Almost Heaven Part 14

"Yes, thank you." Relieved to have a moment to compose herself, Elizabeth arose and went to the stove, but her eyes blurred with tears as she blindly filled a mug with freshly brewed coffee. She brought it over to him, then sat down again.

Sliding a glance at the defeated girl sitting with her head bent and her hands folded in her lap, Ian felt a compulsive urge to either laugh or comfort her; but since chewing was requiring such an effort, he couldn't do either. Swallowing the last piece of egg, he finally managed to say, "That was . . . er . . . quite filling."

Thinking perhaps he hadn't found it so bad as she had, Elizabeth hesitantly raised her eyes to his. "I haven't had a great deal of experience with cooking," she admitted in a small voice. She watched him take a mouthful of coffee, saw his eyes widen with shock-and he began to chew the coffee.

Elizabeth lurched to her feet, squared her shoulders, and said hoa.r.s.ely, "I always take a stroll after breakfast. Excuse me."

Still chewing, Ian watched her flee from the house, then he gratefully got rid of the mouthful of coffee grounds.

Chapter 14.

Elizabeth's breakfast had cured Ian's hunger; in fact, the idea of ever eating again made his stomach churn as he started for the barn to check on Mayhem's injury.

He was partway there when he saw her off to the left, sitting on the hillside amid the bluebells, her arms wrapped around her knees, her forehead resting atop them. Even with her hair s.h.i.+ning like newly minted gold in the sun, she looked like a picture of heartbreaking dejection. He started to turn away and leave her to moody privacy; then, with a sigh of irritation, he changed his mind and started down the hill toward her.

A few yards away he realized her shoulders were shaking with sobs, and he frowned in surprise. Obviously there was no point in pretending the meal had been good, so he injected a note of amus.e.m.e.nt into his voice and said, "I applaud your ingenuity-shooting me yesterday would have been too quick."

Elizabeth started violently at the sound of his voice. Snapping her head up, she stared off to the left, keeping her tear-streaked face averted from him. "Did you want something?"

"Dessert?" Ian suggested wryly, leaning slightly forward, trying to see her face. He thought he saw a morose smile touch her lips, and he added, "I thought we could whip up a batch of cream and put it on the biscuit. Afterward we can take whatever is left, mix it with the leftover eggs, and use it to patch the roof."

A teary chuckle escaped her, and she drew a shaky breath but still refused to look at him as she said, "I'm surprised you're being so pleasant about it."

"There's no sense crying over burnt bacon."

"I wasn't crying over that," she said, feeling sheepish and bewildered. A snowy handkerchief appeared before her face, and Elizabeth accepted it, dabbing at her wet cheeks.

"Then why were you crying!"

She gazed straight ahead, her eyes focused on the surrounding hills splashed with bluebells and hawthorn, the handkerchief clenched in her hand. "I was crying for my own inept.i.tude, and for my inability to control my life," she admitted.

The word "inept.i.tude" startled Ian, and it occurred to him that for the shallow little flirt he supposed her to be she had an exceptionally fine vocabulary. She glanced up at him then, and Ian found himself gazing into a pair of green eyes the amazing color of wet leaves. With tears still sparkling on her long russet lashes, her long hair tied back in a girlish bow, and her full b.r.e.a.s.t.s thrusting against the bodice of her gown, she was a picture of alluring innocence and intoxicating sensuality. Ian jerked his gaze from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and said abruptly, "I'm going to cut some wood so we'll have it for a fire tonight. Afterward I'm going to do some fis.h.i.+ng for our supper. I trust you'll find a way to amuse yourself in the meantime."

Startled by his sudden brusqueness, Elizabeth nodded and stood up, dimly aware that he did not offer his hand to a.s.sist her. He'd already started to walk away when he turned and added, "Don't try to clean the house. Jake will be back before evening with women to do that."

