Almost Heaven Part 16

"It's hard to say, considering that she was almost too angry to be coherent. Or it might have been the laudanum that did it."

"Did what?" The vicar paused a moment to watch a bird hop about in the rustling leaves overhead, then he said, "She was in a rare state. Quite confused. Angry, too. On the one hand, she was afraid you might decide to express your 'tender regard' for Lady Cameron, undoubtedly in much the way you were doing it when I arrived." When his gibe evoked nothing but a quirked eyebrow from his imperturbable nephew, Duncan sighed and continued, "At the same time, she was equally convinced that her young lady might try to shoot you with your own gun, which I distinctly understood her to say the young lady had already tried to do. It is that which I feared when I heard the gunshots that sent me galloping up here."

"We were shooting at targets." The vicar nodded, but he was studying Ian with an intent frown.

"Is something else bothering you?" Ian asked, noting the look.

The vicar hesitated, then shook his head slightly, as if trying to dismiss something from his mind. "Miss Throckmorton-Jones had more to say, but I can scarcely credit it."

"No doubt it was the laudanum," Ian said, dismissing the matter with a shrug.

"Perhaps," he said, his frown returning. "Yet I have not taken laudanum, and I was under the impression you are about to betroth yourself to a young woman named Christina Taylor."

"I am."

His face turned censorious. "Then what excuse can you have for the scene I just witnessed a few minutes ago?"

Ian's voice was clipped. "Insanity." They walked back to the house, the vicar silent and thoughtful, Ian grim. Duncan's untimely arrival had not bothered him, but now that his pa.s.sion had finally cooled he was irritated as h.e.l.l with his body's uncontrollable reaction to Elizabeth Cameron. The moment his mouth touched hers it was as if his brain went dead. Even though he knew exactly what she was, in his arms she became an alluring angel. Those tears she'd shed today were because she'd been tricked by a friend. Yet two years ago she'd virtually cuckolded poor Mondevale without a qualm. Today she had calmly talked about wedding old Belhaven or John Marchman and within the same hour had pressed her eager little body against Ian's, kissing him with desperate ardor. Disgust replaced his anger. She ought to marry Belhaven, he decided with grim humor. The old letch was perfect for her; they were a matched pair in everything but their ages. Marchman, on the other hand, deserved much better than Elizabeth's indiscriminate, well-used little body. She'd make his life a living h.e.l.l.

Despite that angelic face of hers, Elizabeth Cameron was still what she had always been a spoiled brat, a skillful flirt with more pa.s.sion than sense.

With a gla.s.s of Scotch in his hand and the stars twinkling in the inky sky, Ian watched the fish cooking on the little fire he'd built. The quiet of the night, combined with his drink, had soothed him. Now, as he watched the cheery little fire, his only regret was that Elizabeth's arrival had deprived him of the badly needed peace and quiet he'd been seeking when he came here. He'd been working at a killing pace for almost a year, and he'd counted on finding the same peace he always found here whenever he returned.

Growing up, he'd known all along that he would leave this place, that he would make his own way in the world, and he'd succeeded. Yet he always came back here, looking for something he still hadn't found, some elusive thing to cure his restlessness. Now he led a life of power and wealth, a life that suited him in most ways. He'd gone too far, seen too much, changed too much to try to live here. He'd accepted that when he decided to marry Christina. She would never like this place, but she would preside over all his other homes with grace and poise.

She was beautiful, sophisticated, and pa.s.sionate. She suited him perfectly, or he wouldn't have offered for her. Before doing so, he'd considered it with the same combination of dispa.s.sionate logic and unfailing instinct that marked all his business decisions-he'd calculated the odds for success, made his decision swiftly, and then acted. In fact, the only rash, ill-advised thing of any import he'd done in recent years was his behavior the weekend he'd met Elizabeth Cameron.

"It was poor-spirited of you in the extreme," Elizabeth smilingly informed him after dinner as she cleared away the dishes, "to make me cook this morning, when you are so very good at it."

"Not really," Ian said mildly as he poured brandy into two gla.s.ses and carried them over to the chairs by the fire. "The only thing I know how to cook is fish-exactly the way we just ate it." He handed one to Duncan, then he sat down and lifted the lid off a box on the table beside him, removing one of the thin cheroots that were made especially for him by a London tobacconist. He looked at Elizabeth and, with automatic courtesy, asked, "Do you mind?"

