Almost Heaven Part 26

"Miss Elizabeth," the footman pointedly informed Ian, "does not know how to cook. She has always been much too busy to learn."

Ian endured that reprimand without retort because he was thoroughly enjoying Elizabeth's relaxed mood. and because she had actually been teasing him. As the huffy footman departed, however, Ian glanced at Jordan and saw his narrowed gaze on the man's back, then he looked at Elizabeth, who was obviously embarra.s.sed.

"They think they're acting out of loyalty to me," she explained. "They-well, they recognize your name from before. I'll speak to them."

"I'd appreciate that, " Ian said with amused irritation. To Jordan he added, "Elizabeth's butler always tries to send me packing. "

"Can he hear?" Jordan asked unsympathetically.

"Hear?" Ian repeated. "Of course he can." "Then count yourself lucky," Jordan replied irritably, and the girls dissolved into gales of laughter.

"The Townsendes' butler, Penrose, is quite deaf, you see," Elizabeth explained.

Dinner progressed among bursts of merriment and revelations about both Alexandra and Elizabeth that amazed Ian, including the fact that Alexandra was evidently as handy with a rapier as Elizabeth was with a pistol. So entertaining was Elizabeth that Ian found himself ignoring his very satisfactory meal and simply lounging back in his chair, watching her with a mixture of amus.e.m.e.nt and pride. She sparkled like the wine in their crystal gla.s.ses, glowed like the candles in the centerpiece, and when she laughed, music floated through the room. With the instincts of a natural hostess she drew everyone into each topic of conversation, until even Jordan and Ian were partic.i.p.ating in the raillery. But best of all, she was at ease in Ian's presence. Artless and elegant and sweet, she turned to him and teased him, or smiled at something he said, or listened attentively to an opinion. She wasn't ready to trust him yet, but she wasn't that far away from it, he sensed.

After dinner the ladies adhered to custom and adjourned to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to enjoy their port and cigars at the table.

"Ian was lighting a cigar the first moment I saw him," Elizabeth confided to Alex when they were comfortably seated in the drawing room. Glancing up, she saw the worried frown on Alexandra's face, and after a moment she quietly said, "You don't like him, do you?"

Alex's gaze flew to hers while the faint disappointment in. Elizabeth's voice registered on her. "I-I don't like the things he's done to you," she admitted.

Tipping her head back, Elizabeth closed her eyes, trying' to know what to say, what to think. A long time ago Ian had told her he was half in love with her, yet now that they were betrothed he'd never spoken a word of it. had not even pretended. She wasn't certain of his motives or his feelings; she wasn't certain of her own, either. All she really knew was that the sight of his hard, handsome face with its chiseled features, and bold amber eyes never failed to make her entire being feel tense and alive. She knew he liked to kiss her, and that she very much liked being kissed by him. Added to his other attractions was something else that drew her inexorably to him. From their very first meeting, Elizabeth had sensed that beneath his bland sophistication and rugged virility Ian Thornton had a depth that most people lacked. "It's so hard to know," she whispered, "how I ought to feel or what I ought to think. And I have the worst feeling it's not going to matter what I know or what I think, " she3dded almost sadly, "because I am going to love him." She opened her eyes and looked at Alex. "It's happening, and I cannot stop it. It was happening two years ago, and I couldn't stop it then, either. So you see," she added with a sad little smile, "it would be so much nicer for me if you could love him just a little, too."

Alex reached across the table and took Elizabeth's hands in hers. "If you love him, then he must be the very best of men. I shall henceforth make it a point to see all his best qualities!" Alex hesitated, and then she hazarded the question: "Elizabeth, does he love you?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "He wants me, he says, and he wants children."

Alex swallowed embarra.s.sed laughter. "He what?" "He wants me, and he wants children."

A funny, knowing smile tugged at Alexandra's lips. "You didn't tell me he said the first part. I am much encouraged," she teased while a rosy blush stole over her cheeks.

"I think I am, too," Elizabeth admitted, drawing a swift, searching look from Alex.

"Elizabeth, this is scarcely the time to discuss this-in fact," Alex added, her flush deepening. "I don't think there is a really good time to discuss it-but has Lucinda explained to you how children are conceived?"