After he left, Elizabeth went into the house, looking for something to do that would divert her mind from her predicament and help use her pent up energy. Deciding the least she could do was to clean up the mess from the meal she'd made, she set to work doing that. As she sc.r.a.ped at the eggs in the blackened skillet she heard the rhythmic sound of an ax splitting wood. Reaching up to push a wisp of hair off her forehead, she glanced out the window and then stared, blus.h.i.+ng. Without a semblance of modesty Ian Thornton was bare to the waist, his bronzed back tapering to narrow hips, his arms and shoulders rippling with thick bunched muscle as he swung the ax in a graceful arc. Elizabeth had never seen a man's bare arms before, let alone an entire naked male torso, and she was shocked and fascinated and appalled that she was looking. Yanking her gaze from the window, she absolutely refused to yield to the heathen temptation of stealing another glance at him. She wondered instead where he had learned to cut wood with such ease and skill. He'd looked so right at Charise's party, so at ease in his beautifully tailored evening clothes, that she'd a.s.sumed he'd spent all his life on the fringes of society, supporting himself with his gambling. Yet he seemed equally at home here in the wilds of Scotland. More so here, she decided. Besides his powerful physique there was a harsh vitality, an invulnerability about him that was perfectly suited to this untamed land.

At that moment she suddenly recalled something she had long ago chosen to forget. She recalled the way he had waltzed with her in the arbor and the effortless grace of his movements. Evidently he had the ability to belong in whatever setting he happened to be in. For some reason that realization was unsettling-either because it made him seem almost admirable, or because it suddenly made her doubt her former ability to judge him correctly. For the first time since that disastrous week that had culminated in a duel, Elizabeth allowed herself to reexamine what had happened between Ian Thornton and herself-not the events, but the causes. Until now, the only way she'd been able to endure her subsequent disgrace was to categorically blame Ian for it, exactly as Robert had done.

Now, having come face to face with him again when she was older and wiser, she couldn't seem to do that anymore. Not even Ian's current unkindness could make her see him as completely at fault for past events anymore.

As she slowly washed a dish she saw herself as she had really been foolish and dangerously infatuated and as guilty as he of breaking the rules.

Determined to be objective, Elizabeth reconsidered her actions and her own culpability two years before. And his. In the first place, she had been foolish beyond words to want so badly to protect him. . . and to be protected by him. At seventeen, when she should have been too frightened to consider meeting him at that cottage, she had only been frightened that she would yield to the irrational, nameless feelings he awakened in her with his voice, his eyes, his touch.

When she should rightfully have been terrified of him. she had only been terrified of herself, of throwing away Robert's future and Havenhurst. And she would have done it, Elizabeth realized bitterly. If she'd spent another day, a few more hours alone with Ian Thornton that weekend, she would have flung caution and reason to the winds and married him. She'd sensed it even then, and so she'd sent for Robert to come for her early.

No, Elizabeth corrected herself, she'd never really been in danger of marrying .Ian. Despite what he'd said two years before about wanting to marry her, marriage was not what he'd intended; he'd admitted that to Robert.

And just when that memory started to make her genuinely angry, she remembered something else that had an oddly calming effect. For the first time in almost two years, Elizabeth recalled the warnings Lucinda had given her before she made her debut. Lucinda had been emphatic that a female must, by her every action, make a gentleman understand that he would be expected to act like a gentleman in her presence. Obviously, Lucinda had realized that although the men Elizabeth was going to meet were technically gentlemen," their behavior could, on occasion, be ungentlemanly.

Allowing that Lucinda was right on both counts, Elizabeth began to wonder if she wasn't rather to blame for what had happened that weekend. After all, from their first meeting she'd certainly not given Ian the impression she was a proper and prim young lady who expected the highest standards of behavior from him. For one thing, she had asked him to request a dance from her.

Carrying that thought to its conclusion, she began to wonder if Ian hadn't perhaps done what many other socially acceptable "gentlemen" would have done. He had probably thought her more worldly than she was, and he had wanted a dalliance. If she had been wiser, more worldly, she undoubtedly would have known that and would have been able to act with the amused sophistication he must have expected of her. Now, with the belated understanding of a detached adult, Elizabeth realized that although Ian had not been as socially acceptable as many of the ton's flirts, he had actually behaved no worse than they. She had seen married women flirting at b.a.l.l.s; she'd even inadvertently witnessed a stolen kiss or two, after which the gentleman received nothing worse than a slap on the arm from the lady's fan and a laughing warning that he must behave himself. She smiled at the realization that instead of a slap on the arm for his forwardness, Ian Thornton had gotten a ball from a pistol; she smiled-not with malicious satisfaction this time, but simply because it had a certain amusing irony to it. It also occurred to her that she might have survived the entire weekend with nothing worse than a mildly painful case of lingering infatuation for Ian Thornton-if only she hadn't been seen with him in the greenhouse.