Elizabeth glanced at the cigar, smiled, and started to shake her head, then she stopped, a.s.sailed by a memory of him standing in a garden nearly two years ago. He'd been about to light one of those cheroots when he saw her standing there, watching him. She remembered it so clearly, she could still see the golden flame illuminating his chiseled features as he cupped his hands around it, lighting the cigar. Her smile wobbled a little with the piercing memory, and she lifted her eyes from the unlit cigar to Ian's face, wondering if he remembered it, too.

His eyes met hers in polite inquiry, flicked to the unlit cigar, and moved back to her face. He did not remember; she could see that he didn't. "No, I don't mind at all," she said, hiding her disappointment behind a smile.

The vicar, who had observed the exchange and noticed Elizabeth's overbright smile, found the incident as puzzling as Ian's treatment of Elizabeth during the meal. He lifted his brandy to his lips, surrept.i.tiously watching Elizabeth, then he glanced at Ian, who was lighting his cigar.

It was Ian's att.i.tude that struck Duncan as extremely odd. Women routinely found Ian almost irresistibly attractive, and as the vicar well knew, Ian had never felt morally compelled to decline what was freely and flagrantly offered to him. In the past, however, Ian had always treated the women who fell into his arms with a combination of amused tolerance and relaxed indulgence. To his credit, even after he lost interest in the female, he continued to treat her with unfailing charm and courtesy, regardless of whether she was a village maid or an earl's daughter.

Given all that, Duncan found it understandably surprising, even suspect, that two hours ago Ian had been holding Elizabeth Cameron in his arms as if he never intended to let her go, and now he was ignoring her. True, there'd been nothing to criticize about the way he was doing it, but ignoring her he was.

He continued to study Ian, half expecting to see him steal a glance at Elizabeth, but his nephew had picked up a book and was reading it as if he'd dismissed Elizabeth Cameron completely from his mind. After casting about for a conversational gambit, the vicar said to Ian, "Things have gone well for you this year, I gather?"

Glancing up, Ian said with a brief smile, "Not quite as well as I expected, but well enough."

"Your gambles didn't entirely payoff?" "Not all of them."

Elizabeth stilled a moment, then picked up a towel and began to dry a plate, helpless to ignore what she'd heard. Two years ago Ian had told her that if things went well for him he'd be able to provide for her. Evidently they hadn't, which would explain why he lived here. Her heart filled with sympathy for what she imagined had been his grand dreams that had not come to fruition. On the other hand, he was not nearly so bad off as he might believe, she decided, thinking of the wild beauty of the hills all around and the coziness of the cottage, with its large windows overlooking the valley. It was not Havenhurst by any stretch of the imagination, but it had an untamed splendor of its own. Furthermore, it did not cost a fortune in upkeep and servants, as Havenhurst did, which was vastly to its credit. She did not own Havenhurst, not really; it owned her. This beautiful little cottage, with its quaint thatched roof and few s.p.a.cious rooms, was rather wonderful in that regard. It gave shelter and warmth without requiring whoever lived here to lie awake at night, worrying about mortar coming loose from its stones and the cost of repairing its eleven chimneys.

Obviously Ian didn't realize how truly lucky he was, or he wouldn't waste his time in gentlemen's clubs or wherever he gambled in hopes of making his fortune. He'd stay here, in this rugged, beautiful place where he looked so completely at ease, where he belonged. . . . So intent was she on her thoughts that it did not occur to her that she was close to wis.h.i.+ng she lived here.

When everything was dried and put away, Elizabeth decided to go upstairs. At supper she'd learned that Ian hadn't seen his uncle in a long while, and she felt the proper thing to do was leave them alone so they might talk privately.

Hanging the towel on a peg, she untied her makes.h.i.+ft ap.r.o.n and went to bid the men good night. The vicar smiled and wished her pleasant dreams. Ian glanced up and said a preoccupied "Good night."

After Elizabeth went upstairs, Duncan watched his nephew reading, remembering the lessons in the vicarage that he'd given Ian as a boy. Like Ian's father, Duncan was intelligent and university-educated, yet by the time Ian was thirteen he'd already read and absorbed all their university textbooks and was looking for more answers. His thirst for knowledge was unquenchable; his mind was so brilliant that Duncan and Ian's father had both been more than a little awed. Without requiring quill and parchment, Ian could calculate complicated mathematical probabilities and equations in his head, producing the answer before Duncan had decided how to go about finding it.

