Chapter 1




Fifteen servants wearing the traditional blue and silver livery of the Earl of Cameron left Havenhurst at dawn on the same day. All of them carried identical, urgent messages that Lady Elizabeth’s uncle, Mr. Julius Cameron, had directed them to deliver at fifteen homes throughout England.
The recipients of these messages all had only one thing in common: They had once offered for Lady Elizabeth’s hand in marriage.
All fifteen of these gentlemen, upon reading the message, exhibited shock at its contents. Some of them were incredulous, others derisive, and still others cruelly satisfied. Twelve of them promptly wrote out replies declining Julius Cameron’s outrageous suggestion, then they hurried off in search of friends with whom they could share this unsurpassed, delicious piece of incredible gossip.
Three of the recipients reacted differently.
Lord John Marchman had just returned from his favorite daily pastime of hunting when the Havenhurst servant arrived at his home, and a footman brought him the message. “I’ll be damned,” he breathed as he read. The message stated that Mr. Julius Cameron was desirous of seeing his niece, Lady Elizabeth Cameron, suitably and immediately wed. To that end, Mr. Cameron said he would now be willing to reconsider John’s previously rejected offer for Lady Elizabeth’s hand. Cognizant of the year and a half that had passed since they had been in each other’s company, Julius Cameron volunteered to send his niece, properly chaperoned, to spend a sennight with John so that they might “renew their acquaintance.”
Unable to believe what he was reading, Lord Marchman paced the floor and read the entire message twice more. “I’ll be damned,” he said again. Raking a hand through his sandy hair, he glanced distractedly at the wall beside him, which was completely covered with his most prized possessions-the heads of the animals he’d hunted in Europe and abroad. A moose stared back at him through glazed eyes; beside it a wild boar snarled. Reaching up, he scratched the moose behind its antlers in an affectionate, if ludicrous, gesture that expressed his gratitude for the splendid day of hunting that particular prize had afforded him.
A vision of Elizabeth Cameron danced enchantingly before his eyes-an incredibly lovely face with green eyes, cameo skin, and soft smiling lips. A year and a half ago, when he’d met her, he’d thought her the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. After meeting her only twice he’d been so taken with the charming, unaffected seventeen-year-old girl that he’d dashed off to her brother and offered for her, only to be coldly rejected.
Evidently Elizabeth’s uncle, who was now her guardian, judged John by different standards.
Perhaps the lovely Lady Elizabeth herself had been behind this decision; perhaps their two meetings in the park had meant as much to her as they had to him.
Getting up, John wandered over to the third wall, which held a variety of fishing poles, and thoughtfully selected one. The trout would be biting this afternoon, he decided as he remembered Elizabeth’s magnificent honey-colored hair. Her hair had glistened in the sunlight, reminding him of the shimmering scales of a beautiful trout as it breaks the water. The analogy seemed so perfect and so poetic that Lord Marchman stopped, spellbound by his own phrasing, and put the fishing pole down. He would compliment Elizabeth’s hair in exactly those words, he decided, when he accepted her uncle’s offer and she came to his home next month.
Sir Francis Belhaven, the fourteenth recipient of Julius Cameron’s message, read it while sitting in his bedchamber wrapped in a satin dressing gown, his mistress naked and waiting for him in his bed across the room.
“Francis, darling,” she purred, raking her long fingernails down the satin sheets, “what’s important enough about that message to keep you over there instead of here?”
He looked up and frowned at the sound her nails were making. “Don’t scratch the sheets, love,” he said. “They cost £30 apiece.”
“If you cared about me,” she countered, careful not to sound as if she was whining, “you wouldn’t give a thought to the cost.” Francis Belhaven was so tightfisted that there were times Eloise wondered if marrying him would gain her more than a gown or two a year.
“If you cared about me,” he countered smoothly, “you’d be more careful with my coin.”
At five and forty Francis Belhaven had never been married, but he’d never lacked for feminine companionship. He enjoyed women immensely-their bodies, their faces, their bodies. . .
Now, however, he needed a legitimate heir, and for that he needed a wife. During the last year he’d been giving a good deal of thought to his rather stringent requirements for the lucky young lady he would eventually choose. He wanted a young wife as well as a beautiful wife with money of her own so she wouldn’t squander his.
Glancing up from Julius’s message, he gazed hungrily at Eloise’s breasts and mentally added a new requirement for his future wife: She must be understanding about his sensual appetite and his need for variety on his sexual menu. It would not do for her to pucker up like a prune merely because he was involved in one trivial little affair or another. At the age of forty-five, he had no intention of being ruled by some chit with pious notions of morality and fidelity.
A vision of Elizabeth Cameron was superimposed against his naked mistress. What a lush little beauty she’d been when he’d offered for her nearly two years ago. Her breasts had been ripe, her waist tiny, her face. . . unforgettable. Her fortune. . . adequate. Since then gossip had it that she was practically destitute after her brother’s mysterious disappearance, but her uncle had indicated that she would bring a sizable dowry, which meant the gossip was as wrong as always.
“Francis!”
Arising, he walked over to the bed and sat down beside Eloise. Caressingly he laid a hand on her hip, but he reached for the bell pull with his other hand. “A moment, my darling,” he said as a servant rushed into the bedchamber. He handed over the note and said, “Instruct my secretary to send an affirmative reply.”
The last invitation was forwarded from Ian Thornton’s London town house to Montmayne, his country estate, where it appeared on his desk among a mountain of business and social correspondence awaiting his attention. Ian opened Julius Cameron’s missive while he was in the midst of rapid-fire dictation to his new secretary, and he did not take nearly so long to make a decision as Lord John Marchman or Sir Francis Belhaven.
He stared at it in utter disbelief while his secretary, Peters, who’d only been with him for a fortnight, muttered a silent prayer of gratitude for the break and continued scribbling as fast as he could, trying futilely to catch up with his employer’s dictation.
“This,” said Ian curtly, “was sent to me either by mistake or as a joke. In either case, it’s in excruciatingly bad taste.” A memory of Elizabeth Cameron flickered across Ian’s mind-a mercenary, shallow little flirt with a face and body that had drugged his mind. She’d been betrothed to a viscount when he’d met her. Obviously she hadn’t married her viscount-no doubt she’d jilted him in favor of someone with even better prospects. The English nobility, as he well knew, married only for prestige and money, then looked elsewhere for sexual fulfillment. Evidently Elizabeth Cameron’s relatives were putting her back on the marriage block. If so, they must be damned eager to unload her if they were willing to forsake a title for Ian’s money. That line of conjecture seemed so unlikely that Ian dismissed it. This note was obviously a stupid prank, perpetrated, no doubt, by someone who remembered the gossip that had exploded over that weekend house party-someone who thought he’d find the note amusing.
Completely dismissing the prankster and Elizabeth Cameron from his mind. Ian glanced at his harassed secretary who was frantically scribbling away. “No reply is necessary,” he said. As he spoke he flipped the message across his desk toward his secretary, but the white parchment slid across the polished oak and floated to the floor. Peters made an awkward dive to catch it, but as he lurched sideways all the other correspondence that went with his dictation slid off his lap onto the door. “I-I’m sorry, sir,” he stammered, leaping up and trying to collect the dozens of pieces of paper he’d scattered on the carpet. “Extremely sorry, Mr. Thornton,” he added, frantically snatching up contracts, invitations and letters and shoving them into a disorderly pile.
His employer appeared not to hear him. He was already rapping out more instructions and passing the corresponding invitations and letters across the desk. “Decline the first three, accept the fourth, decline the fifth. Send my condolences on this one. On this one, explain that I’m going to be in Scotland and send an invitation to join me there, along with directions to the cottage.”
Clutching the papers to his chest, Peters poked his face up on the opposite side of the desk. “Yes, Mr. Thornton!” he said, trying to sound confident. But it was hard to be confident when one was on one’s knees. Harder still when one wasn’t entirely certain which instructions of the morning went with which invitation or piece of correspondence.
Ian Thornton spent the rest of the afternoon closeted with Peters, heaping more dictation on the inundated clerk.
“If you cared about me,” she countered, careful not to sound as if she was whining, “you wouldn’t give a thought to the cost.” Francis Belhaven was so tightfisted that there were times Eloise wondered if marrying him would gain her more than a gown or two a year.
“If you cared about me,” he countered smoothly, “you’d be more careful with my coin.”
At five and forty Francis Belhaven had never been married, but he’d never lacked for feminine companionship. He enjoyed women immensely-their bodies, their faces, their bodies. . .
Now, however, he needed a legitimate heir, and for that he needed a wife. During the last year he’d been giving a good deal of thought to his rather stringent requirements for the lucky young lady he would eventually choose. He wanted a young wife as well as a beautiful wife with money of her own so she wouldn’t squander his.
Glancing up from Julius’s message, he gazed hungrily at Eloise’s breasts and mentally added a new requirement for his future wife: She must be understanding about his sensual appetite and his need for variety on his sexual menu. It would not do for her to pucker up like a prune merely because he was involved in one trivial little affair or another. At the age of forty-five, he had no intention of being He spent the evening with the Earl of Melbourne, his future father-in-law, discussing the betrothal contract being drawn up between the earl’s daughter and himself.
Peters spent part of his evening trying to learn from the butler which invitations his employer was likely to accept or reject.

Chapter 2



With the help of her footman, who did double duty as a groom when the occasion required (which it usually did), Lady Elizabeth Cameron, Countess of Havenhurst, hopped down from her aging mare. “Thank you, Charles,” she said, grinning affectionately at the old retainer.
At the moment the young countess did not remotely resemble the conventional image of a noblewoman, nor even a lady of fashion. Her hair was covered with a blue kerchief that was tied at the nape; her gown was simple, unadorned, and somewhat outdated; and over her arm was the woven basket she used to do her marketing in the village. But not even her drab clothing, her ancient horse, or the market basket over her arm could make Elizabeth Cameron look “common.” Beneath her kerchief her shining gold hair fell in a luxurious tumble over her shoulders and back; left unbound, as it normally was, it framed a face of striking, flawless beauty. Her finely molded cheekbones were slightly high, her skin creamy and glowing with health, her lips generous and soft. But her eyes were her most striking feature; beneath delicately winged eyebrows long, curly lashes fringed eyes that were a vivid, startling green. Not hazel or aqua, but green; wonderfully expressive eyes that sparkled like emeralds when she was happy or darkened when she was pensive.
The footman peered hopefully at the contents of the basket, which were wrapped in paper, but Elizabeth shook her head with a rueful grin. “There are no tarts in there, Charles. They were much too expensive, and Mr. Jenkins would not be reasonable. I told him I would buy a whole dozen, but he would not reduce the price by so much as a penny, so I refused to buy even one-on principle. Do you know,” she confided with a chuckle, “last week when he saw me coming into his shop he hid behind the flour sacks?”
“He’s a coward!” Charles said, grinning, for it was a known fact among tradesmen and shopkeepers that Elizabeth Cameron pinched a shilling until it squeaked, and that when it came to bargaining for price-which it always did with her-they rarely came out the winner. Her intellect, not her beauty, was her greatest asset in these transactions, for she could not only add and multiply in her head, but she was so sweetly reasonable, and so inventive when she listed her reasons for expecting a better price, that she either wore out her opponents or confused them into agreeing with her.
Her concern with money didn’t stop with tradesmen; at Havenhurst there was scarcely an economy she didn’t practice, but her methods were successful. At nineteen years old, with the burden of her small ancestral estate and eighteen of its original ninety servants on her youthful shoulders, she was managing with limited financial help from her grudging uncle to do the nearly impossible. She was keeping Havenhurst off the auctioneer’s block, as well as feeding and clothing the servants who had remained there. The only “luxury” Elizabeth permitted herself was Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, who had been Elizabeth’s duenna and was now her paid companion at severely reduced wages. Although Elizabeth felt perfectly capable of living alone at Havenhurst, she knew that, were she to do it, what little was left of her reputation would have been blackened beyond redemption.
Elizabeth handed her basket to her footman and said cheerfully, “Instead of tarts I bought strawberries. Mr. Thergood is more reasonable than Mr. Jenkins. He agrees that when a person buys multiples of something, it is only reasonable that she should pay less per each.”
Charles scratched his head at these complicated notions, but he tried to look as if he understood. “Of course,” he agreed as he led her horse away. “Any fool could understand that.”
“My feelings exactly.” she said, then she turned and ran lightly up the front steps, her mind set on going over the account books. Bentner swung open the front door, the stout, elderly butler’s features tense with excitement. In the tone of one who is bursting with delight but is too dignified to show it, he announced, “You have a visitor, Miss Elizabeth!”
For a year and a half there had been no visitors at Havenhurst, and so it was little wonder that Elizabeth felt an absurd burst of pleasure followed by confusion. It couldn’t be another creditor; Elizabeth had paid them off by stripping Havenhurst of all its valuables and most of its furniture. “Who is it?” she asked, stepping into the hall and reaching up to pull off her kerchief.
A beaming grin broke across Bentner’s entire face. “It is Alexandra Lawrence! Er...Townsende,” he corrected himself, recalling that their visitor was married now.
Joyous disbelief held Elizabeth immobilized for a split second, then she turned and burst into an unladylike run, pulling off her kerchief as she dashed toward the drawing room. In the doorway she came to an abrupt halt, the kerchief dangling from her fingertips, her eyes riveted to the lovely young brunette who was standing in the middle of the room, clad in an elegant red traveling suit. The brunette turned, and the two girls looked at each other while slow smiles dawned across their faces and glowed in their eyes. Elizabeth’s voice was a whisper, filled with admiration, disbelief, and pure delight. “Alex? Is it really you?”
The brunette nodded, her smile widening.
They stood still, uncertain, each one noting the dramatic changes in the other in the past year and a half, each one wondering a little apprehensively if the changes went too deep. In the silent room the ties of childhood friendship and long-standing affection began to tighten around them, pulling them forward a hesitant step, then another, and suddenly they were running toward each other, flinging their arms around one another in fierce hugs, laughing and crying with joy.
“Oh, Alex, you look wonderful! I’ve missed you so!” Elizabeth laughed, hugging her again. To society” Alex” was Alexandra, Duchess of Hawthorne, but to Elizabeth she was “Alex,” her oldest friend in the world-the friend who’d been on a prolonged honeymoon trip and so was unlikely to have heard yet of the awful mess Elizabeth was in.
Pulling her down onto the sofa, Elizabeth launched into a torrent of questions. “When did you return from your honeymoon trip? Are you happy? What brings you here? How long can you stay?”
“I’ve missed you, too,” Alex replied, chuckling, and she began answering Elizabeth’s questions in the order they’d been asked. “We returned three weeks ago. I’m ecstatically happy. I’m here to see you, of course, and I can stay for a few days, if you wish me to.”
“Of course I wish it!” Elizabeth said gaily. “I have absolutely nothing planned, except for today. My uncle is coming to see me.” Actually, Elizabeth’s social schedule was perfectly blank for the next twelve months, and her uncle’s occasional visits were worse than having nothing to do. But none of that mattered anymore. Elizabeth was so absurdly happy to see her friend that she couldn’t stop smiling.
As they had done when they were youngsters, both girls kicked off their slippers, curled their legs beneath them, and talked for hours with the easy camaraderie of kindred spirits separated for years, yet eternally united by girlhood memo.
Memories, happy, tender, and sad. “Will you ever forget,” Elizabeth laughingly asked two hours later, “those wonderful mock tournaments we used to have whenever Mary Ellen’s family had a birthday?”
“Never,” Alex said feelingly, smiling with the memories.
“You unseated me every time we had a joust,” Elizabeth said.
“Yes, but you won every single shooting contest. At least you did until your parents found out and decided you were too old-and too refined-to join us.” Alex sobered. “We missed you after that.”
“Not as much as I missed you. I always knew exactly which days those jousts were taking place, and I would mope around here in complete gloom, imagining what fun you were having. Then Robert and I decided to start our own tournaments, and we made all the servants participate,” she added, laughing as she thought of her half-brother and herself in those bygone days.
After a moment Alex’s smile faded. “Where is Robert? You haven’t mentioned him at all.”
“He. . .” She hesitated, knowing that she couldn’t talk of her half-brother’s disappearance without revealing everything that had preceded it. On the other hand, there was something in Alexandra’s sympathetic eyes that made Elizabeth wonder uneasily if her friend had already heard the whole awful story. In a matter-of-fact voice she said, “Robert disappeared a year and a half ago. I think it may have had something to do with well, debts. Let’s not talk of it,” she said hastily.
“Very well,” Alex agreed with an artificially bright smile. “What shall we talk about?”
“You,” Elizabeth said promptly. Alex was older than Elizabeth, and time flew past as Alexandra talked of the husband she had wed, whom she obviously adored. Elizabeth listened attentively to the descriptions of the wondrous places all over the world that he had taken her to see on their honeymoon trip.
“Tell me about London,” Elizabeth said when Alex ran out of conversation about foreign cities.
“What do you want to know?” she asked, sobering. Elizabeth leaned forward in her chair and opened her mouth to ask the questions that mattered most to her, but pride prevented her from voicing them. “Oh nothing in particular,” she lied. I want to know if my friends ridicule me or condemn me-or worse, if they pity me, she thought. I want to know if it’s common gossip that I’m penniless now. Most of all, I want to know why none of them has bothered to visit me or even to send me a message.
A year and a half ago, when she’d made her debut, she had been an instant success, and offers for her hand were made in record numbers. Now, at nineteen, she was an outcast from the same society that had once imitated, praised and petted her. Elizabeth had broken their rules, and in doing so she had become the focus of a scandal that raged through the ton like wildfire.
As Elizabeth looked uneasily at Alexandra she wondered if society knew the whole story or only the scandal; she wondered if they still talked about it or if it had finally been laid to rest. Alex had left on her prolonged trip just before it all happened, and she wondered if Alex had heard about it since her return.
The questions tumbled in her mind, desperate to be voiced, but she could not risk asking for two reasons: In the first place, the answers, when they came, might make her I cry, and she would not give in to tears. In the second, in I order to ask Alex the questions she longed to ask she would have to first inform her friend of all that had happened. And I the simple truth was that Elizabeth was too lonely and bereft to risk the possibility that Alex might also abandon her if she knew.
“What sorts of things do you want to know?” Alex asked with a determinedly blank, cheerful smile pinned to her face-a smile designed to conceal her pity and sorrow from her proud friend.
“Anything!” Elizabeth immediately replied. “Well, then,” Alex said, eager to banish the pall of
Elizabeth’s painful, unspoken questions from the room, “Lord Dusenberry just became betrothed to Cecelia Lacroix!”
“How nice,” Elizabeth replied with a soft, winsome smile, her voice filled with genuine happiness. “He’s very wealthy and from one of the finest families.”
“He’s an inveterate philanderer, and he’ll take a mistress within a month of their vows,” Alex countered with the directness that had always shocked and rather delighted Elizabeth.
“I hope you’re mistaken.”
“I’m not. But if you think I am, would you care to place a wager on it?” Alex continued, so happy to see the laughter rekindle in her friend’s eyes that she spoke without thinking. “Say £30?”
Suddenly Elizabeth couldn’t bear the uncertainty any longer. She needed to know whether loyalty had brought Alex to her-or whether she was here because she mistakenly believed Elizabeth was still the most Sought-after female in London. Lifting her eyes to Alex’s blue ones, Elizabeth said with quiet dignity, “I do not have £30, Alex.”
Alex returned her somber gaze, trying to blink back tears of sympathy. “I know.”
Elizabeth had learned to deal with relentless adversity, to hide her fear and hold her head high. Now, faced with kindness and loyalty, she nearly gave in to the hated tears that tragedy had not wrung from her. Scarcely able to drag the words past the tears clogging her throat, Elizabeth said humbly, “Thank you.”
“There’s nothing for which to thank me. I’ve heard the whole sordid story, and I don’t believe a word of it! Furthermore, I want you to come to London for the Season and stay with us.” Leaning forward, Alex took her hand. “For the sake of your own pride, you have to face them all down. I’ll help you. Better yet, I’ll convince my husband’s grandmother to lend her consequence to you. Believe me,” Alex finished feelingly, but with a fond smile, “no one will dare to cut you if the Dowager Duchess of Hawthorne stands behind you.”
“Please, Alex, stop. You don’t know what you’re saying. Even if I were willing, which I’m not, she would never agree. I don’t know her, but she’ll surely know all about me. About what people say about me, I mean.”
Alex held her gaze steadily. “You’re right on one account -she had heard the gossip while I was away. I’ve talked the matter over with her, however, and she is willing to meet you and then make her own decision. She’ll love you, just as I do. And when that happens she’ll move heaven and earth to make society accept you.”
Elizabeth shook her head, swallowing back a constricting lump of emotion that was part gratitude, part humiliation. “I appreciate it, really I do, but I couldn’t endure it.”
“I’ve quite made up my mind,” Alex warned gently. “My husband respects my judgment, and he’ll agree, I have no doubt. As to gowns for a Season, I have many I’ve not yet worn. I’ll lend-”
“Absolutely not!” Elizabeth burst out. “Please, Alex,” she implored, realizing how ungrateful she must sound. “At least leave me some pride. Besides,” she added with a gentle smile, “I am not quite so unlucky as you seem to think. I have you. And I have Havenhurst.”
“I know that,” Alex said. “But I also know that you cannot stay here all your life. You don’t have to go out in company when you’re in London, if you don’t wish to do so. But we’ll spend time together. I’ve missed you.”
“You’ll be too busy to do it,” Elizabeth said, recalling the frenetic whirlwind of social activities that marked the Season.
“I won’t be that busy,” Alexandra said with a mysterious smile glowing in her eyes. “I’m with child.”
Elizabeth caught her in a fierce hug. “I’ll come!” she agreed before she could think better of it. “But I can stay at my uncle’s town house if he isn’t there.”
“Ours,” Alexandra said stubbornly.
“We’ll see,” Elizabeth countered just as stubbornly. And then she said rapturously, “A baby!”
“Excuse me, Miss Alex,” Bentner interrupted, then he turned to Elizabeth, looking uneasy. “Your uncle has just arrived,” he said. “He wishes to see you at once in the study.”
Alex looked quizzically from the butler to Elizabeth. “Havenhurst seemed rather deserted when I arrived. How many servants are here?”
“Eighteen,” Elizabeth said. “Before Robert left we were down to forty-five of the original ninety, but my uncle turned them all away. He said we didn’t need them, and after examining the estate books he showed me that we couldn’t possibly afford to give them anything but a roof and food. Eighteen of them remained anyway, though,” she added, smiling up at Bentner as she continued, “They’ve lived at Havenhurst all their lives. It’s their home, too.”
Standing up, Elizabeth stifled the spurt of dread that was nothing more than an automatic reflex at the prospect of confronting her uncle. “This shouldn’t take long. Uncle Julius never likes to remain here any longer than he absolutely must.”
Bentner hung back, ostensibly gathering up the tea things, watching Elizabeth leave. When she was out of earshot he turned to the Duchess of Hawthorne, whom he’d known when she was a dab of a girl running wild in boys’ breeches. “Begging your pardon, Your Grace,” he said formally, his kindly old face filled with concern, “but may I say how glad I am that you’re here, especially now with Mr. Cameron just arriving?”
“Why, thank you, Bentner. It’s lovely to see you again, too. Is anything particularly amiss with Mr. Cameron?”
“It looks like there might be.” He paused to walk over to the doorway and steal a furtive glance down the hall, then he returned to her and confided, “Aaron-our coachman, that is and I both don’t like the look of Mr. Cameron today. And there’s one thing more,” he stated, picking up the tea tray. “None of us who’ve stayed on here remained because of affection for Havenhurst.” An embarrassed flush stole up his white cheeks, and his voice turned gruff with emotion. “We stayed for our young mistress. We are all she has left, you see.”
His gruffly spoken avowal of loyalty made Alex’s eyes sting with tears even before he added, “We must not let her uncle send her into the gloom, which is what he always does.”
“Is there a means to stop him?” Alex asked, smiling. Bentner straightened, nodded, and said with dignified force, “I, for one, am in favor of shoving him off London Bridge. Aaron favors poison.”
There was anger and frustration in his words, but no real menace, and Alex responded with a conspiratorial smile. “I think I prefer your method Bentner it’s tidier.”
Alexandra’s remark had been teasing, and Bentner’s reply was a formal bow, but as they looked at each other for a moment they both acknowledged the unspoken communication they’d just exchanged. The butler had informed her that, should the staff’s help be needed in any way in future, the duchess could depend upon their complete, unquestioning loyalty. The duchess’s answer had assured him that, far from resenting his intrusion, she appreciated the information and would keep it in mind should such an occasion occur.

Chapter 3



Julius Cameron looked up as his niece entered his study, and his eyes narrowed with annoyance; even now, when she was little more than an impoverished orphan, there was regal grace in her carriage and stubborn pride in the set of her small chin. She was up to her ears in debt and sinking deeper every month, but she still walked about with her head high, just like her arrogant, reckless father had done. At the age of thirty-five he had drowned in a yachting accident, along with Elizabeth’s mother, and by then he’d already gambled away his substantial inheritance and secretly mortgaged his lands. Even so, he’d continued to walk with arrogance, and to live, until the very last day, like a privileged aristocrat.
As the younger son of the Earl of Havenhurst, Julius had inherited neither title nor fortune nor substantial lands, yet he had managed by dint of unstinting work and vigilant frugality to amass a considerable fortune. He had gone without all but the barest necessities in his ceaseless efforts to better his lot in life; he had eschewed the glamour and temptations of society, not only because of the incredible expense, but because he refused to hang about on the fringes of the nobility.
After all of his sacrifices, after the Spartan existence he and his wife had led, fate had still contrived to cheat him, for his wife was barren. To his everlasting bitterness, he had no heir for his fortune or his lands-no heir except the son Elizabeth would bear after she was wed.
Now, as he watched her seating herself across the desk from him, the irony of it all struck him with renewed, painful force. In actuality, he’d spent a lifetime working and scrimping. . . and all he’d accomplished was to replenish the wealth of his reckless brother’s future grandson. And if that wasn’t infuriating enough, he’d also been left with the task of cleaning up the mess Elizabeth’s half-brother, Robert, had left behind when he’d vanished almost two years ago. As a result, it now fell to Julius to honor her father’s written instructions to see her wed to a man possessed of both title and wealth, if possible. A month ago, when Julius had launched his search for a suitable husband for her, he’d expected the task to be fairly easy. After all, when she’d made her debut the year before last, her beauty, her impeccable lineage, and her alleged wealth had won her a record fifteen marital offers in four short weeks. To Julius’s surprise, only three of those men had answered his letters of inquiry in the affirmative, and several hadn’t bothered to answer at all. Of course, it was no secret that she was poor now, but Julius had offered a respectable dowry to get her off his hands. To Julius, who thought of everything in terms of money, her dowry alone should have made her desirable enough. Of the dreadful scandal surrounding her Julius knew little and cared less. He shunned society along with all its gossip, frivolity, and excesses.
Elizabeth’s question pulled him from his angry reverie: “What did you wish to discuss with me, Uncle Julius?”
Animosity, combined with resentment over what was sure to be an angry outburst from Elizabeth, made his voice more curt than normal. “I have come here today to discuss your impending marriage.”
“My-my what?” Elizabeth gasped, so taken aback that her tight facade of dignity dropped, and for a split second she looked and felt like a child, forlorn and bewildered and trapped.
“I believe you heard me.” Leaning back in his chair, Julius said brusquely, “I’ve narrowed it down to three men. Two of them are titled, the third is not. Since titles were paramount to your father, I shall choose the man with the highest rank who offers for you, assuming I have such a choice to make.”
“How-” Elizabeth had to pause to gather her wits before she could speak. “How did you happen to select these men?”
“I asked Lucinda for the names of any men who, during your debut, had discussed marrying you with Robert. She gave me their names, and I sent messengers to each of them, stating your willingness and mine-as your guardian to reconsider them as possible husbands for you.”
Elizabeth clutched the arms of her chair, trying to control her horror. “Do you mean,” she said in a strangled whisper, “you made some sort of public offering of my hand in marriage to any of those men who’d take me?”
“Yes!” he bit out, bristling at her implied accusation that he’d not behaved in a manner befitting his station or hers. Furthermore, it may do you good to hear that your legendary attraction for the opposite sex has apparently ended. Only three of those fifteen men expressed a willingness to renew their acquaintance with you.”
Humiliated to the depths of her being, Elizabeth stared blankly at the wall behind him. “I cannot believe you’ve done this.”
His open palm hit the desk like a thunderclap. “I’ve acted within my rights, niece, and in accordance with your wastrel father’s specific instructions. May I remind you that when I die, it is my money that will be entrusted to your husband and ultimately to your son. Mine.”
For months now Elizabeth had tried to understand her uncle, and somewhere in her heart she comprehended the cause of his bitterness and even empathized with it. “I wish you had been blessed with a son of your own,” she said in a suffocated voice. “But I am not to blame because you were not. I’ve done you no harm, given you no cause to hate me enough to do this to me. . . .” Her voice trailed off when she saw his expression harden at what he regarded as pleading. Elizabeth’s chin rose, and she clung to what was left of her dignity. “Who are the men?”
“Sir Francis Belhaven,” he said shortly.
Elizabeth stared at him in stupefaction and shook her head. “I met hundreds of new people during my debut, but I don’t recall that name at all.”
“The second man is Lord John Marchman, Earl of Canford.”
Again Elizabeth shook her head. “The name is somewhat familiar, but I can’t recall a face to go with it.”
Obviously disappointed in her reaction, her uncle said irritably, “You apparently have a poor memory. If you can’t recall a knight or an earl,” he added sarcastically, “I doubt you’ll remember a mere mister.”
Stung by his unprovoked remark, she said stiffly, “Who is the third?”
“Mr. Ian Thornton. He’s-”
That name sent Elizabeth jolting to her feet while a blaze of animosity and a shock of terror erupted through her entire body. “Ian Thornton” she cried, leaning her palms on the desk to steady herself. “Ian Thornton!” she repeated, her voice rising with a mixture of anger and hysterical laughter. “Uncle, if Ian Thornton discussed marrying me, it was at the point of Robert’s gun! His interest in me was never marriage, and Robert dueled with him over his behavior. In fact, Robert shot him!”
Instead of relenting or being upset, her uncle merely regarded her with blank indifference, and Elizabeth said fiercely, “Don’t you understand?”
“What I understand,” he said, glowering, “is that he replied to my message in the affirmative and was very cordial. Perhaps he regrets his earlier behavior and wishes to make amends.”
“Amends!” she cried. “I’ve no idea whether he feels .loathing for me or merely contempt, but I can assure you he does not and has never wished to wed me! He’s the reason I can’t show my face in society!”
“In my opinion, you’re better off away from that decadent London influence; however, that’s not to the point. He has accepted my terms.”
“What terms?”
Inured to Elizabeth’s quaking alarm, Julius stated matter-of-factly, “Each of the three candidates has agreed that you will come to visit him briefly in order to allow you to decide if you suit. Lucinda will accompany you as chaperon. You’re to leave in five days. Belhaven is first, then Marchman, then Thornton.”
The room swam before Elizabeth’s eyes. “I can’t believe this!” she burst out, and in her misery she seized on the least of her problems. “Lucinda has taken her first holiday in years! She’s in Devon visiting her sister.”
“Then take Berta instead and have Lucinda join you later when you go to visit Thornton in Scotland.”
“Berta! Berta is a maid. My reputation will be in shreds if I spend a week in the home of a man with no one but a maid for a chaperon.”
“Then don’t say she’s a maid,” he snapped. “Since I already referred to Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones as your chaperon in my letters, you can say that Berta is your aunt. No more objections, miss,” he finished, “the matter is settled. That will be all for now. You may go.”
“It’s not settled! There’s been some sort of horrible mistake, I tell you. Ian Thornton would never want to see me, any more than I wish to see him!”
“There’s no mistake,” Julius said with complete finality. “Ian Thornton received my letter and accepted our offer. He even sent directions to his place in Scotland.”
“Your offer,” Elizabeth cried, “not mine!”
“I’ll not debate technicalities any further with you, Elizabeth. This discussion is at an end.”