In retrospect it seemed that her own naivete was to blame for much of what had happened.

Somehow, all that made her feel better than she had in a very long time; it diffused the helpless anger that had been festering inside of her for nearly two years and left her feeling unburdened and almost weightless.

Elizabeth picked up a towel, then stood still, wondering if she was simply making excuses for the man. But why would she? she thought as she slowly dried the earthenware dishes. The answer was that she simply had more problems at the moment than she could deal with, and by ridding herself of her animosity for Ian Thornton she'd feel better able to cope. That seemed so sensible and so likely that Elizabeth decided it must be true.

When everything had been dried and put away she emptied the pan of water outside, then wandered about the house, looking for something to do that would divert her mind. She went upstairs, unpacked her writing things, and brought them down to the kitchen table to write to Alexandra, but after a few minutes she was too restless to continue. It was so lovely outdoors, and from the silence she knew Ian had finished cutting wood. Putting down her quill, she wandered outside, visited with the horse in the barn, and finally decided to attack the large patch of weeds and struggling flowers at the rear of the cottage that had once been a garden. She went back into the cottage, found an old pair of men's gloves and a towel to kneel upon, and went back outside.

With ruthless determination Elizabeth yanked out the weeds that were choking some brave little heartsease struggling for air and light. By the time the sun started its lazy descent she had cleared the worst of the weeds and dug up some bluebells, transplanting them to the garden in neat rows, to give the best show of color in the future.

Occasionally she paused with her spade in hand and looked down into the valley below, where a thin ribbon of sparkling blue wound through the trees. Sometimes she saw a flash of movement-his arm, as he cast his line. Other times he simply stood there, his legs braced slightly apart. ;; gazing up at the cliffs to the north.

It was late afternoon, and she was sitting back on her c heels, studying the effect of the bluebells she'd transplanted. Beside her was a small pile of compost she'd mixed using decayed leaves and the coffee grounds of the morning. "There now," she said to the flowers in an encouraging tone, "you have food and air. You'll be very happy and pretty in no time."

"Are you talking to the flowers?" Ian asked from behind her. Elizabeth started and turned around on an embarra.s.sed laugh. "They like it when I talk to them." Knowing how peculiar that sounded, she reinforced it by adding, "our gardener used to say all living things need affection, and that includes flowers." Turning back to the garden, she shoveled the last of the compost around the Bowers, then she stood up and brushed off her hands. Her earlier ruminations about him had abolished so much of her antagonism that as she looked at him now she was able to regard him with perfect equanimity. It occurred to her, though, that it must seem odd to him that a guest was rooting about in his garden like a menial. "I hope you don't mind," she said, nodding toward the garden, "but the flowers couldn't breathe with so many weeds choking them. They were crying out for a little room and sustenance."

An indescribable expression flashed across his face. "You heard them?"

"Of course not," Elizabeth said with a chuckle. "But I did take the liberty of fixing a special meal-well, compost, actually-for them. It won't help them very much this year, but next year I think they'll be much happier. . . ."

She trailed off, belatedly noticing the worried look he gave the flowers when she mentioned fixing them "a meal." "You needn't look as if you expect them to collapse at my feet," she admonished, laughing. "They'll fare far better with their meal than we did with ours. I am a much better gardener than I am a cook."

Ian jerked his gaze from the flowers, then looked at her with an odd, contemplative expression. "I think I'll go inside and clean up." She walked away without looking back, and so she did not see Ian Thornton turn halfway around to watch her.

Stopping to fill a pitcher with the hot water she'd been heating on the stove, Elizabeth carried it upstairs, then made four more trips until she had enough water to use to bathe and wash her hair. Yesterday's travel and today's work in the garden had combined to make her feel positively grimy.