Among other things, that rare mathematical ability had enabled Ian to ama.s.s a fortune gaming; he could calculate the odds for or against a particular hand or a spin of the roulette wheel with frightening accuracy-something the vicar had long ago decried as a misuse of his G.o.d-given genius, to absolutely no avail. Ian had the calm arrogance of his n.o.ble British forebears, the hot temper and the proud intractability of his Scots ancestors; and the combination had produced a brilliant man who made his own decisions and who never permitted anyone to sway him when his mind was made up. And why would he, the vicar thought with an unhappy premonition of doom as he contemplated the topic he needed to discuss with his nephew. Ian's judgment in most things was as close to infallible as was human, and he relied on it, rather than on the opinions of anyone else.

Only in one area was his judgment clouded, in Duncan's opinion, and that was when it came to the matter of his English grandfather. The mere mention of the Duke of Stanhope made Ian furious, and while Duncan wanted to discuss the ancient topic once again, he was hesitant to broach the sore subject. Despite the deep affection and respect Ian had for Duncan, Duncan knew his nephew had an almost frightening ability to turn his back irrevocably on anyone who went too far or anything that hurt him too deeply.

A memory of the day Ian returned home at the age of nineteen from his first voyage made the vicar frown with remembered helplessness and pain. Ian's parents and sister, in an excess of eagerness to see him, had journeyed to Hernloch to meet his s.h.i.+p, thinking to surprise him.

Two nights before Ian's s.h.i.+p put into port, the little inn where the happy family had slept burned to the ground, and all three of them had died in the fire. Ian had ridden past the charred rubble on his way here, never knowing that the place he pa.s.sed was his family's funeral pyre.

He'd arrived at the cottage, where Duncan was waiting to break the wrenching news to him. "Where is everyone?" he demanded, grinning and slinging his duffel to the floor, walking swiftly around the cottage, looking into its empty rooms. Ian's Labrador had been the only one to greet him, racing into the cottage, barking ecstatically, skidding to a stop at Ian's booted feet. Shadow-who'd been named not for her black color, but for her utter devotion to her master, whom she'd wors.h.i.+pped from puppyhood-had been delirious with joy at his return. "I missed you, too, girl," Ian had said, crouching down and ruffling her sleek black fur. "I brought you a present," he'd told her, and she'd instantly stopped rubbing against him and c.o.c.ked her head to the side, listening and waiting, her intelligent eyes riveted on his face. It had always been that way between them, that odd, almost uncanny communication between the human and the intelligent dog that wors.h.i.+pped him.

"Ian," the vicar had said somberly, and as if he heard the anguish in the single word, Ian's hand had stilled. He'd straightened slowly and turned, his dog coming to heel beside him, looking at Duncan with the same sudden tension that was in her master's face.

As gently as he could, Duncan broke the news to Ian of his family's death, and despite the fact that Duncan was well-schooled in soothing the bereaved, he'd never before encountered the sort of pent-up, rigidly controlled grief that Ian displayed, and he was at a loss how to deal with it. Ian had not wept or raged; his whole face and body had gone stiff, bracing against unbearable anguish, rejecting it because he sensed it could destroy him. That night, when Duncan finally left, Ian had been standing at the window, staring out into the darkness, his dog beside him. "Take her with you to the village and give her to someone," he'd said to Duncan in a voice as final as death.

Confused, Duncan had halted with his hand on the door handle. "Take who with me?"

"The dog." "But you said you intended to stay here for at least a half year to get things in order."

"Take her with you;' Ian had clipped out. In that moment Duncan had understood what Ian was doing, and he'd feared it. "Ian, for the love of G.o.d, that dog wors.h.i.+ps you. Besides, she'll be company for you up here."

"Give her to the MacMurtys in Calgorin," Ian snapped, and Duncan had reluctantly taken the unwilling dog with him. It had, in fact, taken a rope about the Labrador's neck to make her leave him.

The following week the intrepid Shadow had found her way across the county and reappeared at the cottage.

Duncan had been there and had felt a lump of emotion in his throat when Ian resolutely refused to acknowledge the bewildered dog's presence. The next day Ian himself had taken her back to Calgorin with Duncan. After Ian dined with the family, Shadow waited while Ian mounted his horse in the front yard, but when she'd started to follow him Ian had turned and harshly commanded her to stay.

Shadow had stayed because Shadow had never disobeyed a command of Ian's.

Duncan had remained for several hours, and when he left, Shadow was still sitting in the yard, her eyes riveted on the bend in the road, her head tipped to the side, waiting, as if she refused to believe Ian actually meant to leave her there.

