. The Almighty's plan had worked almost too well, for when she left him, she took with her every delight. She left only darkness.
    Luckily, he dwelt well in darkness. He plotted to overcome the past. He planned for the future. And every scheme had worked, for she sat before him now. "If I had a doubt, it was that I could frighten you into giving up your precious Distinguished Academy of Governesses. After all, it offered what our marriage did not— work, and more work."
    "You dare." She viewed him as if he were a monster… wise woman, for the years of loneliness and disgrace had created a monster within him. "Dare to accuse me of your own sins. You also worked, my dear. Worked endlessly while expecting me to allow you to care for me."
    "Like a wife!" The heat with which he answered surprised him. He hadn't indulged in such useless indignation for years.
    "Like a feeble-minded incompetent," she shot back at him.
    "Your mother spoiled you for leisure."
    Her voice rose. "She worked all the time, and I wanted to help her!"
    He shifted in his chair, wanting to demand she see matters his way, knowing the futility of ever having Hannah see reason. "I know. Your desire was admirable. Your ability to adapt to my desires was not."
    "Mother taught me that work is virtue. That truth did not change because my circumstances did."
    "And you have spent your life chasing after virtue like a kitten after an elusive butterfly." Dougald leaned his head back and watched her through slitted eyes. "Yet you abandoned your marriage and disregarded your wedding vows. Where's the virtue in that?"
    She twined her shaking fingers together. "No more virtue than seducing an eighteen-year-old girl."
    "You were eighteen and leaving me. Seduction was the fastest way to get control of you."
    "Ah. Seduction saved you the time you would have spent on courtship." She bit off the words. "An admirable shortcut, my lord."
    He laughed, a brief, hard laugh, and used his knowledge to hurt her. "I didn't have to seduce you. I didn't have to be so kind. I had already bought you— from your mother. Remember?"
     
     

5
    D ougald had never been cruel before. He had been manipulative, unscrupulous, and thoughtless, but never had he taunted Hannah with the desperate events that had brought her to him. "My mother didn't sell me to you. She placed me with you. There is a distinction." Hannah took a breath, trying to ease the constriction in her chest. "I considered myself one of your philanthropic undertakings. You had so many."
    He shrugged. He had never talked about the people he helped— the orphans he had placed with families, the women he had found jobs for, the men he had trained.
    "Besides, what else was my mother to do?" Hannah's voice trembled as she remembered that dreadful time. "She was dying."
    "Exactly. She did the best she could for you in the circumstances." He sat so still, watching her, weighing her reactions, seeing the sorrow the memory of her mother still brought her. "And you are wrong. She knew exactly what I wanted from you. She and Grandmama set it up between them."
    She couldn't help but mock him. "But you, you poor little thing, didn't realize their plan."
    "Indeed I did. They told me they had arranged a marriage for me with you. You were thirteen then, a pleasant child, handsome. Your mother was of good Lancastrian stock, and she assured us your father, also, had been healthy and of sound mind. Although the particulars of your birth were not savory, illegitimacy was not a great enough matter to disrupt our plans."
    She had never heard the story of her betrothal. Not quite like this. Not explained so bluntly, so indifferently, without the patina of regard to ease the dose. "I still don't understand why an adult man would allow his grandmother to make a match for him."
    "Arranged marriages are a tradition in the Pippard family. They are always successful." His mouth