An hour later, her hair still damp, she put on a simple peach gown with short puffed sleeves and a narrow peach ribbon at the high waist. Sitting on the bed, she brushed her hair slowly, letting it dry, while she reflected with some amus.e.m.e.nt on how ill-suited her clothes were for this cottage in Scotland. When her hair was dry she stood at the mirror, gathering the ma.s.s at her nape, then shoving it high into a haphazard chignon she knew would come unbound in only the slightest breeze. With a light shrug she let go of it, and it fell over her shoulders; she decided to leave it that way. Her mood was still bright and cheerful, and she was inwardly convinced it might stay that way from now on.

Ian had started toward the back door with a blanket in his hand when Elizabeth came downstairs. "Since they aren't back yet," he said, "I thought we might as well eat something. We have cheese and bread outside."

He'd changed into a clean white s.h.i.+rt and fawn breeches, and as she followed him outside she saw that his dark hair was still damp at the nape.

Outside he spread a blanket on the gra.s.s, and she sat down on one side of it, gazing out across the hills. "What time do you suppose it is?" she asked several minutes after he'd sat down beside her.

"Around four, I imagine."

"Shouldn't they be back by now?"

"They probably had difficulty finding women who were willing to leave their own homes and come up here to work."

Elizabeth nodded and lost herself in the splendor of the view spread out before them. The cottage was situated on the back edge of a plateau, and where the backyard ended the plateau sloped sharply downward to a valley where a stream meandered among the trees. Surrounding the valley in the distance on all three sides were hills piled on top of one another, carpeted with wildflowers. The view was so beautiful, so wild and verdant, that Elizabeth sat for a long while, enthralled and strangely at peace. Finally a thought intruded, and she cast a worried look at him. "Did you catch any fish?"

"Several. I've already cleaned them."

"Yes, but can you cook them?" Elizabeth countered with a grin.

His lips twitched. "Yes."

"That's a relief, I must say."

Drawing up one leg, Ian rested his wrist on his knee and turned to regard her with frank curiosity. "Since when do debutantes include rooting around in the dirt among their preferred entertainments?"

"I am no longer a debutante," Elizabeth replied. When she realized he intended to continue waiting for some sort of explanation, she said quietly, "I'm told my grandfather on my mother's side was an amateur horticulturist, and perhaps I inherited my love of plants and flowers from him. The gardens at Havenhurst were his work. I've enlarged them and added some new species since."

Her face softened, and her magnificent eyes glowed like bright green jewels at the mention of Havenhurst. Against his better judgment Ian kept her talking about a subject that obviously meant something special to her. "What is Havenhurst?"

"My home," she said with a soft smile. "It's been in our family for seven centuries. The original earl built a castle on it, and it was so beautiful that fourteen different aggressors coveted it and laid siege to it, but no one could take it. The castle was razed centuries later by another ancestor who wished to build a mansion in the cla.s.sic Greek style. Then the next six earls enhanced and enlarged and modernized it until it became the place it now is. Sometimes," she admitted, "it's a little overwhelming to know it's up to me to see that it is preserved."

"I'd think that responsibility falls to your uncle or your brother, not you."

"No, it's mine."

"How can it be yours?" he asked, curious that she would speak of the place as if it was everything in the world that mattered to her.

"Under the entailment Havenhurst must pa.s.s to the oldest SOD. If there is no son, it pa.s.ses to the daughter, and through her, to her children. My uncle cannot inherit because he was younger than my father. I suppose that's why he never cared a snap for it and resents so bitterly the cost of its upkeep now."

"But you have a brother," Ian pointed out.

"Robert is my half-brother," Elizabeth said, so soothed by the view and by having come to grips with what had happened two years ago that she spoke to him quite freely. "My mother was widowed when she was but twenty-one, and Robert was a babe. She married my father after Robert was born. My father formally adopted him, but it doesn't change the entailment. Under the terms of the entailment the heir can sell the property outright, but owners.h.i.+p cannot be transferred to any relative. That was done to safeguard against one member or branch of the family coveting the property and exerting undue force on the heir to relinquish it. Something like that happened to one of my grandmothers in the fifteenth century, and that amendment was added to the entailment at her insistence many years later. Her daughter fell in love with a Welshman who was a blackguard," Elizabeth continued with a smile, "who coveted Havenhurst, not the daughter, and to keep him from getting it her parents had a final codicil added to the entailment."