But Ian had never returned for her. It was the first time that Duncan had realized Ian's mind was so powerful that it could completely override all his emotions when he wished. With calm logic Ian had irrevocably decided to separate himself from anything whose loss could cause him further anguish. Pictures of his parents and his sister had been carefully packed away, along with their belongings, into trunks, until all that remained of them was the cottage. And his memories.

Shortly after their death a letter from Ian's grandfather, the Duke of Stanhope, had arrived. Two decades after disowning his son for marrying Ian's mother, the Duke had written to him asking to make amends; his letter arrived three days after the fire. Ian had read it and thrown it away, as he had done with the dozens of letters that followed it during the last eleven years, all addressed to him. When wronged Ian was as unyielding, as unforgiving as the jagged hills and harsh moors that had sp.a.w.ned him.

He was also the most stubborn human being Duncan had ever known. As a boy Ian's calm confidence, his brilliant mind, and his intractability had all combined to give his parents pause. As Ian's father had once jokingly remarked of their gifted son, "Ian permits us to raise him because he loves us, not because he thinks we're smarter than he is. He already knows we aren't, but he doesn't want to wound our sensibilities by saying so."

Given all that, and considering Ian's ability to coldly turn away from anyone who had wronged him, Duncan had little hope of softening Ian's att.i.tude toward his grandfather now-not when he couldn't appeal to either Ian's intellect or his affection in the matter. Not when the Duke of Stanhope meant far less to Ian than his Labrador had.

Lost in his own reflections, Duncan stared moodily into the fire, while across from him Ian laid aside his papers and watched him in speculative silence. Finally he said, "Since my cooking was no worse than usual, I a.s.sume there's another reason for that ferocious scowl of yours."

Duncan nodded, and with a considerable amount of foreboding he stood up and walked over to the fire, mentally phrasing his opening arguments. "Ian, your grandfather has written to me," the vicar began, watching Ian's pleasant smile vanish and his face harden into chiseled stone. "He has asked me to intercede on his behalf and to urge you to reconsider meeting with him."

"You're wasting your time," Ian said, his voice steely. "He's your family," Duncan tried again.

"My entire family is sitting in this room," Ian bit out. "I acknowledge no other."

"You're his only living heir," Duncan persisted doggedly. "That's his problem, not mine." "He's dying, Ian."

"I don't believe it."

"I do believe him. Furthermore, if your mother were alive, she would beg you to reconcile with him. It crushed her all her life that he disowned your father for marrying her. I shouldn't have to remind you that your mother was my only sister. I loved her, and if I can forgive the man for the hurt he dealt her by his actions. I don't see why you can't."

"You're in the business of forgiveness," Ian drawled with scathing sarcasm. "I'm not. I believe in an eye for an eye."

"He's dying, I tell you."

"And I tell you "-Ian enunciated each word with biting clarity-"I do not give a d.a.m.n!"

"If you won't consider accepting the t.i.tle for yourself, do it for your father. It was his by right, just as it is your future son's birthright. This is your last opportunity to relent, Ian.

Your grandfather allowed me a fortnight to sway you before he named another heir. Your arrival here was delayed for a full fortnight. It may be too late already-"

"It was too late eleven years ago," Ian replied with glacial calm, and then, while the vicar watched, Ian's expression underwent an abrupt and startling transformation. The rigidity left his jaw, and he began sliding papers back into their case. That finished, he glanced at Duncan and said with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, "Your gla.s.s is empty, Vicar. Would you like another?"

Duncan sighed and shook his head. It was over, exactly as Duncan had antic.i.p.ated and feared. Ian had mentally slammed the door on his grandfather, and nothing would ever change his mind. When he turned calm and pleasant like this, Duncan knew from experience, Ian was irrevocably beyond reach. Since he'd already ruined his first night with his nephew, Duncan decided there was nothing to be lost by broaching another sensitive subject that was bothering him. "Ian, about Elizabeth Cameron. Her duenna said some things-"

That alarmingly pleasant yet distant smile returned to Ian's face. "I'll spare you further conversation, Duncan. It's over,"

"The discussion or-" "All of it."

"It didn't look over to me," Duncan snapped, nudged to the edge by Ian's infuriating calm. "That scene I witnessed-"

"You witnessed the end."

He said that, Duncan noted, with the same deadly finality, the same amused calm with which he'd spoken of his grandfather, It was as if he'd resolved matters to his complete satisfaction in his own mind, and nothing and no one could ever invade the place where he put them to rest. Based on Ian's last reaction to the matter of Elizabeth Cameron, she was now relegated to the same category as the Duke of Stanhope. Frustrated, Duncan jerked the bottle of brandy off the table at Ian's elbow and splashed some into his gla.s.s, "There's something I've never told you," he said angrily.