Chapter 4



Elizabeth walked slowly down the hall and turned a corner, intending to rejoin Alexandra, but her knees were shaking so violently that she had to stop and put her hand against the wall to steady herself. Ian Thornton. . . In a matter of days she would confront Ian Thornton.
His name whirled through her mind, making her head spin with a combination of loathing, humiliation, and dread, and she finally turned and walked into the small salon where she sank down onto the sofa, staring blankly at the bright patch of wallpaper where a painting by Rubens had once hung.
Not for one moment did Elizabeth believe Ian Thornton had ever wanted to marry her, and she could not imagine what possible motive he might now have for accepting her uncle’s outrageous offer. She had been a naive, gullible fool where he was concerned.
Now, as she leaned her head back and closed her eyes, she could hardly believe she’d ever been as reckless-or as carefree-as she’d been the weekend she met him. She’d been so certain that her future would be bright, but then, she’d had no reason to think otherwise.
Her parents’ death when she was eleven years old had been a dark time for her, but Robert had been there to comfort her and cheer her and promise her that everything would soon look bright again. Robert was eight years older than she, and although he was actually her half-brother her mother’s son by her first marriage-Elizabeth had loved and relied on him for as long as she could remember. Her parents had been gone so often that they had seemed more like beautiful visitors who flitted in and out of her life three or four times a year, bringing her presents and then vanishing soon after in a wave of gay good-byes.
Except for the loss of her parents, Elizabeth’s childhood had been very pleasant indeed. Her sunny disposition had made her a favorite with all the servants, who doted on her. Cook gave her sweets; the butler taught her to play chess; Aaron, the head coachman, taught her to play whist, and years later he taught her to use a pistol should the occasion ever occur when she needed to protect herself.
But of all her “friends” at Havenhurst, the one with whom Elizabeth spent the most time was Oliver, the head gardener who’d come to Havenhurst when she was eleven. A quiet man with gentle eyes, Oliver labored in Havenhurst’s greenhouse and flowerbeds, talking softly to his cuttings and plants. “Plants need affection,” he’d explained when she surprised him one day in the greenhouse, speaking encouragements to a wilting violet, “just like people. Go ahead,” he’d invited her, nodding toward the drooping violet, “give that pretty violet an encouragin’ word.”
Elizabeth had felt a little foolish, but she had done as instructed, for Oliver’s expertise as a gardener was unquestionable Havenhurst’s gardens had improved dramatically in the months since he’d come there. And so she had leaned toward the violet and earnestly told it. “I hope you are soon completely recovered and your old lovely self again!” Then she had stepped back and waited expectantly for the yellowing drooping leaves to lift toward the sun.
“I’ve given her a dose of my special medicine,” Oliver said as be carefully moved the potted plant to the benches where be kept all his ailing patients. “In a few days, you come back and see if she isn’t anxious to show you how much better she feels.” Oliver, Elizabeth later realized, regarded all flowering plants as “she,” while all others were “he”.
The very next day Elizabeth went to the greenhouse, but the violet looked as miserable as ever. Five days later she’d all but forgotten the plant and had merely gone to the greenhouse to share some tarts with Oliver.
“You’ve a friend over there waiting to see you, missy,” he told her.
Elizabeth had wandered over to the table with the ailing plants and discovered the violet, its delicate flowers standing sturdily on fragile little stems, its leaves perked up. “Oliver!” she’d cried delightedly. “How did you do that?”
“ ‘Twas your kind words and a bit o’ my medicine what pulled her through,” he said, and because he could see the glimmerings of genuine fascination-or perhaps because he wished to distract the newly orphaned girl from her woes he’d taken her through the greenhouse, naming the plants and showing her grafts he was trying to make. Afterward he’d asked if she would like a small garden for her own, and when Elizabeth nodded they’d strolled through the seedlings in the greenhouse, beginning to plan what flowers she ought to plant.
That day marked the beginning of Elizabeth’s enduring love affair with growing things. Working at Oliver’s side, an apron tied around her waist to protect her dress, she learned all he could tell her of his “medicines” and mulches and attempts to graft one plant to another.
And when Oliver had taught her ail he knew, Elizabeth began to teach him, for she had a distinct advantage Elizabeth could read, and Havenhurst’s library had been the pride of her grandfather. Side by side they sat upon the garden bench until twilight made reading impossible, while Elizabeth read to him about ancient and modern methods of helping plants grow stronger and more vibrant. Within five years Elizabeth’s “little” garden encompassed most of the main beds. Wherever she knelt with her small spade, flowers seemed to burst into bloom about her. “They know you love ‘em,” Oliver told her with one of his rare grins as she knelt in a bed of gaily colored pansies one day, “and they’re showin’ you they love you back by givin’ you their very best.”
When Oliver’s health required he go to a warmer clime, Elizabeth missed him greatly and spent even more time in her gardens. There she gave full rein to her own ideas, sketching out planting arrangements and bringing them to life, recruiting footmen and grooms to help her enlarge the beds until they covered a newly terraced section that stretched across the entire back of the house.
In addition to her gardening and the companionship of the servants, Elizabeth took great pleasure in her friendship with Alexandra Lawrence. Alex was the closest neighbor of Elizabeth’s approximate age, and although Alex was older, they shared the same exuberant pleasure in lying in bed at night, telling blood-chilling stories of ghosts until they were giggling with nervous fear, or sitting in Elizabeth’s large tree house, confiding girlish secrets and private dreams.
Even after Alex had married and gone away, Elizabeth never regarded herself as lonely, because she had something else she loved that occupied all her plans and most of her time. She had Havenhurst. Originally a castle, complete with moat and high stone enclosures, Havenhurst had been the dower house of a twelfth-century grandmother of Elizabeth’s. The husband of that particular grandmother had taken advantage of his influence with the king to have several unusual codicils attached to Havenhurst’s entailment-codicils to ensure that it would belong to his wife and their successors for as long as they wished to keep it, be those successors male or female.
As a result, at the age of eleven when her father died, Elizabeth had become the Countess of Havenhurst, and although the title itself meant little to her, Havenhurst, with its colorful history, meant everything. By the time she was seventeen she was as familiar with that history as she was with her own. She knew everything about the sieges it had withstood, complete with the names of the attackers and the strategies the earls and countesses of Havenhurst had employed to keep it safe. She knew all there was to know of its former owners, their accomplishments and their foibles from the first earl, whose daring and skill in battle had made him a legend (but who was secretly terrified of his wife), to his son, who’d had his unfortunate horse shot when the young earl fell off while practicing at the quintain in Havenhurst’s bailer.
The moat had been filled in centuries before, the castle walls removed, and the house itself enlarged and altered until it now looked like a picturesque, rambling country house that bore little or no resemblance to its original self. But even so, Elizabeth knew from parchments and paintings in the library exactly where everything had been, including the moat, the wall, and probably the quintain.
As a result of all that, by the time she was seventeen Elizabeth Cameron was very unlike most well-born young ladies. Extraordinarily well-read, poised, and with a streak of practicality that was evidencing itself more each day, she was already learning from the bailiff about the running of her own estate. Surrounded by trusted adults for all her life, she was naively optimistic that all people must be as nice and as dependable as she and everyone else at Havenhurst.
It was little wonder that on that fateful day when Robert unexpectedly arrived from London, dragged her away from the roses she was pruning, and, grinning broadly, informed her that she was going to make her debut in London in six months, Elizabeth had reacted with pleasure and no concern at all about encountering any difficulties.
“It’s all arranged,” he’d told her excitedly. “Lady Jamison has agreed to sponsor you-out of fondness for our mother’s memory. The thing’s going to cost a bloody fortune, but it’ll be worth it.”
Elizabeth had stared at him in surprise. “You’ve never mentioned the cost of anything before. We aren’t in any sort of financial difficulty, are we, Robert?”
“Not anymore,” he’d lied. “We have a fortune right here, only I didn’t realize it.”
“Where?” Elizabeth asked, completely baffled by everything she was hearing as well as by the uneasy feeling she had.
Laughing, he tugged her over to the mirror, cupped her face in his hands, and made her look at herself.
After casting him a puzzled glance she looked at her face in the mirror, then she laughed. “Why didn’t you just say I had a smudge?” she said, rubbing at the small streak on her cheek with her fingertips.
“Elizabeth,” he chuckled, “is that all you see in that mirror-a smudge on your cheek?”
“No, I see my face,” she answered.
“How does it look to you?” “Like my face,” she replied in amused exasperation. “Elizabeth, that face of yours is our fortune now!” he cried. “I never thought of it until yesterday, when Bertie Krandell told me about the splendid offer his sister just got from Lord Cheverley.”
Elizabeth was stupefied. “What are you talking about?” “I’m talking about your marriage,” he explained with his reckless grin. “You’re twice as beautiful as Bertie’s sister. With your face and Havenhurst as your dowry, you’ll be able to make a marriage that will make all England buzz. That marriage will bring you jewels and gowns and beautiful homes, and it will bring me connections that will be worth more than money. Besides,” he teased, “if I run short now and then, I know you’ll throw a few thousand pounds my way from your pin money.”
“We are short of money, aren’t we?” Elizabeth persisted, too concerned about that to care about a London debut. Robert’s gaze dropped from hers, and with a weary sigh he gestured toward the sofa. “We’re in a bit of a fix,” be admitted when she sat down beside him. Elizabeth might have been barely seventeen, but she knew when he was gulling her, and her expression made it clear she suspected he was doing exactly that. “Actually,” he admitted reluctantly, “we’re in a bad fix. Very bad.”
“How can that be?” she asked, and despite the fear beginning to quake through her, she managed to sound calm.
Embarrassment tinted his handsome face with a ruddy hue. “For one thing. Father left behind a staggering amount of debts, some of them from gaming. I’ve accumulated more than a few debts of that sort of my own. I’ve been holding his creditors and mine off for the last several years as best I can, but they’re getting nasty now. And it’s not just that. Havenhurst costs a bloody ransom to run, Elizabeth. Its income doesn’t match its expenses by a long way, and it never has. The end result is that we’re mortgaged up to our ears, you and I both. We’re going to have to mortgage the contents of the house to payoff some of these debts or neither of us will be able to show a face in London, and that’s not the worst of it. Havenhurst is yours, not mine, but if you can’t make a good marriage, it’s going to end up on the auction block, and soon.”
Her voice shook only slightly, but inwardly Elizabeth was a roiling mass of bewilderment and alarm. “You just said a London Season would cost a fortune, and we obviously don’t have it,” she pointed out practically.
“The creditors will back away the minute they see you’re betrothed to a man of means and consequence, and I promise you we won’t have a problem finding one of those.”
Elizabeth thought the whole scheme sounded mercenary and cold, but Robert shook his head. This time he was the practical one: “You’re a female, love, and you have to wed, you know that all women must wed. You’re not going to meet anyone eligible cooped up at Havenhurst. And I’m not suggesting we accept an offer from just anyone. I’ll choose someone you can develop a lasting affection for, and then,” he promised sincerely, “I’ll bargain for a long engagement on the basis of your youth. No respectable man would want to rush a seventeen-year-old girl into matrimony before she was ready for it. It’s the only way,” he warned her when she looked as if she was going to argue.
Sheltered though she’d been, Elizabeth knew he was not being unreasonable about expecting her to wed. Before her parent’s death they’d made it very clear that it was her duty to marry in accordance with her family’s wishes. In this case, her half-brother was in charge of making the selection, and Elizabeth trusted him implicitly.
“Fess up,” Robert teased gently, “haven’t you ever dreamed of wearing beautiful gowns and being courted by handsome beaux?”
“Perhaps a few times,” Elizabeth admitted with an embarrassed sidewise smile, and it was something of an understatement. She was a normal, healthy girl, filled with affection, and she’d read her share of romantic novels. That last part of what Robert said had much appeal. “Very well,” she said with a decisive chuckle. “We’ll give it a try.”
“We’ll have to do more than try. Elizabeth, we’ll have to pull it off, or you’ll end up as a landless governess to someone else’s children instead of a countess or better, with children of your own. I’ll land in debtors’ gaol.” The idea of Robert in a dank cell and herself without Havenhurst was enough to make Elizabeth do almost anything. “Leave everything to me,” he said, and Elizabeth did.
In the next six months Robert set about to overcome every obstacle that might prevent Elizabeth from making a spectacular impression on the London scene. A woman named Mrs. Porter was employed to teach Elizabeth those intricate social skills her mother and former governess had not. From Mrs. Porter Elizabeth learned that she must never betray that she was intelligent, well-read, or the slightest bit interested in horticulture.
An expensive couturier in London was employed to design and make all the gowns Mrs. Porter deemed necessary for the Season.
Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, former paid companion to several of the ton’s most successful debutantes of prior seasons, came to Havenhurst to fill the position of Elizabeth’s duenna. A woman of fifty with wiry gray hair she scraped back into a bun and the posture of a ramrod, she had a permanently pinched face, as if she smelled something disagreeable but was too well-bred to remark upon it. In addition to the duenna’s daunting physical appearance, Elizabeth observed shortly after their first meeting that Miss Throckmorton-Jones possessed an astonishing ability to sit serenely for hours without twitching so much as a finger.
Elizabeth refused to be put off by her stony demeanor and set about finding a way to thaw her. Teasingly, she called her “Lucy,” and when the casually affectionate nickname won a thunderous frown from the lady, Elizabeth tried to find a different means. She discovered it very soon. A few days after Lucinda came to live at Havenhurst the duenna discovered her curled up in a chair in Havenhurst’s huge library, engrossed in a book. “You enjoy reading? “Lucinda had said gruffly-and with surprise-as she noted the gold embossed title on the volume.
“Yes,” Elizabeth had assured her, smiling. “Do you?” “Have you read Christopher Marlowe?” “Yes, but I prefer Shakespeare.”
Thereafter it became their policy each night after supper to debate the merits of the individual books they’d read. Before long Elizabeth realized that she’d won the duenna’s reluctant respect. It was impossible to be certain she’d won Lucinda’s affection, for the only emotion the lady ever displayed was anger, and that only once, at a miscreant tradesman in the village. Even so, it was a display Elizabeth never forgot. Wielding her ever-present umbrella, Lucinda had advanced on the hapless man, backing him clear around his own shop, while from her lips in an icy voice poured the most amazing torrent of eloquent, biting fury Elizabeth had ever heard.
“My temper,” Lucinda had primly informed her-by way of apology, Elizabeth supposed “is my only shortcoming.”
Privately, Elizabeth thought Lucy must bottle up all her emotions inside herself as she sat perfectly still on sofas and chairs, for years at a time, until it finally exploded like one of those mountains she’d read about that poured forth molten rock when the pressure finally reached a peak.
By the time the Camerons, along with Lucinda and the necessary servants, arrived in London for Elizabeth’s debut, Elizabeth had learned all that Mrs. Porter could teach her, and she felt quite capable of meeting the challenges Mrs. Porter described. Actually, other than memorizing the rules of etiquette she was a little baffled over the huge fuss being made. After all, she’d learned to dance in the six months she was being prepared for her debut, and she’d been conversing since she was three years old, and as closely as she could tell, her only duties as a debutante were to converse politely on trivial subjects only, conceal her intelligent at all costs, and dance.
The day after they settled into their rented town house her sponsor into the ranks of the ton, Lady Jamison, called on Elizabeth and Robert. With her were two daughters, Valerie and Charise. Valerie was a year older than Elizabeth and had made her debut the year before; Charise was five years older the young widow of old Lord Dumont who cocked up his toes a month after the nuptials, leaving his new wife wealthy, relieved, and entirely independent.
In the two weeks before the Season began Elizabeth spent considerable time with the wealthy young debutantes who gathered in the Jamison drawing room to gossip happily about everything and anyone. All of them had come to London with the same noble duty and familial objective: to marry, in accordance with their family’s wishes, the wealthiest possible suitor while at the same time increasing their family’s wealth and social standing.
It was in that drawing room that Elizabeth’s education was continued and completed. She discovered to her shock that Mrs. Porter had been right about name-dropping. She also discovered that it was apparently not considered bad manners among the ton to discuss another person’s financial status particularly the status and prospects of an unmarried gentleman. The very first day it was all she could do not to betray her ignorance with a horrified gasp at the conversation swirling around her: “Lord Peters is an excellent catch. Why, he has an income of £20,000 and every prospect of being named heir to his uncle’s baronetcy if his uncle dies of his heart ailment, which there’s every reason to expect he will,” one of the girls had announced, and the others chimed in: “Shoreham has that splendid estate in Wiltshire, and Mama is living on tenterhooks waiting to see if he’ll declare himself. . . . Think of it, the Shoreham emeralds! Robelsly is driving a splendid blue barouche, but Papa said he’s up to his ears in debt and that I may on no account consider him. . . . Elizabeth, wait until you meet Richard Shipley! Do not under any circumstances let his charm fool you; he’s a complete scoundrel, and though he dresses to the nines, he hasn’t a feather to fly with!” That last advice came from Valerie Jamison, whom Elizabeth regarded as her very closest friend among the girls.
Elizabeth had gladly accepted their collective friendship and, outwardly, their advice. However, she felt increasingly uneasy about some of their attitudes toward people they judged as their inferiors which wasn’t surprising from a young lady who regarded her butler and coachman as her equals.
On the other hand, she was in love with London, with its bustling streets, manicured parks, and air of excited expectation, and she adored having friends who, when they weren’t gossiping about someone, were merry companions.
On the night of her first ball, however, much of Elizabeth’s confidence and delight had suddenly vanished. As she walked up the Jamisons’ staircase beside Robert, she felt suddenly more terrified than she’d ever felt in her life. Her head was whirling with all the dos and don’ts she’d not really bothered to memorize, and she was morbidly certain she was going to be the Season’s most notorious wallflower. But when she walked into the ballroom, the sight that greeted her made her forget all her self-conscious terrors and made her eyes shine with wonder. Chandeliers sparkled with hundreds of thousands of candles; handsome men and gorgeously gowned women strolled about in silks and satins.
Oblivious to the young men turning to stare at her, she lifted her shining eyes to her smiling brother. “Robert,” she whispered, her green eyes radiant, “have you ever imagined there were such beautiful people and such grand rooms in the entire world?”
Clad in a filmy, gold-spangled white gauze gown with white roses entwined in her golden hair and her green eyes sparkling, Elizabeth Cameron looked like a fairy-tale princess.
She was enchanted, and her enchantment lent her an almost ethereal glow as she finally recovered herself enough to smile and acknowledge Valerie and her friends.
By the end of the evening Elizabeth felt as if she were in a fairy tale. Young men had flocked around her, begging for introductions and dances and for the opportunity to bring her punch. She smiled and danced, but she never resorted to the flirtatious contrivances used by some of the other girls; instead she listened with genuine interest and a warm smile to the beaux who spoke to her; she made them comfortable and drew them out as they led her to the dance floor. In truth, she was thrilled by the contagious gaiety, beguiled by the wondrous music, dazzled by so much attention, and all those emotions were displayed in her shining eyes and winsome smile. She was a mythical princess at her first ball, bewitching, entrancing, twirling around and around on the dance floor beneath glittering chandeliers, surrounded by charming princes, with no thought that it would ever end. Elizabeth Cameron, with her angelic beauty, golden hair, and shining green eyes, had taken London by storm. She was not a rage. She was the rage.
The callers began arriving at her house the next morning in an endless stream, and it was there, not in the ballrooms, where Elizabeth made her greatest conquests, for she was not merely lovely to look at, she was even easier to be with than she had been at the ball. Within three weeks fourteen gentlemen had offered for her, and London was abuzz with such an unprecedented occurrence. Not even Miss Mary Gladstone, the reigning beauty for two consecutive seasons, had received so many offers as that.
Twelve of Elizabeth’s suitors were young, besotted, and eligible; two were much older and equally besotted. Robert, with great pride and equal lack of tact, boasted of her suitors and ruthlessly rejected them as unsuitable and inadequate. He waited, faithfully keeping his promise to Elizabeth to choose for her an ideal husband with whom she could be happy.
The fifteenth applicant for her hand filled all his requirements. Extremely wealthy, handsome, and personable, Viscount Mondevale, at twenty-five, was unquestionably one of the season’s best catches. Robert knew it, and as he told Elizabeth that evening, he’d been so excited that he had nearly forgotten himself and leapt across his desk to congratulate the young viscount on his impending nuptials.
Elizabeth had been very pleased and touched that the gentleman she had most particularly admired was the very one who had offered for her and been chosen. “Oh, Robert, he’s excessively nice. I-I wasn’t entirely certain he liked me enough to offer for me.”
Robert had pressed an affectionate kiss on her forehead. “Princess,” he’d teased, “any man who takes a look at you loses his head entirely. It’s only a matter of time.”
Elizabeth had given him a brief smile and shrugged. She was heartily sick of people talking about her face as if there were no mind behind it. Moreover, all the frantic activities and brittle gaiety of the season, which had originally enthralled her, were rapidly beginning to pall. In fact, the strongest emotion she felt at Robert’s announcement was relief that her marriage was settled.
“Mondevale plans to call on you this afternoon,” Robert had continued, “but I don’t mean to give him my answer for a week or two. Waiting will only strengthen his resolve, and besides, you deserve another few days of freedom before you become an engaged woman.”
An engaged woman. Elizabeth felt an oddly queasy and distinctly uneasy feeling at the sound of that, though she realized she was being very foolish.
“I confess I dreaded telling him that your dowry is only £5,000, but he didn’t seem to care. Said as much. Said all he wanted was you. Told me he meant to shower you with rubies the size of your palm.”
“That’s. . . wonderful,” Elizabeth said weakly, trying very hard to feel something more than relief and an inexplicable twinge of apprehension.
“You’re wonderful,” he said, rumpling her hair. “You’ve pulled Father, me, and Havenhurst out of the briars.”
At three o’clock Viscount Mondevale arrived. Elizabeth met with him in the yellow salon. He walked in, glanced around the room, then took her hands in his and smiled warmly into her eyes. “The answer is yes, isn’t it?” he said, but it was more a statement than a question.
“You’ve already spoken to my brother?” Elizabeth said in surprise.
“No, I haven’t.” “Then how do you know the answer is yes?” she asked, smiling and mystified.
“Because,” he said, “the ever-present, eagle-eyed Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones is absent from your side for the first time in a month!” He pressed a brief kiss to her forehead, which caught her off-guard, and she blushed. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?” he asked.
Elizabeth had a vague idea since everyone was always telling her, and she suppressed a worried impulse to reply, “Do you have any idea how intelligent I am?” It wasn’t that she was an intellectual by any stretch of the imagination, but she did like to read and think and even debate issues, and she wasn’t at all certain he would like that in her. He never expressed an opinion on anything except the most trivial generalities and he never asked for hers.
“You’re enchanting.” he whispered, and Elizabeth wondered, very seriously, why he thought that. He didn’t know how much she loved to fish, or to laugh, or that she could shoot a pistol so well she was almost a marksman. He didn’t know she’d once had chariot races across the yard at Havenhurst, or that flowers seemed to bloom especially well for her. She didn’t even know if he’d like to hear all the wonderful tales of Havenhurst and its colorful former inhabitants. He knew so little of her; she knew even less about him,
She wished she could ask Lucinda’s advice, but Lucinda was ill with a high fever, raw throat, and bad digestion that had kept her in her chamber since the day before.
Elizabeth was still a little worried about all those things late the next afternoon when she left to attend the weekend party that would put her in the way of Ian Thornton and change her life. The party took place at the lovely country house belonging to Valerie’s older sister, Lady Charise Dumont. By the time Elizabeth arrived the grounds of the estate were already filled with guests who were flirting and laughing and drinking liberal quantities of the champagne that gurgled forth from crystal fountains in the garden. By London standards, the gathering at this party was small; no more than one hundred fifty guests were present, and only twenty-five of them, including Elizabeth and her three friends, were actually staying the full weekend. If she hadn’t been so sheltered and so naive, she’d have recognized “the fast set” when she saw it that evening; she’d have realized at a glance that the guests at this party were much older, more experienced, and far more freewheeling than any she’d ever been around. And she’d have left.
Now, as Elizabeth sat in the salon at Havenhurst, reflecting on her disastrous folly that weekend, she marveled at her gullibility and naiveté.
Leaning her head back against the sofa, she closed her eyes, swallowing against the painful lump of humiliation that swelled in her throat. Why, she wondered despairingly, did happy memories fade and blur until one could scarcely recall them at all, while horrible memories seemed to retain their blinding clarity and painful sharpness? Even now she could remember that night-see it, hear it, smell it.
Flowers had been blooming riotously in the formal gardens when she walked outside looking for her friends. Roses. Everywhere there had been the intoxicating fragrance of roses. In the ballroom the orchestra was tuning up, and suddenly the opening strains of a lovely waltz drifted into the garden, filling it with music. Twilight was descending, and servants moved about the terraced garden paths lighting gay torches. Not all the paths would be lit, of course-those below the terraced steps would be left in convenient darkness for couples who later wished for intimacy in the hedge maze or the greenhouse, but Elizabeth hadn’t realized that until later.
It had taken her nearly a half hour to find her friends, because they had gathered for a gay gossip at the far end of the garden where they were partially concealed from view by a high, clipped hedge. As she neared the girls she realized they weren’t standing by the hedge, they were peeking through it, chattering excitedly about someone they were watching-someone who seemed to be sending them into raptures of excitement and speculation. “Now that,” Valerie giggled, peering through the hedge, “is what my sister calls ‘manly allure’!” In brief, reverent silence all three of the girls studied this paragon of masculinity who had earned such high praise from Valerie’s gorgeous and very discerning sister, Charise. Elizabeth had just noticed a grass stain on her lavender slipper and was unhappily contemplating the exorbitant cost of a new pair while wondering if it was possible to buy only one shoe. “I still can’t believe it’s him!” Valerie whispered. “Charise said he might be here, but I wouldn’t credit it. Won’t everyone simply die when we return to London and tell them we’ve seen him?” Valerie added, then she noticed Elizabeth and beckoned her to the hedge. “Look, Elizabeth, isn’t he divine’ in a sort of mysterious, wicked way?”
Instead of peering through the hedge Elizabeth glanced around the end of it, scanning the garden, which was filled with gorgeously garbed men and women who were laughing and chatting as they moved languidly toward the ballroom where dancing would take place followed by a late supper. Her gaze drifted idly over the men in pastel satin breeches and colorful waistcoats and jackets which made them resemble bright peacocks and flashy macaws. “Who am I supposed to see?”
“Mr. Ian Thornton, silly! No, wait, you can’t see him now. He moved away from the torches.”
“Who is Ian Thornton?”
“That’s just it; nobody knows, not really!” In the tone of one imparting delicious and startling news she added, “Some say he’s the grandson of the Duke of Stanhope.”
Like all young debutantes, Elizabeth had been required to study Debrett’s Peerage, a book the ton revered with almost as much fervor as a devout Presbyterian felt for his Bible. “The Duke of Stanhope is an old man,” she remarked after thoughtful consideration, “and he has no heir.”
“Yes, everyone knows that. But it’s said Ian Thornton is his “Valerie’s voice dropped to a whisper” illegitimate grandson.”
“You see,” Penelope contributed authoritatively, “the Duke of Stanhope did have a son, but he disowned him years ago. My mama told me all about it was quite a scandal.” At the word “scandal” they all turned inquisitively, and she continued, “The old duke’s son married the daughter of a Scottish peasant who was part Irish to boot! She was a perfectly dreadful person of no consequence whatsoever. So this could be his grandson.”
“People think that’s who he is simply because of his surname,” Georgina provided with typical practicality, “yet it’s a common enough name.”
“I heard he’s so rich,” Valerie put in, “that he wagered £25,000 on a single hand of cards one night at a polite gaming hall in Paris.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Georgina with derision, “ he didn’t do that because he’s rich, he did it because he’s a gambler! My brother knows him, and he said Ian Thornton is a common gambler a person without background, breeding, connections, or wealth!”
“I’ve heard that, too,” Valerie admitted, peering through the hedge. “Look,” she broke off – “you can see him now. Lady Mary Watterly is practically throwing herself at him!”
The girls leaned so far forward they almost fell into the shrubbery.
“I know I’d melt if he looked at me.”
“I’m sure you would not,” Elizabeth said with a wry smile, because she felt she ought to contribute something to the conversation.
“You haven’t seen him yet!” Elizabeth didn’t need to look at him; she knew exactly the sort of handsome young men who made all her friends swoon blond, blue-eyed Corinthians between twenty-one and twenty-four.
“I suppose Elizabeth has too many wealthy beaux of her own to care about a mere mister, no matter how handsome or intriguing he might be,” Valerie said when Elizabeth remained politely aloof, and it seemed to Elizabeth the compliment was coated with a layer of envy and malice. The suspicion was so unpleasant that she quickly rejected it. She’d done nothing to Valerie, or to anyone, to deserve animosity. Not once since she’d come to London had she uttered an unkind word against anyone; in fact, she never took part in gossip that turned malicious or repeated a word of it to anyone else. Even now she was extremely uneasy with some of the things they were saying about the man they were watching. It seemed to Elizabeth that a person had a right to dignity regardless of his rank or lack thereof. That, of course, was a minority opinion that verged on heresy in the ton’s eyes, and so she kept her odd notions to herself.
At the time Elizabeth had felt such thoughts were disloyal to her friends, and, moreover, that she was probably being churlish by not joining in their fun and trying to share their excitement with Mr. Ian Thornton. Trying to throw herself into the spirit of the moment, she smiled at Valerie and said, “I don’t have as many beaux as that, and I’m sure if I could see him, I’d be as intrigued as everyone else.”
For some reason Elizabeth’s words caused Valerie and Penelope to exchange pleased, conspiratorial glances, then Valerie explained the reason for it: “Thank heavens you agree, Elizabeth, because the three of us are in a bit of a coil. We were counting on you to help us out of it.”
“What sort of coil?” “Well, you see,” Valerie explained with a breathless exuberance that Elizabeth blamed on the glasses of heady wine the servants had been pressing on all the guests, including them, “I had to wheedle forever before Charise would agree to let us be here this weekend.”
Since she already knew that, Elizabeth nodded and waited.
“The thing is, when Charise said earlier today that Ian Thornton was really going to be here, we were all up in the boughs about it. But she said he wouldn’t pay any of us the slightest notice, because we’re too young and not at all in his style-”
“She’s probably correct,” Elizabeth said with an unconcerned smile.
“Oh, but he must!” Glancing at the other girls as if for reinforcement, Valerie finished eagerly, “He absolutely must, because the three of us wagered our entire quarter’s allowance with Charise that he would ask one of us to dance tonight. And he’s not likely to do that unless his interest is piqued beforehand.”
“Your entire allowance?” Elizabeth said, horrified at such an extravagant gamble. “But you were planning to use it to buy those amethysts you saw at the jeweler’s on Westpool Street.”
“And I intended to use mine,” Penelope added as she turned to peer through the hedge again, “to buy that marvelous little mare Papa has refused me.”
“I-I could probably withdraw from the wager,” Georgina put in, looking acutely uneasy about more than the money. “I don’t think-” she started, but Penelope burst out eagerly, “He’s starting across the garden in this direction, and he’s alone! There’ll never be a better opportunity to try to attract his notice than right now, if he doesn’t change direction.”
Suddenly the outrageous wager did seem like forbidden fun, and Elizabeth chuckled. “In that case, I nominate Valerie for the task of piquing his interest, since it was her idea and she particularly admires him.”
“We nominate you,” Valerie said in a giddy, determined voice.
“Me? Why should it be me?”
“Because you’re the one who’s already received fourteen offers, so it’s perfectly obvious you’re the most likely to succeed. Besides,” she added when Elizabeth balked, “Viscount Mondevale cannot help but be impressed when he hears that Ian Thornton a mysterious older man at whom Mary Jane Morrison flung herself last year to no avail asked you to dance and paid you particular’ attention. As soon as Mondevale hears about it he’ll come up to scratch in a trice!”
In accordance with the dictates of Polite Society, Elizabeth had never allowed herself to show the slightest partiality for the viscount, and she was startled to learn that her friends had guessed her secret feelings. Of course, they couldn’t know that the handsome young man had already made his offer and was about to be accepted.
“Make up your mind quickly, he’s nearly here.” Penelope implored amid a chorus of nervous giggles from Georgina,
“Well, will you do it?’ Valerie demanded urgently as the other two girls began backing away and turning toward the house.
Elizabeth took her first swallow of the wine she’d been given as soon as she stepped from the house into the garden. She hesitated. “Very well, I suppose so,” she said, flashing a smile at her friend.
“Excellent. Don’t forget he has to dance with you tonight or we’ll lose our allowances!” Laughing, she gave Elizabeth a light, encouraging shove, then turned on her satin-shod heels and fled after their laughing friends.
The clipped hedge the girls had been peering around and through blocked Elizabeth from view as she hastily walked down two wide brick steps onto the grass and glanced around, trying to decide whether to stand where she was or be seated upon the little white stone bench to her left. She darted to the bench and sat down just as booted heels struck the steps, once-twice, and there he was.
Oblivious to her presence for the moment, Ian Thornton walked forward another pace, then stopped near a lighted torch and withdrew a thin cheroot from his jacket pocket. Elizabeth watched him, suffused with trepidation and an unfamiliar, tingling excitement that was due as much to his appearance as to her secret assignment. He was nothing like she’d expected him to be. Besides being older than she’d imagined-she guessed him to be at least twenty-seven-he was startlingly tall, more than six feet, with powerful shoulders and long, muscular legs. His thick hair was not blond, but a rich brown-black that looked as if it had a tendency to curl. Instead of wearing the customary bright satin coat and white breeches that the other men wore he was clad in raven black from head to foot, with the exception of his snowy shirt and neckcloth, which were so white they seemed to gleam against the stark black of his jacket and waistcoat. Elizabeth had the uneasy thought that Ian Thornton was like a large, predatory hawk in the midst of a gathering of tame, colorful peacocks. As she studied him he lit the cheroot, bending his dark head and cupping his hands over the flame. White cuffs peeped from beneath his black jacket, and in the bright orange glow of the flame she saw that his hands and face were deeply tanned.
Elizabeth expelled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been bolding, and the tiny sound made him glance up sharply. His eyes narrowed in surprise or displeasure Elizabeth wasn’t certain. Caught in the act of lurking in the shadows and staring at him. Elizabeth blurted the first idiotic thing that came to mind. “I’ve never seen a man smoke a cigar before. It-they always retire to another room.”
His dark brows lifted a fraction in bland inquiry. “Do you mind?” he asked as he finished lighting the cigar.
Two things hit Elizabeth at once: His piercing eyes were the strange color of gleaming amber, while his voice was richly textured and deep; the combination sent a peculiar warmth up her spine. “Mind?” she repeated stupidly.
“The cigar,” he said.
“Oh-no. No, I don’t,” she hastily assured him, but she had the oddest impression that he had come here seeking privacy and to enjoy a cigar, and that if she had said yes, she did mind, he would have turned around abruptly and left rather than extinguish his cigar so that he could remain in her presence. Fifty yards away, at the far end of the long, narrow grassy ledge on which they stood, girlish laughter sounded, and Elizabeth turned involuntarily, catching a glimpse in the torchlight of Valerie’s pink gown and Georgina’s yellow one before they darted around the hedge and were blocked from sight.
A flush stained her cheeks at the embarrassing way her friends were acting, and when she turned back she found her companion studying her, his hands shoved into his pockets, the cigar clamped between teeth as white as his shirt. With an imperceptible inclination of his head he indicated the place the girls had been. “Friends of yours?” he asked, and Elizabeth had the horrible, guilty feeling that he somehow knew the whole thing had been plotted in advance.
She considered telling a small fib, but she didn’t like to lie, and those disturbing eyes of his were leveled on hers. “Yes, they are.” Pausing to arrange her lavender skirts to their best advantage, she raised her face to his and smiled tentatively. It occurred to her that they hadn’t been introduced, and since there was no one about to do the thing properly, she hastily and uneasily remedied the matter herself. “I am Elizabeth Cameron,” she announced.
Inclining his head in the merest mockery of a bow, he acknowledged her by saying simply, “Miss Cameron.”
Left with no other choice, Elizabeth prodded, “And you are?”
“Ian Thornton.”
“How do you do, Mr. Thornton,” she replied, and she extended her hand to him as was proper. The gesture made him smile suddenly, a slow, startlingly glamorous white smile as he did the only thing he could do-which was to step forward and take her hand. “A pleasure,” he said, but his voice was lightly tinged with mockery.
Already beginning to regret ever agreeing to this plan, Elizabeth racked her brain for an opening, which in the past she’d left to the besotted boys who desperately wanted to engage her in conversation. The subject of whom one knew was always appropriate among the ton and Elizabeth seized on that with relief. Gesturing with her fan toward the place they’d last seen her friends, she said, “The young lady in the pink gown was Miss Valerie Jamison, and Miss Georgina Granger was in the yellow one.” When he showed no sign of recognition, she provided helpfully, “Miss Jamison is the daughter of Lord and Lady Jamison.” When he merely continued to watch her with mild interest. Elizabeth added a little desperately, “They are the Herfordshire Jamisons. You know-the earl and countess.”
“Really?” he responded with amused indulgence.
“Yes indeed,” Elizabeth rambled, feeling more ill at ease by the second, “and Miss Granger is the daughter of the Wiltshire Grangers-the Baron and Baroness of Grangerley.”
“Really?” he mocked, watching her in speculative silence. It hit her then, what the girls had said about his questionable parentage, and she felt faint with shame for thoughtlessly speaking of titles to someone who might have been cheated of his own. The palms of her hands grew damp; she rubbed them against her knees, realized what she was doing and hastily stopped. Then she cleared her throat fanning herself vigorously. “We are all here for the Season,” she finished lamely.
The cool amber eyes warmed suddenly with a mixture of amusement and sympathy, and there was a smile in his deep voice as he asked, “And are you enjoying yourselves?”
“Yes, very much,” Elizabeth said with a sigh of relief that he was finally participating a little in the conversation. “Miss Granger, though you couldn’t see her at all well from here, is excessively pretty, with the sweetest manners imaginable. She has dozens of beaux.”
“All titled, I imagine?”
Still thinking be might be longing for a ducal title he’d missed having, Elizabeth bit her lip and nodded in sublime discomfort. “I’m afraid so,” she admitted abjectly, and to her astonishment, that made him grin-a slow, dazzling smile swept across his bronzed features, and its effect on his face was almost as dramatic as its effect on Elizabeth’s nervous system. Her heart gave a hard bump, and she suddenly stood up, feeling unaccountably jumpy. “Miss Jamison is lovely also,” she said, reverting to the discussion of her friends and smiling uncertainly at him.
“How many contenders have there been for her hand?” Elizabeth finally realized he was teasing and his irreverent view of what everyone else regarded as a matter of the utmost gravity startled an irrepressible, relieved chuckle from her. “I have it on the best authority,” she replied, trying to match his grave, teasing tone, “that her beaux have paraded to her papa in record numbers.”
His eyes warmed with laughter, and as she stood there, smiling back at him, her tension and nervousness evaporated. Suddenly and inexplicably she felt quite as if they were old friends sharing the same secret irreverence-only he was bold enough to admit his feelings, while she still tried to repress her own,
“And what about you?” “What about me?”
“How many offers have you had?”
A bubble of startled laughter escaped her, and she shook her head. To have told him proudly about her friends’ achievements was acceptable, but to boast about her own was beyond all bounds, and she had no doubt he knew it. “Now that.” she admonished with laughing severity, “was really too bad of you.”
“I apologize,” he said. inclining his head in a mocking little bow; the smile still lurking at his mouth.
Darkness had fallen over the garden, and Elizabeth realized she ought to go inside, yet she lingered, somehow reluctant to leave the enveloping intimacy of the garden. Clasping her hands lightly behind her back, she gazed up at the stars beginning to twinkle in the night sky. “This is my favorite time of day,” she admitted softly. She glanced sideways at him to see if he was bored with the topic, but he’d turned slightly and was looking up at the sky as if he, too, found something of interest there.
She searched for the Big Dipper and located it. “Look,” she said, nodding toward a particularly bright light in the sky. “There’s Venus. Or is it Jupiter? I’m never completely certain.”
“It’s Jupiter. Over there is Ursa Major.”
Elizabeth chuckled and shook her head, pulling her gaze from the sky and sending him a wry, sideways glance. “It may look like the Great Bear to you and everyone else, but to me all the constellations just look like a big bunch of scattered stars. In the spring I can find Cassiopeia, but not because it looks like a lion to me, and in the autumn I can pick out Arcturus, but how they ever saw an archer in all that clutter is quite beyond my comprehension. Do you suppose there are people up there anywhere?”
He turned his head, regarding her with fascinated amusement. “What do you think?”
“I think there are. In fact, I think it’s rather arrogant to assume that out of all those thousands of stars and planets up there, we are the only ones who exist. It seems as arrogant as the old belief that the earth is the center of the entire universe and everything revolves around us. Although people didn’t exactly thank Galileo for disproving it, did they? Imagine being hauled before the Inquisition and forced to renounce what you absolutely knew-and could prove was right!”
“When did debutantes start studying astronomy?” he asked as Elizabeth stepped over to the bench to retrieve her wineglass.
“I’ve had years and years to read,” she admitted ingenuously. Unaware of the searching intensity of his gaze, she picked up her wineglass and turned back to him. “I really must go inside now and change for the evening.”
He nodded in silence, and Elizabeth started to walk forward and step past him. Then she changed her mind and hesitated, remembering her friends’ wagers and how much they were counting on her. “I have a rather odd request a favor to ask of you,” she said slowly, praying that he felt, as she did, that they’d enjoyed a very brief and very pleasant sort of friendship out there. Smiling uncertainly into his inscrutable eyes, she said, “Could you possibly for reasons I can’t explain. . .” she trailed off, suddenly and acutely embarrassed.
“What is the favor?”
Elizabeth expelled her breath in a rush. “Could you possibly ask me to dance this evening?” He looked neither shocked nor tattered by her bold request and she watched his firmly molded lips form his answer.
“No.”
Elizabeth was mortified and shocked by his refusal, but she was even more stunned by the unmistakable regret she’d heard in his voice and glimpsed on his face. For a long moment she searched his shuttered features, and then the sound of laughing voices from somewhere nearby broke the spell. Trying to retreat from a predicament into which she should never have put herself in the first place, Elizabeth picked up her skirts, intending to leave. Making a conscious effort to keep all emotion from her voice, she said with calm dignity, “Good evening, Mr. Thornton.”
He flipped the cheroot away and nodded. “Good evening, Miss Cameron.” And then he left.
The rest of her friends had gone upstairs to change their gowns for the evening’s dancing, but the moment Elizabeth entered the rooms set aside for them the conversation and laughter stopped abruptly leaving Elizabeth with a fleeting, uneasy feeling that they had been laughing and talking about her.
“Well?” Penelope asked with an expectant laugh. “Don’t keep us in suspense. Did you make an impression?”
The uneasy sensation of being the brunt of some secret joke left Elizabeth as she looked about at their smiling, open faces. Only Valerie looked a little cool and aloof.
“I made an impression, to be sure,” Elizabeth said with an embarrassed smile, “but ‘twas not a particularly favorable one.”
“He remained by your side for ever so long,” another girl prodded her. “We were watching from the far end of the garden. What did you talk about?”
Elizabeth felt a warmth creep through her veins and steal up her cheeks as she remembered his handsome, tanned face and the way his smile had glinted and softened his features as he looked at her. “I don’t actually remember what we spoke of.” That much was true. All she could remember was the odd way her knees had shaken and her heart had beaten when he looked at her.
“Well, what was he like?”
“Handsome,” Elizabeth said a little dreamily before she could catch herself. “Charming. He has a beautiful voice.”
“And, no doubt,” Valerie said with a thread of sarcasm, “he’s even now trying to discover your brother’s whereabouts so that he can dash over there and apply for your hand.”
That notion was so absurd that Elizabeth would have burst out laughing if she weren’t so embarrassed and oddly let down by the way he’d left her in the garden. “My brother’s evening is safe from any interruption in that quarter, I can promise you. In fact,” she added with a rueful smile, “I fear you’ve all lost your quarterly allowances as well, for there isn’t the slightest chance he’ll ask me to dance.” With an apologetic wave she left to change her gown for the ball that was already underway on the third floor.
Once Elizabeth had gained the privacy of her bedchamber, however, the breezy smile she’d worn in front of the other girls faded to an expression of thoughtful bewilderment. Wandering over to the bed, she sat down, idly tracing the golden threads of the rose brocade coverlet with the tip of her finger, trying to understand the feelings she’d experienced in the presence of Ian Thornton.
Standing with him in the garden, she’d felt frightened and exhilarated at the same time-drawn to him against her very will by a compelling magnetism that he seemed to radiate. Out there she’d felt almost driven to win his approval, alarmed when she’d failed, joyous when she’d succeeded. Even now, just the memory of the way he smiled, of the intimacy of his heavy-lidded gaze, made her feel hot and cold all over.
Music drifted from the ballroom on another floor, and Elizabeth finally shook herself from her reverie and rang for Berta to help her dress.
“What do you think?” she asked Berta a half hour later as she pirouetted before the mirror for the inspection of her nursemaid-turned-lady’s maid.
Berta twisted her plump hands as she stood back, nervously surveying her glowing young mistress’s more sophisticated appearance, unable to suppress her affectionate smile. Elizabeth’s hair had been caught up into an elegant chignon at the crown with soft tendrils framing her face, and her mother’s sapphire and diamond eardrops sparkled at her ears.
Unlike Elizabeth’s other gowns, which were nearly all pastel and high-waisted, this one was a sapphire blue, by far the most unusual and alluring of them all. Panels of blue silk drifted from a flattened bow upon her left shoulder and fell straight to the floor, leaving her other shoulder bare. Despite the fact that the gown was little more than a straight tube of silk, it flattered her figure, emphasizing her breasts and hinting at the narrow waist beneath. “I think,” Berta said finally, “it’s a wonder Mrs. Porter ordered such a gown for you. It’s not a bit like your others.”
Elizabeth tossed her a jaunty, conspiratorial smile as she pulled on the sapphire gloves that encased her arms to above the elbows. “It’s the only one Mrs. Porter didn’t choose,” she admitted. “And Lucinda hasn’t seen it either.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
Elizabeth turned back to the mirror, frowning as she surveyed her appearance. “The other girls are barely seventeen, but I’ll be eighteen in a few months. Besides,” she explained, picking up her mother’s sapphire and diamond bracelet and fastening it over the glove on her left wrist, ‘‘as I tried to tell Mrs. Porter, it’s a great waste to spend so much for gowns that won’t be at all suitable for me next year or the year after. I’ll be able to wear this one even when I’m twenty.”
Berta rolled her eyes and shook her head, setting the streamers on her cap bobbing. “I doubt your Viscount Mondevale will want you wearin’ the same gown more’n twice, let alone until you wear it out,” she said as she bent over to straighten the hem on the blue gown.