"Yes, of course," Elizabeth said without hesitation. "Good, because I would have been the logical one otherwise, and I still remember my reaction when I found out. It was not a pretty sight, " she laughed. "On the other hand, you were always much the wiser girl than I."

"I don't think so at all," Elizabeth said, but she couldn't imagine what there was, really, to blush about. Children, Lucinda had told her when she'd asked. were conceived when a husband kissed his wife in bed. And it hurt the first time. Ian's kisses were sometimes almost bruising, but they never actually hurt, and she enjoyed them terribly As if speaking her feelings aloud to Alexandra had somehow relieved her of the burden of trying to deal with them, Elizabeth was so joyously relaxed that she suspected Ian noticed it at once when the men joined them in the drawing room.

Ian did notice it; in fact, as they sat down to playa game of cards in accordance with Elizabeth's cheery suggestion, he noticed there was a subtle but distinct softening in the att.i.tudes of both ladies toward him.

"Will you shuffle and deal?" Elizabeth asked. He nodded, and she handed the deck of cards to him, then watched in rapt fascination as the cards seemed to leap to life in Ian's hands, flying together with a whoosh and snap, then sliding out in neat little piles that flew together again beneath his fingers. "What would you like to play?" he asked her.

"I would like to see you cheat," Elizabeth said impulsively, smiling at him.

His hands stilled, his eyes intent on her face. "I beg your pardon?"

"What I meant," she hastily explained as he continued to idly shuffle the cards, watching her, "is that night in the card room at Charise's there was mention of someone being able to deal a card from the bottom of the deck, and I've always wondered if you could, if it could . ." She trailed off, belatedly realizing she was insulting him and that his narrowed, speculative gaze proved that she'd made it sound as if she believed him to be dishonest at cards. "I beg your pardon," she said quietly. "That was truly awful of me."

Ian accepted her apology with a curt nod, and when Alex hastily interjected, "Why don't we use the chips for a shilling each," he wordlessly and immediately dealt the cards.

Too embarra.s.sed even to look at him, Elizabeth bit her lip and picked up her hand.

In it there were four kings.

Her gaze flew to Ian, but he was lounging back in his chair, studying his own cards.

She won three shillings and was pleased as could be. He pa.s.sed the deck to her, but Elizabeth shook her bead. "I don't like to deal. I always drop the cards, which Celton says is very irritating. Would you mind dealing for me?"

"Not at all." Ian said dispa.s.sionately, and Elizabeth realized with a sinking heart that he was still annoyed with her.

"Who is Celton?" Jordan inquired. "Celton is a groom with whom I play cards," Elizabeth explained unhappily, picking up her hand.

In it there were four aces. She knew it then, and laughter and relief trembled on her lips as she lifted her face and stared at her betrothed. There was not a sign, not so much as a hint anywhere on his perfectly composed features that anything unusual had been happening.

Lounging indolently in his chair, he quirked an indifferent brow and said, "Do you want to discard and draw more cards, Elizabeth?"

"Yes," she replied, swallowing her mirth, "I would like one more ace to go with the ones I have."

"There are only four," be explained mildly, and with such convincing blandness that Elizabeth whooped with laughter and dropped her cards. "You are a complete charlatan!" she gasped when she could finally speak, but her face was aglow with admiration.

"Thank you, darling," he replied tenderly. "I'm happy to know your opinion of me is already improving."

The laughter froze in Elizabeth's chest, replaced by warmth that quaked through her from head to foot. Gentlemen did not speak such tender endearments in front of other people, if at all. "I'm a Scot," he'd whispered huskily to her long ago. "We do." The Townsendes had launched into swift, laughing conversation after a moment of stunned silence following his words, and it was just as well, because Elizabeth could not tear her gaze from Ian, could not seem to move. And in that endless moment when their gazes held, Elizabeth had an almost overwhelming desire to fling herself into his arms. He saw it, too, and the answering expression in his eyes made her feel she was melting.

"It occurs to me, Ian," Jordan joked a moment later, gently breaking their spell, "that we are wasting our time with honest pursuits."

Ian's gaze shifted reluctantly from Elizabeth's face, and then he smiled inquisitively at Jordan. "What did you have in mind?" he asked, shoving the deck toward Jordan while Elizabeth put back her unjustly won chips.