"What was that?" Ian asked, drawn into the history she related with such entertaining skill.

"It states that if the heir is female, she cannot wed against her guardian's wishes. In theory it was to stop the females from falling prey to another obvious blackguard. It isn't always easy for a woman to hold her own property, you see."

Ian saw only that the beautiful girl who had daringly come to his defense in a roomful of men, who had kissed him with tender pa.s.sion, now seemed to be pa.s.sionately attached not to any man, but to a pile of stones instead. Two years ago he'd been furious when he discovered she was a countess, a shallow little debutante already betrothed-to some bloodless fop, no doubt-and merely looking about for someone more exciting to warm her bed. Now, however, he felt oddly uneasy that she hadn't married her fop. It was on the tip of his tongue to bluntly ask her why she had never married when she spoke again. "Scotland is different than I imagined it would be."

"In what way?" "More wild, more primitive. I know gentlemen keep hunting boxes here, but I rather thought they'd have the usual conveniences and servants. What was your home like?"

"Wild and primitive," Ian replied. While Elizabeth looked on in surprised confusion, he gathered up the remains of their snack and rolled to his feet with lithe agility. "You're in it," he added in a mocking voice.

"In what?" Elizabeth stood up, too.

"My home." Hot, embarra.s.sed color stained Elizabeth's smooth cheeks as they faced each other. He stood there with his dark lair blowing in the breeze, his sternly handsome face tamped with n.o.bility and pride, his muscular body emanating raw power, and she thought he seemed as rugged and vulnerable as the cliffs of his homeland. She opened her mouth, intending to apologize; instead, she inadvertently poke her private thoughts: "It suits you," she said softly. Beneath his impa.s.sive gaze Elizabeth stood perfectly still, refusing to blush or look away, her delicately beautiful face framed by a halo of golden hair tossing in the restless breeze-a dainty image of fragility standing before a man who dwarfed her. Light and darkness, fragility and strength, stubborn pride and iron resolve-two opposites in almost every way. Once their differences had drawn them together; now they separated them. They were both older, wiser and convinced they were strong enough to withstand and ignore the slow heat building between them on that gra.s.sy edge. "It doesn't suit you, however," he remarked mildly. His words pulled Elizabeth from the strange spell that had seemed to enclose them. "No," she agreed without rancor, knowing what a hothouse flower she must seem with her impractical gowns and fragile slippers. Bending down, Elizabeth folded the blanket while Ian vent into the house and began gathering the guns so that he could clean and check them before hunting tomorrow. Elizabeth watched him removing the guns from the rack above the mantel, and she glanced at the letter she'd begun to Alexandra. There was no way to post it until she went home, so there was no reason to finish it quickly. On the other hand, there was little else to do, so she sat down and began writing. In the midst of her letter a gun exploded outside, and she half rose in nervous surprise. Wondering what he'd shot so close to the house, she walked to the open door and looked outside, watching as he loaded the pistol that had been lying In the table yesterday. He raised it, aiming at some unknown target, and fired. Again he loaded and fired, until curiosity made her step outside, squinting to see what, if anything, he had hit.

From the comer of his eye Ian glimpsed a slight flash of peach gown and turned.

"Did you hit the target?" she asked, a little self-conscious at being caught watching him.

"Yes." Since she was stranded in the country and obviously knew how to load a gun, Ian realized good manners required that he at least offer her a little diversion. "Care to try your skill?"

"That depends on the size of the target," she answered. but Elizabeth was already walking forward, absurdly happy to have something to do besides write letters. She did not stop to consider-would never have let herself contemplate -that she enjoyed his company inordinately when he was pleasant.

"Who taught you to shoot?" he asked when she was standing beside him.

"Our coachman."

"Better the coachman than your brother," Ian mocked. handing her the loaded gun. "The target's that bare twig over there-the one with the leaf hanging off the middle of it."

Elizabeth flinched at his sarcastic reference to his duel with Robert. "I'm truly sorry about that duel," she said, then she concentrated all her attention for the moment on the small twig.