Chapter 5



Berta’s reminder that she was virtually betrothed had a distinctly sobering effect on Elizabeth, and the mood stayed with her as she walked toward the flight of steps leading down to the ballroom. The prospect of confronting Mr. Ian Thornton no longer made her pulse race, and she refused to regret his refusal to dance with her, or even to think of him. With natural grace she started down to the ballroom, where couples were dancing. but most seemed to be clustered about in groups, talking and laughing.
A few steps from the bottom she paused momentarily to scan the guests, wondering where her friends had gathered. She saw them only a few yards away, and when Penelope lifted her hand in a beckoning wave Elizabeth nodded and smiled.
The smile still on her lips, she started to look away, then froze as her gaze locked with a pair of startled amber eyes. Standing with a group of men near the foot of the staircase, Ian Thornton was staring at her, his wineglass arrested halfway to his lips. His bold gaze swept from the top of her shining blond hair, over her breasts and hips, right down to her blue satin slippers, then it lifted abruptly to her face, and there was a smile of frank admiration gleaming in his eyes. As if to confirm it, he cocked an eyebrow very slightly and lifted his glass in the merest subtle gesture of a toast before he drank his wine.
Somehow Elizabeth managed to keep her expression serene as she continued gracefully down the stairs, but her treacherous pulse was racing double-time, and her mind was in complete confusion. Had any other man looked at her or behaved to her the way Ian Thornton just had, she would have been indignant, amused, or both. Instead the smile in his eyes the mocking little toast had made her feel as if they were sharing some private, intimate conversation, and she had returned his smile.
Lord Howard, who was Viscount Mondevale’s cousin, was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. An urbane man with pleasing manners, he had never been one of her beaux, but he had become something of a friend, and he’d always done his utmost to further Viscount Mondevale’s suit with her. Beside him was Lord Everly, one of Elizabeth’s most determined suitors, a rash, handsome young man who, like Elizabeth, had inherited his title and lands as a youth. Unlike Elizabeth, he’d inherited a fortune along with them. “I say!” Lord Everly burst out, offering Elizabeth his arm. “We heard you were here. You’re looking ravishing tonight.”
“Ravishing.” echoed Lord Howard. With a meaningful grin at Thomas Everly’s outstretched arm he said, “Everly, one usually asks a lady for the honor of escorting her forward-he does not thrust his arm in her way.” Turning to Elizabeth, he bowed, said, “May I?” and offered his arm.
Elizabeth chuckled, and now that she was betrothed she permitted herself to break a tiny rule of decorum. “Certainly, my lords,” she replied, and she placed a gloved hand on each of their arms. “I hope you appreciate the lengths to which I’m going to prevent the two of you from coming to fisticuffs,” she teased as they led her forward. “I look like an elderly lady, too weak to walk without someone on each side to hold her upright!”
The two gentlemen laughed, and so did Elizabeth-and that was the scene Ian Thornton witnessed as the trio strolled by the group he was with. Elizabeth managed to stop herself from so much as glancing his way until they were nearly past him, but then someone called out to Lord Howard, and he stopped momentarily to reply. Yielding to temptation, Elizabeth stole a split-second glance at the tall, broad-shouldered man in the midst of the group. His dark head was bent, and he appeared to be absorbed in listening to a laughing commentary from the only woman among them. If he was aware Elizabeth was standing there, he gave not the slightest indication of it.
“I must say,” Lord Howard told her a moment later as he escorted her forward again, “I was a bit surprised to hear you were here.”
“Why is that?” Elizabeth asked, adamantly vowing not to think of Ian Thornton again. She was becoming quite obsessed with a man who was a complete stranger, and moreover, she was very nearly an engaged woman!
“Because Charise Dumont runs with a bit of a fast set,” he explained.
Startled, Elizabeth turned her full attention on the attractive blond man. “But Miss Throckmorton-Jones-my companion-has never raised the slightest objection in London to my visiting any member of the family. Besides, Charise’s mama was a friend of my own mama’s.”
Lord Howard’s smile was both concerned and reassuring. “In London,” he emphasized, “Charise is a model hostess. In the country, however, her soirees tend to be, shall we say, somewhat less structured and restricted.” He paused to stop a servant who was carrying a silver tray with glasses of champagne, then he handed one of the glasses to Elizabeth before continuing: “I never meant to imply your reputation would be ruined for being here. After all,” he teased, “Everly and I are here, which indicates that at least a few of us are among the first stare of society.”
“Unlike some of her other guests,” Lord Everly put in contemptuously, tipping his head toward Ian Thornton, “who wouldn’t be admitted to a respectable drawing room in all of London!”
Consumed with a mixture of curiosity and alarm, Elizabeth couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Are you referring to Mr. Thornton?”
“None other.”
She took a sip of her champagne, using that as an excuse to study the tall, tanned man who’d occupied too many of her thoughts since the moment she’d first spoken to him. To Elizabeth he looked every inch the elegant, understated gentleman: His dark claret jacket and trousers setoff his broad shoulders and emphasized his long, muscular legs with a perfection that bespoke the finest London tailoring; his snowy white neckcloth was tied to perfection, and his dark hair was perfectly groomed. Even in his relaxed pose his tall body gave off the muscular power of a discus thrower, while his tanned features were stamped with the cool arrogance of nobility. “Is-is he as bad as that?” she asked, tearing her gaze from his chiseled profile.
She was caught up in her private impressions of his elegance, so it took a moment for Lord Everly’s scathing answer to register on Elizabeth’s brain: “He’s worse! The man’s a common gambler, a pirate, a blackguard, and worse!”
“I-I can’t believe all that,” Elizabeth said, too stunned and disappointed to keep silent.
Lord Howard shot a quelling glance at Everly. then smiled reassuringly at a stricken Elizabeth, misunderstanding the cause of her dismay. “Don’t pay any heed to Lord Everly, my lady. He’s merely put out because Thornton relieved him of £10,000 two weeks ago in a polite gaming hall. Cease, Thorn!” he added when the irate earl started to protest. “You’ll have Lady Elizabeth afraid to sleep in her bed tonight.”
Her mind still on Ian Thornton, Elizabeth only half heard what her girlfriends were talking about when her two escorts led her to them. “I don’t know what men see in her,” Georgina was saying. “She’s no prettier than any of us.”
“Have you ever noticed,” Penelope put in philosophically, “what sheep men are? Where one goes they all follow.”
“I just wish she’d choose one to wed and leave the rest to us,” said Georgina.
“I think she’s attracted to him.”
“She’s wasting her time in that quarter,” Valerie sneered, giving her rose gown an angry twitch. “As I told you earlier, Charise assured me he has no interest in innocent young things. Still,” she said with an exasperated sigh, “it would be delightful if she did develop a tendre for him. A dance or two together, a few longing looks, and we’d be rid of her completely as soon as the gossip reached her adoring beaux good heavens, Elizabeth!” she exclaimed, finally noticing Elizabeth, who was standing beside and slightly behind her. “We thought you were dancing with Lord Howard.”
“ An excellent idea,” Lord Howard seconded. “I’d claimed the next dance, Lady Cameron, but if you have no objection to this one instead?”
“Before you usurp her completely,” Lord Everly cut in with a dark look at Lord Howard, whom he mistakenly deemed his rival for Elizabeth’s hand. Turning to Elizabeth, he continued, “There’s to be an all-day jaunt to the village tomorrow, leaving in the morning. Would you do me the honor of permitting me to be your escort?”
Uneasy around the sort of vicious gossip in which the girls had been indulging, Elizabeth gratefully accepted Lord Everly’s offer and then agreed to Lord Howard’s invitation to dance. On the dance floor he smiled down at her and said. “I understand we’re to become cousins.” Seeing her surprised reaction to his premature remark, he explained. “Mondevale confided in me that you’re about to make him the happiest of men-assuming your brother doesn’t decide there’s a nonexistent skeleton in his closet.”
Since Robert had specifically said he wished Viscount Mondevale to be kept waiting, Elizabeth said the only thing she could say: “The decision is in my brother’s hands.”
“Which is where it should be,” he said approvingly.
An hour later Elizabeth realized that Lord Howard’s almost continual presence at her side indicated that he’d evidently appointed himself her guardian at this gathering, which he deemed to be of questionable suitability for the young and innocent. She also realized, as he left to get her a glass of punch, that the male population of the ballroom, as well as some of the female, was dwindling by the moment as guests disappeared into the adjoining card room. Normally the card room was an exclusively male province at balls a place provided by hostesses for those men (usually married or of advancing years) who were forced to attend a ball, but who adamantly refused to spend an entire evening engaged in frivolous social discourse. Ian Thornton, she knew, had gone in there early in the evening and remained, and now even her girlfriends were looking longingly in that direction. “Is something special happening in the card room?” she asked Lord Howard when he returned with her punch and began guiding her over to her friends.
He nodded with a sardonic smile. “Thornton is losing heavily and has been most of the night very unusual for him.”
Penelope and the others heard his comment with avidly curious, even eager expressions. “Lord Tilbury told us that he thinks everything Mr. Thornton owns is lying on the table, either in chips or promissory notes,” she said.
Elizabeth’s stomach gave a sickening lurch. “He he’s wagering everything?” she asked her self-appointed protector. “On a turn of the cards? Why would he do such a thing?”
“For the thrill, I imagine. Gamblers often do just that.” Elizabeth could not imagine why her father, her brother, or other men seemed to enjoy risking large sums of money on anything as meaningless as a game of chance, but she had no opportunity to comment because Penelope was gesturing to Georgina, Valerie, and even Elizabeth and saying with a pretty smile, “We would all very much like to go and watch, Lord Howard, and if you would accompany us, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t. It’s so very exciting, and half the people here are already in there.”
Lord Howard wasn’t immune to the three pretty faces watching him with such hope, but he hesitated anyway, glancing uncertainly at Elizabeth as his guardianship came into conflict with his personal desire to see the proceedings firsthand.
“It’s not the least inappropriate,” Valerie urged, “since there are other ladies in there.”
“Very well,” he acceded with a helpless grin. With Elizabeth on his arm he escorted the bevy of girls forward through the open doorway and into the hallowed male confines of the card room.
Suppressing the urge to cry out that she did not want to watch Ian Thornton be beggared, Elizabeth forced herself to keep her expression blank as she looked around at the groups of people clustered about the largest of the oaken tables, obscuring the view of the players seated around it. Dark paneling on the walls and burgundy carpet on the floor made the room seem very dim in comparison to the ballroom. A pair of beautifully carved billiard tables with large chandeliers hanging above them occupied the front of the large room, and eight other tables were scattered about. Although those tables were unoccupied for the moment, cards had been left on them, carefully turned face down, and piles of chips remained in the center of each.
Elizabeth assumed the players at those tables had left their own card games and were now part of the spectators clustered around the large table where all the excitement was being generated. Just as she thought it, one of the spectators at the big table announced it was time to return to their own game, and four men backed away. Lord Howard neatly guided his ladies into the spot the men had just vacated, and Elizabeth found herself in the last place she wanted to be-standing almost at Ian Thornton’s elbow with a perfect, unobscured view of what was purportedly the scene of his financial massacre.
Four other men were seated at the round table along with him, including Lord Everly, whose young face was flushed with triumph. Besides being the youngest man there, Lord Everly was the only one whose expression and posture clearly betrayed his emotions. In complete contrast to Lord Everly, Ian Thornton was lounging indifferently in his chair, his expression bland. his long legs stretched out beneath the table, his claret jacket open at the front. The other three men appeared to be concentrating on the cards in their hands, their expressions unreadable.
The Duke of Hammund, who was seated across from where Elizabeth stood, broke the silence: “I think you’re bluffing, Thorn,” he said with a brief smile. “Moreover, you’ve been on a losing streak all night. I’ll raise you £500,” he added, sliding five chips forward
Two things hit Elizabeth at once: Evidently Ian’s nickname was Thorn, and His Grace, the Duke of Hammund, a premier duke of the realm, had addressed him as if they were on friendly terms. The other men, however, continued to regard Ian coolly as they in turn plucked five chips from their individual stacks and pushed them into the pile that had already accumulated in the center of the table.
When it was Ian’s turn Elizabeth noticed with a surge of alarm that he had no stack of chips at all, but only five lonely white ones. Her heart sank as she watched him pluck all five chips up and flip them onto the pile in the center. Unknowingly, she held her breath, wondering a little wildly why any sane human being would wager everything he had on anything as stupid as a game of chance.
The last wager had been placed, and the Duke of Hammund showed his cards a pair of aces. The other two men apparently had less than that, because they withdrew. “I’ve got you beaten!” Lord Everly said to the duke with a triumphant grin, and he turned over three kings. Reaching forward, he started to pull the pile of chips toward him, but Ian’s lazy drawl stopped him short: “I believe that’s mine,” he said, and he turned over his own cards three nines and a pair of fours.
Without realizing it, Elizabeth expelled a lusty sigh of relief, and Ian’s gaze abruptly snapped to her face, registering not only her presence for the first time, but her worried green eyes and wan smile as well. A brief impersonal smile touched the corner of his mouth before he glanced at the other men and said lightly, “Perhaps the presence of such lovely ladies has changed my luck at last.”
He had said “ladies,” but Elizabeth felt. . . she knew. . . his words had been meant for her.
Unfortunately, his prediction about his luck changing was wrong. For the next half hour Elizabeth stood stock still, watching with a sinking heart and unbearable tension as he lost most of the money he’d won when she first came to stand at the table. And during all that time he continued to lounge in his chair, his expression never betraying a single emotion. Elizabeth, however, could no longer endure watching him lose, and she waited for the last hand to end so that she could leave without disturbing the players. As soon as it was over the Duke of Hammund announced, “I think some; refreshment would stand us in good stead.” He nodded to a nearby servant, who promptly came to collect the empty glasses from the gentlemen’s elbows and replace them with filled ones, and Elizabeth turned quickly to Lord Howard. “Excuse me,” she said in a tense, quiet voice, picking up her skirts to leave. Ian had not so much as glanced at her since he’d joked about his luck changing, and she’d assumed he’d forgotten her presence, but at her words he lifted his head and looked straight at her. “Afraid to stay to the bitter end?” he asked lightly, and three of the men at the table, who’d already won most of his money, laughed heartily but without warmth.
Elizabeth hesitated, thinking she must be going quite mad, because she honestly sensed that he wanted her to stay. Uncertain whether she was merely imagining his feelings, she smiled bravely at him. “I was merely going for some wine, sir,” she prevaricated. “I have every faith you’ll”, she groped for the right term “you’ll come about!” she declared, recalling Robert’s occasional gambling cant. A servant heard her and rushed forward to hand her a glass of wine, and Elizabeth remained standing at Ian Thornton’s elbow.
Their hostess swept into the card room at that moment, and bent a reproving look on all the occupants of the card table. Then she turned to Ian, smiling gorgeously at him despite the severity of her words. “Now really, Thorn, this has gone on too long. Do finish your play and rejoin us in the ballroom.” As if it took an effort, she dragged her gaze from him and looked at the other men around the table. “Gentlemen,” she warned laughingly, “I shall cut off your supply of cigars and brandy in twenty minutes.” Several of the spectators followed her out, either from guilt at having neglected their roles as courteous guests or from boredom at watching Ian lose everything.
“I’ve had enough cards for one night,” the Duke of Hammund announced.
“So have I,” another echoed.
“One more game,” Lord Everly insisted. “Thornton still has some of my money, and I aim to win it back on the next hand.”
The men at the table exchanged resigned glances, then the duke nodded agreement. “All right, Everly, one more game and then we return to the ballroom.”
“No limit on the stakes, since it’s the last game?” asked Lord Everly eagerly. All the men nodded as if assent were natural, and Ian dealt the first round of cards to each player.
The opening bet was £1,000. During the next five minutes the amount represented by the pile of chips in the center escalated to £25,000. One by one the remaining players dropped out until only Lord Everly and Ian were left, and only one card remained to be dealt after the wagers were placed, Silence stretched taut in the room, and Elizabeth nervously clasped and unclasped her hands as Lord Everly picked up his fourth card.
He looked at it, then at Ian, and Elizabeth saw the triumph gleaming in the young man’s eyes. Her heart sank to her stomach as he said, “Thornton, this card will cost you £10,000 if you want to stay in the game long enough to see it.”
Elizabeth felt a strong urge to throttle the wealthy young lord and an equally strong urge to kick Ian Thornton in his shin, which was within reach of her toe beneath the table, when he took the bet and raised it by £5,000!
She could not believe Ian’s lack of perception; even she could tell from Everly’s face that he had an unbeatable hand! Unable to endure it another moment, she glanced at the spectators gathered around the table who were watching Everly to see if he took the bet, then she picked up her skirts to leave, Her slight movement seemed to pull Ian’s attention from his opponent, and for the third time that night be looked up at her-and for the second time his gaze checked her. As Elizabeth looked at him in taut misery, he very slightly, almost imperceptibly turned his cards so she could see them.
He was holding four tens. Relief soared through her, followed instantly by terror that her face would betray her emotions. Turning swiftly, she almost knocked poor Lord Howard over in her haste to leave the immediate area of the table. “I need a moment of air,” she told him, and he was so engrossed in waiting to see if Everly would match Ian’s bet that he nodded and let her move away without protest. Elizabeth realized that in showing her his hand to relieve her fear, Ian had taken the risk that she would do or say something foolish that would give him away, and she couldn’t think why he would have done that for her. Except that, as she’d stood beside him, she’d known somehow that he was as aware of her presence as she was of his, and that he rather liked having her stand at his side.
Now that she’d made good her escape, however, Elizabeth couldn’t decide how to cover her hasty retreat and still remain in the card room, so she wandered over to a painting depicting a hunting scene and studied it with feigned fascination.
“It’s your bet, Everly,” she heard Ian prod.
Lord Everly’s answer made Elizabeth tremble: “twenty-five thousand pounds,” he drawled.
“Don’t be a fool!” the duke told him. “That’s too much to wager on one hand, even for you.”
Certain now that she had her facial expression under control, Elizabeth wandered back to the table.
“I can afford it,” Everly reminded them all smoothly. “What concerns me, Thornton, is whether or not you can cover your bet when you lose.”
Elizabeth flinched as if the insult had been hurled at her, but Ian merely leaned back in his chair and regarded Everly in steady, glacial silence. After a long, tense moment he said in a dangerously soft voice, “I can afford to raise you another £10,000.”
“You don’t have another £10,000 to your cursed name,” Everly spat, “and I’m not putting up my money against a worthless chit signed by you!”
“Enough!” snapped the Duke of Hammund. “You go too far, Everly. I’ll vouch for his credit. Now take the bet or fold.”
Everly glowered furiously at Hammund and then nodded at Ian with contempt. “Ten thousand more it is. Now let’s see what you’re holding!”
Wordlessly Ian turned his hand palm up, and the cards spilled gracefully onto the table in a perfect fan of four tens.
Everly exploded from his chair. “You miserable cheat! I saw you deal that last card from the bottom of the deck. I knew it, but I refused to believe my own eyes.”
A babble of conversation rumbled through the room at this unforgivable insult, but with the exception of the muscle that leapt in Ian’s taut jaw, his expression didn’t change.
“Name your seconds, you bastard!” Everly hissed, leaning his balled fists on the table and glowering his rage at Ian.
“Under the circumstances,” Ian replied in a bored, icy drawl, “I believe I am the one with the right to decide if I want satisfaction.”
“Don’t be an ass, Everly!” someone hissed. “He’ll drop you like a fly.” Elizabeth scarcely heard that; all she knew was that there was going to be a duel when there shouldn’t be.
“This is all a terrible mistake!” she burst out, and a roomful of annoyed, incredulous male faces turned toward her. “Mr. Thornton did not cheat,” she explained quickly. “He was holding all four of those tens before he drew the last card I stole a look at them when I was about to leave a few minutes ago, and I saw them in his hand.”
To her surprise, no one showed any sign of believing her or of even caring what she said, including Lord Everly, who slapped his hand on the table and bit out, “Damn you, I’ve called you a cheat. Now I call you a co-”
“For heaven’s sake!” Elizabeth cried, cutting off the word “coward,” which she knew would force any man of honor into a duel. “Didn’t any of you understand what I said?” she implored, rounding on the men standing about, thinking that since they were uninvolved, they would see reason more quickly than Lord Everly. “I just said Mr. Thornton was already holding all four tens and -”
Not one haughty male face showed a change in expression, and in a moment of crystal clarity Elizabeth saw what was happening and realized why none of them would intercede. In a roomful of lords and knights who were supremely conscious of their mutual superiority, Ian Thornton was outranked and outnumbered. He was the outsider, Everly was one of them, and they would never side with an outsider against one of their own. Moreover, by blandly refusing to accept Everly’s challenge Ian was subtly making it appear that the younger man wasn’t worth his time or effort, and they were all taking that insult personally.
Lord Everly knew it, and it made him more angry and more reckless as he glared murderously at Ian. “If you won’t agree to a duel tomorrow morning, I’ll come looking for you, you low-”
“You can’t, milord!” Elizabeth burst out. Everly tore his gaze from Ian to gape at her in angry surprise, and with a presence of mind she didn’t know she possessed Elizabeth targeted the one male in the room likely to be vulnerable to her wiles-she smiled brightly at Thomas Everly, speaking to him in a light, flirtatious tone, counting on his infatuation with her to sway him. “What a silly you are, sir, to be contemplating a duel tomorrow when you’re already promised to me for a jaunt into the village.”
“Now, really, Lady Elizabeth, this is-”
“No, I’m very sorry, milord, but I insist,” Elizabeth interrupted with a look of vapid innocence. “I shan’t be pushed aside like a-like a-I shan’t!” she finished desperately. “It is very provoking of you to consider treating me so shabbily. And I-I’m shocked you would consider breaking your word to me.” He looked as if he were caught on the tines of a fork as Elizabeth focused the full force of her dazzling green gaze and entrancing smile on him.
In a strangled voice he said fiercely, “I’ll escort you to the village after I have satisfaction at dawn from this cad.”
“Dawn?” Elizabeth cried in feigned dismay. “You will be too weary to be cheerful company for me if you arise so early. And besides, there isn’t going to be a duel unless Mr. Thornton chooses to call you out, which I’m certain he won’t wish to do because”-she turned to Ian Thornton, as she finished triumphantly-”because he could not be so disagreeable as to shoot you when that would deprive me of your escort tomorrow!” Without giving Ian an opportunity to argue she turned to the other men in the room and exclaimed brightly, “There now, it’s all settled. No one cheated at cards, and no one is going to shoot anyone.”
For her efforts Elizabeth received angry, censorious looks from every male in the room but two the Duke of Hammund, who looked as if he was trying to decide if she were an imbecile or a gifted diplomat, and Ian, who was watching her with a cool, inscrutable expression, as if waiting to see what absurd stunt she might try next.
When no one else seemed capable of moving, Elizabeth took the rest of the matter into her own hands. “Lord Everly, I believe this is a waltz, and you did promise me a waltz.” Male guffaws at the back of the room, which Lord Everly mistook for being aimed at him, not Elizabeth, made him turn almost scarlet. With a glance of furious contempt at her he turned on his heel and strode from the room, leaving her standing there feeling both ridiculous and relieved. Lord Howard, however, finally recovered from his private shock and calmly extended his arm to Elizabeth. “Allow me to stand in for Lord Everly,” he said.
Not until they entered the ballroom did Elizabeth permit herself to react, and then it was all she could do to stand upright on her quaking limbs. “You’re new to town,” Lord Howard said gently, “and I hope you won’t take me in dislike for telling you that what you did in there interfering in men’s affairs is not at all the thing.”
“I know,” Elizabeth admitted with a sigh. “At least, I know it now. At the time I didn’t stop to think.”
“My cousin,” Lord Howard said gently, referring to Viscount Mondevale, “is of an understanding nature. I’ll make certain he hears the truth from me before he hears what is bound to be exaggerated gossip from everyone else.”
When the dance ended Elizabeth excused herself and went to the withdrawing room, hoping to have a minute alone. Unfortunately, it was already occupied by several women who were talking about the events in the card room. She would have liked to retire to the safety of her bedchamber, skipping the late supper that would be served at midnight, but wisdom warned her that cowering would be the worst thing she could do. Left with no other choice, Elizabeth pinned a serene smile on her face and walked out on the terrace for a breath of air.
Moonlight spilled down the terrace steps and into the lantern-lit garden, and after a moment’s blissful peace Elizabeth sought more of it. She wandered forward, nodding politely to the few couples she passed. At the edge of the garden she stopped and then turned to the right and stepped into the arbor. The voices died away, leaving only distant strains of soothing music. She had been standing there for several minutes when a husky voice like rough velvet spoke behind her: “Dance with me, Elizabeth.”
Startled by Ian’s silent arrival, Elizabeth whirled around and stared at him, her hand automatically at her throat. She’d thought he’d been angry with her in the card room, but the expression on his face was both somber and tender. The lilting notes of the waltz floated around her, and he opened his arms. “Dance with me,” he repeated in that same husky voice.
Feeling as if she were in a dream, Elizabeth walked into his arms and felt his right arm slide around her waist, bringing her close against the solid strength of his body. His left hand closed around her fingers, engulfing them, and suddenly she was being whirled gently around in the arms of a man who danced to the waltz with the relaxed grace of one who has danced it a thousand times.
Beneath her gloved hand his shoulder was thick and broad with hard muscle, not padding, and the arm encircling her waist like a band of steel was holding her much closer than was seemly. She should have felt threatened, overpowered-especially out in the starlit darkness-but she felt safe and protected instead. She was, however, beginning to feel a little awkward, and she decided some form of conversation was in order. “I thought you were angry with me for interfering,” she said to his shoulder.
There was a smile in his voice as he answered, “Not angry. Stunned.”
“Well, I couldn’t let them call you a cheat when I knew perfectly well you weren’t.”
“I imagine I’ve been called worse,” he said mildly. “Particularly by your hotheaded young friend Everly.”
Elizabeth wondered what could be worse than being called a cheat, but good manners forbade her asking. Lifting her head, she gazed apprehensively into his eyes and asked, “You don’t mean to demand satisfaction from Lord Everly at a later date, do you?”
“I hope,” he teased, grinning, “that I’m not so ungrateful as to spoil all your handiwork in the card room by doing such a thing. Besides, it would be very impolite of me to kill him when you’d just made it very clear he’d already engaged himself to escort you tomorrow.”
Elizabeth chuckled, her cheeks warm with embarrassment. “I know I sounded like the veriest peagoose, but it was the only thing I could think of to say. My brother is hot-tempered, too, you see. I discovered long ago that whenever he flies into the boughs, if I tease or cajole him, he recovers his spirits much more quickly than if I try to reason with him.”
“I very much fear,” Ian told her, “that you’ll still be without Everly’s escort tomorrow.”
“Because he’ll be angry at me for interfering, do you mean?”
“Because at this moment his beleaguered valet has probably been rudely awakened from his sleep and ordered to pack his lordship’s bags. He won’t want to stay here, Elizabeth, after what happened in the card room. I’m afraid you humiliated him in your effort to save his life, and I compounded it by refusing to duel with him.”
Elizabeth’s wide green eyes shadowed, and he added reassuringly, “Regardless of that, he’s better off alive and humbled than dead and proud.”
That, Elizabeth thought to herself, was probably the difference between a gentleman born, like Lord Everly, and a gentleman made, like Ian Thornton. A true gentleman preferred death to disgrace according to Robert, at least, who was forever pointing out the distinguishing factors of his own class.
“You disagree?”
Too immersed in her own thoughts to think bow her words would sound, she nodded and said, “Lord Everly is a gentleman and a noble-as such, he would probably prefer death to dishonor.”
“Lord Everly,” he contradicted mildly, “is a reckless young fool to risk his life over a game of cards. Life is too precious for that. He’ll thank me some day for refusing him.”
“It’s a gentleman’s code of honor,” she repeated.
“Dying over an argument isn’t honor, it’s a waste of a man’s life. A man volunteers to die for a cause he believes in, or to protect others he cares about. Any other reason is nothing more than stupidity.”
“If I hadn’t interfered, would you have accepted his challenge?”
“No.”
“No? Do you mean,” she uttered in surprise, “you’d have let him call you a cheat and not lifted a finger to defend your honor or your good name?”
“I don’t think my ‘honor’ was at stake, and even if it was, I fail to see how murdering a boy would redeem it. As far as my ‘good name’ is concerned, it too, has been questioned more than once,”
“If so, why does the Duke of Hammund champion you in society, which he obviously has done tonight?”
His gaze lost its softness, and his smile faded. “Does it matter?”
Gazing up into those mesmerizing amber eyes, with his arms around her, Elizabeth couldn’t think very clearly. She wasn’t certain anything mattered at that moment except the sound of his deep, compelling voice. “I suppose not.” she said shakily.
“If it will reassure you that I’m not a coward, I suppose I could rearrange his face.” Quietly he added, “The music has ended,” and for the first time Elizabeth realized they were no longer waltzing but were only swaying lightly together. With no other excuse to stand in his arms, Elizabeth tried to ignore her disappointment and step back, but just then the musicians began another melody, and their bodies began to move together in perfect time to the music.
“Since I’ve already deprived you of your escort for the outing to the village tomorrow,” he said after a minute, “would you consider an alternative?”
Her heart soared, because she thought he was going to offer to escort her himself. Again he read her thoughts, but his words were dampening.
“I cannot escort you there,” he said flatly. Her smile faded. “Why not?”
“Don’t be a henwit. Being seen in my company is hardly the sort of thing to enhance a debutante’s reputation.”
Her mind whirled, trying to tally some sort of balance sheet that would disprove his claim. After all, he was a favorite of the Duke of Hammund’s . . . but while the duke was considered a great matrimonial prize, his reputation as a libertine and rake made mamas fear him as much as they coveted him as a son-in-law. On the other hand, Charise Dumont was considered perfectly respectable by the ton. and so this country gathering was above reproach. Except it wasn’t, according to Lord Howard. “Is that why you refused to dance with me when I asked you to earlier?”
“That was part of the reason.”
“What was the rest of it?” she asked curiously.
His chuckle was grim. “Call it a well-developed instinct for self-preservation.”
“What?”
“Your eyes are more lethal than dueling pistols, my sweet,” he said wryly. “They could make a saint forget his goal.”
Elizabeth had heard many flowery praises sung to her beauty, and she endured them with polite disinterest, but Ian’s blunt, almost reluctant flattery made her chuckle. Later she would realize that at this moment she had made her greatest mistake of all-she had been lulled into regarding him as an equal, a gently bred person whom she could trust, even relax with. “What sort of alternative were you going to suggest for tomorrow?”
“Luncheon,” he said. “Somewhere private where we can talk, and where we won’t be seen together.”
A cozy picnic luncheon for two was definitely not on Lucinda’s list of acceptable pastimes for London debutantes, but even so, Elizabeth was reluctant to refuse. “Outdoors. . . by the lake?” she speculated aloud, trying to justify the idea by making it public.
“I think it’s going to rain tomorrow, and besides, we’d risk being seen together there.”
“Then where?”
“In the woods. I’ll meet you at the woodcutters cottage at the south end of the property near the stream at eleven. There’s a path that leads to it two miles from the gate off the main road.” Elizabeth was too alarmed by such a prospect to stop to wonder how and when Ian Thornton had become so familiar with Charise’s property and all its secluded haunts.
“Absolutely not,” she said in a shaky, breathless voice. Even she was not naive enough to consider being alone with a man in a cottage, and she was terribly disappointed that he’d suggested it. Gentlemen didn’t make such suggestions, and well-bred ladies never accepted them. Lucinda’s warnings about such things had been eloquent and, Elizabeth felt, sensible. Elizabeth gave a sharp jerk, trying to pullout of his arms.
His arms tightened just enough to keep her close, and his lips nearly brushed her hair as he said with amusement. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that a lady never deserts her partner before the dance is over?”
“It’s over!” Elizabeth said in a choked whisper, and they both knew she referred to more than just the dancing. “I’m not nearly the greenhead you must take me for,” she warned, frowning darkly at his frilled shirtfront. A ruby winked back at her from the folds of his white neckcloth.
“I give you my word,” he said quietly, “not to force myself upon you tomorrow.”
Oddly, Elizabeth believed him, but even so she knew she could never keep such an assignation.
“I give you my word as a gentleman,” he said again. “If you were a gentleman, you’d never make me such a proposition,” Elizabeth said, trying to ignore the dull ache of disappointment in her chest.
“Now there’s an unarguable piece of logic,” he replied grimly. “On the other hand, it’s the only choice open to us.”
“It’s no choice at all. We shouldn’t even be out here.” “I’ll wait for you at the cottage until noon tomorrow.” “I won’t be there.”
“I’ll wait until noon,” he insisted. “You will be wasting your time. Let go of me, please. This has all been a mistake!”
“Then we may as well make two of them,” he said harshly, and his arm abruptly tightened, bringing her closer to his body. “Look at me, Elizabeth,” he whispered, and his warm breath stirred the hair at her temple.
Warning bells screamed through her, belated but loud. If she lifted her head, he was going to kiss her. “I do not want you to kiss me,” she warned him, but it wasn’t completely true.
“Then say good-bye to me now.” Elizabeth lifted her head, dragging her eyes past his finely sculpted mouth to meet his gaze. “Good-bye,” she told him,
amazed that her voice didn’t shake. His eyes moved down her face as if he were memorizing it, then they fixed on her lips. His hands slid down her arms and abruptly released her as he stepped back. “Good-bye, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth turned and took a step, but the regret in his deep voice made her turn back. . . or perhaps it had been her own heart that had twisted as if she was leaving something behind-something she’d regret. Separated by less than two feet physically and a chasm socially, they
looked at each other in silence. “They’ve probably noticed I
our absence,” she said lamely, and she wasn’t certain whether she was making excuses for leaving him there or hoping he’d convince her to remain.
“Possibly.” His expression was impassive, his voice coolly polite, as if he was already beyond her reach again.
“I really must go back.” “Of course.”
“You do understand, don’t you. . .” Elizabeth’s voice trailed off as she looked at the tall, handsome man whom society deemed unsuitable merely because he wasn’t a blue blood, and suddenly she hated all the restrictions of the stupid social system that was trying to enslave her. Swallowing, she tried again, wishing that he’d either tell her to go or open his arms to her as he had when he’d asked her to dance. “You do understand that I can’t possibly be with you tomorrow.”
“Elizabeth,” he interrupted in a husky whisper, and suddenly his eyes were smoldering as he held out his hand, sensing victory before Elizabeth ever realized she was defeated. “Come here.”
Of its own accord Elizabeth’s hand lifted, his fingers closed around it, and suddenly she was hauled forward; arms like steel bands encircled her, and a warm, searching mouth descended on hers. Parted lips, tender and insistent, stroked hers, molding and shaping them to fit his, and then the kiss deepened abruptly while hands tightened on her back and shoulders, caressing and possessive. A soft moan interrupted the silence, but Elizabeth didn’t know the sound came from her; she was reaching up, her hands grasping broad shoulders, clinging to them for support in a world that had suddenly become dark and exquisitely sensual, where nothing mattered except the body and mouth locked hungrily to hers.
When he finally dragged his mouth from hers Ian kept his arms around her, and Elizabeth laid her cheek against his crisp white shirt, feeling his lips brush the hair atop her head. “That was an even bigger mistake than I feared it would be,” he said, and then he added almost absently, “God help us both.”
Strangely, it was that last remark that frightened Elizabeth back to her senses. The fact that he thought they’d gone so far that they’d both need some sort of divine assistance hit her like a bucket of ice water. She pulled out of his arms and began smoothing creases from her skirt. When she felt able, she lifted her face to his and said with a poise born of sheer terror, “None of this should have happened. However, if we both return to the ballroom and contrive to spend time with others, perhaps no one will think we were together out here. Good-bye, Mr. Thornton.”
“Good night. Miss Cameron.” Elizabeth was too desperate to escape to remark on his gentle emphasis on the words “good night,” which he’d deliberately used instead of “good-bye,” nor did she notice at the time that he didn’t seem to realize she was correctly Lady Cameron, not Miss Cameron.
Choosing one of the side doors off the balcony rather than the ones entering directly into the ballroom, Elizabeth tried the handle and gave a sigh of relief when the door opened. She slipped into what looked to be a small salon with a door at the opposite end leading, she hoped, into an empty hallway. After the relative silence of the night the house seemed to be a crashing cacophony of laughter, voices, and music that rubbed on her raw nerves as she tiptoed across the little salon.
Luck seemed to be smiling on her, because the hall was deserted, and once there she changed her mind and decided to go to her chamber, where she could quickly freshen up. ,
She hurried up the staircase and had just crossed the landing when she heard Penelope ask in a puzzled voice from the lower landing, “Has anyone seen Elizabeth? We’re going down to supper shortly, and Lord Howard wishes to escort her.”
Inspired, Elizabeth hastily smoothed her hair, shook out her skirt, and uttered a silent prayer that she didn’t look like someone who had been engaging in a forbidden assignation in the arbor only minutes before.
“I believe,” Valerie said in a cool voice, “that she was last seen going out into the garden. And it appears Mr. Thornton has also vanished-” She broke off in astonishment as Elizabeth made her poised descent down the staircase she’d hurtled up only moments before.
“Heavens,” Elizabeth said sheepishly, smiling at Penelope and then Valerie, “I don’t know why the heat seems so oppressive this evening. I thought to escape it in the garden, and when that failed I went upstairs to lie down for a short while.”
Together the girls strolled through the ballroom, then past the card room, where several gentlemen were playing billiards. Elizabeth’s pulse gave a nervous leap when she saw Ian Thornton leaning over the table closest to the door, a billiard cue poised in his hand. He glanced up and saw the three young ladies, two of whom were staring at him. With cool civility he nodded to all three of them, then he let fly with the cue stick. Elizabeth listened to the sound of balls flying against wood and dropping into pockets, followed by the Duke of Hammund’s admiring laugh.
“He is wondrously handsome in a dark, frightening sort of way,” admitted Georgina in a whisper. “There’s something-well-dangerous about him, too,” she added with a delicate shiver of delight.
“True,” remarked Valerie with a shrug, “but you were right earlier-he is without background, breeding, or connections.”
Elizabeth heard the gist of their whispered conversation, but she paid it little heed. Her miraculous good fortune of the last few minutes had convinced her that there was a God who watched over her now and then, and she was uttering a silent prayer of thanks to Him, along with a promise that she would never, ever put herself in such a compromising situation again. She had just said a silent “Amen” when it occurred to her that she’d counted four billiard balls dropping into the pockets after Ian had taken his shot. Four! When she played with Robert, the most he’d ever been able to drop was three, and he claimed to excel at billiards.
Elizabeth’s sense of buoyant relief remained with her as she went down to supper on Lord Howard’s arm. Oddly, it began to disintegrate as she talked with the gentlemen and ladies seated around them at their table. Despite their lively conversation, it took all Elizabeth’s control to keep herself from looking about the lavishly decorated, huge room to at which of the blue-linen-covered tables Ian was seated. A footman who was serving lobster stopped at her elbow, offering to serve her, and Elizabeth looked up at him and nodded. Unable to endure the suspense any longer, she used the footman’s presence as an excuse to idly glance about the room. She scanned the sea of jeweled coiffures that shifted and bobbed like brightly colored corks, the glasses beiD8 raised and lowered. and then she saw him-seated at the head table between the Duke of Hammund and Valerie’s beautiful sister Charise. The duke was talking with a gorgeous blonde who was said to be his current mistress; Ian was listening attentively to Charise’s animated discourse, a lazy grin on his tanned face, her hand resting possessively on the sleeve of his jacket. He laughed at something she said, and Elizabeth snapped her gaze from the pair, but her stomach felt as if she’d been punched. They seemed so right together both of them sophisticated, dark-haired, and striking; no doubt they had much in common, she thought a little dismally as she picked up her knife and fork and to work on her lobster.
Beside her, Lord Howard leaned close and teased, “It’s dead, you know.”
Elizabeth glanced blankly at him, and he nodded to the lobster she was still sawing needlessly upon. “It’s dead,” he repeated. “There’s no need to try to kill it twice.”
Mortified, Elizabeth smiled and sighed and thereafter’ made an all-out effort to ingratiate herself with the rest of the party at their table. As Lord Howard had forewarned, the gentlemen, who by now had all seen or heard about her escapade in the card room, were noticeably cooler, and so Elizabeth tried ever harder to be her most engaging self. It was only the second time in her life she’d actually used the feminine wiles she was born with the first time being her first encounter with Ian Thornton in the garden and she was a little amazed by her easy success. One by one the men at the table unbent enough to talk and laugh with her. During that long, trying hour Elizabeth repeatedly had the strange feeling that Ian was watching her, and toward the end, when she could endure it no longer, she did glance at the place where he was seated. His narrowed amber eyes were leveled on her face, and Elizabeth couldn’t tell whether he disapproved of this flirtatious side of her or whether he was puzzled by it.
“Would you permit me to offer to stand in for my cousin tomorrow,” Lord Howard said as the endless meal came to an end and the guests began to arise, “and escort you to the village?”
It was the moment of reckoning, the moment when Elizabeth had to decide whether she was going to meet Ian at the cottage or not. Actually, there was no real decision to make, and she knew it. With a bright, artificial smile Elizabeth said, “Thank you.”
“We’re to leave at half past ten, and I understand there are to be the usual entertainments-shopping and a late luncheon at the local inn, followed by a ride to enjoy the various prospects of the local countryside.”
It sounded horribly dull to Elizabeth at that moment. “It sounds lovely,” she exclaimed with such fervor that Lord Howard shot her a startled look.
“Are you feeling well?” he asked, his worried gaze taking in her flushed cheeks and overbright eyes.
“I’ve never felt better,” she said, her mind on getting away-upstairs to the sanity and quiet of her bedchamber. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have the headache and should like to retire,” she said, leaving behind her a baffled Lord Howard.
She was partway up the stairs before it dawned on her what she’d actually said. She stopped in midstep, then gave her head a shake and slowly continued on. She didn’t particularly care what Lord Howard her fiance’s own cousin thought. And she was too miserable to stop and consider how very odd that was.
“Wake me at eight, please, Berta,” she said as her maid helped her undress. Without answering Berta bustled about, dropping objects onto the dressing table and floor-a sure sign the nervous maid was in a taking over something. “What’s wrong?” Elizabeth asked, pausing as she brushed her hair.
“The whole staff is gossipin’ about what you did in the card room, and that hatchet-faced duenna of yours is going to blame me for it, you’ll see,” Berta replied miserably. “She’ll say the first time she let you out of her sight and left you in my charge you got yourself in the briars!”
“I’ll explain to her what happened,” Elizabeth promised wearily.
“Well, what did happen?” Berta cried, almost wringing her hands in dismayed anticipation of the tongue-lashing the anticipated from the formidable Miss Throckmorton-Jones.
Elizabeth wearily related the tale, and Berta’s expression softened as her young mistress spoke. She turned back the rose brocade coverlet and helped Elizabeth into bed. “So you see,” Elizabeth finished with a yawn, “I couldn’t just keep quiet and let everyone think he’d cheated, which was what they would do, because he isn’t one of them.”
Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating the entire room, and thunder boomed until the windows shook. Elizabeth closed her eyes and prayed the jaunt to the village would take place, because the thought of spending the entire day in the same house with Ian Thornton-without being able to look at him or speak to him-was more than she wanted to contemplate. I’m almost obsessed, she thought to herself, and exhaustion overtook her,
She dreamed of wild storms, of strong arms reaching out to rescue her, drawing her forward, then pitching her into the storm-tossed sea. . . .