"With your skill at dealing whatever hand you want, we could gull half of London. If any of our victims had the temerity to object, Alex could run him through with her rapier, and Elizabeth could shoot him before he hit the ground."

Ian chuckled. "Not a bad idea. What would your role be?" "Breaking us out of Newgate!" Elizabeth laughed. "Exactly."

After Ian left for the Greenleaf Inn, where he planned to stop for the night before continuing the trip to his own home, Elizabeth stayed downstairs to put out the candles and tidy up the drawing room. In one of the guest chambers above, Jordan glanced at his wife's faint, preoccupied smile and suppressed a knowing grin. "Now what do you think of the Marquess of Kensington?" he asked.

Her eyes were shining as she lifted them to his. "I think," she softly said, "that unless he does something dreadful, I'm prepared to believe he could truly be your cousin."

"Thank you, darling," Jordan replied tenderly, paraphrasing Ian's words. "I'm happy to see your opinion of him is already improving."

Chapter 26.

Elizabeth was undeniably eager to see Ian again, and more than a little curious about the sort of house he lived in. He'd told her he had purchased Montmayne last year with his own money, and, after being with him in Scotland, she rather imagined a ruggedly built manor house would suit him. On the one hand it seemed a foolish waste not to live at Havenhurst, which would offer them every convenience, but she understood that Ian's pride would suffer if he had to live with her in her home.

She'd left Lucinda behind at the inn where they'd spent the night, and the coach had been traveling for more than two hours when Aaron finally turned off the road and pulled to a smart stop at a pair of ma.s.sive iron gates that blocked their entry. Elizabeth glanced nervously out the window, saw the imposing entry, and reached the obvious conclusion that either they were in the wrong place or Aaron had pulled into the drive to ask directions. A gatekeeper emerged from the ornate little house beside the gates, and Elizabeth waited to hear what Aaron said.

"The Countess of Havenhurst," Aaron was informing the gatekeeper.

In shock, Elizabeth watched through the open window of the coach as the gatekeeper nodded and then walked over to the gates. The ma.s.sive iron portals opened soundlessly on well-oiled hinges, and Aaron drove through as the gatekeeper was swinging them closed. Twisting her gloves in her hands, Elizabeth gazed out the window as the coach made its way along an endless, curving drive that wound through manicured parkland, offering a scenic view of an estate that surpa.s.sed anything Elizabeth had ever seen. Rolling hills dotted with lush trees bounded the estate on three sides, and a beautiful stream bubbled merrily beneath a stone bridge as the horses clattered across it.

Ahead of her the house came into view, and Elizabeth could not stop her exclamation at the exquisite beauty she beheld spread out before her. A majestic three-story house with two wings angled forward on the sides stretched out before her. Sunlight glinted on the large panes of gla.s.s that marched across its front; wide flights of shallow, terraced brick steps led from the drive to the ma.s.sive front door, with stone urns containing clipped shrubs on both sides of every four steps. Swans drifted lazily on the mirror surface of a lake on the far end of the lawn, and beside the lake was a Grecian-style gazebo with white columns that was so immense a quarter of her own home could have fit inside it The sheer magnitude of the grounds, combined with the precise positioning of every single scenic attribute, made it all seem both overwhelming and utterly breathtaking.

The coach finally drew up before the terraced steps, and four footmen descended, garbed in burgundy and gold They helped a dazed Elizabeth to alight, and, positioning themselves on either side of her like an honor guard, they escorted her to the house.

A butler opened a ma.s.sive front door and bowed to her and Elizabeth stepped into a magnificent marble entryway with a gla.s.s ceiling three stories above. Entranced, she looked about her, trying to a.s.similate what was happening. , "My lord is in his study with guests who arrived unexpectedly," the butler said, drawing Elizabeth's gaze from the graceful, curving Palladian staircases that swept upward on both sides of the great hall. "He asked that you be escorted to him the moment you arrived."

Elizabeth smiled uncertainly and followed him down a marble hallway, where he paused before a pair of polished double doors with ornate bra.s.s handles and knocked. Without waiting for an answer he opened the door. Elizabeth automatically started forward three steps, then halted, mesmerized. An acre of thick Aubusson carpet stretched across the book-lined room, and at the far end of it, seated behind a ma.s.sive baronial desk with his shirtsleeves folded up on tanned forearms, was the man who had lived in the little cottage in Scotland and shot at a tree limb with her.