"And that is?" Ian inquired.

"I hate it when you turn all pleasant and amused. I'd rather see you furious! At least then I know I still have a chance of reaching you."

To Duncan's boundless annoyance, Ian merely picked up his book and started reading again.

Chapter 15.

Ian, would you go out to the barn and see what's keeping Elizabeth?" the vicar asked as he expertly turned a piece of bacon frying in the skillet. "I sent her out there fifteen minutes ago to bring in some eggs."

Ian dumped an armload of wood beside the fireplace, dusted off his hands, and went searching for his house guest. The sight and sounds that greeted him when he reached the door of the barn halted him in his tracks. With her hands plunked upon her hips Elizabeth was glowering at the roosting hens, who were flapping and cackling furiously at her. "It's not my fault!" she was exclaiming. "I don't even like eggs. In fact, I don't even like the smell of chickens." As she spoke she started stealthily forward on tiptoe, her voice pleading and apologetic. "Now, if you'll just let me have four, I won't even eat any. Look," she added, reaching forward toward the flapping hen, "I won't disturb you for more than just one moment. I'll just slide my hand right in there-ouch!" she cried as the hen pecked furiously at her wrist.

Elizabeth jerked her hand free, then swung around in mortification at Ian's mocking voice: "You don't really need her permission, you know," he said, walking forward. "Just show her who's master by walking right up there like this. . . ."

And without further ado he stole two eggs from beneath the hen, who did not so much as try to attack him; then he did the same thing beneath two more hens. "Haven't you ever been in a henhouse before?" Ian asked, noting with detached impartiality that Elizabeth Cameron looked adorable with her hair mussed and her face flushed with ire.

"No," she said shortly. "I haven't. Chickens stink."

He chuckled. "That's it, then. They sense how you feel about them -animals do, you know."

Elizabeth slid him a swift, searching glance while an uneasy, inexplicable feeling of change hit her. He was smiling at her, even joking, but his eyes were blank. In the times they'd been together she'd seen pa.s.sion in those golden eyes, and anger, and even coldness. But she'd never seen nothing.

She wasn't at all certain anymore how she wanted him to feel, but she was quite certain she didn't like being looked at like an amusing stranger.

"Thank heaven!" said the vicar when they walked into the house. "Unless you like your bacon burned, you'd better sit down at the table while I fix these."

"Elizabeth and I prefer burned bacon," Ian said drolly. Elizabeth returned his lazy smile, but her unease was growing.

"Do you perchance play cards?" the vicar asked her when breakfast was nearly over.

"I'm familiar with some card games," she replied.

"In that case, when Miss Throckmorton-Jones and Jake return, perhaps we could get up a game of whist one evening. Ian," he added, "would you join us?"

Ian glanced around from pouring coffee at the stove and said with a mocking smile, "Not a chance." Transferring his gaze to Elizabeth, he explained, "Duncan cheats."

The absurd notion of a vicar cheating at cards wrung a musical laugh from Elizabeth. "I'm sure he doesn't do anything of the sort."

"Ian is quite right, my dear," the vicar admitted, grinning sheepishly. "However, I never cheat when I'm playing against another person. I cheat when I play against the deck-you know, Napoleon at St. Helena."

"Oh, that," Elizabeth said, laughing up at Ian as he walked past her carrying his mug. "So do I."

"But you do play whist?"

She nodded. "Aaron taught me to play when I was twelve, but he still trounces me regularly."

"Aaron?" the vicar asked, smiling at her.

"Our coachman," Elizabeth explained, always happy to speak of her "family" at Havenhurst. "I'm better at chess, however, which Bentner taught me to play."

"And he is?" "Our butler."

"I see," said the vicar, and something made him persevere. "Dominoes, by any chance?"

"That was Mrs. Bodley's specialty," Elizabeth told him with a smile. "Our housekeeper. We've played many times, but she takes it very seriously and has strategy. I can't seem to get much enthusiasm over flat pieces of ivory with dots on them. Chess pieces, you know, are more interesting. They invite serious play."

Ian finally added to the conversation. Sending his uncle an amused look, tie explained, "Lady Cameron is a very wealthy young woman, Duncan, in case you haven't guessed." His tone implied that she was actually an overindulged, spoiled brat whose every wish had been fulfilled by an army of servants.

Elizabeth stiffened. not certain whether the insult she'd sensed had been intentional or even real, and the vicar looked steadily at Ian as if he disapproved of the tone of the comment, if not its content.