Chapter 6



Watery sunlight filled the room, and Elizabeth rolled reluctantly onto her back. No matter how much or how little sleep she got, she was the sort of person who always woke up feeling dazed and disoriented. While Robert could bound out of bed feeling fit and alert, she had to drag herself up onto the pillows, where she usually spent a full half hour staring vacantly at the room, forcing herself to wakefulness. On the other hand, when Robert was stifling yawns at ten P.M., Elizabeth was wide awake and ready to play cards or billiards or read for hours more. For that reason she was ideally suited to the London season, during which one slept until noon at least and then stayed out until dawn. Last night had been the rare exception.
Her head felt like a leaden weight upon the pillow as she forced her eyes open. On the table beside her bed was a tray with her customary breakfast: a small pot of hot chocolate and a slice of buttered toast. Sighing, Elizabeth forced herself to go through the ritual of waking up. Bracing her hands on the bed, she shoved herself upright until she was sitting back against the pillows, then she stared blankly at her hands-willing them to reach for the pot of hot, restorative chocolate.
This morning it took more of an effort than ever; her head ached dully, and she had the uneasy feeling that something disturbing had happened.
Still caught somewhere between sleep and awareness, she removed the quilted cover from the porcelain pot and poured chocolate into the delicate cup beside it. And then she remembered, and her stomach plummeted. Today a dark-haired man would be waiting for her in the woodcutter’s cottage. He would wait for an hour, and then he would leave-because Elizabeth wasn’t going to be there. She couldn’t. She absolutely could not!
Her hands trembled a little as she lifted the cup and saucer and raised it to her lips. Over the cup’s rim she watched Berta bustle into the room with a worried look on her face that faded to a relieved smile. “Oh, good. I was worried you’d taken ill.”
“Why?” Elizabeth asked as she took a sip of the chocolate. It was cold as ice!
“Because I couldn’t wake-” “What time is it?” Elizabeth cried. “Nearly eleven.”
“Eleven! But I told you to wake me at eight! How could you let me oversleep this way?” she said, her sleep drugged mind already groping wildly for a solution. She could dress quickly and catch up with everyone. Or . . .
“I did try,” Berta exclaimed, hurt by the uncharacteristic sharpness in Elizabeth’s tone, “but you didn’t want to wake up”
“I never want to awaken, Berta, you know that!” “But you were worse this morning than normal. You said your head ached.”
“I always say things like that. I don’t know what I’m saying when I’m asleep. I’ll say anything to bargain for a few minutes’ more sleep. You’ve known that for years, and you always shake me awake anyway.”
“But you said,” Berta persisted, tugging unhappily at her apron, “that since it rained so much last night you were sure the trip to the village wouldn’t take place, so you didn’t have to arise at all.”
“Berta, for heaven’s sake!” Elizabeth cried, throwing off the covers and jumping out of bed with more energy than she’d ever shown after such a short period of wakefulness.
“I’ve told you I’m dying of diphtheria to make you go away, and that didn’t succeed!”
“Well,” Berta shot back, marching over to the bell pull and ringing for a bath to be brought up, “when you told me that, your face wasn’t pale and your head didn’t feel hot to my touch. And you hadn’t dragged yourself into bed as if you could hardly stand when it was but half past one in the morning!”
Contrite, Elizabeth slumped down on the bed. “It’s not your fault that I sleep like a hibernating bear. And besides, if they didn’t go to the village, it makes no difference at all that I overslept.” She was trying to resign herself to the notion of spending the day in the house with a man who could look at her across a roomful of diners and make her heart leap when Berta said, “They did go to the village. Last night’s storm was more noise and threat than rain.”
Closing her eyes for a brief moment, Elizabeth emitted a long sigh. It was already eleven, which meant Ian had already begun his useless vigil at the cottage. “Very well, I’ll ride to the village and catch up with them there. There’s no need to hurry,” she said firmly when Berta rushed to the door to admit the maids carrying buckets of hot water for Elizabeth’s bath.
It was already half past noon when Elizabeth descended the stairs clad in a festive peach riding habit. A matching bonnet with a feather curling at her right ear hid her hair, and riding gloves covered her hands to the wrists. A few masculine voices could be heard in the game room, testifying to the fact that not all the guests had chosen to make the jaunt to the village. Elizabeth’s steps faltered in the hallway as she deliberated whether or not to take a peek into the room to see if Ian Thornton had already returned from the cottage. Certain that he had, and unwilling to see him, she turned in the opposite direction and left the house by the front door.
Elizabeth waited at the stable while the grooms saddled a horse for her, but her heart seemed to be beating in heavy time to the passing minutes, and her mind kept tormenting her with a picture of a solitary man who’d waited alone in the cottage for a woman who hadn’t come.
“Will you be wantin’ a groom ‘tar ride wit’ ye, milady?” the stablekeep asked. “We’re shorthanded, what with so many o’ them bein’ needed by the party what went for the day’s outin’ to the village. Some of ‘em ought to be comin’ back here in an hour or less, if you’d want to wait. If not, the road is safe, and no harm will come t’you. Her ladyship rides alone to the village all the time.”
The thing Elizabeth wanted most was to gallop hell-bent down a country lane and leave everything else behind her. “I’ll go alone,” she said, smiling at him with the same friendly candor to which she treated Havenhurst’s grooms. “We passed the village the day we arrived it’s straight down the main road about five miles, isn’t it?”
“Aye,” he said. A flash of heat lightning lit up the pale sky, and Elizabeth cast an anxious glance overhead. She did not want to stay there, yet the prospect of being caught in a summer downpour wasn’t pleasant, either.
“I doubt it’ll rain ‘til tonight,” the stablekeep told her when she hesitated. “We gets this kinda lightnin’ hereabout this time o’ year. Did it all night, it did, and nary a drop o’ rain fell.”
It was all the encouragement Elizabeth needed.
The first hard drops of rain fell when she’d ridden a mile down the main road. “Wonderful,” she said aloud, reining her horse to a halt and scanning the sky. Then she dug her heel into the mare’s side and sent her bolting onward toward the village. A few minutes later Elizabeth realized that the wind, which had been sighing through the trees, suddenly seemed to be whipping the branches about, and the temperature was dropping alarmingly. Rain began to fall in large, fat drops that soon became a steady downpour. By the time she saw the path leading off the main road into the woods, Elizabeth was half-drenched. Seeking some form of shelter among the trees, she reined her mare off the road and onto the path. Here at least the leaves acted like an umbrella, albeit a very leaky one.
Lightning streaked and forked above, followed by the ominous boom of thunder, and despite the stablekeep’s prediction Elizabeth realized a full-fledged storm was brewing and about to break. The little mare sensed it, too, but though she flinched with the thunder, she remained docile and obedient. “What a little treasure you are,” Elizabeth said softly, patting her satiny flank, but her mind was on the cottage she knew would be at the end of the path. She bit her lip with indecision, trying to judge the time. It was surely after one o’clock, so Ian Thornton would be long gone.
In the few additional moments Elizabeth sat there contemplating her alternatives she reached the obvious conclusion that she was vainly putting far too much emphasis on her importance to Ian. Last night she’d seen how easily he had been able to flirt with Charise only an hour after he’d kissed her in the arbor. No doubt she’d been nothing but a momentary diversion to him. How melodramatic and stupid she’d been to imagine him pacing the cottage floor, watching the door. He was a gambler, after all a gambler and probably a skilled flirt. No doubt he’d left at noon and gone back to the house in search of more willing company, which he’d be able to find without the slightest problem. On the other hand, if by some outlandish chance he was still there, she would be able to see his horse, and then she would simply turn around and ride back to the manor house.
The cottage came into view several minutes later. Set deep in the steamy woods, it was a welcome sight, and Elizabeth strained her eyes to see through the dense trees and rising fog, looking for signs of Ian’s horse. Her heart began to pound in expectation and alarm as she scanned the front of the little thatched cottage; but. as she soon realized, she had no reason for excitement or alarm. The place was deserted. So much for the depth of his sudden attachment to her, she thought, refusing to acknowledge the funny little ache she felt.
She dismounted and walked her horse around the back, where she found a lean-to under which she could tie the little mare. “Did you ever notice how very fickle males are?” she asked the horse. “And how very foolish females are about them?” she added, aware of how inexplicably deflated she felt. She realized as well that she was being completely irrational-she had not intended to come here, had not wanted him to be waiting, and now she felt almost like crying because he wasn’t!
Giving the ribbons of her bonnet an impatient jerk, she untied them. Pulling the bonnet off, she pushed the back door of the cottage open, stepped inside and froze in shock!
Standing at the opposite side of the small room, his back to her, was Ian Thornton. His dark head was slightly bent as he gazed at the cheery little fire crackling in the fireplace, his hands shoved into the back waistband of his gray riding breeches, his booted foot upon the grate. He’d taken off his jacket, and beneath his soft lawn shirt his muscles flexed as he withdrew his right hand and shoved it through the side of his hair. Elizabeth’s gaze took in the sheer male beauty of his wide, masculine shoulders, his broad back and narrow waist.
Something in the somber way he was standing-added to the fact that he’d waited more than two hours for her made her doubt her earlier conviction that he hadn’t truly cared whether she came or not. And that was before she glanced sideways and saw the table. Her heart turned over when she saw the trouble he’d taken. A cream linen tablecloth covered the crude boards, and two places had been set with blue and gold china, obviously borrowed from Charise’s house. In the center of the table a candle was lit, and a half-empty bottle of wine stood beside a platter of cold meat and cheese.
In all her life Elizabeth had never known that a man could actually arrange a luncheon and set a table. Women did that. Women and servants. Not men who were so handsome they made one’s pulse race. It seemed she’d been standing there for several minutes, not mere seconds, when he stiffened suddenly, as if sensing her presence. He turned, and his harsh face softened with a wry smile: “You aren’t very punctual.”
“I didn’t intend to come,” Elizabeth admitted, fighting to recover her balance and ignore the tug of his eyes and voice. “I got caught in the rain on my way to the village.”
“You’re wet.” “I know.”
“Come over by the fire.” When she continued to watch him warily, he took his foot off the grate and walked over to her. Elizabeth stood rooted to the floor, while all of Lucinda’s dark warnings about ?? shed through her mind. “What do you want?” she asked him breathlessly, feeling dwarfed by his towering height.
“Your jacket.” “No-I think I’d like to keep it on.” “Off,” he insisted quietly. “It’s wet.” “Now see here!” she burst out backing toward the open door, clutching the edges of her jacket.
“Elizabeth,” he said with reassuring calm, “I gave you my word you’d be safe if you came today.”
Elizabeth briefly closed her eyes and nodded. “I know. I also know I shouldn’t be here. I really ought to leave. I should, shouldn’t I?” Opening her eyes again, she looked beseechingly into his-the seduced asking the seducer for advice.
“Under the circumstances, I don’t think I’m the one you ought to ask.”
“I’ll stay,” she said after a moment and saw the tension in his shoulders relax. Unbuttoning her jacket, she gave it to him, along with her bonnet, and he took them over to the fireplace, hanging them on the pegs in the wall. “Stand by the fire,” he ordered, walking over to the table and filling two glasses with wine, watching as she obeyed.
The front of her hair that had not been covered by her bonnet was damp, and Elizabeth reached up automatically pulling out the combs that held it off her face on the sides and giving the mass a hard shake. Unconscious of the seductiveness of her gesture, she raised her hands, combing her fingers through the sides of it and lifting it.
She glanced toward Ian and saw him standing perfectly still beside the table, watching her. Something in his expression made her hastily drop her hands, and the spell was broken, but the effect of that warmly intimate look in his eyes was vibrantly, alarmingly alive, and the full import of the risk she was taking by being here made Elizabeth begin to quake inside. She did not know this man at all; she’d only met him hours ago; and yet even now he was watching her with a look that was much too . . . personal. And possessive.
He handed her the glass, then he nodded toward the threadbare sofa that nearly filled the tiny room. “If you’re warm enough, the sofa is clean.” Upholstered in what might have been green and white stripes at one time, it had faded to shades of gray and was obviously a castoff from the main house.
Elizabeth sat down as far from him as the sofa permitted and curled her legs beneath the skirt of her riding habit to warm them. He’d promised she would be “safe,” which she now realized left a great deal of room for personal interpretation. “If I’m going to remain,” she said uneasily, “I think we ought to agree to observe all the proprieties and conventions.”
“Such as?’’ “Well, for a beginning, you really shouldn’t be calling me by my given name.” “Considering the kiss we exchanged in the arbor last night, it seems a little absurd to call you Miss Cameron.”
It was the time to tell him she was Lady Cameron, but Elizabeth was too unstrung by his reference to those unforgettable-and wholly forbidden-moments in his arms to bother with that. “That isn’t the point,” she said firmly. “The point is that although last night did happen, it must not influence our behavior today. Today we ought to be twice as correct in our behavior,” she continued, a little desperately and illogically, “to atone for what happened last night!”
“Is that how it’s done?” he asked. his eyes beginning to glint with amusement. “Somehow I didn’t quite imagine you allowed convention to dictate your every move.”
To a gambler without ties or responsibility, the rules of social etiquette and convention must be tiresome in the extreme, and Elizabeth realized it was imperative to convince him he must yield to her viewpoint. “Oh, but I am,” she prevaricated. “The Camerons are the most conventional people in the world! As you know from last night, I believe in death before dishonor. We also believe in God and country, motherhood and the king, and. . . and all the proprieties. We’re quite intolerably boring on the subject, actually.”
“I see,” he said, his lips twitching. “Tell me something.” he asked mildly, “why would such a conventional person as yourself have crossed swords with a roomful of men last night in order to protect a stranger’s reputation?”
“Oh, that,” Elizabeth said. “That was just well, my conventional notion of justice. Besides,” she said, her ire coming to the fore as she recalled the scene in the card room last night, “it made me excessively angry when I realized that the only reason none of them would try to dissuade Lord Everly from shooting you was because you were not their social equal, while Everly is.”
“Social equality?” he teased with a lazy, devastating smile. “What an unusual notion to spring from such a conventional person as yourself.”
Elizabeth was trapped, and she knew it. “The truth is,” she said shakily, “that I am scared to death of being here.”
“I know you are,” he said, sobering, “but I am the last person in the world you’ll ever have to fear.”
His words and his tone made the quaking in her limbs, the hammering of her heart, begin again, and Elizabeth hastily drank a liberal amount of her wine, praying it would calm her rioting nerves. As if he saw her distress, he smoothly changed the topic. “Have you given any more thought to the injustice done Galileo?”
She shook her head. “I must have sounded very silly last night, going on about how wrong it was to bring him up before the Inquisition. It was an absurd thing to discuss with anyone, especially a gentleman.”
“I thought it was a refreshing alternative to the usual insipid trivialities.”
“Did you really?” Elizabeth asked, her eyes searching his with a mixture of disbelief and hope, unaware that she was being neatly distracted from her woes and drawn into a discussion she’d find easier.
“I did.” “I wish society felt that way.” He grinned sympathetically. “How long have you been required to hide the fact that you have a mind?”
“Four weeks,” she admitted, chuckling at his phrasing. “You cannot imagine how awful it is to mouth platitudes to people when you’re longing to ask them about things they’ve seen and things they know. If they’re male, they wouldn’t tell you. of course, even if you did ask.”
“What would they say?” he teased.
“They would say,” she said wryly, “that the answer would be beyond a female’s comprehension-or that they fear offending my tender sensibilities.”
“What sorts of questions have you been asking?”
Her eyes lit up with a mixture of laughter and frustration. “I asked Sir Elston Greeley, who had just returned from extensive travels, if he had happened to journey to the colonies, and he said that he had. But when I asked him to describe to me how the natives looked and how they lived, he coughed and sputtered and told me it wasn’t at all ‘the thing’ to discuss ‘savages’ with a female, and that I’d swoon if he did.”
“Their appearance and living habits depend upon their tribe,” Ian told her, beginning to answer her questions. “Some of the tribes are ‘savage’ by our standards, not theirs, and some of the tribes are peaceful by any standards. . . .”
Two hours flew by as Elizabeth asked him questions and listened in fascination to stories of places he had seen, and not once in all that time did he refuse to answer or treat her comments lightly. He spoke to her like an equal and seemed to enjoy it whenever she debated an opinion with him. They’d eaten lunch and returned to the sofa; she knew it was past time for her to leave, and yet she was loath to end their stolen afternoon.
“I can’t help thinking,” she confided when he finished answering a question about women in India who covered their faces and hair in public, “that it is grossly unfair that I was born a female and so must never know such adventures, or see but a few of those places. Even if I were to journey there, I’d only be allowed to go where everything was as civilized as-as London!”
“There does seem to be a case of extreme disparity between the privileges accorded the sexes,” Ian agreed.
“Still, we each have our duty to perform,” she informed him with sham solemnity. “And there’s said to be great satisfaction in that.”
“How do you view your – er duty,’ he countered, responding to her teasing tone with a lazy white smile.
“That’s easy. It is a female’s duty to be a wife who is an asset to her husband in every way. It is a male’s duty to do whatever he wishes, whenever he wishes, so long as he is prepared to defend his country should the occasion demand it in his lifetime-which it very likely won’t. Men,” she informed him, “gain honor by sacrificing themselves on the field of battle while we sacrifice ourselves on the altar of matrimony”
He laughed aloud then, and Elizabeth smiled back at him, enjoying herself hugely. “Which, when one considers it. only proves that our sacrifice is by far the greater and more noble.”
“How is that,’ he asked. still chuckling;, “It’s perfectly obvious-battles last mere days or weeks. months at the very most. While matrimony lasts a lifetime! Which brings to mind something else I’ve often wondered about,” she continued gaily, giving full rein to her innermost thoughts.
“And that is?” he prompted, grinning, watching her as if he never wanted to stop.
“Why do you suppose, after all that, they call us the weaker sex?” Their laughing gazes held, and then Elizabeth realized how outrageous he must be finding some of her remarks. “I don’t usually go off on such tangents,” she said ruefully. “You must think I’m dreadfully ill-bred.”
“I think.” he softly said. “that you are magnificent.” The husky sincerity in his deep voice snatched her breath away. She opened her mouth, thinking frantically for some light reply that could restore the easy camaraderie of a minute before, but instead of speaking she could only draw a long. shaky breath.
“And,” he continued quietly, “I think you know it.” This was not. not the sort of foolish, flirtatious repartee she was accustomed to from her London beaux, and it terrified her as much as the sensual look in those golden eyes. Pressing imperceptibly back against the arm of the sofa. she told herself she was only overreacting to what was nothing more than empty flattery. “I think,” she managed with a light laugh that stuck in her throat, “that you must find whatever female you’re with magnificent.”
“Why would you say a thing like that?” Elizabeth shrugged. “Last night at supper, for one thing.” When he frowned at her as if she were speaking in a foreign language, she prodded, “You remember Lady Charise Dumont, our hostess, the same lovely brunette on whose every word you were hanging at supper last night?”
His frown became a grin. “Jealous?” Elizabeth lifted her elegant little chin and shook her head. “No more than you were of Lord Howard.”
She felt a small bit of satisfaction as his amusement vanished. “The fellow who couldn’t seem to talk to you without touching your arm?” he inquired in a silky-soft voice. “That Lord Howard? As a matter of fact, my love, I spent most of my meal trying to decide whether I wanted to shove his nose under his right ear or his left.”
Startled, musical laughter erupted from her before she could stop it. “You did nothing of the sort,” she chuckled. “Besides, if you wouldn’t duel with Lord Everly when he called you a cheat, you certainly wouldn’t harm poor Lord
Howard merely for touching my arm.” “Wouldn’t I?” he asked softly. “Those are two very different issues.”
Not for the first time, Elizabeth found herself at a loss to understand him. Suddenly his presence was vaguely threatening again; whenever he stopped playing the amusing” gallant he became a dark, mysterious stranger. Raking her hair off her forehead, she glanced out the window. “It must be after three already. I really must leave.” She surged to her feet, smoothing her skirts. “Thank you for a lovely afternoon. I don’t know why I remained. I shouldn’t have, but I am glad I did. . . .”
She ran out of words and watched in wary alarm as he stood up. “Don’t you?” he asked softly.
“Don’t I what?” “Know why you’re still here with me?” “I don’t even know who you are?” she cried. “I know about places you’ve been, but not your family, your people. I know you gamble great sums of money at cards, and I disapprove of that.”
“I also gamble great sums of money on ships and cargo will that improve my character in your eyes?”
“And I know,” she continued desperately, watching his gaze turn warm and sensual, “I absolutely know you make me excessively uneasy when you look at me the way you’re doing now.”
“Elizabeth,” he said in a tone of tender finality, “you’re here because we’re already half in love with each other.”
“Whaaat?” she gasped. “And as to needing to know who I am, that’s very simple to answer.” His hand lifted, grazing her pale cheek, then smoothing backward, cupping her head. Gently he explained, “I am the man you’re going to marry.”
“Oh, my God!”
“I think it’s too late to start praying,” he teased huskily.
“You-you must be mad.” she said. her voice quavering. “My thoughts exactly,” he whispered. and, bending his head, he pressed his lips to her forehead. drawing her against his chest, holding her as if he knew she would struggle if he tried to do more than that. “You were not in my plans, Miss Cameron.”
“Oh, please,” Elizabeth implored helplessly, “don’t do this to me. I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know what you want.”
“I want you.” He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted it, forcing her to meet his steady gaze as he quietly added. “And you want me.”
Elizabeth’s entire body started to tremble as his lips began descending to hers. and she sought to forestall what her heart knew was inevitable by reasoning with him. “A gently bred Englishwoman,” she shakily quoted Lucinda’s lecture. “feels nothing stronger than affection. We do not fall in love.”
His warm lips covered hers. “I’m a Scot,” he murmured huskily. “We do.”
“A Scot!” she uttered when he lifted his mouth from hers. He laughed at her appalled expression. “I said ‘Scot,’ not ‘ax murderer’.” A Scot who was a gambler to boot! Havenhurst would land on the auction block, the servants turned off, and the world would fall apart. “I cannot, cannot marry you.”
“Yes, Elizabeth,” he whispered as his lips trailed a hot path over her cheek to her ear, “you can.”
His lips brushed back and forth across her ear, then his tongue touched the lobe and began delicately tracing each curve, slowly probing each crevice, until Elizabeth shivered with the waves of tension shooting through her. The instant he felt her trembling response, his arm tightened, supporting her, while his tongue plunged boldly into her ear. His hand curved round her nape, sensually stroking it, and he began trailing scorching kisses down her neck to her shoulder. His warm breath stirred her hair and his whisper was achingly gentle as his mouth began retracing its stirring path to her ear again. “Don’t be afraid, I’ll stop whenever you tell me to.”
Imprisoned by his protective embrace, reassured by his promise, and seduced by his mouth and caressing hands, Elizabeth clung to him, sliding slowly into a dark abyss of desire where he was deliberately sending them both.
He dragged his mouth roughly across her cheek, and when his lips touched the comer of hers, Elizabeth helplessly turned her head to fully receive his kiss. The sweet offering of her mouth wrung a half-groan, half-laugh from him, and his lips seized hers in a kiss of melting hunger that deepened to scorching demand.
Suddenly, Elizabeth was being lifted and lowered onto his lap, then shifted down onto the sofa, his mouth locked fiercely to hers as he leaned over her. His tongue traced a hot line between her lips, coaxing, urging them to part, and then insisting. The moment they yielded, his tongue plunged into her mouth, stroking and caressing. Her body jerked convulsively with the primitive sensations jarring through her entire nerve stream, and Elizabeth surrendered mindlessly to the stormy splendor of the pagan kiss. Her hands shifted restlessly over his heavily muscled shoulders and forearms, her lips moving against his with increasing abandon as she fed his hunger and unwittingly increased it.
When he finally pulled his mouth from hers an eternity later, their breaths were coming in mingled gasps. Feeling almost bereft, Elizabeth surfaced slightly from the sensual Eden where he had sent her, and forced her heavy eyelids to open so that she could look at him. Stretched out beside her on the sofa, he was leaning over her, his tanned face hard and dark with passion, his amber eyes smoldering. Lifting his hand, he tenderly brushed a golden lock of hair off her cheek, and he tried to smile, but his breathing was as ragged as hers. Unaware of the effort he was making to keep their passion under control, Elizabeth let her gaze drop to his finely chiseled mouth, and she watched him draw an unsteady breath. “Don’t,” he warned her in a husky, tender voice, “look at my mouth unless you want it on yours again.”
Too naive to know how to hide her feelings, Elizabeth lifted her green eyes to his, and her longing for his kiss was in their soft depths. Ian drew a steadying breath, and yielded to temptation again, gently telling her how to show him what she wanted. “Put your hand around my neck,” he whispered tenderly.
Her long fingers lifted to his nape, and he lowered his mouth to hers, so close their breaths mingled. Understanding finally dawned, and Elizabeth put firmer pressure on his nape. And even though she was braced for it, the shock of his parted lips on hers again was wild, indescribable sweetness. This time it was Elizabeth who touched her tongue to his lips, and when she felt him shudder, instinct told her she was doing something right.
It told him the same thing, and he jerked his mouth from hers. “Don’t do this, Elizabeth,” he warned.
In answer, she tightened her hand at his nape and at the same time turned into his arms. His mouth came down hard on hers, but instead of struggling, her body arched against him and she drew his tongue into her mouth. Against her breasts, she felt his heart slam into his ribs, and he began kissing her with unleashed passion, his tongue tangling with hers, then plunging and slowly retreating in some wildly exciting, forbidden rhythm that made the blood roar in Elizabeth’s ears. His hand slid up her side to her breast, covering it possessively, and Elizabeth jumped in shocked protest.
“Don’t,” he whispered against her lips. “God, don’t. Not yet. . .”
Stunned into stillness by the harsh need in his voice, Elizabeth gazed up into his face as he lifted his head, his eyes moving restlessly over the bodice of her dress. Despite his protest, his hand was still, and in her befuddled senses, she finally realized he was honoring his promise to stop whenever she asked him to stop. Helpless to stop or encourage him, she looked at the masculine fingers, still and tanned against her white shirt, then she dragged her eyes to his.
Heat was beating behind them, and with a silent moan, Elizabeth curled her hand behind his head and turned into his body.
It was all the encouragement Ian needed. His fingers moved and spread across her breast, but his gaze was locked with hers, watching the way her beautiful face reflected first fear then pleasure. Breasts, to Elizabeth, had heretofore been like legs-they both had a purpose; legs were to walk on and breasts were to hold up and fill out the bodice of a gown. She had no idea they could give such sensation, and kissed into insensibility, she lay quiescent while his fingers unfastened her shirt, pulling down her chemise, baring her breasts to his hot gaze. Reflexively she reached to cover herself, but he swiftly lowered his head, distracting her by the expedient means of kissing her fingers, then drawing a fingertip into his mouth and sucking hard against it. Elizabeth stiffened in shock and pulled her hand away, but his lips only found a breast and did the same thing to her nipple. Raw pleasure streaked through her, and she moaned, her fingers sliding into the soft dark hair at his nape, her heart hammering out a frantic warning to tell him to stop. He nuzzled the other breast, his lips closing tightly around the taut nipple and her body arched, her hands tightening on his nape. Suddenly, he raised up, his eyes restlessly caressing her swollen breasts, then he swallowed and drew a long, tortured breath. “Elizabeth, we’re going to have to stop.”
Elizabeth’s swirling senses began to return to reality, slowly at first, and then with a sickening plummet. Passion gave way to fear and then to anguished shame as she realized she was lying in a man’s arms, her shirt unfastened, her flesh exposed to his gaze and touch. Closing her eyes, she fought back the sting of tears and shoved his hand away, lurching into an upright position. “Let me rise, please,” she whispered, her voice strangled with self-revulsion. Her skin flinched as he began to fasten her shirt, but in order to do it he had to release his hold on her, and the moment he did, she scrambled to her feet. Turning her back to him, she fastened her shirt with shaking hands and snatched her jacket from the peg beside the fire. He moved so silently that she had no idea he’d stood until his hands settled on her stiff shoulders. “Don’t be frightened of what is between us. I’II be able to provide for you-”
All of Elizabeth’s confusion and anguish exploded in a burst of tempestuous, sobbing fury that was directed at herself, but which she hurtled at him. Tearing free of his grasp, she whirled around. “Provide for me,” she cried. “Provide what? A-a hovel in Scotland where I’II stay while you dress the part of an English gentleman so you can gamble away everything-”
“If things go on as I expect,” he interrupted her in a voice of taut calm, “I’ll be one of the richest men in England within a year two at the most. If they don’t, you’ll still be well provided for.”
Elizabeth snatched her bonnet and backed away from him in a fear that was partly of him and partly of her own weakness. “This is madness. Utter madness.” Turning. she headed for the door.
“I know,” he said gently. She reached for the door handle and jerked the door open. Behind her, his voice stopped her in midstep. “If you change your mind after we leave in the morning, you can reach me at Hammund’s town house in Upper Brook Street until Wednesday. After that I’d intended to leave for India. I’ll be gone until winter.”
“I-I hope you have a safe voyage,” she said, too overwrought to wonder about the sharp tug of loss she felt at the realization he was leaving.
“If you change your mind in time,” he teased, “I’ll take you with me.”
Elizabeth fled in sheer terror from the gentle confidence she’d heard in his smiling voice. As she galloped through the thick fog and wet underbrush she was no longer the sensible, confident young lady she’d been before; instead she was a terrified, bewildered girl with a mountain of responsibilities and an upbringing that convinced her the wild attraction she felt for Ian Thornton was sordid and unforgivable.
As she left the horse in the stable and saw with sinking horror that the party had already returned from the village jaunt, she didn’t think of anything except sending Robert a note begging him to fetch her that night, instead of in the morning.
Elizabeth had supper in her room while Berta packed, and she scrupulously avoided the window of her bedchamber, which happened to look out over the gardens below. Twice she’d glanced outside, and both times she’d seen Ian. The first time he’d been standing alone on the terrace, a cheroot clamped between his teeth, staring out across the lawns, and his solitary stance ,made her heart ache because he seemed lonely somehow. The next time she saw him, he was surrounded by females who’d not been there last night new arrivals at the house party, Elizabeth supposed and all five of them seemed to find him irresistible. She told herself it didn’t matter, could not matter to her. She had responsibilities to Robert and Havenhurst, and they had to come first. Despite what Ian obviously thought, she could not link her future with that of a reckless gambler, even if he was probably the handsomest Scotsman ever born and the gentlest
Elizabeth closed her eyes, trying to shut out these thoughts. It was incredibly silly to think of Ian in this way. Silly and dangerous, for Valerie and some of the others seemed to suspect where she’d been all afternoon, and with whom. Wrapping her arms around herself, Elizabeth shivered as she remembered how neatly she’d been trapped by her own guilt that afternoon as soon as she’d walked into the house.
“Good heavens, you’re wet,” Valerie had exclaimed in a cry of sympathy. “The stable said you’ve been gone all afternoon. Don’t say you were lost and in the rain all that time!”
“No, I-I came upon a cottage in the woods and stayed there until the rain let up a little while ago.” It had seemed the wisest thing to say, since Ian’s horse had been nowhere in sight and hers had been perfectly visible, should anyone have cared to look.
“What time was that?”
“Close to one o’clock, I think,”
“Did you happen to come upon Mr. Thornton while you were out?” Valerie inquired with a malicious smile, and everyone in the salon seemed to stop talking and turn toward them. “The gamekeeper said he saw a tall, dark man mounted on a big sorrel stallion go into the cottage. He assumed the man was a guest, and so he didn’t challenge his presence.”
“I-I didn’t see him,” Elizabeth said. “It was . . . very foggy. I hope nothing untoward happened to him.”
“We aren’t certain. He isn’t back yet. Charise is concerned, although,” Valerie continued, watching Elizabeth closely, “I told her she needn’t be. The scullery maids gave him a luncheon a deux to take with him.”
Stepping aside to let a couple pass, Elizabeth explained to Valerie that she’d decided to leave tonight instead of tomorrow, and without giving Valerie an opportunity to question her reason she quickly excused herself to change out of her wet clothing.
Berta had taken one look at Elizabeth’s pale face and guessed at once that something was terribly wrong, particularly when Elizabeth insisted on sending word to Robert to fetch them home tonight. By the time Elizabeth had sent the note off Berta had managed to pry most of the story out of Elizabeth, and Elizabeth was forced to spend the rest of her afternoon and early evening trying to soothe her maid.