Oblivious to the other three men in the room who were politely coming to their feet, Elizabeth watched Ian arise with that same natural grace that seemed so much a part of him. With a growing sense of unreality she heard him excuse himself to his visitors, saw him move away from behind his desk, and watched him start toward her with long, purposeful strides. He grew larger as he neared, his broad shoulders blocking her view of the room, his amber eyes searching her face, his smile one of amus.e.m.e.nt and uncertainty. "Elizabeth?" he said.

Her eyes wide with embarra.s.sed admiration, Elizabeth allowed him to lift her hand to his lips before she said softly, "I could kill you."

He grinned at the contrast between her words and her voice. "I know."

"You might have told me." "I hoped to surprise you." More correctly, he had hoped she didn't know, and now he had his proof. Just as he had thought, Elizabeth had agreed to marry him without knowing anything of his personal wealth. That expression of dazed disbelief on her face had been real. He'd needed to see it for himself, which was why he'd instructed his butler to bring her to him as soon as she arrived. Ian had his proof, and with it came the knowledge that no matter how much she refused to admit it to him or to herself, she loved him.

She could insist for now and all time that all she wanted from marriage was independence, and now Ian could endure it with equanimity. Because she loved him.

Elizabeth watched the expressions play across his face. Thinking he was waiting for her to say more about his splendid house, she gave him a jaunty smile and teasingly said, "'Twill be a sacrifice, to be sure, but I shall contrive to endure the hardship of living in such a place as this, How many rooms are there?" she asked.

His brows rose in mockery. "One hundred and eighty-two."

"A small place of modest proportions," she countered lightly. "I suppose we'll just have to make do."

Ian thought they were going to do very well.

He finished his meeting a few minutes later and almost rudely ejected his business acquaintances from his library, then he went in search of Elizabeth.

"She is out in the gardens, my lord," his butler informed him. A short while later Ian strolled out the French doors and started down the balcony steps to join her. She was bending down and snapping a withered rosebud from its stem. "It only hurts for a moment," she told the bush, "and it's for your own good. You'll see." With an embarra.s.sed , little smile she looked up at him. "It's a habit," she explained.

"It obviously works," he said with a tender smile, looking at the way the flowers bloomed about her skirts. ; "How can you tell?"

"Because," he said quietly as she stood up, "until you walked into it, this was an ordinary garden." Puzzled, Elizabeth tipped her head. "What is it now?" "Heaven."

Elizabeth's breath caught in her chest at the husky timbre of his voice and the desire in his eyes. He held out his hand to her, and, without realizing what she was doing, she lifted her hand and gave it to him, then she walked straight into his arms. For one breathless moment his smoldering eyes studied her face feature by feature while the pressure of his arms slowly increased, and then he bent his head. His sensual mouth claimed hers in a kiss of violent tenderness and tormenting desire while his hands slid over the sides of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and Elizabeth felt all her resistance, all her will, begin to crumble and disintegrate, and she kissed him back with her whole heart.

All the love that had been acc.u.mulating through the lonely years of her childhood was in that kiss-Ian felt it in the soft lips parting willingly for his searching tongue, the delicate hands sliding through the hair at his nape. With unselfish ardor she offered it all to him, and Ian took it hungrily, feeling it moving from her to him, then flowing through his veins and mingling with his until the joy of it was shattering. She was everything he'd ever dreamed she could be and more.

With an effort that was almost painful he dragged his mouth from hers, his hand still cupping the rumpled satin of her hair, his other hand holding her pressed to his rigid body, and Elizabeth stayed in his arms, seeming neither frightened nor offended by his rigid erection. "I love you," he whispered, rubbing his jaw against her temple. "And you love me. I can feel it when you're in my arms." He felt her stiffen slightly and draw a shaky breath, but she either couldn't or wouldn't speak. She hadn't thrown the words back in his face, however, so Ian continued talking to her, his hand roving over her back. "I can feel it, Elizabeth, but if you don't admit it pretty soon, you're going to drive me out of my mind. I can't work. I can't think. I make decisions and then I change my mind. And," he teased, trying to lighten the mood by using the one topic sure to distract her, "that's nothing to the money I squander whenever I'm under this sort of violent stress. It wasn't just the gowns I bought, or the house on Promenade. . ."