Propping his shoulder against the tree trunk, Ian watched with amus.e.m.e.nt as she grasped the heavy gun in both her hands and raised it, biting her lip in concentration. "Your brother was a very poor shot," he remarked.

She fired, nicking the leaf at its stem.

"I'm not," she said with a jaunty sidewise smile. And then, because the duel was finally out in the open and he seemed to want to joke about it, she tried to follow suit: "If I'd been there, I daresay I would have-"

His brows lifted. "Waited for the call to fire, I hope?" "Well, that, too," she said, her smile fading as she waited for him to reject her words.

And at that moment Ian rather believed she would have waited. Despite everything he knew her to be, when he looked at her he saw spirit and youthful courage. She handed the gun back to him, and he handed her another one he'd already loaded. "The last shot wasn't bad," he said, dropping the subject of the duel. "However, the target is the twig, not the leaves. The end of the twig," he added.

"You must have missed the twig yourself," she pointed out, lifting the gun and aiming it carefully, "since it's still there."

"True, but it's shorter than it was when I started." Elizabeth momentarily forgot what she was doing as she stared at him in disbelief and amazement. "Do you mean you've been clipping the end off it?"

"A bit at a time," he said, concentrating on her next shot. She hit another leaf on the twig and handed the gun back to him. "You're not bad," he complimented. She was an outstanding shot, and his smile said he knew it as he handed her a freshly loaded gun. Elizabeth shook her head. "I'd rather see you try it."

"You doubt my word?" "Let's merely say I'm a little skeptical." Taking the gun, Ian raised it in a swift arc, and without pausing to aim, he fired. Two inches of twig spun away and fell to the ground. Elizabeth was so impressed she laughed aloud. "Do you know," she exclaimed with an admiring smile, "I didn't entirely believe until this moment that you really meant to shoot the ta.s.sel off Robert's boot!"

He sent her an amused glance as he reloaded and handed her the gun. "At the time I was sorely tempted to aim for something more vulnerable."

"You wouldn't have, though," she reminded him, taking the gun and turning toward the twig.

"What makes you so certain?" "You told me yourself you didn't believe in killing people over disagreements." She raised the gun, aimed, and fired, missing the target completely. "I have a very good memory."

Ian picked up the other gun. "I'm surprised to hear it," he drawled, turning to the target, "inasmuch as when we met Elizabeth had been reloading a gun, and she paused imperceptibly, then returned to the task. His casual question proved she'd been right in her earlier reflections. Flirtations were obviously not taken seriously by those mature enough to indulge in them. Afterward, like now, it was apparently accepted procedure to tease one another about them. While Ian loaded the other two guns Elizabeth considered how much nicer it was to joke openly about it than to lie awake in the dark, consumed with confusion and bitterness, as she had done. How foolish she'd been. How foolish she'd seem now if she didn't treat the matter openly and lightly. It did seem, however, a little strange-and rather funny-to discuss it while blasting away with guns. She was smiling about that very thing when he handed her a gun. "Viscount Mondevale was anything but a 'fop'," she said, turning to aim.

He looked surprised, but his voice was bland. "Mondevale, was it?"

"Mmmm." Elizabeth blasted the end off the twig and laughed with delight. "I hit it! That's three for you and one for me." "That's six for me," he pointed out drolly.

"In any case, I'm catching up, so beware!" He handed gun to her, and Elizabeth squinted, taking careful aim.

"Why did you cry off?" She stiffened in surprise; then, trying to match his light, mocking tone, she said, "Viscount Mondevale proved to be a trifle high in the instep about things like his fiance cavorting about in cottages and greenhouses with you." She fired and missed.

"How many contenders are there this Season?" he asked conversationally as he turned to the target, pausing to wipe the gun.

She knew he meant contenders for her hand, and pride absolutely would not allow her to say there were none, nor had there been for a long time. "Well. . ." she said, suppressing a grimace as she thought of her stout suitor with a houseful of cherubs. Counting on the fact that he didn't move in the inner circles of the ton, she a.s.sumed he wouldn't know much about either suitor. He raised the gun as she said, "There's Sir Francis Belhaven, for one."