Chapter 7



It won’t do you a bit of good to wear a path through the carpet,” Berta told her. “We’ll both be spending time enough on the carpet when that Miss Throckmorton-Jones hears what you’ve been about.”
“She won’t hear anything,” Elizabeth said with more determination than conviction, and she sank into a chair, nervously plucking at the skirt of her bright green traveling costume. Her bonnet and gloves were on the bed beside their packed valises, waiting to be brought downstairs when Robert arrived. Even though she’d been expecting it. the knock on her door made her nerves jump. Instead of telling her that her brother had arrived, the footman handed her a note when she opened the door.
With clammy hands she unfolded it, praying that it wasn’t news from London that Robert couldn’t be found to fetch them. For a moment she frowned in blank incomprehension at the hastily scrawled, almost illegible note that said “Meet me in greenhowse. Must talk to you.”
The footman had already started down the hall, and Elizabeth called after him, “Who gave you this note?”
“Miss Valerie, my lady.” Elizabeth’s relief that it wasn’t from Ian was immediately replaced by guilty terror that Valerie had somehow discovered more about Elizabeth’s disappearance this afternoon. “Valerie wants me to meet her in the greenhouse right away,” she told Berta.
Berta’s color drained. “She knows what happened. doesn’t she? Is that why she wants to see you? It’s not my place to say it, but I can’t like that girl. She has mean eyes.”
Elizabeth had never in her life been embroiled in intrigue or deceit, and everything that was happening seemed unbearably complicated and tinged with malice. Without replying to Berta’s comment about her friend she looked at the clock and realized it was only six. “Robert can’t possibly be here for at least an hour. In the meantime I’ll go and find out why Valerie needs to see me.”
Walking over to the windows, Elizabeth parted the draperies, studying the guests who were standing on the terrace or strolling about the gardens. The last thing she wanted was for Ian to see her go to the greenhouse and follow her there. Such a possibility seemed extremely remote, but even so, it seemed wise to take no further chances. She almost sagged with relief when she saw his tall form on the terrace below. Clearly illuminated by a pair of torches, he was occupied with three women who were flirting with him while a footman hovered on the edge of their group, patiently waiting for recognition. She saw Ian glance at the footman, who then handed him something she supposed to be a drink.
Ignoring the sharp tug of her senses as she looked down on his dark head, Elizabeth turned away from the windows. Rather than leaving the house by the back doors, which opened out onto the terrace where she knew Ian was, she left by the side doors and stayed away from the lit torches.
In the doorway to the greenhouse Elizabeth hesitated. “Valerie?” she called in a low voice, looking around.
Moonlight poured in through the glass panels of the roof, and when no one answered, Elizabeth walked inside and looked about her. Pots of flowers bloomed everywhere-in orderly rows upon the tables and on benches. More delicate species adorned the shelves beneath the tables, sheltered from the direct rays of the sun that would pour through the glass ceiling in the daytime. Trying to calm her nerves, Elizabeth strolled down the aisles, studying the blooms.
The greenhouse was larger than the one at Havenhurst, she noted, and part of it was apparently used as a sort of solarium, for there were trees growing in pots, and beside them were ornate stone benches with colorful cushions on them.
Elizabeth wandered down the aisle, oblivious to the dark shadow looming in the doorway, moving silently down the aisle. Her hands clasped behind her back, she bent down to sniff a gardenia.
“Elizabeth?” Ian said in a clipped voice. She whirled around, her heart slamming against her ribs, her hand flying to her throat, her knees turning to jelly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You... you startled me,” she said as he strolled up to her, his expression oddly impassive. “I didn’t expect you to come here,” she added nervously.
“Really?” he mocked. “Whom did you expect after that note the Prince of Wales?”
The note! Crazily, her first thought after realizing it was from him, not Valerie, was that for an articulate man his handwriting verged on the illiterate. Her second thought was that he seemed angry about something. He didn’t keep her long in doubt as to the reason.
“Suppose you tell me how, during the entire afternoon we spent together, you neglected to mention that you are Lady Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth wondered a little frantically how he’d feel if he knew she was the Countess of Havenhurst, not merely the eldest daughter of some minor noble or knight.
“Start talking, love. I’m listening.” Elizabeth backed away a step.
“Since you don’t want to talk,” he bit out, reaching for her arms, “is this all you wanted from me?’
“No!” she said hastily, backing out of his reach. “I’d rather talk.”
He stepped forward, and Elizabeth took another step backward, exclaiming, “I mean, there are so many interesting topics for conversation, are there not?”
“Are there?” he asked, moving forward again.
“Yes,” she exclaimed, taking two steps back this time. Snatching at the first topic she could think of, she pointed to the table of hyacinths beside her and exclaimed, “A-Aren’t these hyacinths lovely?”
“Lovely,” he agreed without looking at them, and he reached for her shoulders, obviously intending to draw her forward.
Elizabeth jumped back so swiftly that his fingers merely grazed the gauze fabric of her gown. “Hyacinths,” she babbled with frantic determination as he began stalking her step for step, past the table of potted pansies, past the table of potted lilies, “are part of genus Hyacinthus, although the cultivated variety, which we have here, is commonly called the Dutch hyacinth, which is part of H. orientalis -”
“Elizabeth,” be interrupted silkily, “I’m not interested in flowers.” He reached for her again, and Elizabeth, in a frantic attempt to evade his grasp, snatched up a pot of hyacinths and dumped it into his outstretched bands.
“There is a mythological background to hyacinths that you may find more interesting than the flower itself,” she continued fiercely, and an indescribable expression of disbelief, amusement, and fascination suddenly seemed to flicker across his face. “You see, the hyacinth is actually named for a handsome Spartan youth – Hyacinthus who was loved by Apollo and by Zephyrus, god of the west wind. One day Zephyrus was teaching Hyacinthus to throw the discus, and he accidentally killed him. It is said that Hyacinthus’s blood caused a flower to spring up, and each petal was inscribed with the Greek exclamation of sorrow.” Her voice trembled a little as he purposefully set the pot of hyacinths on the table. “A-Actually, the flower that sprang up would have been the iris or larkspur, not the modern hyacinth, but that is how it earned its name.”
“Fascinating.” His unfathomable eyes locked onto hers. Elizabeth knew he was referring to her and not the history of the hyacinth, and though she commanded herself to move out of his reach, her legs refused to budge.
“Absolutely fascinating,” he murmured again, and in slow motion she watched his hands reach out and gently grasp her shoulders, rubbing lightly. “Last night you were ready to do battle with a roomful of men because they dared believe I’d cheated, yet now you’re afraid. Is it me you fear, sweetheart? Or something else?”
The endearment spoken in his rich baritone voice had the same stirring effect on her as the touch of his lips. “I’m afraid of the things you make me feel,” she admitted desperately, trying to get control of herself and the situation. “I realize that this is merely a-a little weekend dalliance-”
“Liar,” he teased, and he took her lips in a sweet, swift kiss. Her mind reeled from the brief touch, but the moment he lifted his mouth from hers she rushed into frightened speech. “Thank you,” she blurted inanely. “H-Hyacinths are not the only flower with an interesting history. There are lilies, too, which are also part of the genus-”
A lazy, seductive grin swept across his handsome face, and, to Elizabeth’s helpless horror, her gaze fastened on his mouth. She couldn’t still the shiver of anticipation as he bent his head. Her brain warned her she was mad, but her heart knew this truly was good-bye, and the knowledge made her lean up on her toes and kiss him back with all the helpless, confused longing she felt. The sweetness of her yielding. combined with the way her hand slid up his chest and rested against his heart while her other hand curved around his nape, would have seemed to any man to be either the actions of a woman who was falling in love or else those of an experienced flirt. Elizabeth-naive, inexperienced. and very young-was acting on pure instinct. and was unaware that everything she did was convincing him she was the former.
She was, however, not so lost as to the ramifications of her actions that she forgot about Robert’s impending arrival, Unfortunately, she had never imagined Robert might have been on his way there before her note ever arrived.
“Please listen to me,” she whispered desperately. “My brother is coming to take me home.”
“Then I’ll talk to him. Your father may have some objections, even after he understands that I’ll be able to provide for your future-”
“My future!” Elizabeth interrupted in genuine terror at the way he was taking charge a gambler, just like her father. She thought of the rooms at Havenhurst, stripped almost bare of valuables, the servants counting on her, the ancestors counting on her. At that moment she would have said anything, anything to make him stop pursuing her before she lost control completely and gave in to the mindless, wicked weakness he seemed to inspire in her. She leaned back in his arms, trying to make her shaking voice sound cool and amused: “And what will you provide, sir? Will you promise me a ruby large enough to cover my palm, as Viscount Mondevale has? Sables to cover my shoulders and mink to carpet the floor, as Lord Seabury has?”
“Is that what you want?”
“Of course,” she said with brittle gaiety, but she was choking back a sob. “Isn’t that what all females want and all gentlemen promise?”
His face hardened into an expressionless mask, but his eyes were probing hers like daggers, looking for answers-as if he couldn’t completely believe that jewels and furs mattered to her more than feelings.
“Oh, please let me go,” she cried on a choked sob, shoving hard at his chest.
So intent were they that neither of them noticed the man striding swiftly down the aisle. “You miserable bastard,” Robert thundered, “you heard what she said! Take your filthy hands off my sister!”
Ian’s arms started to tighten protectively, but Elizabeth tore free of his grasp and ran to Robert, tears streaking down her face. “Robert, listen to me. It’s not what you think.” Robert put his arm around her shoulder, and Elizabeth started to launch into explanations. “This is Mr. Ian Thornton,” she began, “and-”
“And despite the way this looks,” Ian interrupted with amazing calm, “my intentions toward Miss Cameron are perfectly honorable.”
“You arrogant son of a bitch!” Robert exploded, his voice vibrating with fury and contempt. “My sister is Countess Cameron to the likes of you! And I don’t need an introduction. I know all about you. As to your intentions or should I say pretensions. I wouldn’t let her marry scum like you even if she weren’t already betrothed.”
At those words Ian’s gaze jerked to Elizabeth. He saw the truth on her guilt-stricken face, and Elizabeth almost cried out at the cynical contempt blazing in his eyes.
“You’ve compromised my sister, you misbegotten pig and you’ll answer for it!”
Pulling his gaze from Elizabeth, Ian looked at Robert, his hard face wiped clean of all expression now. Acceding to Robert’s demand for a duel, he nodded curtly and said almost politely, “Of course.” Then he moved as if to leave.
“No!” Elizabeth cried wildly, clutching at Robert’s arm, and for the second time in twenty-four hours she found herself trying to stop someone from spilling Ian Thornton’s blood. “I won’t permit this, Robert, do you hear me? It wasn’t all his-”
“This is none of your affair, Elizabeth!” Robert snapped, too enraged to listen to her. Removing her hand from his arm, he said, “Berta is already in my carriage in the drive. Go around the far side of the house and get in with her. This man,” he said with scathing sarcasm, “and I have some things to discuss.”
“You can’t-” Elizabeth tried again, but Ian Thornton’s murderous voice stopped her cold.
“Get out of here!” he said between his teeth, and while Elizabeth was willing to ignore Robert’s order, Ian Thornton’s made her quake. Her chest heaving with fright, she looked at his rigid face, at the muscle leaping in his jaw, and then at Robert. Not certain whether her presence was making things worse or forestalling a calamity, she tried once again to appeal to Robert, “Please promise me you won’t do anything until tomorrow, when you’ve had time to think and we’ve talked.”
Elizabeth watched him make a herculean effort not to further terrify her and to agree with what she asked. “Fine,” he bit out. “I’ll be only a moment behind you,” he promised. “Now go on to my carriage before that crowd out there who’s been watching this whole scene decides to come in here where they can hear as well as see.”
Elizabeth felt physically ill when she stepped out of the greenhouse and saw many of the people from the ballroom gathered outdoors. Penelope was there, and Georgina and the others, and the expressions on their faces ranged from amusement among the older people to icy condemnation among the younger.
A short while later her brother strode to the chaise and climbed inside. His manner was more rigidly controlled than it had been. “The matter is settled,” he said. but regardless of how much she pleaded, he would not say more.
In helpless misery Elizabeth leaned back against the squabs, listening to Berta, who was sniffling in anticipation of the blame she felt she would ultimately receive from Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones. “My note couldn’t have reached you more than two hours ago,” Elizabeth whispered after a few minutes. “How could you have gotten here so quickly?”
“I never got your note,” he replied stiffly. “This afternoon Lucinda felt well enough to come downstairs for a bit. When I told her where you’d gone this weekend, she gave me some startling news about the sorts of goings-on your friend Charise permits at her country parties. I left three hours ago to fetch you and Berta home early. Unfortunately, I was too late.”
“It’s not as bad as you think,” Elizabeth lied lamely. “We’ll discuss it tomorrow!” he snapped, and she slumped with relief, thinking he meant to do nothing. at least until then. “Elizabeth, how could you be such a fool? Even you should have realized the man’s a complete scoundrel! He’s not fit to . . .” He broke off and drew a long breath, striving to get control of his temper. When he spoke again he seemed more composed. “The damage, whatever it may be, has already been done. I’m to blame for this you’re too young and inexperienced to go anywhere without Lucinda to keep you out of harm’s way. I can only pray that your affianced husband will take an equally understanding view of the matter.”
It dawned on Elizabeth that this was the second time tonight that Robert had openly spoken of her engagement as if it was finalized. “Since it hasn’t been settled or made public, I can’t see why my actions should reflect on Viscount Mondevale,” she said with more hope than conviction. “If there is a little scandal, he may want to delay announcing it for a while, Robert, but I can’t think he’ll be so very embarrassed.”
“We signed the contracts today,” Robert gritted. “Mondevale and I had no difficulty agreeing on your settlement-he was extremely generous, by the way. The proud bridegroom was eager to send an announcement to the papers, and I saw no reason why he should not. It will be in the Gazette tomorrow.”
That piece of alarming news made Berta let out a muted sob before she lapsed again to sniffling and blowing her nose. Elizabeth squeezed her eyes closed and held back her own tears while her mind tormented her with more pressing problems than her handsome young fiance.
In bed Elizabeth lay awake for hours, tortured with memories of the weekend and with terror that she might not be able to dissuade Robert from dueling with Ian Thornton, which she was almost certain he still meant to do. Staring up at the ceiling, she feared alternately for Robert and then for Ian. Lord Howard had made it sound as if Ian was a deadly duelist, yet Ian had refused to defend his honor when Lord Everly called him a cheat-an act many might view as cowardice. Perhaps gossip about Ian’s skill was totally wrong. Robert was a fair shot, and Elizabeth’s body grew clammy thinking of Ian, proud and alone, being felled by a ball from Robert’s pistol. No. She told herself she was thinking hysterically. The possibility of either of them actually shooting the other was outlandish.
Dueling was illegal, and in this instance the code of honor would dictate that Ian appear-which he’d already agreed to do in the greenhouse-and that Robert would delope fire in the air. In so doing, Ian would be tentatively admitting his guilt by putting his life in Robert’s hands, which would give Robert the satisfaction a duel provided without the bloodshed, and Robert could then delope. That was the way gentlemen usually dealt with such matters these days.
Usually. Elizabeth’s terrified mind reminded her, but Robert’s temper was explosive, and he was so infuriated tonight that instead of raging he’d been coldly, murderously silent-and that alarmed Elizabeth more than his outburst would have done.
Shortly before dawn she fell into an uneasy slumber, only to wake what seemed like minutes later to the sound of someone moving down the hall. A servant, she thought, glancing at the window where pale rays of gray were tinting the inky night sky. She was about to drift off to sleep again when she heard the front door downstairs open and then close.
Dawn-duels. Robert had promised to talk to her today before doing anything, she thought hysterically, and for once Elizabeth had no trouble waking up. Fear sent her bolting from beneath the covers. Still pulling on a dressing robe, she ran flying down the stairs and jerked open the front door in time to see Robert’s carriage rounding the comer.
“Oh my God!” she said to the empty hall, and because she was too overwrought to wait and wonder alone, she went upstairs to awaken the one person whose good judgment could be depended upon no matter how chaotic the world became. Lucinda had been waiting up for them last night, and she knew most of what had happened this weekend, with the exception, of course, of the interlude in the gamekeeper’s cottage.
“Lucinda,” she whispered, and the gray-haired woman’s eyes opened, their pale hazel orbs alert and unclouded. “Robert has just left the house. I’m certain he means to duel with Mr. Thornton.”
Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, whose career as a duenna had heretofore included the unblemished chaperonage of the daughters of three dukes, eleven earls, and six viscounts, pushed herself upright against the pillows and gazed narrowly at the young lady who had just spoiled her brilliant record. “Inasmuch as Robert is not an early riser,” she said. “that would seem to be an obvious conclusion.”
“Whatever shall I do?” “For a start. I suggest you cease wringing your hands in that unbecoming fashion and then go to the kitchen and make some tea.”
“I don’t want any tea.” “I shall require some tea if we are to wait downstairs for your brother’s return. which I foresee is what you wish to do.”
“Oh, Lucy,” Elizabeth said, looking at the gruff spinster with love and gratitude, “whatever would I do without you?”
“You would get yourself into a deal of trouble, which you have already done.” Seeing the torment in Elizabeth’s face, she relented slightly as she climbed out of bed. “Custom dictates that Thornton present himself and that your brother have the satisfaction of seeing him do it, and then Robert must delope. There’s nothing else that can happen.”
It was the first time in Elizabeth’s acquaintance with Lucinda that the stalwart duenna was wrong.
The clock was just chiming the hour of eight A.M. when Robert returned with Lord Howard. He stalked past the
drawing room, saw Elizabeth huddled on the sofa across from Lucinda, who was doing needlework, paused, and stepped back. “What are you doing up so early?” he asked her tersely.
“Waiting for you,” Elizabeth told him, hurtling out of her chair. Lord Howard’s presence confused her for a moment, and then it hit her-Robert would have needed a second to attend the duel. “You dueled with him, didn’t you, Robert?”
“Yes!”
Elizabeth’s voice was a strangled whisper. “Is he hurt?” Robert stalked over to the side table and poured whiskey in a glass.
“Robert,” she cried, grabbing him by the arms. “What happened?”
“I shot him in the arm,” Robert snapped savagely. “I was aiming for his black heart, and I missed! That’s what happened.” Shaking off Elizabeth’s hands, he downed the contents of his glass, then turned to refill it.
Sensing that there was more, Elizabeth searched his face. “Is that all?”
“No, that’s not all!” Robert exploded. “After I wounded him, that bastard lifted his pistol and stood there, making me sweat. Then he blew the tassel off the top of my goddamned boot!”
“He-he what?” Elizabeth said, recognizing Robert’s roiling fury and unable to understand it. “Surely you aren’t angry because he missed!”
“Damn it, don’t you understand anything? He didn’t miss! It was an insult. He stood there with blood pouring down his arm, his pistol aimed at my heart, then he changed his aim at the last possible second and shot the tassel off my boot instead. He meant to show me he could have killed me if he’d chosen, and everyone who was there saw it! It was the final insult, damn his rotten soul!”
“You not only refused to delope,” Lord Howard bit out, sounding as angry as Robert, “you fired before the call was given. You disgraced yourself and me. Moreover, if word of this duel becomes public, you’ll have the lot of us arrested for participating. Thornton gave you satisfaction by appearing this morning and refusing to raise his pistol. He admitted guilt. What more did you expect?” As if unable to bear the sight of Robert any longer, Lord Howard turned on his heel. Elizabeth followed him helplessly into the hall, desperately trying to think of something eloquent to say in Robert’s defense. “You must be cold and weary,” she began, stalling for time. “Won’t you at least stay for some tea?”
Lord Howard shook his head and kept walking. “I only returned to get my carriage.”
“Then I’ll see you out,” Elizabeth persisted. She walked him to the door, and for a moment she thought he actually meant to leave without even saying good day. Standing in the open doorway, he hesitated and then turned back to her. “Good-bye, Lady Elizabeth,” he said in an odd, regretful voice, and then he left.
Elizabeth scarcely noticed his tone or even his departure. She realized for the first time that this morning-perhaps at this very minute-a surgeon somewhere was digging a ball out of Ian’s arm. Sagging against the door, she swallowed convulsively, fighting the urge to vomit at the thought of the pain she’d caused him. Last night she’d been too terrified by the prospect of a duel to consider how Ian must have felt when Robert told him she was engaged. Now it was finally beginning to hit her, and her stomach clenched. Ian had spoken of marrying her, had kissed and held her with tender, possessive passion and told her he was falling in love with her. In return for that, Robert had barged in on him and contemptuously told him she was beyond his touch socially and already engaged besides. And this morning he had shot him for daring to reach too high.
Leaning her head back against the door, Elizabeth stilted a moan of contrition. Ian might not have a title nor any claim to being a gentleman in the ton’s interpretation of the events, but Elizabeth sensed instinctively that he was a proud man. That pride had been stamped on his bronzed features, in the way he carried himself, in his every movement-and she and Robert had trampled it to pieces. They had made a fool of him in the greenhouse last night and forced him into a duel today.
At that moment, if Elizabeth had known where to find him, she really thought she would have braved his anger and gone to him to explain about Havenhurst and all her responsibilities, to try to make him understand that it was those things, not any lack in him, that had made it impossible for her to consider marrying him.
Shoving herself away from the door, Elizabeth walked slowly down the hall and into the drawing room where Robert was sitting with his head in his hands. “This isn’t finished,” Robert gritted, lifting his head to look at her. “I’ll kill him one day for this!”
“No you will not!”, Elizabeth said, her words shaking with alarm. “Bobby, listen to me-you don’t understand about Ian Thornton. He didn’t do anything wrong, not really. You see,” she said in a suffocated voice, “he thought he was well, falling in love with me. He wanted to marry me-”
Robert’s sharp bark of derisive laughter rang through the room. “Is that what he told you?” he sneered, his face purpling with fury at her lack of familial loyalty. “Well, then let me set you straight, you little idiot! To put it bluntly and in his own words, all he wanted from you was a tumble between the sheets!”
Elizabeth felt the blood drain from her face, then she slowly shook her head in denial. “No, you’re wrong. When you first found us he said his intentions were honorable, remember?”
“He changed his mind damned quick when I told him you are penniless,” Robert flung back, looking at her with a mixture of pity and scorn.
Too weak to continue standing, Elizabeth sank down on the sofa beside her brother, crushed by the full weight of responsibility for her stupidity, her gullibility, and all that those two traits had brought down on them. “I’m sorry,” she whispered helplessly. “I’m so sorry. You risked your life for me this morning, and I haven’t even thanked you for caring enough to do that.” Because she couldn’t think of anything else to say or do, she put her arm around his slumped shoulders. “Things will work out for us-they always have,” she promised unconvincingly.
“Not this time,” he said, his eyes harsh with despair. “I think we’re ruined, Elizabeth.”
“I can’t believe it’s as bad as that. There’s a chance none this will come out,” she continued, not believing her own words. “And Lord Mondevale cares for me, I think. Surely he’ll listen to reason.”
“In the meantime,” Lucinda said at last, with typical cool practicality, “Elizabeth must go out as usual-as if nothing untoward has happened. If she hides in the house, gossip will feed on itself. You, sir, will have to escort her.”
“It won’t matter, I tell you!” Robert said. “We’re ruined.” He was right. That night, while Elizabeth bravely attended a ball with her fiance, who seemed to be blessedly unaware of her weekend debacle, lurid versions of her activities were already spreading like wildfire throughout the ton. The story of the episode in the greenhouse was circulated, along with the added slander that she had purportedly sent him a note inviting him to join her there. More damning by far was the titillating gossip that she’d spent an afternoon with Ian Thornton alone in a secluded cottage.
“That bastard is the one who’s spreading those stories,” Robert had raged the next day when the tales reached his ears. “He’s trying to whiten his own hands by saying you sent him a note inviting him to the greenhouse, and that you were pursuing him. You’re not the first female to lose your head over him, you know. You’re just the youngest and the most naive. This year alone there’ve been Charise Dumont and several others whose names have been linked with his. None of them, however, was unsophisticated enough to behave with such wanton indiscretion.” Elizabeth was too humiliated to argue or protest. Now that she was no longer under the influence of Ian Thornton’s sensual magnetism she realized that his actions were, in retrospect, exactly what one would expect of an unscrupulous rake who was bent on seduction. After only a few hours’ acquaintance he’d claimed to be half in love with her and to want to marry her-just the sort of impossible lie a libertine would tell to his victim. She’d read enough novels to know that fortune hunters and dissolute libertines intent on seduction often claimed to be in love with their victims when all they wanted was another conquest. Like an utter fool, Elizabeth had thought of him as a victim of unfair social prejudice.
Now she realized too late that the social prejudices that would have excluded him from respectable ton activities had existed to protect her from men like him,
Elizabeth didn’t have a great deal of time to devote to her private misery, however. Friends of Viscount Mondevale, upon learning of his betrothal in the papers, finally felt it incumbent upon them to disclose to the happy bridegroom the gossip about the female to whom he’d offered his hand.
The next morning he called at the town house on Ripple Street and withdrew his offer. Since Robert had not been at home, Elizabeth had met with him in the drawing room. One look at his rigid stance and unsmiling mouth and Elizabeth had felt as if the floor was falling away from beneath her.
“I trust there won’t need to be an unpleasant scene over this,” he’d said stiffly, without preamble.
Unable to speak past the tears of shame and sorrow choking her, Elizabeth had shaken her head. He turned and started for the door, but as he strode past her he swung around and grasped her by the shoulders. “Why, Elizabeth?” he demanded, his handsome face twisted with angry regret. “Tell me why. At least give me that.”
“Why?” she repeated, stupidly longing to throw herself into his arms and beg his forgiveness.
“I can understand that you might have accidentally encountered him at some cottage in the woods in the rain, which is what my cousin, Lord Howard, tells me he believes happened. But why would you have sent him a note to meet you alone in the greenhouse?”
“I didn’t,” she cried, and only her stubborn pride kept her from collapsing in a sobbing heap at his feet.
“You’re lying.” he said flatly, his hands falling away. “Valerie saw the note after he tossed it away and went looking for you.”
“She’s mistaken,” Elizabeth choked, but he was already walking out of the room.
Elizabeth had thought she could not feel more humiliated than she did at that moment, but she soon discovered she was mistaken. Viscount Mondevale’s desertion was taken as proof that she was guilty, and from that day onward no more invitations or callers arrived at the town house on Ripple Street. At Lucinda’s insistence Elizabeth finally got up the courage to attend the one function she’d been invited to before the scandal became public-a ball at Lord and Lady Hinton’s home. She stayed for fifteen minutes, and then she left-because no one except the host and hostess, who had no choice, would speak to her or acknowledge her in any way.
In the eyes of the ton she was a shameless wanton, soiled and used, unfit company for unsullied young ladies and gullible young heirs, unfit to mingle in Polite Society. She had broken the rules governing moral conduct. and not even with someone of her own class, but with a man whose reputation was black, his social standing nonexistent. She hadn’t merely broken the rules, she’d flung them in their faces.
One week after the duel Robert disappeared without word or warning. Elizabeth was terrified for his safety, unwilling to believe he would desert her because of what she’d done, and unable to think of any other, less tormenting explanation. The actual explanation, however, was not long in coming. While Elizabeth sat alone in the drawing room, waiting and praying for his return, news of his disappearance was spreading allover the city. Creditors began arriving on her doorstep, demanding payment for huge debts that had accrued not only for her debut, but over many years for Robert’s gambling and even that of her father.
Three weeks after Charise Dumont’s party, on a brilliantly sunny afternoon, Elizabeth and Lucinda closed the door on the rented town house for the last time and climbed into their carriage. As her carriage drove past the park the same people who had flattered her and sought her out saw her and coldly turned their backs. Through the blur of her hot, humiliated tears Elizabeth saw a handsome young man with a pretty girl in his carriage. Viscount Mondevale was taking Valerie for a drive, and the look she gave Elizabeth was meant to be pitying. But Elizabeth, in her private torment, thought it was tinged with triumph. Her fear that Robert had met with foul play had already given way to the far more believable possibility that he had fled to avoid debtors’ gaol.
Elizabeth returned to Havenhurst and sold off every valuable she owned to payoff Robert’s gaming debts, her father’s gaming debts, and those from her debut. And then she picked up the threads of her life. With courage and determination she devoted herself to preserving Havenhurst and to the well-being of the eighteen servants who elected to stay with her for only a home, food, and new livery once each year.
Slowly her smiles returned and the guilt and confusion receded. She learned to avoid looking back on her grievous mistakes during her season, because it hurt too much to remember them and the awful retribution that had followed. At seventeen years old she was her own mistress, and she had come home, where she had always belonged. She resumed her chess games with Sentner and her target practice with Aaron; she lavished her love on this peculiar family of hers and on Havenhurst-and they returned it. She was contented and busy, and she adamantly refused to think of Ian Thornton or of the events that had led up to her self-imposed exile. Now her uncle’s actions were forcing her not only to think of him but to see him. Without her uncle’s modest financial support for two more years there was no way Elizabeth could avoid giving up Havenhurst. Until she could accumulate the money to have Havenhurst properly irrigated, as it should have been long ago, it could never be productive enough to attract cottagers and support itself.
With a reluctant sigh Elizabeth opened her eyes and gazed blankly at the empty room, then she slowly stood up. She’d confronted more difficult problems than this. she told herself bracingly. Wherever there was a problem, there were solutions; one simply had to look carefully for the best one. And Alex was here now. Between the two of them they could surely think of a way to circumvent Uncle Julius.
She would take it as a challenge, she decided firmly as she headed off in search of Alex. At nineteen she still enjoyed challenges, and life at Havenhurst had become a little bit routine. A few short trips-two of the three, at least might be exciting.
By the time she finally located Alex in the garden, Elizabeth had almost convinced herself of all those things.

Chapter 8



Alexandra took one look at Elizabeth’s carefully composed features and fixed smile and was not fooled for a moment, nor was Bentner, who’d been entertaining Alex with stories about Elizabeth’s efforts in the gardens. They both turned to her with matched expressions of alarm. “What’s wrong?” Alex asked, anxiety already driving her to her feet.
“I don’t quite know how to tell you,” Elizabeth admitted frankly, sitting down beside Alex while Bentner hovered worriedly about, pretending to pluck withered roses from their stems so that he might hear and, if needed, lend advice or assistance. The more Elizabeth considered what she had to tell Alex, the more bizarre-almost comical it began to seem to her dazed mind. “My uncle,” she explained. “has endeavored to find a willing husband for me,”
“Really?” Alex said. her gaze searching Elizabeth’s bemused expression.
“Yes. In fact, I think it’s safe to say he’s gone to rather extraordinary lengths to accomplish that feat.”
“What do you mean?” Elizabeth swallowed a completely unexpected bubble of hysterical laughter. “He sent messages to all fifteen of my former suitors, asking if they were still interested in marrying me-”
“Oh, my God,” Alex breathed. “-and, if they were, he volunteered to send me to them for a few days, properly chaperoned by Lucinda,” Elizabeth recited in that same strangled tone, “so that we could both discover if we still suit.”
“Oh, my God.” Alex said again, with more force. “Twelve of them declined,” she continued, and she watched Alex wince in embarrassed sympathy. “But three of them agreed, and now I am to be sent off to visit them. Since Lucinda can’t return from Devon until I go to visit the third suitor, who’s in Scotland,” she said, almost choking on the word as she applied it to Ian Thornton, “I shall have to pass Berta off as my aunt to the first two.”
“Berta!” Bentner burst out in disgust. “Your aunt? The silly widgeon’s afraid of her shadow.”
Threatened by another uncontrollable surge of mirth, Elizabeth looked at both her friends. “Berta is the least of my problems. However, do continue invoking God’s name, for it’s going to take a miracle to survive this.”
“Who are the suitors?” Alex asked, her alarm increased by Elizabeth’s odd smile as she replied, “I don’t recall two of them. It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it,” she continued with dazed mirth, “that two grown men could have met a young girl at her debut and hared off to her brother to ask for her hand, and she can’t remember anything about them, except one of their names.”
“No,” Alex said cautiously, “it isn’t remarkable. You were, are, very beautiful, and that is the way it’s done. A young girl makes her debut at seventeen, and gentlemen look her over, often in the most cursory fashion, and decide if they want her. Then they apply for her hand. I can’t think it is reasonable to just to betroth a young girl to someone with whom she’s scarcely acquainted and then expect her to develop a lasting affection for him after she is wed, but the ton does regard it as the civilized way to manage marriages.”
“It’s actually quite the opposite-it’s rather barbaric, when you reflect on it,” Elizabeth stated, willing to be diverted from her personal calamity by a discussion of almost anything else.
“Elizabeth, who are the suitors? Perhaps I know of them and can help you remember.”
Elizabeth sighed. “The first is Sir Francis Belhaven-” “You’re joking!” Alex exploded, drawing an alarmed glance from Bentner. When Elizabeth merely lifted her delicate brows and waited for information, Alex continued angrily, “Why, he’s-he’s a dreadful old roué. There’s no polite way to describe him. He’s stout and balding. and his debauchery is a joke among the ton because he’s so flagrant and foolish. He’s an unparalleled pinchpenny to boot-a nipsqueeze!”
“At least we have that last in common,” Elizabeth tried to tease, but her glance was on Bentner, who in his agitation was deflowering an entire healthy bush. “Bentner,” she said gently, touched by how much he obviously cared for her plight, “you can tell the dead blooms from the live ones by their color.”
“Who’s the second suitor?” Alex persisted in growing alarm.
“Lord John Marchman.” When Alex looked blank, Elizabeth added, “The Earl of Canford.”
Comprehension dawned, and Alex nodded slowly. “I’m not acquainted with him, but I have heard of him.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” Elizabeth said, choking back a laugh, because everything seemed more absurd, more unreal by the moment. “What do you know of him?”
“That’s just it, I can’t recall, but there was-wait, I have it! He’s-” she shot a discouraged look at Elizabeth, “he’s an inveterate sportsman who rarely comes near London. He’s said to have entire walls of his home covered in the stuffed heads of animals he’s hunted and fish he’s caught. I remember some joking remarks being made that the reason he’d never married was that he couldn’t tear himself away from his sport long enough to look for a wife. He doesn’t sound at all suitable for you,” Alex added miserably, glaring absently at the toe of her red kid slipper.
“Suitability hasn’t anything to do with it, since I haven’t any intention of wedding anyone if I can possibly avoid it. If I can just hold out for two more years. my grandmother’s trust will come to me. With that money I should be able to manage here on my own for a long time. The problem is that I can’t hold ends together until then without my uncle’s support, and he threatens to withdraw it almost weekly. If I don’t at least appear to go along with this mad scheme of his, I’ve no doubt he’ll do exactly that.”
“Elizabeth,” Alex ventured cautiously, “I could help if you’d let me. My husband-”
“Don’t, please,” Elizabeth interrupted. “You know I could never take money from you. Among other things, I wouldn’t be able to pay it back. The trust should cover Havenhurst’s expenses, but only barely. For now, my most pressing problem is to find some way out of this coil my uncle has created.”
“What I cannot understand is how your uncle could consider these two men suitable when they aren’t. Not one whit.”
“We know that,” Elizabeth said wryly, bending down to pull a blade of grass from between the flagstones beneath the bench, “but evidently my ‘suitors’ do not, and that’s the problem.” As she said the words a thought began to form in her mind; her fingers touched the blade, and she went perfectly still. Beside her on the bench Alex drew a breath as if to speak, then stopped short, and in that pulsebeat of still silence the same idea was born in both their fertile minds.
“Alex,” Elizabeth breathed, “all I have to-”
“Elizabeth,” Alex whispered, “it’s not as bad as it seems. All you have to-”
Elizabeth straightened slowly and turned. In that prolonged moment of silence two longtime friends sat in a rose garden, looking raptly at each other while time rolled back and they were girls again-lying awake in the dark, confiding their dreams and troubles and inventing schemes to solve them that always began with “If only. . .”
“If only,” Elizabeth said as a smile dawned across her face and was matched by the one on Alex’s, “I could convince them that we don’t suit-”
“Which shouldn’t be hard to do,” Alex cried enthusiastically, “because it’s true.”
The joyous relief of having a plan, of being able to take control of a situation that minutes before had threatened her entire life, sent Elizabeth to her feet, her face aglow with laughter. “Poor Sir Francis,” she chuckled, looking delightedly from Bentner to Alex as both grinned at her. “I greatly fear he’s in for the most disagreeable surprise when he realizes what a-a”-she hesitated, thinking of everything an old roué would most dislike in his future wife- “a complete prude I am!”
“And,” Alex added, “what a shocking spendthrift you are!”
“Exactly!” Elizabeth agreed, almost twirling around in her glee. Sunlight danced off her gilded hair and lit her green eyes as she looked delightedly at her friends. “I shall make perfectly certain to give him glaring evidence I am both. Now then, as to the Earl of Canford . . .”
“What a pity,” Alex said in a voice of exaggerated gloom, “you won’t be able to show him what a capital hand you are with a fishing pole.”
“Fish?” Elizabeth returned with a mock shudder. “Why, the mere thought of those scaly creatures positively makes me swoon!”
“Except for that prime one you caught yesterday,” Bentner put in wryly.
“You’re right,” she returned with an affectionate grin at the man who’d taught her to fish. “Will you find Berta and break the news to her about going with me? By the time we come back to the house she ought to be over her hysterics, and I’ll reason with her.” Bentner trotted off, his threadbare black coattails flapping behind him.
“That only leaves the third contender to discourage,” Alex said happily. “Who is he, and what do we know of him? Do I know him?”
It was the moment Elizabeth had been dreading. “You never heard of him until a few weeks ago, when you returned.”
“What?” she asked, nonplussed. Elizabeth drew a steadying breath and nervously rubbed her hands against the sides of her blue skirts. “I think,” she said slowly, “I ought to tell you exactly what happened a year and a half ago-with Ian Thornton.”
“There’s no need to ever tell me if it will cause you unhappiness to speak of it. And right now, we surely ought to be thinking of the third man-” “The third man,” Elizabeth interrupted tightly, “is Ian Thornton.”
“Dear God!” Alex gasped in horror. “Why? I mean-” “I don’t know why,” Elizabeth admitted with angry confusion. “He accepted my uncle’s proposition. So it is either some sort of complete misunderstanding or it is his idea of a joke, and neither makes much sense-”
“A joke! He ruined you. He must be a complete monster to find it amusing now.”
“The last time I saw him, he did not find the situation amusing, believe me,” Elizabeth said, and, sitting down, she told the whole story, trying desperately to keep her emotions under control so that she would be able to think clearly when she and Alex finalized their plans.