Still talking to her, he tipped her chin up, glorying in the gentle pa.s.sion in her eyes, overlooking the doubt in their green depths. "If you don't admit it pretty soon," he teased, "I'll spend us out of house and home." Her delicate brows drew together in blank confusion, and Ian grinned, taking her hand from his chest, the emerald betrothal ring he had bought her unnoticed in his fingers. "When I'm under stress," he emphasized, sliding the magnificent emerald onto her finger, "I buy everything in sight. It took my last ounce of control not to buy one of these in every color."

Her eyes lifted from his smiling lips, dropped to the enormous jewel on her finger, and then widened in shock. "Oh, but-" she exclaimed, staring at it and straightening in his arms. "It's glorious. I do mean that, but I couldn't let you-really, I couldn't. Ian," she burst out anxiously, sending a tremor through him when she called him by name, "I can't let you do this. You've been extravagantly generous already." She touched the huge stone almost reverently, then gave her head a practical shake. "I don't need jewels, really I don't. You're doing this because of that stupid remark I made about someone offering me jewels as large as my palm, and now you've bought one nearly that larger'

"Not quite," he chuckled.

"Why, a stone like this would pay for irrigating Havenhurst and all the servants' wages for years and years and years, and food to-"

She reached to slide it off her finger. "Don't!" he warned on a choked laugh, linking his hands behind her back. "I"-he thought madly for some way to stop her objections-"I cannot possibly return it," he said. "It's part of a matched set."

"You don't mean there's more?"

"I'm afraid so, though I meant to surprise you with them tonight. There's a necklace and bracelet and earrings."

"Oh, I see," she said, making a visible effort not to stare at her ring. "Well, I suppose. . . if it was a purchase of several pieces, the ring alone probably didn't cost as much as it would have. . . Do not tell me," she said severely, when his shoulders began to shake with suppressed mirth, "you actually paid full price for all of the pieces?"

Laughing, Ian put his forehead against hers, and he nodded.

"It's very fortunate," she said, protectively putting her fingers against the magnificent ring, "that I've agreed to marry you."

"If you hadn't," he laughed, "G.o.d knows what I would have bought."

"Or how much you would have paid for it," she chuckled, cuddling in his arms-for the first time of her own volition. "Do you really do that?" she asked a moment later.

"Do what?" he gasped, tears of mirth blurring his vision. "Spend money heedlessly when you're disturbed about something?"

"Yes," he lied in a suffocated, laughing voice. "You'll have to stop doing it." "I'm going to try."

"I could help you." "Please do."

"You may place yourself entirely in my hands."

"I'm very much looking forward to that."

It was the first time Ian had ever kissed a woman while he was laughing.

The afternoon pa.s.sed as if it were minutes, not hours, and he kept glancing at the clock, willing it to stop. When there was no way to avoid it, he escorted her out to her carriage. "I'll see you in London tomorrow night at the ball. And don't worry. It will be fine."

"I know it will," she answered with complete confidence.

Chapter 27.

Five nights before, when she'd arrived at the Willingtons' ball, she'd been terrified and ashamed. Tonight, as the butler called out her name, Elizabeth felt neither dread nor even concern as she walked gracefully across the balcony and began slowly descending the steps to the ballroom beside the dowager d.u.c.h.ess. With Jordan and Alexandra behind them she saw people turning to watch her, only tonight Elizabeth cared nothing for what expression was on all six hundred faces. Wrapped in an incredibly sumptuous gown of golden broidered emerald silk, with Ian's emerald and diamond necklace at her throat and her hair caught up in intricate curls at her crown, she felt carefree and calm.

Partway down the steps she let her gaze pa.s.s across the crowd, looking for the only face that mattered. He was exactly where he had been two years ago when she'd walked into Charise's ballroom-standing not far from the foot of the steps, listening to some people who were talking to him.

And just as she had known would happen, he looked up the moment she saw him, as if he'd been watching for her, too. His bold, admiring gaze swept over her, then it returned slowly to her face-and then, in shared memory, he lifted his gla.s.s and made that same subtle toast to her.