Chapter 9



Berta, we’ve arrived,” Elizabeth said as their traveling chaise drew up before the expansive estate belonging to Sir Francis Belhaven. Berta’s eyes had been squeezed closed for the last hour, but Elizabeth saw her bosom rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths and knew she was not asleep. Berta had been terrified at the prospect of playing the role of Elizabeth’s aunt, and none of Elizabeth’s soothing or promises had eased her fear one bit in the last several days. She had not wanted to come, and now that she was there, she was still praying for deliverance.
“Aunt Berta!” she said forcefully as the front door of the great, rambling house was swung open. The butler stepped aside, and footmen hurried forward. “Aunt Berta!” she said urgently, and in desperation Elizabeth reached for the maid’s tightly clenched eyelid. She pried it open and looked straight into a frightened brown orb. “Please do not do this to me, Berta. I’m counting on you to act like an aunt, not a timid mouse. They’re almost upon us.”
Berta nodded, swallowed, and straightened in her seat, then she smoothed her black bombazine skirts.
“How do I look?” Elizabeth whispered urgently. “Dreadful,” said Berta. eyeing the severe, high-necked black linen gown Elizabeth had carefully chosen to wear at this, her first meeting with the prospective husband whom Alexandra had described as a lecherous old roué. To add to her nunlike appearance, Elizabeth’s hair was scraped back off her face, pinned into a bun a la Lucinda, and covered with a short veil. Around her neck she wore the only piece of “jewelry” she intended to wear for as long as she was here-a large, ugly iron crucifix she’d borrowed from the family chapel.
“Completely dreadful, milady,” Berta added with more strength to her voice. Ever since Robert’s disappearance, Berta had elected to address Elizabeth as her mistress instead of in the more familiar ways she’d used before.
“Excellent.” Elizabeth said with an encouraging smile. “So do you.”
The footman opened the door and let down the steps, and Elizabeth went first. followed by her “aunt.” She let Berta step forward. then she turned and looked up at Aaron, who was atop the coach. Her uncle had permitted her to take six servants from Havenhurst, and Elizabeth had chosen them with care. “Don’t forget,” she warned Aaron needlessly. “Gossip freely about me with any servant who’ll listen to you. You know what to say.”
“Aye,” he said with a devilish grin. “We’ll tell them all what a skinny ogress you are-prim ‘n proper enough to scare the devil himself into leading a holy life.”
Elizabeth nodded and reluctantly turned toward the house. Fate had dealt her this hand, and she had no choice but to play it out as best she could. With head held high and knees shaking violently she walked forward until she drew even with Berta. The butler stood in the doorway, studying Elizabeth with bold interest, giving her the incredible impression that he was actually trying to locate her breasts beneath the shapeless black gown she wore. He stepped back from the door to permit them to enter. “My lord is with guests at the moment and will join you shortly,” he explained. “In the meantime, Curbes will show you to your chambers.” His eyes shifted to Berta and began to gleam appreciatively as they settled on her plump derriere, then he turned and nodded to the head footman.
With a white-faced, tight-lipped Berta beside her, Elizabeth climbed the long flight of stairs, glancing curiously about her at the gloomy hall and the crimson carpet on the steps. The carpet was thick and soft at the edges, attesting to its original cost, but it was threadbare beneath her feet and in immediate need of being replaced. There were gilt sconces on the wall with candles in them, but they had not been lit, and the staircase and landing above it were shrouded in darkness. So was the bedchamber she’d been assigned, Elizabeth realized as the footman opened the door and ushered them inside.
“Lady Berta’s chamber is just through this door,” the footman spoke up. Elizabeth squinted, peering in the darkness, and saw him walk over to what she assumed must be a wall. Hinges creaked slightly, hinting at the fact that a door had just been opened by the footman.
“It’s dark as a tomb in here,” she said, unable to see more than shadows. “Will you light the candles, please,” she asked, “assuming there are candles in here?”
“Aye, milady, right there, next to the bed.” His shadow crossed before her, and Elizabeth focused on a large, oddly shaped object that she supposed could be a bed, given its size.
“Will you light them, please?” she urged. “I-I can’t see a thing in here.”
“His lordship don’t like more’n one candle lit in the bedchambers,” the, footman said. “He says it’s a waste o’ beeswax.”
Elizabeth blinked in the darkness, tom somewhere between laughter and tears at her plight. “Oh,” she said, nonplussed. The footman lit a small candle at the far end of the room and left, closing the door behind him. “Milady?” Berta whispered, peering through the dark, impenetrable gloom. “Where are you?”
“I’m over here,” Elizabeth replied, walking cautiously forward, her arms outstretched, her hands groping about for possible obstructions in her path as she headed for what she hoped was the outside wall of the bedchamber, where there was bound to be a window with draperies hiding its light.
“Where?” Bert asked in a frightened whisper, and Elizabeth could hear the maid’s teeth chattering halfway across the room.
“Here-on your left.” Berta followed the sound of her mistress’s voice and let out a terrified gasp at the sight of the ghostlike figure moving eerily through the darkness, arms outstretched. “Raise your arm,” she said urgently, “so I’ll know ‘tis you.”
Elizabeth, knowing Berta’s timid nature, complied immediately. She raised her arm, which, while calming poor Berta, unfortunately caused Elizabeth to walk straight into a slender, fluted pillar with a marble bust upon it, and they both began to topple. “Good God!” Elizabeth burst out, wrapping her arms protectively around the pillar and the marble object upon it. “Berta!” she said urgently. “This is no time to be afraid of the dark. Help me, please. I’ve bumped into something-a bust and its stand, I think and I daren’t let go of them until I can see how to set them upright. There are draperies over here, right in front of me. All you have to do is follow my voice and open them. Once we do, ‘twill be bright as day in here.”
“I’m coming, milady,” Berta said bravely, and Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ve found them!” Berta cried softly a few minutes later. “They’re heavy-velvet they are, with another panel behind them.” Berta pulled one heavy panel back across the wall, and then, with renewed urgency and vigor, she yanked back the other and turned around to survey the room.
“Light at last!” Elizabeth said with relief. Dazzliing late afternoon sunlight poured into the windows directly in front of her, blinding her momentarily. “That’s much better,” she said, blinking. Satisfied that the pillar was quite sturdy enough to stand without her aid, Elizabeth was about to place the bust back upon it, but Berta’s cry stopped her. “Saints preserve us!” With the fragile bust clutched protectively to her chest Elizabeth swung sharply around. There, spread out before her, furnished entirely in red and gold, was the most shocking room Elizabeth had ever beheld: Six enormous gold cupids seemed to hover in thin air above a gigantic bed clutching crimson velvet bed draperies in one pudgy fist and holding bows and arrows in the other; more cupids adorned the headboard. Elizabeth’s eyes widened, first in disbelief, and a moment later in mirth. “Berta,” she breathed on a smothered giggle, “will you look at this place!”
Mesmerized by the gilt ghastliness of it all, Elizabeth slowly turned in a full circle. Above the fireplace there was a gilt-framed painting of a lady attired in nothing whatsoever but a scrap of nearly-transparent red silk that had been draped across her hips. Elizabeth jerked her eyes away from that shocking display of nudity and found herself confronted by a veritable army of cavorting cupids. They reposed in chubby, gilt splendor atop the mantel and the bed tables; a cluster of them formed the tall candelabra beside the bed, which held twelve candles-one of which the footman had lit-and more cupids surrounded an enormous mirror;
“It’s. . .” Berta uttered as she gazed through eyes the size of saucers, “it’s. . . I can’t find words,” she breathed, but Elizabeth had passed through her own state of shock and was perilously close to hilarity.
“Unspeakable?” Elizabeth suggested helpfully, and a giggle bubbled up from her throat. “U-Unbelievable?” she volunteered, her shoulders beginning to shake with mirth.
Berta made a nervous, strangled sound, and suddenly it was too much for both of them. Days of relentless tension erupted into gales of hilarity, and they gave in to it with shared abandon. Great gusty shouts of laughter erupted from them, sending tears trickling down their cheeks. Berta snatched for her missing apron, then remembered her new, elevated station in life and instead withdrew a handkerchief from her sleeve, dabbing at the comers of her eyes; Elizabeth simply clutched the forgotten bust to her chest, perched her chin upon its smooth head, and laughed until she ached. So complete was their absorption that neither of them realized their host was entering the bedchamber until Sir Francis boomed enthusiastically, “Lady Elizabeth and Lady Berta!”
Berta let out a muffled scream of surprised alarm and quickly shifted her handkerchief from the comers of her eyes to her mouth.
Elizabeth took one look at the satin-clad figure who rather resembled the cupids he obviously admired, and the dire reality of her predicament hit her like a bucket of icy water, banishing all thoughts of laughter. She dropped her gaze to the floor, trying wildly to remember her plan and to believe she could make it work. She had to make it work, for if she failed, this aging roué with the penchant for gilded cupids could very likely become her husband.
“My dear, dear ladies.” Sir Francis ?? as he hastened forward, “what a long-awaited delight this is!” Courtesy demanded that he acknowledge the older lady first, and so he turned to her. Picking up Berta’s limp hand from her side, he pressed his lips to it and said. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am Sir Francis Belhaven.”
Lady Berta curtsied her fear-widened eyes fastened on his face, and continued to press her handkerchief to her lips. To his astonishment, she did not acknowledge him at all; she did not say she was charmed to meet him or inquire after his health. Instead, the woman curtsied again. And once again. “There’s hardly a need for all that.” he said. covering his puzzlement with forced joviality. “I’m only a knight, you know. Not a duke or even an earl.”
Lady Berta curtsied again, and Elizabeth nudged her sharply with her elbow. “How do!” burst out the plump lady.
“My aunt is a trifle-er-shy with strangers,” Elizabeth managed weakly.
The sound of Elizabeth Cameron’s soft, musical voice made Sir Francis’s blood sing. He turned with unhidden eagerness to his future bride and realized that it was a bust of himself that Elizabeth was clutching so protectively, so very affectionately to her bosom. He could scarcely contain his delight. “I knew it would be this way between us-no pretense, no maidenly shyness,” he burst out, beaming at her blank, wary expression as he gently took the bust of himself from Elizabeth’s arms. “But my lovely, there’s no need for you to caress a hunk of clay when I am here in the flesh.
Momentarily struck dumb, Elizabeth gaped at the bust she’d been holding as he first set it gently upon its stand, then turned expectantly to her, leaving her with the horrifying-and accurate-thought that he now expected her to reach out and draw his balding head to her bosom. She stared at him, her mind in paralyzed chaos. “I-I would ask a favor of you, Sir Francis,” she burst out finally.
“Anything, my dear,” he said huskily.
“I would like to-to rest before supper,”
He stepped back, looking disappointed, but then he recalled his manners and reluctantly nodded. “We don’t keep country hours. Supper is at eight-thirty.” For the first time he took a moment to really look at her. His memories of her exquisite face and delicious body had been so strong, so clear, that until then he’d been seeing the Lady Elizabeth Cameron he’d met long ago. Now he belatedly registered the stark, unattractive gown she wore and the severe way her hair was dressed. His gaze dropped to the ugly iron cross that hung about her neck, and he recoiled in shock. “Oh, and my dear, I’ve invited a few guests,” he added pointedly, his eyes on her unattractive gown. “I thought you would want to know, in order to attire yourself more appropriately.”
Elizabeth suffered that insult with the same numb paralysis she’d felt since she set eyes on him. Not until the door closed behind him did she feel able to move. “Berta,” she burst out, flopping disconsolately onto the chair beside her, “how could you curtsy like that-he’ll know you for a lady’s maid before the night is out! We’ll never pull this off.”
“Well” Berta exclaimed, hurt and indignant. “Twasn’t I who was clutching his head to my bosom when he came in.”
“We’ll do better after this,” Elizabeth vowed with an apologetic glance over her shoulder, and the trepidation was gone from her voice, replaced by steely determination and urgency. “We have to do better. I want us both out of here tomorrow. The day after at the very latest.”
“The butler stared at my bosom,” Berta complained. “I saw him!”
Elizabeth sent her awry, mirthless smile. “The footman stared at mine. No woman is safe in this place. We only had a bit of-of stage fright just now. We’re new to playacting, but tonight I’ll carry it off. You’ll see. No matter what it takes, I’ll do it.”
When Elizabeth finally descended the stairs on her way to the dining room she was two hours late. Deliberately.
“Good heavens, you’re tardy, my dear!” Sir Francis said, shoving back his chair and rushing to the doorway where Elizabeth had been standing, trying to gather her courage to do what needed to be done. “Come and meet my guests,” he ,said, drawing her forward after a swift, disappointed look at her drab attire and severe coiffure. “We did as you suggested in your note and went ahead with supper. What kept you abovestairs so long?”
“I was at prayer,” Elizabeth said, managing to look him straight in the eye.
Sir Francis recovered from his surprise in time to introduce her to the three other people at the table-two men who resembled him in age and features and two women of perhaps five and thirty who were both attired in the most shockingly revealing gowns Elizabeth had ever seen.
Elizabeth accepted a helping of cold meat to silence her protesting stomach while both women studied her with unbidden scorn. “That is a most unusual ensemble you’re wearing, I must say,” remarked the woman named Eloise. ‘Is it the custom where you come from to dress so . . . simply?”
Elizabeth took a dainty bite of meat. “Not really. I disapprove of too much personal adornment.” She turned to Sir Francis with an innocent stare. “Gowns are expensive. I consider them a great waste of money.”
Sir Francis was suddenly inclined to agree, particularly since he intended to keep her naked as much as possible. “Quite right!” he beamed, eyeing the other ladies with pointed disapproval. “No sense in spending all that money on gowns. No point in spending money at all.”
“My sentiments exactly,” Elizabeth said, nodding. “I prefer to give every shilling I can find to charity instead.”
“Give it away?” he said in a muted roar, half rising out of his chair. Then he forced himself to sit back down and reconsider the wisdom of wedding her. She was lovely-her face more mature than he remembered it, but not even the black veil and scraped-back hair could detract from the beauty of her emerald-green eyes with their long, sooty lashes. Her eyes had dark circles beneath them-shadows he didn’t recall seeing there earlier in the day. He put the shadows down to her far-too-serious nature. Her dowry was creditable, and her body beneath that shapeless black gown . . . he wished he could see her shape. Perhaps it, too, had changed, and not for the better, in the past few years.
“I had hoped, my dear,” Sir Francis said, covering her hand with his and squeezing it affectionately, “that you might wear something else down to supper, as I suggested you should.”
Elizabeth gave him an innocent stare. “This is all I brought.” “All you brought?” he uttered. “B-But I distinctly saw my footmen carrying several trunks upstairs.”
“They belong to my aunt-only one of them is mine,” she fabricated hastily, already anticipating his next question and thinking madly for some satisfactory answer.
“Really?” He continued to eye her gown with great dissatisfaction, and then he asked exactly the question she’d expected: “What, may I ask, does your one trunk contain if not gowns?”
Inspiration struck, and Elizabeth smiled radiantly. “Something of great value. Priceless value,” she confided.
All faces at the table watched her with alert fascination particularly the greedy Sir Francis. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense, love. What’s in it?”
“The mortal remains of Saint Jacob.” Lady Eloise and Lady Mortand screamed in unison, Sir William choked on his wine, and Sir Francis gaped at her in horror, but Elizabeth wasn’t quite finished. She saved the coup de grace until the meal was over. As soon as everyone arose she insisted that they sit back down so a proper prayer of gratitude could be said. Raising her hands heavenward, Elizabeth turned a simple grace into a stinging tirade against the sins of lust and promiscuity that rose to a crescendo as she called down the vengeance of doomsday on all transgressors and culminated in a terrifyingly lurid description of the terrors that awaited all who strayed down the path of lechery-terrors that combined dragon lore with mythology, a smattering of religion, and a liberal dash of her own vivid imagination. When it was done Elizabeth dropped her eyes, praying in earnest that tonight would loose her from her predicament. There was no more she could do; she’d played out her hand with all her might; she’d given it her all.
It was enough. After supper Sir Francis escorted her to her chamber and, with a poor attempt at regret, announced that he greatly feared they wouldn’t suit. Not at all.
Elizabeth and Berta departed at dawn the following morning. an hour before Sir Francis’s servants stirred themselves. Clad in a dressing robe, Sir Francis watched from his bedchamber window as Elizabeth’s coachman helped her into her conveyance. He was about to turn away when a sudden gust of wind caught Elizabeth’s black gown, exposing a long and exceptionally shapely leg to Sir Francis’s riveted gaze. He was still staring at the coach as it circled the drive; through its open window he saw Elizabeth laugh and reach up, unpinning her hair. Clouds of golden tresses whipped about the open window, obscuring her face, and Sir Francis thoughtfully wet his lips.

Chapter 10



The Country seat of Lord John Marchman, Earl of Canford, was a place of such unhampered, unplanned, raw beauty that Elizabeth temporarily forgot the purpose of her visit as she stared out the window. The house was the largest she’d ever seen-a sprawling, half-timbered Tudor structure-but it was the grounds that held her enthralled. Weeping willows marched along a stream that ran through a park at the front of the property, and lilacs bloomed unhampered and untamed beside the willows, their soft colors blending in natural splendor with blue columbine and wild lilies.
Before their chaise drew to a complete halt in front of the house a door was already being flung open, and a tall, stocky man was bounding down the steps.
“It would appear that our greeting here is going to be far more enthusiastic than the one we received at our last stop,” Elizabeth said in a resolute voice that still shook with nerves as she drew on her gloves, bravely preparing to meet and defy the next obstacle to her happiness and independence.
The door of their chaise was wrenched open with enough force to pull it from its hinges, and a masculine face poked inside. “Lady Elizabeth!” boomed Lord Marchman, his face flushed with eagerness-or drink; Elizabeth wasn’t certain. “This is indeed a long-awaited surprise,” and then, as if dumbstruck by his inane remark, he shook his large head and hastily said. “A long-awaited pleasure, that is! The surprise is that you’ve arrived early.”
Elizabeth firmly repressed a surge of compassion for his obvious embarrassment, along with the thought that he might be rather likable, “I hope we haven’t inconvenienced you overmuch,” she said.
“Not overmuch. That is,” he corrected, gazing into her wide eyes and feeling himself drowning, “not at all.”
Elizabeth smiled and introduced “Aunt Berta,” then allowed their exuberant host to escort them up the steps, Beside her Berta whispered with some satisfaction, “I think he’s as nervous as I am.”
The interior of the house seemed drab and rather gloomy after the sunny splendor outside. As their host led her forward Elizabeth glimpsed the furnishings in the salon and drawing room-all of which were upholstered in dark leathers that appeared to have once been maroon and brown, Lord Marchman, who was watching her closely and hopefully, glanced about and suddenly saw his home as she must be seeing it. Trying to explain away the inadequacies of his furnishings, he said hastily, “This home is in need of a woman’s touch. I’m an old bachelor, you see, as was my father,”
Berta’s eyes snapped to his face. “Well, I never!” she exclaimed in outraged reaction to his apparent admission of being a bastard.
“I didn’t mean,” Lord Marchman hastily assured, “that my father was never married. I mean”-he paused to nervously tug on his neckcloth, as if trying to loosen it-”that my mother died when I was very young, and my father never remarried. We lived here together.”
At the juncture of two hallways and the stairs Lord Marchman turned and looked at Berta and Elizabeth. “Would you care for refreshment, or would you rather go straight to bed?”
Elizabeth wanted a rest, and she particularly wanted to spend as little time in his company as was possible. “The latter, if you please.”
“In that case,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his arm toward the staircase, “let’s go.”
Berta let out a gasp of indignant outrage at what she perceived to be a clear indication that he was no better than Sir Francis. “Now see here, milord! I’ve been putting her to bed for nigh onto two score, and I don’t need help from the likes of you!” And then, as if she realized her true station, she ruined the whole magnificent effect by curtsying and adding in a servile whisper, “if you don’t mind, sir.”
“Mind? No, I-” It finally occurred to John Marchman what she thought, and he colored up clear to the roots of his hair. “I-I only meant to show you how,” he began, and then he leaned his head back and briefly closed his eyes as if praying for deliverance, from his own tongue, “how to find the way, he finished with a gusty sigh of relief.
Elizabeth was secretly touched by his sincerity and his awkwardness, and were the situation less threatening, she would have gone out of her way to put him at his ease.
Reluctantly opening her eyes, Elizabeth rolled over onto her back. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows, and a faint smile teased the comers of her lips as she stretched and thought back on the previous night’s meal. Lord Marchman had turned out to be as endearing, awkward, and eager to please as he’d seemed upon their arrival.
Berta bustled in, still managing to look like a maid despite her stylish puce gown. “That man,” she announced huffily, referring to their host, “can’t put two words together without losing his meaning.” Obviously she’d expected better of the quality during the time she was allowed to mix with them.
“He’s afraid of us, I think,” Elizabeth replied, climbing out of bed. “Do you know the time? He desired me to accompany him fishing this morning at seven.”
“Half past ten,” Berta replied, opening drawers and turning toward Elizabeth for her decision as to which gown to wear. “He waited until a few minutes ago, then went off without you. He was carrying two poles. Said you could join him when you arose.”
“In that case, I think I’ll wear the pink muslin,” she decided with a mischievous smile.” The Earl of Marchman could scarcely believe his eyes when he finally saw his intended making her way toward him. Decked out in a frothy pink gown with an equally frothy pink parasol and a delicate pink bonnet, she came tripping across the bank. Amazed at the vagaries of the female mind, he quickly turned his attention back to the grandfather trout he’d been trying to catch for five years. Ever so gently, he jiggled his pole, trying to entice or else annoy the wily old fish into taking his fly. The giant fish swam around his hook as if he knew it might be a trick and then he suddenly charged it, nearly jerking the pole out of John’s hands. The fish hurtled out of the water, breaking the surface in a tremendous, thrilling arch at the same moment John’s intended bride deliberately chose to let out a piercing shriek: “Snake!”
Startled, John jerked his head in her direction and saw her charging at him as if Lucifer himself was on her heels, screaming, “Snake! Snake! Snnnaaaake!” And in that instant his concentration was broken; he let his line go slack, and the fish dislodged the hook, exactly as Elizabeth had hoped.
“I saw a snake,” she lied, panting and stopping just short of the arms he’d stretched out to catch her-or strangle her, Elizabeth thought, smothering a smile. She stole a quick searching glance at the water, hoping for a glimpse of the magnificent trout he’d nearly caught, her hands itching to hold the pole and try her own luck.
Lord Marchman’s disgruntled question snapped her attention back to him. “Would you like to fish, or would you rather sit and watch for a bit, until you recover from your flight from the serpent?”
Elizabeth looked around in feigned shock. “Goodness, sir, I don’t fish!”
“Do you sit?” he asked with what might have been sarcasm.
Elizabeth lowered her lashes to hide her smile at the mounting impatience in his voice. “Of course I sit,” she proudly told him. “Sitting is an excessively ladylike occupation, but fishing, in my opinion, is not. I shall adore watching you do it, however.”
For the next two hours she sat on the boulder beside him, complaining about its hardness, the brightness of the sun and the dampness of the air, and when she ran out of matters to complain about she proceeded to completely spoil his morning by chattering his ears off about every inane topic she could think of while occasionally tossing rocks into the stream to scare off his fish.
When at last he finally hooked one, despite Elizabeth’s best efforts to prevent it, she scrambled to her feet and backed up a step. “You-you’re hurting it!” she cried as he pulled the hook from its mouth.
“Hurting what? The fish?” he asked in disbelief. “Yes!”
“Nonsense,” said he, looking at her as If she was daft, then he tossed the fish on the bank.
“It can’t breathe, I tell you!” she wailed, her eyes fixed on the flapping fish.
“It doesn’t need to breathe.” he retorted. “We’re going to eat it for lunch.”
“I certainly won’t!” she cried, managing to look at him as if he were a cold-blooded murderer.
“Lady Cameron,” he said sternly, “am Ito believe you’ve never eaten fish?”
“Well, of course I have.”
“ And where do you think the fish you’ve eaten came from?” he continued with irate logic.
“It came from a nice tidy package wrapped in paper,” Elizabeth announced with a vacuous look. “They come in nice, tidy paper wrapping.”
“Well, they weren’t born in that tidy paper,” he replied, and Elizabeth had a dreadful time hiding her admiration for his patience as well as for the firm tone he was finally taking with her. He was not, as she had originally thought, a fool or a namby-pamby. “Before that,” he persisted, “where was the fish? How did that fish get to the market in the first place?”
Elizabeth gave her head a haughty toss, glanced sympathetically at the flapping fish, then gazed at him with haughty condemnation in her eyes. “I assume they used nets or something, but I’m perfectly certain they didn’t do it this way.”
“What way?” he demanded.
“The way you have-sneaking up on it in its own little watery home, tricking it by covering up your hook with that poor fuzzy thing, and then jerking the poor fish away from its family and tossing it on the bank to die. It’s quite inhumane!” she said, and she gave her skirts an irate twitch.
Lord Marchman stared at her in frowning disbelief, then he shook his head as if trying to clear it. A few minutes later he escorted her home.
Elizabeth made him carry the basket containing the fish on the opposite side from where she walked. And when that didn’t seem to discomfit the poor man she insisted he hold his arm straight out-to keep the basket even further from her person.
She was not at all surprised when Lord Marchman excused himself until supper, nor when he remained moody and thoughtful throughout their uncomfortable meal. She covered the silence, however, by chattering earnestly about the difference between French and English fashions and the importance of using only the best kid for gloves, and then she regaled him with detailed descriptions of every gown she could remember seeing. By the end of the meal Lord Marchman looked dazed and angry; Elizabeth was a little hoarse and very encouraged.
“I think,” Berta remarked with a proud little smile when she was seated alone in the drawing room beside Elizabeth. “he’s having second thoughts about proposing, milady.”
“I think he was silently contemplating the easiest way to murder me at dinner,” Elizabeth said, chuckling. She was about to say more when the butler interrupted them to announce that Lord Marchman wished to have a private word with Lady Cameron in his study.
Elizabeth prepared for another battle of wits-or witlessness, she thought with an inner smile-and dutifully followed the butler down a dark hall furnished in brown and into a very large study where the earl was seated in a maroon chair at a desk on her right.
“You wished to see-” she began as she stepped into his study, but something on the wall beside her brushed against her hair. Elizabeth turned her head, expecting to see a portrait hanging there, and instead found herself eye-to-fang with an enormous bear’s head. The little scream that tore from her was very real this time, although it owed to shock, not to fear.
“It’s quite dead,” the earl said in a voice of weary resignation, watching her back away from his most prized hunting trophy with her hand over her mouth.
Elizabeth recovered instantly, her gaze sweeping over the wall of hunting trophies, then she turned around.
“You may take your hand away from your mouth,” he stated. Elizabeth fixed him with another accusing glare, biting her lip to hide her smile. She would have dearly loved to hear how he had stalked that bear or where he had found that monstrous big boar, but she knew better than to ask. “Please, my lord,” she said instead, “tell me these poor creatures didn’t die at your hands.”
“I’m afraid they did. Or more correctly, at the point of my gun. Please sit down.” He nodded toward an overstuffed leather wingback chair in front of his desk, and Elizabeth settled into its enveloping comfort. “Tell me, if you will,” he inquired, his eyes softening as he gazed upon her upturned face, “in the event we were wed, how would you envision our lives together?”
Elizabeth hadn’t expected such a frontal attack. and she both respected him for it and was disconcerted by it. Taking a long breath, she tried systematically to describe the sort of life she knew he’d probably loathe: “Naturally, we’d live in London,” she began, leaning forward in her chair in a pose of eager enthusiasm. “I do so adore the city and its amusements.”
His brows drew together at the mention of living in London. “What sort of amusements do you enjoy?”
“Amusements?” Elizabeth said brightly, considering. “Balls and routs and the opera. I adore giving balls and attending them. In fact, I simply cannot bear to miss a ball. Why, during my season there were days I managed to make it to as many as fifteen different balls! And I adore gambling,” she added, trying to give him the impression that she would cost him a great deal more than the dowry she would bring. “I have dreadful luck, however, and am forever having to borrow money.”
“I see,” he said. “Is there anything else?” Elizabeth faltered, feeling she ought to think of more, his steady, speculative gaze was unnerving her. “What else matters in life,” she said with forced gaiety, “other than balls and gaming and sophisticated companions?”
His face had grown so thoughtful that Elizabeth sensed he was working up the courage to cry off, and she waited in expectant silence so as not to distract him. The moment he began to speak, she knew he was going to do it because his speech became awkward, as it seemed to do whenever he addressed her on matters he perceived to be important. “Lady. . . er. . .” he began lamely, running his fingers around his neckcloth.
“Cameron,” Elizabeth provided helpfully. “Yes-Cameron,” he agreed, and he fell silent for a moment, regathering his thoughts. “Lady Cameron,” he began, “I am a simple country lord without any aspirations to spend the season in London and cut a dash among the ton. I go there as seldom as possible. I can see that disappoints you.”
Elizabeth nodded sadly.
“I greatly fear,” he said, flushing at the neck, “that we won’t suit, Lady. . . er . . .” He trailed off uneasily at his rudeness.
“Cameron,” Elizabeth provided, eager to have him complete his thought.
“Yes, of course. Cameron. I knew that. What I was trying to say was that. . . ah . . .”
“We won’t suit?” Elizabeth prodded helpfully.
“Exactly!” Misintepreting her last sentence as being her own thought instead of his, he sighed with relief and nodded emphatically. “I must say I’m happy to hear you agree with me.”
“Naturally, I regret that this is so,” Elizabeth added kindly, feeling that some sort of balm was due him for the emotional torment she’d put him through at the stream. “My uncle will be most disappointed also,” she continued. It was all she could do not to leap to her feet and put the quill in his hand as she added, “Would you like to write to him now and explain your decision?”
“Our decision,” he corrected gallantly.
“Yes, but. . .” She hesitated, framing her answer carefully. “My uncle will be so very disappointed, and I-I shouldn’t like him to lay the blame at my door” Sir Francis might well have blamed her in his inevitable letter to her uncle, and she didn’t dare risk having the earl do likewise. Uncle Julius was no fool, and she couldn’t risk his retribution if he realized she’d bees deliberately discouraging her beaux and intentionally thwarting him.
“I see,” he said, observing her with disturbing concentration, then he picked up a quill and trimmed it. A sigh of relief escaped Elizabeth as she watched him write his note. “Now that that distasteful matter is out of the way, may I ask you something?” he said, shoving the note aside.
Elizabeth nodded happily.
“Why did you come here-that is, why did you agree to reconsider my proposal?”
The question alarmed and startled her. Now that she’d seen him she had only the dimmest, possibly even erroneous recollection of having spoken to him at a ball. Moreover, she couldn’t tell him she was in danger of being cut off by her uncle, for that whole explanation was too humiliating to bear mentioning.
He waited for her to reply, and when she seemed unable to give one he prompted, “Did I do or say something during our brief meetings the year before last to mislead you, perhaps, into believing I might yearn for the city life?”
“It’s hard to say,” Elizabeth said with absolute honesty. .”Lady Cameron, do you even remember our meeting?” “Oh, yes, of course. Certainly,” Elizabeth replied, belatedly recalling a man who looked very like him being presented to her at Lady Markham’s. That was it! “We met at Lady Markham’s ball.”
His gaze never left her face. “We met in the park.”
“In the park?” Elizabeth repeated in sublime embarrassment.
“You had stopped to admire the flowers, and the young gentleman who was your escort that day introduced us.”
“I see,” Elizabeth replied. her gaze skating away from his. “Would you care to know what we discussed that day and the next day when I escorted you back to the park?” Curiosity and embarrassment warred, and curiosity won out.
“Yes, I would.”
“Fishing.”
“F-Fishing?” Elizabeth gasped. He nodded. “Within minutes after we were introduced I mentioned that I had not come to London for the Season, as you supposed, but that I was on my way to Scotland to do some fishing and was leaving London the very next day.”
An awful feeling of foreboding crept over Elizabeth as something stirred in her memory. “We had a charming chat,” he continued. “You spoke enthusiastically of a particularly challenging trout you were once able to land.”
Elizabeth’s face felt as hot as red coals as he continued, “We quite forgot the time and your poor escort as we shared fishing stories.”
He was quiet, waiting, and when Elizabeth couldn’t endure the damning silence anymore she said uneasily, “Was there. . . more?”
“Very little. I did not leave for Scotland the next day but stayed instead to call upon you. You abandoned the half-dozen young bucks who’d come to escort you to some sort of fancy soiree and chose instead to go for another impromptu walk in the park with me.”
Elizabeth swallowed audibly, unable to meet his eyes. “Would you like to know what we talked about that day?” “No, I don’t think so.”
He chuckled but ignored her reply. “You professed to be somewhat weary of the social whirl and confessed to a longing to be in the country that day-which is why we went to the park. We had a charming time, I thought.”
When he fell silent, Elizabeth forced herself to meet his gaze and say with resignation, “And we talked of fishing?”
“No,” he said. “Of boar hunting.” Elizabeth closed her eyes in sublime shame. “You related an exciting tale of a wild boar your father had shot long ago, and of how you watched the hunt without permission-from the very tree below which the boar was ultimately felled. As I recall,” he finished kindly, “you told me that it was your impulsive cheer that revealed your hiding place to the hunters-and that caused you to be seriously reprimanded by your father.”
Elizabeth saw the twinkle lighting his eyes, and suddenly they both laughed.
“I remember your laugh, too,” he said, still smiling, “I thought it was the loveliest sound imaginable. So much so that between it and our delightful conversation I felt very much at ease in your company.” Realizing he’d just flattered her, he flushed, tugged at his neckcloth, and self-consciously looked away.
Seeing his discomfort, Elizabeth waited until he’d recovered his composure and was looking at her. “I remember you, too,” she said, tipping her head sideways when he started to turn his head and refusing to let him break their gaze. “I do,” she said quietly and honestly. “I had forgotten until just a moment ago.”
He looked gratified and puzzled as he leaned back in his chair and studied her. “Why did you choose to reconsider my proposal, when I scarcely made the merest impression on you?”
He was so nice, so kind, that Elizabeth felt she owed him a truthful answer. Moreover, she was rapidly revising her opinion of Lord Marchman’s acuity. Now that the possibility of romantic involvement had vanished, his speech had become incisive and his perception alarmingly astute.
“You might as well confide the whole of it to me, you know,” he urged, smiling as he read her thoughts. “I’m not quite the simpleton I’m sure I’ve seemed to be. It is only that I am not. . . er . . . comfortable around females in a courtship situation. Since I am not going to be your husband, however,” he said with only a twinge of regret, “perhaps we could be friends?”
Elizabeth knew instinctively that he would not mock her situation if she explained it, and that he would continue probing until she did. “It was my uncle’s decision,” she said with an embarrassed smile, trying to gloss matters over and still explain to him why he’d been put through this inconvenience. “My uncle has no children, you see, and he is most determined that is, concerned to see me well wed. He knew of those gentlemen who’d offered for me-and so my uncle that is to say. . .” Elizabeth trailed off helplessly. It was not so easy to explain as she’d hoped.
“Selected me?” the earl suggested. Elizabeth nodded.
“Amazing. I distinctly recall hearing that you’d had several-no, many offers of marriage the Season we met.
Yet your uncle chose me. I must say I’m flattered. And very surprised. Considering the substantial difference in our ages, not to mention our interests, I should have expected him to choose a younger man. I apologize for prying,” he said, studying her very closely.
Elizabeth almost bolted out of her chair in dismay when he asked bluntly, “Who else did he chose?”
Biting her lip, she looked away, unaware that Lord Marchman could see from her stricken expression that although the question embarrassed her, the answer distressed her terribly.
“Whoever be is, he must be even less suited to you than I, from the look on your face,” he said, watching her. “Shall I guess? Or shall I tell you frankly that an hour ago, when I returned, I overheard your aunt and your coachman laughing about something that occurred at the home of Sir Francis Belhaven. Is Belhaven the other man?” he asked gently.
The color drained from Elizabeth’s face, and it was answer enough.
“Damnation!” expostulated the earl, grimacing in revulsion. “The very thought of an innocent like yourself being offered to that old-”
“I’ve dissuaded him,” Elizabeth hastily assured him, but she was profoundly touched that the earl, who knew her so slightly, was angered on her behalf.
“You’re certain?”
“I think so.”
After a moment’s hesitation he nodded and leaned back in his chair, his disturbingly astute gaze on her face while a slow smile drifted across his own. “May I ask how you accomplished it?”
‘I’d truly rather you wouldn’t.”
Again he nodded, but his smile widened and his blue eyes lit with amusement. “Would I be far off the mark if I were to assume you used the same tactics on Marchman that I think you’ve used here?”
“I’m-not certain I understand your question,” Elizabeth replied warily, but his grin was innocuous, and she found herself having to bite her lip to stop from smiling back at him.
“Well, either the interest you exhibited in fishing two years ago was real, or it was your courteous way of putting me at ease and letting me talk about the things that interested me. If the former is true, then I can only assume your terror of fish yesterday isn’t quite. . . shall we say . . . as profound as you would have had me believe?”
They looked at each other, he with a knowing smile, Elizabeth with brimming laughter. “Perhaps it is not quite so profound, my lord.”
His eyes positively twinkled. “Would you care to make a try for that trout you cost me this morning? He’s still out there taunting me, you know.”
Elizabeth burst out laughing, and the earl joined her. When their laughter had died away Elizabeth looked across the desk at him, feeling as if they were truly friends. It would have been so lovely to sit by the stream without her slippers, waiting to test her own considerable skill with pole and line. On the other hand, she wanted neither to put him to the inconvenience of keeping them as house guests nor to risk that he might change his mind about their betrothal. “All things considered,” she said slowly, “I think it best if my aunt and I were on our way tomorrow to our last. . . to our destination.”
The next day dawned clear and fine with birds singing outside in the trees and sun shining gaily in an azure sky. Unfortunately, it was one of those days when solutions to the problems of the night before did not automatically present themselves, and as Lord Marchman handed Berta and her into their coach Elizabeth had still not resolved her dilemma. She could not remain here now that her task was accomplished; on the other hand, the prospect of arriving at Ian Thornton’s home in Scotland, nearly a fortnight before she was expected and with Berta instead of Lucinda, did not appeal to her at all. In order to confront that man, she wanted Lucinda with her-Lucinda, who cowered before no one and who would be able to advise Elizabeth when advice was needed. The obvious solution was therefore to proceed to the inn where Lucinda was to meet them and to remain there until she arrived. Uncle Julius, with typical reverence for a shilling and unswerving practicality, had worked out what he called a budget and had given her only enough extra money to cover emergencies. Elizabeth told herself this was an emergency and resolved to spend the money and worry about explanations later.
Aaron was still waiting for instruction as to where to go, and Elizabeth made up her mind. “To Carlington, Aaron,” she said. “We’ll wait for Lucinda at the inn there.”
Turning, she smiled with genuine affection at Lord Marchman and offered him her hand through the open window of the coach. “Thank you,” she said shyly but with great sincerity, “for being all the things you are, my lord.”
His face scarlet with pleasure at her compliment, John Marchman stepped back and watched her coach pull out of his drive. He watched it until the horses turned onto the road, then he slowly walked back toward the house and went into his study. Sitting down at his desk, he looked at the note he’d written her uncle and idly drummed his fingers upon his’ desk, recalling her disturbing answer when he asked if she’d dissuaded old Belhaven from pressing his suit. “I think I have.” she’d said. And then John made his decision.
Feeling rather like an absurd knight in shining armor rushing to save an unwilling damsel in the event of future distress, he took out a fresh sheet of paper and wrote out a new message to her uncle. As it always happened the moment courtship was involved, Lord Marchman lost his ability to be articulate. His note read:
If Belhaven asks for her, please advise me of it. I think I want her first.

Chapter 11



Ian Thornton stood in the center of the large cottage in Scotland where he had been born. Now he used it as a hunting box, but it was much more than that to him. It was the place where he knew he could always find peace and reality; the one place where he could escape, for a while, the hectic pace of his life. With his hands thrust deep in his pockets he looked about him, seeing it again through the eyes of an adult. “Every time I come back it’s smaller than I remembered,” he told the ruddy-faced, middle-aged man who was trudging through the front doors with heavy sacks of provisions slung over his shoulder.
“Things always look bigger when yer little,” Jake said, unceremoniously dumping the sacks onto the dusty sideboard. “That’s the lot o’ it, ‘cept my gear,” he said. He pulled his pistol out of his belt and put it on the table. “I’ll put the horses away.”
Ian nodded absently, but his attention was on the cottage. An aching nostalgia swelled inside him as he remembered the years he’d lived here as a child. In his heart he heard his father’s deep voice and his mother’s answering laughter. To his right was the hearth where his mother had once prepared their meals before the arrival of their stove. At right angles to the hearth were the two tan high-backed chairs in which his parents had spent long, cozy evenings before the fire, talking in low voices so that Ian and his younger sister wouldn’t be disturbed in their bedrooms above. Across from that was a sofa upholstered in a sturdy tan and brown plaid.
It was all here, just as Ian remembered. Turning, he looked down at the dust-covered table beside him, and with a smile he reached out and touched the surface, his long fingers searching the surface for a specific set of scratches. It took several seconds of rubbing, but slowly they came into view-four clumsily formed letters: I.G.B.T.-his initials, scratched into the surface when he was a little over three years old. That piece of mischief had nearly gotten him a good shaking until his mother realized he’d been teaching himself his letters without her help.
His lessons had begun the next day, and when his mother’s considerable learning had been exhausted his father took over, teaching him geometry and physics and everything he’d learned at Eton and Cambridge. When Ian was fourteen Jake Wiley had joined the household as a jack-of-all-trades, and from him Ian had learned firsthand of the sea, and ships, and mysterious lands on the other side of the world. Later he had gone with Jake to see them himself and to put his education to use.
He’d returned home three years afterward, eager to see his family, only to discover that a few days earlier they had died in a fire at an inn where they had gone to await his impending return. Even now Ian felt the wrenching loss of his mother and father, the proud man who had turned his back on his noble heritage and instead married the sister of a poor Scottish vicar. By his actions he had forfeited a dukedom. . . and had never given a blessed damn. Or so he said. The poignancy of being here after two long years was almost past bearing, and Ian tipped his head back, closing his eyes against the bittersweet ache of it. He saw his father grinning and shaking his hand as Ian prepared to depart on his first voyage with Jake. “Take care,” he had said. “Remember, no matter how far you go, we’ll always be with you.”
Ian had left that day, the impecunious son of a disowned English lord whose entire fortune was a small bag of gold his father had given him on his sixteenth birthday. Now, fourteen years later, there were fleets of ships flying Ian’s flag and carrying his cargo; mines filled with his silver and tin; warehouses loaded with precious goods that he owned. But it was land that had originally made him rich. A large parcel of barren-looking land that he’d won at cards from a colonial who swore the old mine there had gold in it. And it had. Gold that bought more mines, and ships, and palatial homes in Italy and India.
Gambling everything on a series of investments had paid off for Ian again and again. Once society had called him a gambler; now he was regarded as some sort of mythical king with a golden touch. Rumors flew and prices soared on the ‘change every time he bought a stock. He could not set foot into a ball without the butler bellowing out his name. Where once he had been a social pariah, those same people who had shunned him now courted his favor-or, more precisely, his financial advice, or his money for their daughters. His wealth had brought Ian many luxuries, but no extraordinary joy. It was the gamble he loved best-the challenge of selecting exactly the right venture and the thrill of wagering a fortune on it. Moreover, success had come with a price it had cost him his right to privacy, and he resented that.
Now his grandfather’s actions were adding to his unwanted notoriety. The death of Ian’s father had evidently caused the old duke to feel some belated regret for the estrangement, and for the last twelve years he’d been writing to Ian periodically. At first he had pleaded with Ian to come and visit him at Stanhope. When Ian ignored his letters, he’d tried bribing him with promises to name Ian his legitimate heir. Those letters had gone unanswered, and for the last two years the old man’s silence had misled Ian into thinking he’d given up. Four months ago, however, another letter bearing Stanhope’s ducal crest had been delivered to Ian, and this one infuriated him.
The old man had imperiously given Ian four months in which to appear at Stanhope and meet with him to discuss arrangements for the transfer of six estates-estates that would have been Ian’s father’s inheritance had the duke not disowned him. According to the letter, if Ian did not appear, the duke planned to proceed without him, publicly naming him his heir, Ian had written to his grandfather for the first time in his life; the note had been short and final. It was also eloquent proof that Ian Thornton was as unforgiving as his grandfather, who’d rejected his own son for two decades:
“Try it and you’ll look a fool. I’ll disclaim all knowledge of any relationship with you, and if you still persist, I’ll let your title and your estates rot.”
The four months had elapsed now, and there had been no more communications from the duke, but in London gossip was still rampant that Stanhope was about to name an heir. And that the heir would be his natural grandson, Ian Thornton. Now invitations to balls and soirees arrived in tidal waves from the same people who had long ago shunned him as an undesirable, and their hypocrisy alternately amused and disgusted him.
“That black horse we used for packin’ up here is the most cantankerous beast alive,” Jake grumbled, rubbing his arm.
Ian lifted his gaze from the initials on the tabletop and turned to Jake, making no attempt to hide his amusement. “Bit you, did he?”
“Damn right he bit me!” the older man said bitterly. “He’s been after a chunk of me since we left the coach at Hayborn and loaded those sacks on his back to bring up here.”
“I warned you he bites anything he can reach. Keep your arm out of his way when you’re saddling him.”
“If it weren’t my arm he was after, it was my arse! Opened his mouth and went for it, only I saw him out ‘ter the comer of my eye and swung around, so he missed.” Jake’s frown darkened when he saw the amusement in Ian’s expression. “Can’t see why you’ve bothered to feed him all these years. He doesn’t deserve to share a stable with your other horses-beauties they are, every one but him.”
“Try slinging packs over the backs of one of those and you’ll see why I took him. He was suitable for using as a pack mule; none of my other cattle would have been,” Ian said. frowning as he lifted his head and looked about at the months of accumulated dirt covering everything.
“He’s slower’n a pack mule,” Jake replied. “Mean and stubborn and slow,” he concluded, but he, too, was frowning a little as he looked around at the thick layers of dust coating every surface. “Thought you said you’d arranged for some village wenches to come up here and clean and cook ‘fer us. This place is a mess.”
“I did, I dictated a message to Peters for the caretaker, . asking him to stock the place with food and to have two women come up here to clean and cook. The food is here, and there are chickens out in the barn. He must be having difficulty finding two women to stay up here.”
“Comely women, I hope,” Jake said. “Did you tell him to make the wenches comely?”
Ian paused in his study of the spiderwebs strewn across the ceiling and cast him an amused look. “You wanted me to tell a seventy-year-old caretaker who’s half-blind to make certain the wenches were comely?”
“Couldn’ta hurt t’ mention it,” Jake grumbled, but he looked chastened.
“The village is only twelve miles away. You can always stroll down there if you’ve urgent need of a woman while we’re here. Of course, the trip back up here may kill you,” he joked referring to the winding path up the cliff that seemed to be almost vertical.
“Never mind women,” Jake said in an abrupt change of heart, his tanned, weathered face breaking into a broad grin. “I’m here for a fortnight of fishin’ and relaxin’, and that’s enough for any man. It’ll be like the old days, Ian-peace and quiet and naught else. No hoity-toity servants hearin’ every word what’s spoke, no carriages and barouches and matchmaking mamas arrivin’ at your house. I tell you, my boy, though I’ve not wanted to complain about the way you’ve been livin’ this past year, I don’t like these servants o’ yours above half. That’s why I didn’t come t’visit you very often. Yer butler at Montmayne holds his nose so far in t’air, it’s amazin’ he gets any oxhegen, and that French chef o’ yers practically threw me out of his kitchens. That what he called ‘em-his kitchens, and-” The old seaman abruptly broke off, his expression going from irate to crestfallen, “Ian,” he said anxiously, “did you ever learn t’ cook while we was apart?”
“No, did you?”
“Hell and damnation, no!” Jake said, appalled at the prospect of having to eat anything he fixed himself.
“Lucinda,” Elizabeth said for the third time in an hour, “I cannot tell you how sorry I am about this.” Five days ago, Lucinda had arrived at the inn at the Scottish border where she joined Elizabeth for the journey to Ian Thornton’s house. This morning, their hired coach broke an axle, and they were now ignominiously ensconced on the back of a hay wagon belonging to a farmer, their trunks and valises tipping precariously to and fro along the rutted path that evidently passed for a road in Scotland. The prospect of arriving in a hay wagon on Ian Thornton’s doorstep was so horrible that Elizabeth preferred to concentrate on her guilt, rather than her forthcoming meeting with the monster who had ruined her life.
“As I said the last time you apologized. Elizabeth,” Lucinda replied. “it is not your fault, and therefore not your responsibility to apologize, for the deplorable lack of roads and conveyances in this heathen country.”
“Yes, but if it weren’t for me you wouldn’t be here.” Lucinda sighed impatiently, clutched the side of the hay wagon as it made a particularly sharp lurch, and righted herself. “And as I have already admitted, if I hadn’t been deceived into mentioning Mr. Thornton’s name to your uncle, neither of us would be here. You are merely experiencing some nervousness at the disagreeable prospect of confronting the man, and there is no reason in the world-” The wagon tipped horribly and they both clutched at the sides of it for leverage. “-no reason in the world to continue apologizing. Your time would be better spent preparing yourself for the unhappy occasion.”
“You’re right, of course.” “Of course,” Lucinda agreed unhesitatingly. “I am always right, as you know. Nearly always,” she amended, obviously thinking of how she had been misled by Julius Cameron into revealing the name of Ian Thornton as one of Elizabeth’s former suitors. As she’d explained to Elizabeth as soon as she arrived at the inn, she’d only given his name as a suitor because Julius had begun asking questions about Elizabeth’s reputation during her debut. and about whether she’d been popular or not. Thinking he’d heard some of the malicious gossip about Elizabeth’s involvement with Ian Thornton, Lucinda had tried to put a better face on things by including his name among Elizabeth’s many suitors.
“I would rather face the devil himself than that man,” Elizabeth said with a repressed shudder.
“I daresay,” Lucinda agreed, clutching her umbrella with one hand and the side of the cart with her other.
The nearer the time came, the more angry and confused Elizabeth became about this meeting. For the first four days of their journey, her tension had been greatly allayed by the scenic grandeur of Scotland with its rolling hills and deep valleys carpeted in bluebells and hawthorne. Now, however, as the hour of confronting him drew near, not even the sight of the mountains decked out in spring flowers or the bright blue lakes below could calm her mounting tension. “Furthermore, I cannot believe he has the slightest desire to see me.”
“We shall soon find out.” In the hills above the high, winding track that passed for a road, a shepherd paused to gape at an old wooden wagon making its laborious way along the road below. “Lookee there, Will,” he told his brother. “Do you see what I see?” The brother looked down and gaped, his lips parting in a
toothless grin of glee at the comical sight of two ladies bonnets, gloves, and all-who were perched primly and precariously on the back of Sean MacLaesh’s haywagon, their backs ramrod-stiff, their feet sticking straight out beyond the wagon.
“Don’t that beat all,” Will laughed, and high above the haywagon he swept off his cap in a mocking salute to the ladies. “I heerd in the village Ian Thornton was a comin’ home. I’ll wager ‘e’s arrived, and them two are his fancy pieces, come to warmt ‘is bed an’ see to ‘is needs.”
Blessedly unaware of the conjecture taking place between the two spectators up in the hills, Miss Throckmorton-Jones brushed angrily and ineffectually at the coating of dust clinging to her black skirts. “I have never in all my life been subjected to such treatment!” she hissed furiously as the wagon they were riding in gave another violent, creaking lurch and her shoulder banged into Elizabeth’s. “You may depend on this-I shall give Mr. Ian Thornton a piece of my mind for inviting two gentlewomen to this godforsaken wilderness, and never even mentioning that a traveling barouche is too wide for the roads!”
Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something soothing. but just then the wagon gave another teeth-jarring lurch, and she clutched at the wooden side. “From what little I know of him, Lucy,” she managed finally when the wagon righted, “he wouldn’t care in the least what we’ve been through. He’s rude and inconsiderate-and those are his good points-”
“Whoa there, whoa.” the farmer called out. sawing back on the swayback nag’s reins and bringing the wagon to a groaning stop. “That’s the Thornton place up there atop yon hill,” the farmer said. pointing.
Lucinda gazed in mounting anger at the large, but unimpressive cottage that was barely visible through the thick trees. then she turned the full force of her authority on the hapless farmer. “You’re mistaken, my good man,” she said stoutly. “No gentleman of consequence or sense would live in such a godforsaken place as this. Kindly turn this decrepit vehicle around and return us to the village whence we came so that we can ask directions again. There was obviously a misunderstanding.”
At that. both the horse and the farmer swung their heads around and looked at her with identical expressions of weary resentment.
The horse remained silent, but the farmer had heard Lucinda’s irate complaints for the last twelve miles. and be was heartily sick of them. “See here, my lady,” he began, but Lucinda cut him off.
“Do not address me as ‘my lady’, ‘Miss Throckmorton-Jones’ will do very well.”
“Aye. Well, whoever ye be. this is as far as I’m takin’ ye, and that thar is the Thornton cottage.”
“You can’t mean to abandon us here!” she said as the tired old man exhibited a surge of renewed energy obviously brought on by the prospect of ridding himself of his unwanted guests-and leapt off the wagon. whereupon he began to drag their trunks and bandboxes off the wagon and onto the side of the narrow ledge that passed for a road.
“What if they aren’t homer’ she gasped as Elizabeth took ,pity on the elderly farmer and began helping him drag one of the trunks down.
“Then we’ll simply come down here and wait for another farmer to be kind enough to give us a ride,” Elizabeth said with a courage she didn’t quite feel.
“I wouldna plan on’t,” said the farmer as Elizabeth withdrew a coin and placed it in his hand. “Thankee, milady, thankee kindly,” he said, touching his cap and smiling a little at the younger lady, with the breathtaking face and shimmering blond hair.
“Why shouldn’t we count on it?” Lucinda demanded. “Because,” said the farmer as he climbed back onto his wagon, “there ain’t likely to be nobody comin’ along for a week or two, mebbe more. There’s rain comin’ on tomorrow, I’d guess, or the day after. Can’t get a wagon through here when it rains hard. Besides,” he said, taking pity on the young miss, who’d gone a little pale, “see smoke comin’ out o’ yon chimney, so there’s someone up there.”
With a snap of the worn reins he drove off, and for a minute Elizabeth and Lucinda just stood there while a fresh cloud of dust settled all around them. Finally Elizabeth gave. herself a firm mental shake and tried to take things in hand. “Lucy, if you’ll take one end of that trunk there, I can take the other, and we can carry it up to the house.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” Lucinda cried angrily. “We shall leave everything right here and let Thornton send his servants down here.”
“We could do that,” Elizabeth said, “but it’s a treacherous, steep climb, and the trunk is light enough, so there’s no point in someone having to me an extra trip. Please, Lucy, “I’m too exhausted to argue.”
Lucinda turned a swift look upon Elizabeth’s pale, apprehensive face and swallowed her argument. “You’re quite right,” she said briskly.
Elizabeth was not entirely right. The climb was steep enough, but the trunk, which originally felt quite light, seemed to gain a pound of weight with every step they took. A few yards from the house both ladies paused to rest again, then Elizabeth resolutely grabbed the handle on her end. “You go to the door, Lucy,” she said breathlessly, worried for the older woman’s health if she had to lug the trunk any further. “I’ll just drag this along.”
Miss Throckmorton-Jones took one look at her poor, bedraggled charge, and rage exploded in her breast that they’d been brought so low as this. Like an angry general she gave her gloves an irate yank, turned on her heel, marched up to the front door, and lifted her umbrella. Using its handle like a club, she rapped hard upon the door.
Behind her Elizabeth doggedly dragged the trunk. “You don’t suppose there’s no one home?” She panted, hauling the trunk the last few feet.
“If they’re in there, they must be deaf!” said Lucinda. She brought up her umbrella again and began swinging at the door in a way that sent rhythmic thunder through the house. “Open up, I say!” she shouted, and on the third downswing the door suddenly lurched open to reveal a startled middleaged man who was struck on the head by the handle of the descending umbrella.
“God’s teeth,” Jake swore, grabbing his head and glowering a little dizzily at the homely woman who was glowering right back at him, her black bonnet crazily askew atop her wiry gray hair”
“It’s God’s ears you need, not his teeth,” the sour-faced woman informed him as she caught Elizabeth’s sleeve and pulled her one step into the house. “We are expected,” she informed Jake. In his understandably dazed state, Jake took another look at the bedraggled, dusty ladies and erroneously assumed they were the women from the village come to clean and cook for Ian and him. His entire countenance changed. and a broad grin swept across his ruddy face. The growing lump on his head forgiven and forgotten, he stepped back. “Welcome, welcome,” he said expansively, and he made a broad, sweeping gesture with his hand that encompassed the entire dusty room. “Where do you want to begin?”
“With a hot bath,” said Lucinda, “followed by some tea and refreshments.”
From the corner of her eye Elizabeth glimpsed a tall man who was stalking in from a room behind the one where they stood. and an uncontrollable tremor of dread shot through her.
“Don’t know as I want a bath just now,” Jake said. “Not for you, you dolt, for Lady Cameron.”
Elizabeth could have sworn Ian Thornton stiffened with shock. His head jerked toward her as if trying to see past the rim of her bonnet, but Elizabeth was absolutely besieged with cowardice and kept her head averted.
“You want a bath?” Jake repeated dumbly, staring at Lucinda.
“Indeed, but Lady Cameron’s must come first. Don’t just stand there,” she snapped, threatening his midsection with her umbrella. “Send servants down to the road to fetch our trunks at once.” The point of the umbrella swung meaningfully toward the door, then returned to jab Jake’s middle. “;But before you do that, inform your master that we have arrived.”
“His master,” said a biting voice from a rear doorway, “is aware of that.”
Elizabeth swung around at the scathing tone of Ian’s voice, and her fantasy of seeing him fall to his knees in remorse the moment he set eyes on her collapsed the instant she saw his face; it was as hard and forbidding as a granite sculpture. He did not bother to come forward but instead. remained where he was, his shoulder propped negligently against the door frame, his arms folded across his chest, watching her through narrowed eyes. Until then Elizabeth had thought she remembered exactly what he looked like, but she hadn’t. Not really. His suede jacket clung to wide shoulders that were broader and more muscular than she’d remembered, and his thick hair was almost black. His face was one of leashed sensuality and arrogant handsomeness with its sculpted mouth and striking eyes, but now she noticed the cynicism in those golden eyes and the ruthless set of his jaw-things she’d obviously been too young and naive to see before. Everything about him exuded brute strength, and that in turn made her feel even more helpless as she searched his features for some sign that this aloof, forbidding man had actually held and kissed her with seductive tenderness.
“Have you had an edifying look at me, Countess?” he snapped, and before she could recover from the shock of that rude greeting his next words rendered her nearly speechless. “You are a remarkable young woman, Lady Cameron-you must possess the instincts of a bloodhound to track me here. Now that you’ve succeeded, there is the door. Use it.”
Elizabeth’s momentary shock gave way to a sudden, almost uncontrollable burst of wrath. “I beg your pardon?” she said tightly.
“You heard me.”
“I was invited here.”
“Of course you were,” Ian mocked, realizing in a flash of surprise that the letter he’d had from her uncle must not have been a prank, and that Julius Cameron had obviously, decided to regard Ian’s lack of reply as willingness, which was nothing less than absurd and obnoxious. In the last months, since news of his wealth and his possible connection to the Duke of Stanhope had been made public, he’d become accustomed to being pursued by the same socialites who had once cut him. Normally he found it annoying; from Elizabeth Cameron he found it revolting.
He stared at her in insolent silence, unable to believe the alluring, impulsive girl he remembered had become this coolly aloof, self-possessed young woman. Even with her dusty clothes and the smear of dirt on her cheek, Elizabeth Cameron was strikingly beautiful, but she’d changed so much that-except for the eyes-he scarcely recognized her. One thing hadn’t changed: She was still a schemer and a liar.
Straightening abruptly from his stance in the doorway, Ian walked forward. “I’ve had enough of this charade, Miss Cameron. No one invited you here, and you damn well know it.”
Blinded with wrath and humiliation, Elizabeth groped in her reticule and snatched out the handwritten letter her uncle had received inviting Elizabeth to join Ian there. Marching up to him, she slapped the invitation against his chest. Instinctively he caught it but didn’t open it.
“Explain that,” she commanded, backing away and then waiting.
“Another note, I’ll wager,” he drawled sarcastically, thinking of the night he’d gone to the greenhouse to meet her and recalling what a fool he’d been about her.
Elizabeth stood beside the table, determined to have the satisfaction of hearing his explanation before she left-not that anything he said could make her stay. When he showed no sign of opening it, she turned furiously to Jake, who was sorely disappointed that Ian was deliberately chasing off two females who could surely be persuaded to do the cooking if they stayed. “Make him read it aloud,” she ordered the startled Jake.
“Now, Ian,” Jake said, thinking of his empty stomach and the bleak future that lay ahead for it if the ladies went away, “why don’t you jes’ read that there little note, like the lady asked?”
When Ian Thornton ignored the older man’s suggestion, Elizabeth lost control of her temper. Without thinking what she was actually doing, she reached out and snatched the pistol off the table, primed it, cocked it, and leveled it at Ian Thornton’s broad chest. “Read that note.”
Jake, whose concern was still on his stomach, held up his hands as if the gun were pointed at him. “Ian, it could be a misunderstanding. you know, and it’s not nice to be rude to these ladies. Why-don’t you read it, and then we’ll all sit down and have a nice”-he inclined his head meaningfully to the sack of provisions on the table supper.”
“I don’t need to read it,” Ian snapped. “The last time I read a note from Lady Cameron I met her in a greenhouse and got shot in the arm for my trouble.”
“Are you implying I invited you into that greenhouse?” Elizabeth scoffed furiously.
With an impatient sigh Ian said, “Since you’re obviously determined to enact a Cheltenham tragedy, let’s get it over with before you’re on your way.”
“You deny you sent me a note?” she snapped.
“Of course I deny it.”
“Then what were you doing in the greenhouse?” she shot back at him.
“I came in response to that nearly illegible note you sent me,” he said in a bored, insulting drawl. “May I suggest that in future you devote less of your time to theatrics and some of it to improving your handwriting?” His gaze shifted to the pistol. “Put the gun down before you hurt yourself.”
Elizabeth raised it higher in her shaking hand. “You have insulted me and degraded me every time I’ve been in your presence. If my brother were here, he’d call you out! Since he is not here,” she continued almost mindlessly, “I shall demand my own satisfaction. If I were a man, I’d have the right to satisfaction on the field of honor, and as a woman I refuse to be denied that right.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Perhaps,” Elizabeth said softly, “but I also happen to be an excellent shot. I’m a far worthier opponent for you on the dueling field than my brother. Now, will you meet me outside, or shall I-I finish you here?” she threatened, so beside herself with fury that she never stopped to think how reckless, how utterly empty her threat was. Her coachman had insisted she learn to fire a weapon for her own protection, but although her aim was excellent when she’d practiced with targets, she had never shot a living thing.
“I’ll do no such silly damned thing.”
Elizabeth raised the gun higher. “Then I’ll have your apology right now.”
“What am I to apologize for?” he asked, still infuriatingly calm.
“You may start by apologizing for luring me into the greenhouse with that note.”
“I didn’t write a note. I received a note from you.”
“You have great difficulty sorting out the notes you send and don’t send, do you not?” she said. Without waiting for a reply she continued, “Next, you can apologize for trying to seduce me in England, and for ruining my reputation-”
“Ian!” Jake said, thunderstruck. “It’s one thing to insult a lady’s handwriting, but spoilin’ her reputation is another. A thing like that could ruin her whole life!”
Ian shot him an ironic glance. “Thank you, Jake, for that helpful bit of inflammatory information. Would you now like to help her pull the trigger?”
Elizabeth’s emotions veered crazily from fury to mirth as the absurdity of the bizarre tableau suddenly struck her. Here she was, holding a gun on a man in his own home, while poor Lucinda held another man at umbrella-point-a man who was trying ineffectually to soothe matters by inadvertently heaping more fuel on the volatile situation. And then she recognized the stupid futility of it all, and that banished her flicker of mirth. Once again this unspeakable man had caused her to make a complete fool of herself, and the realization made her eyes blaze with renewed fury as she turned her head and looked at him.
Despite Ian’s apparent nonchalance he had been watching her closely, and he stiffened, sensing instinctively that she was suddenly and inexplicably angrier than before. He nodded to the gun, and when he spoke there was no more mockery in his voice; instead it was carefully neutral. “I think there are a few things you ought to consider before you use that.”
Though she had no intention of using it, Elizabeth listened attentively as he continued in that same helpful voice. “First of all, you’ll have to be very fast and very calm if you intend to shoot me and reload before Jake there gets to you. Second. I think it’s only fair to warn you that there’s going to be a great deal of blood all over the place. I’m not complaining, you understand. but I think it’s only right to warn you that you’re never again going to be able to wear that charming gown you have on.” Elizabeth felt her stomach lurch. “You’ll hang. of course,” he continued conversationally, “but that won’t be nearly as distressing as the scandal you’ll have to face first.”
Too disgusted with herself and with him to react to that last mocking remark, Elizabeth put her chin up and managed to say with great dignity, “I’ve had enough of this, Mr. Thornton. I did not think-anything could equal your swinish behavior at our prior meetings, but you’ve managed to do it. Unfortunately, I am not so ill-bred as you and therefore have scruples against assaulting someone who is weaker than I, which is what I would be doing if I were to shoot an unarmed man. Lucinda, we are leaving,” she said, then she glanced back at her silent adversary, who’d taken a threatening step, and she shook her head, saying with extreme, mocking civility, “No, please-do not bother to see us out, sir, there’s no need. Besides, I wish to remember you just as you are at this moment-helpless and thwarted.” It was odd, but now, at the low point of her life, Elizabeth felt almost exhilarated because she was finally doing something to avenge her pride instead of meekly accepting her fate. Lucinda had marched out onto the porch already, and Elizabeth tried to think of something to dissuade him from retrieving his gun when she threw it away outside. She decided to repeat his own advice, which she began to do as she backed away toward the door. “I know you’re loath to see us leave like this,” she said, her voice and her hand betraying a slight, fearful tremor. “However, before you consider coming after us, I beg you will take your own excellent advice and pause to consider if killing me is worth hanging for.”
Whirling on her heel, Elizabeth took one running step, then cried out in pained surprise as she was jerked off her feet and a hard blow to her forearm sent the gun flying to the floor at the same time her arm was yanked up and twisted behind her back. “Yes,” he said in an awful voice near her ear, “I actually think it would be worth it.”
Just when she thought her arm would surely snap, her captor gave her a hard shove that sent her stumbling headlong out into the yard, and the door slammed shut behind her.
“Well! I never,” Lucinda said, her bosom heaving with rage as she glowered at the closed door.
“Neither have I,” said Elizabeth, shaking dirt off her hem and deciding to retreat with as much dignity as possible. “We can talk about what a madman he is once we’re down the path, out of sight of the house. So if you’ll please take that end of the trunk?”
With a black look Lucinda complied, and they marched down the path, both of them concentrating on keeping their backs as straight as possible.
In the house Jake above his hands deep in his pockets as he stood at the window watching the women, his expression a mixture of stupefaction and ire. “Gawd almighty,” he breathed, glancing at Ian, who was scowling at the unopened note in his hand. “The women are chasin’ you clear into Scotland! That’ll stop soon as the news is out that yer betrothed.” Reaching up, he idly scratched his bushy red hair and turned back to the window, peering down the path. The women had vanished from view, and he left the window. Unable to hide a tinge of admiration, he added, “Tell you one thing, that blond gel had spunk, you have to give her that. Cool as can be, she stood there tauntin’ you with your own words and calling’ you a swine. I don’t know a man what would dare to do that.”
“She’d dare anything,” Ian said, remembering the young temptress he’d known. When most girls her age were blushing and simpering, Elizabeth Cameron had asked him to dance at their first meeting. That same night she’d defied a group of men in the card room; the next day she’d risked her reputation to meet him in a cottage in the woods-and all that merely to indulge in what she’d described in the greenhouse as a “little weekend dalliance.” Since then she must have been indulging in more of those-and indiscriminately-or else her uncle wouldn’t be sending out letters offering to marry her off to virtual strangers. That was the only possible explanation for her uncle’s action, an action that struck Ian as unprecedented in its flagrant lack of tact and taste. The only other possible explanation would be a desperate need of a moneyed husband, and Ian discounted that. Elizabeth had been gorgeously and expensively dressed when they met; moreover, the gathering at the country house had been composed almost exclusively of the social elite. And what few snatches of gossip he’d heard of her shortly after that fateful weekend had indicated that she moved among the highest circles of the ton, as befitted her rank.
“I wonder where they’ll go,” Jake continued, frowning a little. “There’s wolves out there, and all sorts of beasts.”
“No self-respecting wolf would dare to confront that duenna of hers, not with that umbrella she wields,” Ian snapped, but he felt a little uneasy.
“Oho!” said Jake with a hearty laugh “So that’s what she was? I thought they’d come to court you together. Personally, I’d be afraid to close my eyes with that gray-haired hag in bed next to me.”
Ian was not listening. Idly he unfolded the note, knowing that Elizabeth Cameron probably wasn’t foolish enough to have written it in her own girlish, illegible scrawl. His first thought as he scanned the neat, scratchy script was that she’d gotten someone else to write it for her. . . but then he recognized the words, which were strangely familiar, because he’d spoken them himself: Your suggestion has merit. I’m leaving for Scotland on the first of next month and cannot delay the trip again. Would prefer the meeting take place there, in any case. A map is enclosed for direction to the cottage. Cordially -Ian.
“God help that silly bastard if he ever crosses my path!” Ian said savagely.
“Who d’you mean?”
“Peters!”
“Peters?” Jake said, gaping. “Your secretary? The one you sacked for mixin’ up all your letters?”
“I should have strangled him! This is the note I meant for Dickinson Verley. He sent it to Cameron instead.”
In furious disgust Ian raked his hand through his hair. As much as he wanted Elizabeth Cameron out of his sight and out of his life, he could not cause two women to spend the night in their carriage or whatever vehicle they’d brought, when it was his fault they’d come here. He nodded curtly to Jake. “Go and get them.”
“Me? Why me?”
“Because,” Ian said bitterly, walking over to the cabinet and putting away the gun, “it’s starting to rain, for one thing. For another, if you don’t bring them back, you’ll be doing the cooking.”
“If I have to go after that woman, I want a stout glass of something fortifying first. They’re carrying a trunk, so they won’t get much ahead of me.” .
“On foot?” Ian asked in surprise.
“How did you think they got up here?” “I was too angry to think.”
At the end of the lane Elizabeth put down her side of the trunk and sank down wearily beside Lucinda upon its hard top, emotionally exhausted. A wayward chuckle bubbled up inside her, brought on by exhaustion, fright, defeat. and the last remnants of triumph over having gotten just a little of her own back from the man who’d ruined her life. The only possible explanation for Ian Thornton’s behavior today was that he was a complete madman.
With a shake of her head Elizabeth made herself stop thinking of him. At the moment she had so many new worries she hardly knew how to begin to cope. She glanced sideways at her stalwart duenna, and an amused smile touched her lips as she recalled Lucinda’s actions at the cottage. On the one hand, Lucinda rejected all emotional displays as totally unseemly-yet at the same time she herself was possessed of the most formidable temper Elizabeth had ever witnessed. It was as if Lucinda did not regard her own outbursts of ire as emotional. Without the slightest hesitation or regret Lucinda could verbally flay a wrongdoer into small, bite-sized pieces and then mentally stamp him into the ground and grind him beneath the heel of her sturdy shoe.
On the other hand, were Elizabeth to exhibit the smallest bit of fear right now over their daunting predicament, Lucinda would instantly stiffen up with disapproval and deliver one of her sharp reprimands.
Cognizant of that, Elizabeth glanced worriedly at the sky, where black clouds were rolling in, heralding a storm; but when she spoke she sounded deliberately and absurdly bland. “I believe it’s starting to rain, Lucinda,” she remarked while cold drizzle began to slap the leaves of the tree over their heads. “So it would seem,” said Lucinda. She opened an umbrella with a smart snap, holding it over them both. “It’s fortunate you have your umbrella.”
“I always have my umbrella.” “We aren’t likely to drown from a little rain.” “I shouldn’t think so.” Elizabeth drew a steadying breath, looking around at the harsh Scottish cliffs. In the tone of one asking someone’s opinion on a rhetorical question, Elizabeth said, “Do you suppose there are wolves out here?”
“I believe,” Lucinda replied, “they probably constitute a larger threat to our health at present than the rain.”
The sun was setting, and the early spring air had a sharp bite in it; Elizabeth was almost positive they’d be freezing by nightfall. “It’s a bit chilly.”
“I daresay we won’t be too uncomfortable, in that case.” Elizabeth’s wayward sense of humor chose that unlikely moment to assert itself. “No, we shall be snug as can be while the wolves gather around us.”
“Quite.” Hysteria, hunger, and exhaustion-combined with Lucinda’s unswerving calm and her earlier unprecedented entry into the cottage with umbrella flailing-were making Elizabeth almost giddy. “Of course, if the wolves realize how hungry we are, there’s every chance they’ll give us a wide berth.”
“A cheering possibility.” “We’ll build a fire,” Elizabeth said, her lips twitching. “That will keep them at bay, I believe.” When Lucinda remained silent for several moments, occupied with her own thoughts, Elizabeth confided with an odd surge of happiness, “Do you know something, Lucinda? I don’t think I would have missed today for anything.”
Lucinda’s thin gray brows shot up, and she cast a dubious sideways glance at Elizabeth.
“I realize that must sound extremely peculiar, but can you imagine how absolutely exhilarating it was to have that man at the point of a gun for just a few minutes? Do you find that-odd?” Elizabeth asked when Lucinda stared straight ahead in angry, thoughtful silence.
“What I find odd,” she said in a tone of frosty disapproval mingled with surprise, “is that you evoke such animosity in that man.”
“I think he’s quite demented.”
“I would have said embittered.” “About what?”
“That is an interesting question.” Elizabeth sighed. When Lucinda decided to work out a problem that puzzled her she would not leave it alone. She could not countenance behavior of any sort that she didn’t understand. Rather than wonder about Ian Thornton’s motivations, Elizabeth decided to concentrate on what they ought to do in the next few hours. Her uncle had adamantly refused to waste a coach and coachman in idleness while she spent the requisite time here. At his instructions they’d sent Aaron back to England as soon as they reached the Scottish border, where they’d then hired a coach at the Wakeley Inn. In a sennight Aaron would come here to fetch them. They could, of course, return to the Wakeley Inn and wait for Aaron’s return, but Elizabeth didn’t have enough money to pay for a room for Lucinda and herself.
She might be able to hire a coach at the inn and pay for it when she reached Havenhurst, but the cost might be more than she could manage, even if she did her most brilliant bargaining.
And worse than all of that was the problem of her Uncle Julius. He was bound to be furious if she returned in two weeks’ less time than she was to have been gone-providing she could manage to return. And once she arrived home, what would he say?
At the moment, however, she had an even larger problem: what to do now, when two defenseless women were completely lost in the wilds of Scotland, at night, in the rain and cold.
Shuffling footsteps sounded on the gravel path, and both women straightened, both suppressing the hope soaring in their breasts and keeping their faces carefully expressionless.
“Well, well, well,” Jake boomed. “Glad I caught up with you and-” He lost his thought as he beheld the utterly comic sight of two stiff-backed women seated on a trunk together, prim and proper as you please, beneath a black umbrella in the middle of nowhere. “Uh-where are your horses?”
“We have no horses,” Lucinda informed him in a disdainful voice that implied such beasts would have been an intrusion on their tete-a-tete.
“No? How did you get here?”
“A wheeled conveyance carried us to this godforsaken place.”
“I see.” He lapsed into daunted silence, and Elizabeth started to say something at least slightly pleasant when Lucinda lost patience.
“You have, I collect, come to urge us to return?”
“Ah-yes. Yes, I have.”
“Then do so. We haven’t all night.” Lucinda’s struck ??? Elizabeth as a bald lie.
When Jake seemed at a loss as to how to go about it, Lucinda stood up and assisted him. “I gather Mr. Thornton is extremely regretful for his unforgivable and inexcusable behavior?”
“Well, yes, I guess that’s the way it is. In a way.”
“No doubt he intends to tell us that when we return?” Jake hesitated, weighing his certainty that Ian had no intention of saying anything of the kind against the certainty that if the women didn’t return, he’d be eating his own cooking and sleeping with a bad conscience and a bad stomach. “Why don’t we let him make his own apologies?” he prevaricated.
Lucinda turned up the path toward the house and nodded grandly. “Bring the trunks. Come, Elizabeth.”
By the time they reached the house Elizabeth was tom between relishing an apology and turning to flee. A fire had been lit in the fireplace, and she was vastly relieved to see that their unwilling host was absent from the room.
He reappeared within moments, however, minus his jacket, carrying an armload of firewood, which he dumped beside the hearth.
Straightening, he turned to Elizabeth, who was watching him with a carefully blank expression on her face. “It appears a mistake has been made,” he said shortly.
“Does that mean you’ve remembered sending the message?”
“It was sent to you in error. Another man was being invited up here to join us. Unfortunately, his message went to your uncle.”
Until that moment. Elizabeth wouldn’t have believed she could feel more humiliated than she already did. Robbed of even the defense of righteous indignation, she faced the fact that she was the unwanted guest of someone who’d made a fool of her not once but twice.
“How did you get here? I didn’t hear any horses, and a carriage sure as hell can’t make the climb.”
“A wheeled conveyance brought us most of the way,” she prevaricated, seizing on Lucinda’s earlier explanation, “and it’s gone on now.” She saw his eyes narrow with angry disgust as he realized he was stuck with them unless he wanted to spend several days escorting them back to the inn.
Terrified that the tears burning the backs of her eyes were going to fall, Elizabeth tipped her head back and turned it, pretending to be inspecting the ceiling, the staircase, the walls, anything. Through the haze of tears she noticed for the first time that the place looked as if it hadn’t been cleaned in a year.
Beside her Lucinda glanced around through narrowed eyes and arrived at the same conclusion.
Jake, anticipating that the old woman was about to make some disparaging comment about Ian’s house, leapt into the breach with forced joviality.
“Well, now,” he burst out, rubbing his hands together and striding forward to the fire. “Now that’s all settled, shall we all be properly introduced? Then we’ll see about supper.” He looked expectantly at Ian, waiting for him to handle the introductions, but instead of doing the thing properly he merely nodded curtly to the beautiful blond girl and said, “Elizabeth Cameron-Jake Wiley.”
“How do you do, Mr. Wiley,” Elizabeth said.
“Call me Jake,” he said cheerfully, then he turned expectantly to the scowling duenna. “And you are?”
Fearing that Lucinda was about to rip up at Ian for his cavalier handling of the introductions, Elizabeth hastily said, “This is my companion, Miss Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones.”
“Good heavens! Two names. Well, no need to stand on formality, since we’re going to be cooped up together for at least a few days! Just call me Jake. What shall I call you?”
“You may call me Miss Throckmorton-Jones,” she informed him, looking down the length of her beaklike nose.
“Er-very well,” he replied, casting an anxious look of appeal to Ian, who seemed to be momentarily enjoying Jake’s futile efforts to create an atmosphere of conviviality. Disconcerted, Jake ran his hands through his disheveled hair and arranged a forced smile on his face. Nervously, he gestured about the untidy room. “Well, now, if we’d known we were going to have such. . . ah . . . gra . . . that is, illustrious company, we’d have-”
“Swept off the chairs?” Lucinda suggested acidly. “Shoveled off the floor?”
“Lucinda!” Elizabeth whispered desperately. “They didn’t know we were coming.”
“No respectable person would dwell in such a place even for a night,” she snapped, and Elizabeth watched in mingled distress and admiration as the redoubtable woman turned around and directed her attack on their unwilling host. “The responsibility for our being here is yours, whether it was a mistake or not! I shall expect you to rout your servants from their hiding places and have them bring clean linens up to us at once. I shall also expect them to have this squalor remedied by morning! It is obvious from your behavior that you are no gentleman; however, we are ladies, and we shall expect to be treated as such.”
From the corner of her eye Elizabeth had been watching Ian Thornton, who was listening to all of this, his jaw rigid, a muscle beginning to twitch dangerously in the side of his neck.
Lucinda, however, was either unaware of or unconcerned with his reaction, for, as she picked up her skirts and turned toward the stairs, she turned on Jake. “You may show us to our chambers. We wish to retire.”
“Retire?” cried Jake, thunderstruck. “But-but what about supper?” he sputtered.
“You may bring it up to us.” Elizabeth saw the blank look on Jake’s face, and she endeavored to translate, politely, what the irate woman was saying to the startled red-haired man.
“What Miss Throckmorton-Jones means is that we’re rather exhausted from our trip and not very good company, sir, and so we prefer to dine in our rooms.”
“You will dine,” Ian Thornton said in an awful voice that made Elizabeth freeze, “on what you cook for yourself, madam. If you want clean linens, you’ll get them yourself from the cabinet. If you want clean rooms, clean them! Am I making myself clear?”
“Perfectly.” Elizabeth began furiously, but Lucinda interrupted in a voice shaking with ire: “Are you suggesting, sirrah, that we are to do the work of servants?”
Ian’s experience with the ton and with Elizabeth had given him a lively contempt for ambitious, shallow, self-indulgent young women whose single goal in life was to acquire as many gowns and jewels as possible with the least amount of effort, and he aimed his attack at Elizabeth. “I am suggesting that you look after yourself for the first time in your silly, aimless life. In return for that, I am willing to give you a roof over your head and to share our food with you until I can get you to the village. lf that is too overwhelming a task for you, then my original invitation still stands: There’s the door. Use it!”
Elizabeth knew the man was irrational, and it wasn’t worth riling herself to reply to him, so she turned instead to Lucinda. “Lucinda,” she said with weary resignation, “do not upset yourself by trying to make Mr. Thornton understand that his mistake has inconvenienced us. not the other way around. You will only waste your time. A gentleman of breeding would be perfectly able to understand that he should be apologizing instead of ranting and raving. However, as I told you before we came here, Mr. Thornton is no gentleman. The simple fact is that he enjoys humiliating people, and he will continue trying to humiliate us for as long as we stand here.”
Elizabeth cast a look of well-bred disdain over Ian and said, “Good night, Mr. Thornton.” Turning, she softened her voice a little and said, “Good evening, Mr. Wiley.”
When the ladies had both retired to their bedchambers Jake wandered over to the table and rummaged through the provisions. Taking out some cheese and bread, he listened to the sounds of their footsteps on the wooden floor as they went about opening cabinets and making up their beds. When he’d finished eating he had two glasses of Madeira, then he glanced at Ian. “You ought to eat something,” he said.
“I’m not hungry,” his friend replied shortly. Jake’s eyes filled with puzzlement as he gazed at the enigmatic man who was staring out the window into the darkness, his profile taut.
Although there had been no sounds of movement from the bedchambers above for the last half hour, Jake felt guilty that the ladies hadn’t eaten. Hesitantly, he said, “Shall I bring some of this up to them?”
“No,” Ian said “If they want to eat, they can damn we’d come down here and feed themselves.”
“We’re not being very hospitable to ‘em, Ian.” “Not hospitable?” he repeated with a sarcastic glance over his shoulder. “In case you haven’t realized it; they’ve taken two of the bedchambers, which means one of us will be sleeping on the sofa tonight.”
“The sofa’s too short. I’d sleep out in the barn, like I used to do. Don’t mind it a bit. I like the way hay smells, and it’s soft. Your caretaker’s brought up a cow and some chickens, just like the note said, so we’d have fresh milk and eggs. Looks to me like the only thing he didn’t do was have someone clean this place up.”
When Ian made no reply to that but continued staring off into the dark, Jake said hesitantly, “Would you be willing to tell me how the ladies came to be here? I mean, who are they?”
Ian drew a long, impatient breath, tipped his head back. and absently massaged the muscles at the back of his neck. “I met Elizabeth a year and a half ago at a party. She’d just made her debut, was already betrothed to some unfortunate nobleman, and was eager to test her wiles on me.”
“Test her wiles on you? I thought you said she was engaged to another.”
Sighing irritably at his friend’s naiveté, Ian said curtly, “Debutantes are a different breed from any women you’ve known. Twice a year their mamas bring them to London to make their debut. They’re paraded about during the Season like horses at an auction, then their parents sell them as wives to whoever bids the highest. The winning bidder is selected by the expedient measure of choosing whoever has the most important title and the most money.”
“Barbaric!” said Jake indignantly. Ian shot him an ironic look. “Don’t waste your pity. It suits them perfectly. All they want from marriage is jewels, gowns, and the freedom to have discreet liaisons with whomever they please, once they produce the requisite heir. They’ve no notion of fidelity or honest human feeling.”
Jake’s brows lifted at that. “Can’t say as I ever noticed you took the petticoat set in aversion,” he remarked, thinking of the women who’d warmed Ian’s bed in the last two years some with titles of their own.
“Speaking of debutantes,” Jake continued cautiously when Ian remained silent, “what about the one upstairs? Do you dislike her especially, or just on general principle?”
Ian walked over to the table and poured some Scotch into a glass. He took a swallow, shrugged, and said, “Miss Cameron was more inventive than some of her vapid little friends. She accosted me in a garden at a party.”
“I can see how bothersome that musta been,” Jake joked, “having someone like her, with a face that men dream about, tryin’ to seduce you, usin’ feminine wiles on you. Did they work?”
Slamming the glass down on the table, Ian said curtly, “They worked.” Coldly dismissing Elizabeth from his mind, be opened the deerskin case on the table, removed some papers he needed to review, and sat down in front of the fire.
Trying to suppress his avid curiosity, Jake waited a few minutes before asking, “Then what happened?”
Already engrossed in reading the documents in his hand, Ian said absently and without looking up, “I asked her to marry me; she sent me a note inviting me to meet her in the greenhouse; I went there; her brother barged in on us and informed me she was a countess, and that she was already betrothed.”
The topic thrust from his mind, Ian reached for the quill lying on the small table beside his chair and made a note in the margin of the contract.
“And?” Jake demanded avidly.
“And what?”
“And then what happened-after the brother barged in?” “He took exception to my having contemplated marrying so far above myself and challenged me to a duel,” Ian replied in a preoccupied voice as he made another note on the contract.
“So what’s the girl doin’ here now?” Jake asked, scratching his head in bafflement over the doings of the Quality.
“Who the hell knows,” Ian murmured irritably. “Based on her behavior with me, my guess is she finally got caught in some sleazy affair or another, and her reputation’s beyond repair.”
“What’s that got to do with you?” Ian expelled his breath in a long. irritated sigh and glanced at Jake with an expression that made it clear he was finished answering questions. “I assume,” be bit out, “that her family, recalling my absurd obsession with her two years ago, hoped I’d come up to scratch again and take her off their bands.”
“You think it’s got somethin’ to do with the old duke ‘talking about you bein’ his natural grandson and wantin’ to make you his heir?” He waited expectantly, hoping for more information, but Ian ignored him, reading his documents. Left with no other choice and no prospect for further confidences, Jake picked up a candle, gathered up some blankets, and started for the barn. He paused at the door, Struck by a sudden thought. “She said she didn’t send you any note about meetin’ her in the greenhouse.”
“She’s a liar and an excellent little actress,” Ian said icily, without taking his gaze from the papers. “Tomorrow I’ll think of some way to get her out of here and off my hands.”
Something in Ian’s face made Jake ask, “Why the hurry? You afraid of fallin’ fer her wiles again?”
“Hardly.” “Then you must be made of stone,” he teased. “That woman’s so beautiful she’d tempt any man who was alone with her for an hour includin’ me, and you know I ain’t in the petticoat line at all.”
“Don’t let her catch you alone,” Ian replied mildly. “I don’t think I’d mind.” Jake laughed as he left.
Upstairs in the bedchamber at the end of the hall over the kitchen, Elizabeth had wearily pulled off her clothes. climbed into bed, and fallen into an exhausted slumber.
In the bedchamber that opened off the landing above the parlor where the two men talked, Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones had seen no reason to break her normal retiring routine. Refusing to yield to weariness merely because she’d been jounced about on the back of a wagon, ignobly ejected from a dirty cottage into the rain, where she’d contemplated the feeding habits of predatory beasts, and then been rudely forced to retire without so much as a morsel of bread for sustenance, she nevertheless prepared for bed exactly as she would have done had she spent the day over her embroidery. After removing and folding her black bombazine gown she had unpinned her hair, given it the requisite one hundred slow strokes, and then carefully braided it and tucked it beneath her white nightcap.”
Two things, however, put Lucinda so out of countenance .I that once she had climbed into bed and pulled the scratchy blankets up to her chin she actually could not sleep. First and foremost, there had not been a ewer and basin in her crude bedchamber that she could use to wash her face and body, which she always did before retiring. Second, the bed upon which her bony frame was expected to repose had lumps in it.
Those two things had resulted in her still being awake when the men below began to talk, and their voices had drifted up between the floorboards, muted but distinct. Because of that she had been forced to be an eavesdropper. In her entire fifty-six years Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones had never stooped to eavesdropping. She deplored eavesdroppers, a fact of which the servants in every house where she had ever dwelt were well aware. She ruthlessly reported any servant, no matter how high in the household hierarchy, if she caught him or her listening at doors or looking through keyholes.
Now, however, she had been relegated to their lowly level, for she had listened. She had heard. And now she was mentally going over every word Ian Thornton had spoken, examining it for truth, weighing each thing he’d said to that socially inept man who’d mistaken her for a menial. Despite her inner turmoil, as she lay upon her pallet Lucinda was perfectly composed, perfectly still. Her eyes were closed, her soft white hands folded across her fiat bosom atop the coverlet. She did not fidget or pluck at the covers, she did not glower and frown at the ceiling. So still was she that had anyone peeked into the moonlit room and seen her lying there they might well have expected to find candles lit at her feet and a crucifix in her hands.
That impression, however, was no reflection on the activity in her mind. With scientific precision she was examining everything she’d heard and considering what, if anything, could or ought to be done. She knew it was possible that Ian Thornton had been lying to Jake Wiley-that he had been professing to have cared about Elizabeth, to have wanted to ?? her-merely to cast himself in a better light. Robert Cameron had insisted that Thornton was nothing but a dissolute fortune hunter and an unprincipled rake; he’d specifically said that Thornton had admitted he’d been trying to seduce Elizabeth merely for sport. In this instance Lucinda was inclined to think Robert had been lying out of a desire to justify his shameful actions at the duel. Furthermore, although Lucinda had witnessed a certain fraternal devotion in Robert’s attitude toward Elizabeth, his disappearance from England had proven him a coward.
For more than an hour Lucinda lay awake, weighing everything she’d heard for truth. The only thing she accepted unequivocally was the one thing that other people of inferior knowledge and intuition had wondered about and refused to believe for years. She did not doubt for an instant that Ian Thornton was directly related to the Duke of Stanhope. As was often said, an impostor might be able to pass himself off as Quality to another gentleman in an exclusive club, but he’d better not present himself at the gentleman’s home-for an observant butler would know him as an impostor at a glance.
That same ability extended to skilled duennas whose job it was to protect their charges from social impostors. Of course, Lucinda had the advantage of having been, ‘during her early career, companion to the niece of the Duke of Stanhope, which was why she’d taken one took at Ian Thornton tonight and placed him immediately as a close descendant of the old man, to whom he bore an absolutely startling resemblance. Based on Ian Thornton’s age and her recollection of the scandal surrounding the Marquess of Kensington’s break with his family over his unsuitable marriage to a Scottish girl, Lucinda had guessed Ian Thornton to be the old duke’s grandson within thirty seconds of clapping eyes on him. In fact, the only thing she hadn’t been able to deduce within a moment of meeting him downstairs was whether or not he was legitimate-but only because she had not been present at his conception, and so could not know whether he had been conceived before or after his parents’ unsanctioned marriage thirty years before. But if Stanhope was trying to make Ian Thornton his heir, which was the rumor she’d heard time and again, then there was no question whatever of Thornton’s parentage.
Given all that, Lucinda had only two more matters to contemplate. The first was whether Elizabeth would benefit from marriage to a future peer of the realm-not a mere earl or count, but a man who would someday bear the title of duke, the loftiest of all noble titles. Since Lucinda had made it her life’s work to ensure that her charges made the best possible matches, it took her less than two seconds to decide that the answer to that was an emphatic affirmative.
The second matter gave her a trifle more difficulty: As things stood, she was the only one in favor of the match. And time was her enemy. Unless she was wrong-and Lucinda was never wrong in such matters-Ian Thornton was about to become the most sought-after bachelor in all Europe. Although she’d been locked away with poor Elizabeth at Havenhurst, Lucinda kept up correspondence with two other duennas. Their letters had often included casual mentions of him at various social functions. His desirability, which apparently had been increasing apace with news of his wealth, would increase a hundredfold when he was called by the title that had been his father’s-the Marquess of Kensington. That title was rightfully his, and considering the trouble he’d caused Lucinda’s charge, Lucinda felt he owed it to Elizabeth to bestow a coronet and marriage ring upon her without further delay.
Having decided that, she was faced with only one remaining problem, and it posed something of a moral dilemma. After a lifetime devoted to keeping unmarried persons of the opposite sex apart, she was now considering bringing them together. She contemplated Jake Wiley’s last remark about Elizabeth: “That woman’s so beautiful she’d tempt any man who was alone with her for an hour.” As Lucinda knew, Ian Thornton had once been “tempted” by Elizabeth, and although Elizabeth was no longer a young girl, she was even more beautiful now than she’d been then. Elizabeth was also wiser; therefore she would not be so foolish as to let him carry things too far, if and when they were left alone for a very few hours. Of that Lucinda was certain. In fact, the only things of which Lucinda wasn’t certain were whether or not Ian Thornton was now as immune to Elizabeth as he’d claimed to be. . . and how on earth she was going to contrive to see that they had those few hours alone. She entrusted those last two difficulties to the equally capable hands of her Creator and finally fell into her usual peaceful slumber.

Chapter 12



Jake opened one eye and blinked confusedly at the sunlight pouring through the window high above. Disoriented, he rolled over on a lumpy, unfamiliar bed and found himself staring up at an enormous black animal who flattened his ears, bared his teeth, and tried to bite him through the slats of his stall. “You damned cannibal!” he swore at the evil-tempered horse. “Spawn of Lucifer!” Jake added, and for good measure he aimed a hard kick at the wooden slats by way of retaliation for the attempted bite. “Ouch, dammit!” he swore as his bootless foot hit the board.
Shoving himself to a sitting position, he raked his hands through his thick red hair and grimaced at the hay that stuck between his fingers. His foot hurt, and his head ached from the bottle of wine he’d drunk last night.
Heaving himself to his feet, he pulled on his boots and brushed off his woolen shirt, shivering in the damp chill. Fifteen years ago, when he’d come to work on the little farm, he’d slept in this barn every night. Now, with Ian successfully investing the money Jake made when they sailed together, he’d learned to appreciate the comforts of feather mattresses and satin covers, and he missed them sorely.
“From palaces to a damned cowshed,” he grumbled, walking out of the empty stall he’d slept in. As he passed Attila’s stall, a hoof punched out with deadly aim, narrowly missing Jake’s thigh. “That’ll cost you an early breakfast, you miserable piece of living glue,” he spat, and then he took considerable pleasure in feeding the other two horses while the black looked on. “You’ve put me in a sour mood,” he said cheerfully as the jealous horse shifted angrily while the other two steeds were fed. “Maybe if it improves later on, I’ll feed you-” He broke off in alarm as he noticed the way Ian’s splendid chestnut gelding was standing with his right knee slightly bent. holding his right hoof off the ground. “Here now, Mayhem,” he crooned softly, patting the horse’s satiny neck, “let’s see that hoof.”
The well-trained animal, who’d won every race he’d ever run and who’d sired the winner of the last races at Heathton, put up no resistance when Jake lifted his hoof and bent over it. “You’ve picked up a stone,” Jake told the animal, who was watching him with ears attentively forward. his brown eyes bright and intelligent. Jake paused. looking around for something to use as a pick, and found it on an old wooden ledge. “It’s lodged in there good,” he murmured to the horse as he lifted the hoof and crouched down, bracing the hoof on his knee. He picked away at the rock, leaning back against the slats of the next stall in an attempt to get leverage. “That’s got it.” The rock came loose, but Jake’s satisfied grunt turned into a howl of outraged pain as a set of huge teeth in the next stall clamped into Jake’s ample rear end. “You vicious bag of bones,” he shouted, jumping to his feet and throwing himself half over the rail in an attempt to land a punch on Attila’s body. As if the horse anticipated retribution, he sidled to the edge of his stall and regarded Jake from the comer of his eye with an expression that looked to Jake like complacent satisfaction. “I’ll get you for that.” Jake promised, and he started to shake his fist when he realized how absurd it was to threaten a dumb beast.
Rubbing his offended backside, he turned to Mayhem and carefully put his own rump against the outside wall of the barn. He checked the hoof to make certain it was clean, but the moment his fingers touched the place where the rock had been lodged the chestnut jerked in pain. “Bruised you, did it?” Jake said sympathetically. “It’s not surprisin’, considering the size and shape of the rock. But you never gave a sip yesterday that you were hurtin’,” he continued. Raising his voice and infusing it with a wealth of exaggerated admiration, he patted the chestnut’s flank and glanced disdainfully at Attila while he spoke to Mayhem. “That’s because you’re a true aristocrat and a fine, brave animal-not a miserable, sneaky mule who’s not fit to be your stallmate!”
If Attila cared one way or another for Jake’s opinion, he was disappointingly careful not to show it, which only made Jake’s mood more stormy when he stomped into the cottage.
Ian was sitting at the table, a cup of steaming coffee cradled between his palms. “Good morning,” he said to Jake, studying the older man’s thunderous frown.
“Mebbe you think so, but I can’t see it. Course, I’ve spent the night freezin’ out there, bedded down next to a horse that wants to make a meal of me, and who broke his fast with a bit of my arse already this mornin” And,” he finished irately as he poured coffee from the tin pot into an earthenware mug and cast a quelling look at his amused friend, “your horse is lame!” Flinging himself into the chair beside Ian, he gulped down the scalding coffee without thinking what he was doing; his eyes bulged, and sweat popped out on his forehead. Ian’s grin faded. “He’s what?”
“Picked up a rock, and he’s favoring his left foreleg.” Ian’s chair legs scraped against the wooden floor as he shoved his chair back and started to go out to the barn.
“There’s no need. It’s just a bruise.”
As she finished washing, Elizabeth heard the indistinct murmur of masculine voices below. Wrapped in a thin towel, she went over to the trunks her unwilling host had carried upstairs and left outside her door this morning, along with two large pitchers of water. Even before she dragged them into her bedchamber she knew the gowns they contained were all a little fancy and fragile to wear in a place like this.
Elizabeth chose the least flamboyant-a high-waisted white lawn gown with a wide band of pink roses and green leaves embroidered at the hem and at the fitted cuffs of its full, billowy sleeves. A matching white ribbon with roses and leaves embroidered on it lay atop the gown, and she pulled it out, uncertain how to wear it, if at all.
Elizabeth struggled into the gown, smoothed it over her waist, and spent several minutes fighting to close the long row of tiny buttons down her back. She turned to survey her appearance in the small mirror above the washstand and nervously bit her lip. The rounded bodice, which had once been demure, now clung tightly to her ripened figure. “Wonderful,” she said aloud with a grimace as she tugged on the bodice. No matter how she tried to pull it up, it persisted in falling lower as soon as she let it go, and she finally gave up the struggle. “They wore gowns cut lower than this during the season,” she reminded the mirror in her own defense. Walking over to the bed, she retrieved the hair ribbon, debating what to do with her hair. In London, the last time she’d worn the gown, Berta had threaded the ribbon through Elizabeth’s curls. At Havenhurst, however, her heavy hair was no longer twisted into elegant styles, but was left to hang partway down her back, where it ended in thick waves and curls.
With a shrug Elizabeth picked up her comb, parted her hair down the middle, and then caught it at the nape and gathered it together with the embroidered ribbon, which she tied in a simple bow; then she tugged two tendrils loose to soften the effect. She stood back to survey her appearance and sighed with resignation. Completely oblivious to the wide, bright green eyes looking back at her or the healthy glow of her skin, or any of the features that had made Jake say she had a face men dreamt of, Elizabeth looked for glaring flaws in her appearance, and when she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary she lost interest. Turning away from the mirror, she sat down on the bed, going over last night’s events as she’d been doing all morning. The thing that bothered her the most was relatively minor. Ian’s claim that he’d received a note from her to meet her in the greenhouse. Of course, it was perfectly possible he was lying about that in an effort to acquit himself in front of Mr. Wiley. But Ian Thornton, as she well knew, was innately rude and blunt, so she couldn’t quite see him bothering to shade the truth for his friend’s sake. Closing her eyes, she tried to recall exactly what he’d said when he came to the greenhouse that night. Something like “Who were you expecting after that note-the prince regent?”
At the time she’d thought he was talking about the note he’d sent her. But he claimed he’d received one. And he had jabbed at her about her handwriting, which her tutors had described as both “scholarly and precise-a credit to an Oxford gentleman!” Why would Ian Thornton think he knew what her handwriting looked like unless he truly believed he’d received such a note from her? Perhaps he really was mad, but Elizabeth didn’t think so. But then, she reminded herself impatiently, where he was concerned she had always been unable to see the truth. And no wonder! Even now, when she was older and hopefully wiser, it had not been easy to think clearly yesterday with those golden eyes raking over her. For the life of her she could not understand his attitude unless he was still angry because Robert had broken the rules and shot him. That must be it, she decided, turning her mind to the more difficult problem.
She and Lucinda were trapped there, only their host didn’t realize it, and she couldn’t bear the shame of explaining it. Therefore, she was going to have to find some way to remain here in relative harmony for the next week. In order to survive the ordeal she would simply have to ignore his inexplicable antagonism and take each moment as it came, never looking back or forward. And then it would all be over, and she and Lucinda could leave. But whatever happened during the next seven days, Elizabeth vowed, she would never again let him make her lose her composure as she had last night. The last time they’d been together he’d confused her so much that she scarcely knew right from wrong.
From this moment on, she vowed, things would be different. She would be poised and polite and completely imperturbable. no matter how rudely or outrageously he behaved. She was no longer an infatuated young girl whom he could seduce, hurt, or anger for his own amusement. She would prove it to him and also set an excellent example of how well-bred people behaved.
With that settled in her mind, Elizabeth stood up and headed for Lucinda’s room, Lucinda was already dressed, her black gown brushed free of every speck of yesterday’s dust, her gray hair in its neat bun. She was seated in a wooden chair near the window, her spine too rigid to require any support from the back of the chair, her expression thoughtful and preoccupied. “Good morning,” Elizabeth said as she carefully closed the door behind her.
“Hmmm? Oh, good morning, Elizabeth.”
“I wanted to tell you,” Elizabeth began in a rush, “how very sorry .I am to have dragged you here and subjected you to such humiliation. Mr. Thornton’s behavior was inexcusable, unforgivable.”
“I daresay he was . . . surprised by our unexpected arrival.”
“Surprised?” Elizabeth repeated, gaping at her. “He was demented! I know you must think-must be wondering what could have led me to have anything at all to do with him before,” she began, “and I cannot honestly tell you what I could possibly have been thinking of.”
“Oh, I don’t find that much mystery,” said Lucinda. “He’s exceedingly handsome.”
Elizabeth would not have been more shocked if Lucinda had called him the soul of amiability. “Handsome!” she began, then she shook her head, trying to clear it. “I must say you’re being very tolerant and kind about all this.”
Lucinda stood up and cast an appraising eye over Elizabeth. “I would not describe my attitude as kind,” she thoughtfully replied. “Rather I would say it’s one of practicality. The bodice on your gown is quite tight, but attractive for all that. Shall we go down to breakfast?”

Chapter 13




“Good mornin” Jake boomed as Elizabeth and Lucinda walked downstairs.
“Good morning, Mr. Wiley,” Elizabeth said with a gracious smile. Then, because she could think of nothing else to say, she added quickly, “Something smells wonderful. What is it?”
“Coffee,” Ian replied bluntly, his gaze drifting over her. With her long, burnished honey hair tied back with a ribbon she looked extremely pretty and very young.
“Sit down, sit down!” Jake continued jovially. Someone had cleaned the chairs since last night, but he took out his handkerchief as Elizabeth approached and wiped off the chair seat again.
“Thank you,” she said, bestowing a smile on him. “But the chair is just fine as it is.” Deliberately she looked at the unsmiling man across from her and said, “Good morning.”
In answer he lifted a brow, as if questioning her odd change in attitude. “You slept well, I take it?”
“Very well,” Elizabeth said. “How ‘bout some coffee?” Jake said as he hurried over to the coffee pot on the stove and filled a mug with the remainder of the steaming brew. When he got to the table with it. however, he stopped and looked helplessly from Lucinda to Elizabeth, obviously not certain who ought properly to be served first.
“Coffee,” Lucinda informed him dampeningly when he took a step toward her, “is a heathen brew, unfit for civilized people. I prefer tea.”
“I’ll have coffee,” Elizabeth said hastily. Jake gave her a grateful smile, put the mug before her, then returned to the stove. Rather than look at Ian, Elizabeth stared, as if fascinated, at Jake Wiley’s back while she sipped her coffee.
For a moment he stood there, nervously rubbing the palms of his hands on the sides of his legs, looking uncertainly from the fresh eggs to the slab of bacon to the heavy iron skillet already starting to smoke near his elbow-as if he hadn’t the faintest idea how to begin. “Mayas well get at it.” he murmured, and he stretched his arms straight out in front of him, linked the fingers of both hands together, and made a horrible cracking sound with his knuckles. Then he snatched up the knife and began vigorously sawing at the bacon.
While Elizabeth watched in puzzled interest he tossed large chunks of bacon into the skillet until it was heaped with it. A minute later the delicious smell of bacon began to waft about the room, and Elizabeth felt her mouth water, thinking how good breakfast was going to be. Before the thought had fully formed she saw him pick up two eggs, crack them open on the edge of the stove, and dump them into the skillet full of raw bacon. Six more eggs followed in rapid succession, then he turned and looked over his shoulder. “D’you think I shoulda let the bacon cook a wee bit longer before I dumped in the eggs, Lady Elizabeth?”
“I-I’m not completely certain,” Elizabeth admitted, scrupulously ignoring the smirking satisfaction on Ian’s tanned face.
“D’you want to have a look at it and tell me what you think?” he asked, already sawing off chunks of bread.
With no choice but to offer her uneducated advice or submit to Ian’s relentlessly mocking stare, Elizabeth chose the former, got up, and went to peer over Mr. Wiley’s shoulder.
“How does it look to you?”
It looked to Elizabeth like large globs of eggs congealing in unappetizing bacon fat. “Delicious.”
He grunted with satisfaction and turned to the skillet, this time with both hands loaded with bread chunks, which he was obviously considering adding to the mess. “What do you think?” he asked, his hands hovering over the pile of Cooking food. “Should I dump this in there?”
“No!” Elizabeth said hastily and with force. “I definitely think the bread should be served. . . well. . .”
“Alone,” Ian Thornton said in an amused drawl, and when Elizabeth automatically looked toward his voice she discovered that he’d turned halfway around in his chair to watch her.
“Not entirely alone,” Elizabeth put in, feeling as if she ought to contribute additional advice on the meal preparation rather than show herself as ignorant of cooking as she actually was. “We could serve it with-with butter?”
“Of course! I shoulda thought of that,” he said with a sheepish grin at Elizabeth. “If you don’t mind standin’ here and keepin’ your eye on what’s happenin’ in this skillet, I’ll go fetch it from the cold keg.”
“I don’t mind in the least,” Elizabeth assured him, absolutely refusing to acknowledge the fact that Ian’s relentless gaze was boring holes through her back. Since little of import was likely to happen to the contents of the skillet for several minutes, Elizabeth regretfully faced the fact that she couldn’t continue avoiding Ian Thornton-not when she desperately needed to smooth things over enough to convince him to let her and Lucinda remain for the allotted week.
Straightening reluctantly, she strolled about the room with forced nonchalance, her hands clasped behind her back, looking blindly at the cobwebs in the corner of the ceiling, trying to think what to say. And then inspiration struck. The solution was demeaning but practical, and properly presented, it could appear she was graciously doing him a favor. She paused a moment to arrange her features into what she hoped was the right expression of enthusiasm and compassion, then she wheeled around abruptly. “Mr. Thornton!” Her voice seemed to explode in the room at the same time his startled amber gaze riveted on her face, then drifted down her bodice, roving boldly over her ripened curves. Unnerved but determined, Elizabeth forged shakily ahead: “It appears as if no one has occupied this house in quite some time.”
“I commend you on that astute observation, Lady Cameron,” Ian mocked lazily, watching the tension and emotion play across her expressive face. For the life of him he could not understand what she was doing here or why she seemed to be trying to ingratiate herself this morning. Last night the explanation he’d given Jake had made sense; now, looking at her, he couldn’t quite believe any of it. Then he remembered that Elizabeth Cameron had always robbed him of the ability to think rationally.
“Houses do have a way of succumbing to dirt when no one looks after them,” she stated with a bright look.
“Another creditable observation. You’ve certainly a quick mind.”
“Must you make this so very difficult!” Elizabeth exclaimed.
“I apologize,” he said with mocking gravity. “Do go on. You were saying?”
“Well, I was thinking, since we’re quite stranded here Lucinda and I, I mean-with absolutely nothing but time on our hands, that this house could certainly use a woman’s touch.”
“Capital idea!” burst out Jake, returning from his mission to locate the butter and casting a highly hopeful look at Lucinda.
He was rewarded with a glare from her that could have pulverized rock. “It could use an army of servants carrying shovels and wearing masks on their faces,” the duenna countered ruthlessly.
“You needn’t help, Lucinda,” Elizabeth explained, aghast. “I never meant to imply you should. But I could! I-” She whirled around as Ian Thornton surged to his feet and took her elbow in a none-too-gentle grasp.
“Lady Cameron,” he said, “I think you and I have something to discuss that may be better spoken in private. Shall we?”
He gestured to the open door and then practically dragged her along in his wake. Outdoors in the sunlight he marched her forward several paces, then dropped her arm. “Let’s hear it,” he said.
“Hear what?” Elizabeth said nervously. “An explanation-the truth, if you’re capable of it. Last night you drew a gun on me, and this morning you’re awash with excitement over the prospect of cleaning my house. I want to know why.”
“Well,” Elizabeth burst out in defense of her actions with the gun, “you were extremely disagreeable!”
‘I am still disagreeable,” he pointed out shortly, ignoring Elizabeth’s raised brows. “I haven’t changed. I am not the one who’s suddenly oozing goodwill this morning.”
Elizabeth turned her head to the lane, trying desperately to think of an explanation that wouldn’t reveal to him her humiliating circumstances.
“The silence is deafening, Lady Cameron, and somewhat surprising. As I recall, the last time we met you could scarcely contain all the edifying information you were trying to impart to me.” Elizabeth knew he was referring to her monologue on the history of hyacinths in the greenhouse. “I just don’t know where to begin,” she admitted.
“Let’s stick to the salient points. What are you doing here?”
“That’s a little awkward to explain,” Elizabeth said. So off balance from his reference to the hyacinths was she that her mind went blank, and she said disjointedly, “My uncle is acting as my guardian now. He is childless, so everything he has will go to my child. I can’t have any until I’m married, and he wants the matter settled with the least possible exp-time,” she amended hastily. “He’s an impatient man, and he thinks I’ve taken too long to-well, settle down. He doesn’t completely understand that you can’t just pick out a few people and force someone-me-to make a choice from them.”
“May I ask why the hell he would think I have any desire to marry you?”
Elizabeth wished she could sink into the ground and disappear. ‘I think,” she said, choosing her words with great care in hope of preserving what little was left of her pride, “it was because of the duel. He heard about it and misunderstood what precipitated it. I tried to convince him it was merely a-a weekend flirtation, which of course it was but he would not listen. He’s rather stubborn and-well, old,” she finished lamely. “In any case, when your message arrived inviting Lucinda and me to join you, he made me come here.”
“It’s a shame you wasted a trip, but it’s hardly a tragedy. You can turn around and go right back.”
She bent down, feigning absorption in picking up a twig and inspecting it. “I was rather hoping that, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, Lucinda and I could stay here for the agreed-upon time.”
“It’s out of the question,” he said curtly, and Elizabeth’s heart sank. “Besides, I seem to recall you were already betrothed the night we met-to a peer of the realm, no less.”
Angry, frightened, and mortified, Elizabeth nevertheless managed to lift her chin and meet his speculative gaze. “He-we decided we didn’t suit.”
“I’m sure you’re better off without him,” he mocked. “Husbands can be very disagreeable to wives who indulge in ‘weekend flirtations’ with clandestine visits to secluded cottages and dark greenhouses.”
Elizabeth clenched her fists, her eyes shooting green fire. “I did not invite you to meet me in that greenhouse, and you know it!”
He stared at her in bored disgust. “All right, let’s play this farce out to its revolting conclusion. If you didn’t send me a note, suppose you tell me what you were doing there.”
“I told you, I received a note, which I thought was from my friend, Valerie, and I went to the greenhouse to discover why she wanted to see me. I didn’t send you a note to meet me there, I received a note. Good God!” she exploded, almost stamping her foot in frustration when he continued to regard her with visible disbelief. “I was terrified of you that night!”
A poignant memory, as fresh as the moment it happened, came back to Ian. . . a bewitchingly lovely girl thrusting flowerpots into his hands to keep him from kissing her. . . and then, moments later, melting in his arms.
“Now do you believe me?”
Try as he might, Ian could not completely blame or acquit her. His instincts told him she was lying about something, keeping something back. Moreover, there was something very odd and entirely out of character in the way she seemed so eager to stay here. On the other hand, he knew desperation when he saw it, and for some incomprehensible reason Elizabeth Cameron seemed on the verge of desperation. ‘What I believe doesn’t matter.” He broke off as the smell of smoke drifted into the yard from an open window and reached them both at the same time. “What the-” he began, already heading toward the house, with Elizabeth walking quickly beside him.
Ian opened the front door just as Jake came hurrying in from the back of the cottage.
“I got some milk-” Jake began, then he stopped abruptly as the stench hit him. His gaze snapped from Ian and Elizabeth, who were just rushing inside, to Lucinda, who was sitting exactly where she had been, serenely indifferent to the smell of burning bacon and incinerated eggs as she fanned herself with a black silk fan. “I took the liberty of removing the utensil from the stove,” she informed them. “However, I was not in time to save its contents, which I sincerely doubt were worth saving in any case.”
“Couldn’t you have moved’ em before they burned?” Jake burst out.
“I cannot cook, sir.”
“Can you smell?” Ian demanded.
“Ian, there’s nothing for it-I’ll have to ride to the village and hire a pair o’ wenches to come up here and get this place in order for us or we’ll starve.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Lucinda seconded promptly, already standing up. “I shall accompany you.”
“Whaat?” Elizabeth burst out. “What? Why?” Jake echoed, looking balky. “Because selecting good female servants is best done by a woman. How far must we go?”
If Elizabeth weren’t so appalled, she’d have laughed at Jake Wiley’s expression. “We can be back late this afternoon, assumin’ there’s anyone in the village to do the work. But I-”
“Then we’d best be about it.” Lucinda paused and turned to Ian, passing a look of calculating consideration over him; then she glanced at Elizabeth. Giving her a look that clearly said “Trust me and do not argue,” she said, “Elizabeth, if you would be so good as to excuse us, I’d like a word alone with Mr. Thornton.” With no choice but to do as bidden, Elizabeth went out the front door and stared in utter confusion at the trees, wondering what bizarre scheme Lucinda might have hatched to solve their problems.
In the cottage Ian watched through narrowed eyes as the gray-haired harpy fixed him with her basilisk stare. “Mr. Thornton,” she said finally, “I have decided you are a gentleman.”
She made that pronouncement as if she were a queen bestowing knighthood on a lowly, possibly undeserving serf. Fascinated and irritated at the same time, Ian leaned his hip against the table, waiting to discover what game she was playing by leaving Elizabeth alone here, unchaperoned. “Don’t keep me in suspense,” he said coolly. “What have I done to earn your good opinion?”
“Absolutely nothing,” she said without hesitation. “I’m basing my decision on my own excellent intuitive powers and on the fact that you were born a gentleman.”
“What gave you that idea?” he inquired in a bored tone. “I am not a fool. I’m acquainted with your grandsire, the
Duke of Stanhope. I was a member of his niece’s household when news of your parents’ unsanctioned marriage caused a furor. Other, less informed persons may need to conjecture on your ancestry, but I do not. It’s apparent in your face, your height, your voice, even your mannerisms. You are his grandson.”
Ian was accustomed to having the English study his features circumspectly and, on rare occasions, to ask a probing question or two; he knew they wondered and debated and whispered among themselves, but it was the first time anyone had ever had the effrontery to tell him who he was. Reining in his mounting anger, he replied in a voice that implied she was deluding herself, “If you say so, it must be true.”
“That is exactly the sort of patronizing tone your grandfather would use,” she informed him on a note of pleased triumph. “However, that is not to the point.”
“May I inquire what is the point?” he snapped impatiently.
“Indeed you may,” Lucinda said, thinking madly for some way to prod him into remembering his long-ago desire for Elizabeth and to prick his conscience. “The point is that I am then apprised of all that transpired between Elizabeth and yourself when you were last together. I, however,” she decreed grandly, “am inclined to place the blame for your behavior not on a lack of character, but rather a lack of judgment.” He raised his brows but said nothing. Taking his silence as assent, she reiterated meaningfully, “A lack of judgment on both your parts.”
“Really?” he drawled.
“Of course,” she said, reaching out and brushing the dust from the back of a chair, then rubbing her fingers together and grimacing with disapproval. “What else except lack of judgment could have caused a seventeen-year-old girl to rush to the defense of a notorious gambler and bring down censure upon herself for doing it?”
“What indeed?” he asked with growing impatience. Lucinda dusted off her hands, avoiding his gaze. “Who can possibly know except you and she? No doubt it was the same thing that prompted her to remain in the woodcutter’s cottage rather than leaving it the instant she discovered your presence.” Satisfied that she’d done the best she was able to on that score, she .became brusque again-an attitude that was more normal and, therefore, far more convincing. “In any case, that is all water under the bridge. She has paid dearly for her lack of judgment, which is only right, and even though she is now in the most dire straits because of it, that, too, is justice.”
She smiled to herself when his eyes narrowed with what she hoped was guilt, or at least concern. His next words disabused her of that hope: “Madam, I do not have all day to waste in aimless conversation. If you have something to say, say it and be done!”
“Very well,” Lucinda said, gritting her teeth to stop herself from losing control of her temper. “My point is that it is my duty, my obligation to see to Lady Cameron’s physical well-being as well as to chaperon her. In this case, given the condition of your dwelling, the former obligation seems more pressing than the latter, particularly since it is obvious to me that the two of you are not in the least need of a chaperon to keep you from behaving with impropriety. You may need a referee to keep you from murdering each other, but a chaperon is entirely superfluous. Therefore, I feel duty-bound to now ensure that adequate servants are brought here at once. In keeping with that, I would like your word as a gentleman not to abuse her verbally or physically while I am gone. She has already been ill-used by her uncle. I will not permit anyone else to make this terrible time in her life more difficult than it already is.”
“Exactly what,” Ian asked in spite of himself, “do you mean by a ‘terrible time’?”
“I am not at liberty to discuss that, of course,” she said, fighting to keep her triumph from her voice. “I am merely concerned that you behave as a gentleman. Will you give me your word?”
Since Ian had no intention of laying a finger on her, or even spending time with her, he didn’t hesitate to nod. “She’s perfectly safe from me.”
“That is exactly what I hoped to hear,” Lucinda lied ruthlessly.
A few minutes later Elizabeth watched Lucinda emerge from the cottage with Ian, but there was no way to guess from their closed expressions what they’d discussed.
In fact, the only person betraying any emotion at all was Jake Wiley as he led two horses into the yard. And his face, Elizabeth noted with confusion-which had been stormy when he went off to saddle the horses-was now wreathed in a smile of unrestrained glee. With a sweep of his arm and a bow he gestured toward a swaybacked black horse with an old sidesaddle upon its back. “Here’s your mount, ma’am,” he told Lucinda, grinning. “His name’s Attila.”
Lucinda cast a disdainful eye over the beast as she transferred her umbrella to her right hand and pulled on her black gloves. “Have you nothing better?”
“No, ma’am. Ian’s horse has a hurt foot.”
“Oh, very well,” said Lucinda, walking briskly forward, but as she came within reach the black suddenly bared his teeth and lunged. Lucinda struck him between the ears with her umbrella without so much as a pause in her step.
“Cease!” she commanded, and, ignoring the animal’s startled grunt of pain, she continued around to his other side to mount. “You brought it on yourself,” she told the horse as Jake held Attila’s head, and Ian Thornton helped her into the sidesaddle. The whites of Attila’s eyes showed as he warily watched her land in his saddle and settle herself. The moment Jake handed Lucinda the reins Attila began to leap sideways and twist around in restless annoyance. “I do not countenance ill-tempered animals,” she warned the horse in her severest tone, and when he refused to heed her and continued his threatening antics she hauled up sharply on his reins and simultaneously gave him a sharp jab in the flank with her umbrella. Attila let out a yelping complaint, broke into a quick, animated trot, and headed obediently down the drive.
“If that don’t beat all!” Jake said furiously, glowering after the pair, and then at Ian. “That animal doesn’t know the meaning of the word loyalty!” Without waiting for a reply Jake swung into his saddle and cantered down the lane after them.
Absolutely baffled over everyone’s behavior this morning, Elizabeth cast a puzzled, sideways glance at the silent man beside her, then gaped at him in amazement. The unpredictable man was staring after Lucinda, his hands shoved into his pockets, a cigar clamped between his white teeth, his face transformed by a sweeping grin. Drawing the obvious conclusion that these odd reactions from the men were somehow related to Lucinda’s skillful handling of an obstinate horse, Elizabeth commented, “Lucinda’s uncle raised horses, I believe.”
Almost reluctantly, Ian transferred his admiring gaze from Lucinda’s rigid back to Elizabeth. His brows rose. “An amazing woman,” he stated. “Is there any situation of which she can’t take charge?”
“None that I’ve ever seen,” Elizabeth said with a chuckle; then she felt self-conscious because his smile faded abruptly, and his manner became detached and cool.
Drawing a long breath, Elizabeth clasped her shaking hands behind her back and decided to try for a truce. “Mr. Thornton,” she began quietly, “must there be enmity between us? I realize my coming here is an . . . an inconvenience but it was your fault. . . your mistake,” she corrected cautiously, “that brought us here. And you must surely see that we have been even more inconvenienced than you.” Encouraged by his lack of argument, she continued. “Therefore, the obvious solution is that we should both try to make the best of things.”
“The obvious solution,” he countered, “is that I should apologize for ‘inconveniencing’ you, and then you should leave as soon as I can get you to a carriage or a wagon.”
“I can’t!” she cried, fighting to recover her calm. “Why the hell not?”
“Because-well-my uncle is a harsh man who won’t like having his instructions countermanded. I was supposed to stay a full sennight.”
“I’ll write him a letter and explain.”
“No!” Elizabeth burst out, imagining her uncle’s reaction if the third man also sent her packing straightaway. He was no fool. He’d suspect. “He’ll blame me, you see.”
Despite Ian’s resolution not to give a damn what her problems were, he was a little unnerved by her visible fright and by her description of her uncle as “harsh.” Based on her behavior two years ago, he had no doubt Elizabeth Cameron had done much to earn a well-deserved beating from her unfortunate guardian. Even so, Ian had no wish to be the cause of the old man laying a strap to that smooth white skin of hers. What had happened between them was folly on his part, but it had been over long ago. He was about to wed a beautiful, sensual woman who wanted him and who suited him perfectly. Why should he treat Elizabeth as if he harbored any feelings for her, including anger?
Elizabeth sensed that he was wavering a little, and she pressed home her advantage, using calm reason: “Surely nothing that happened between us should make us behave badly to each other now. I mean, when you think on it, it was nothing to us but a harmless weekend flirtation, wasn’t it?”
“Obviously.”
“Neither of us was hurt, were we?” “No.”
“Well then, there’s no reason why we should not be cordial to each other now, is there?” she demanded with a bright, beguiling smile. “Good heavens, if every flirtation ended in enmity, no one in the ton would be speaking to anyone else!”
She had neatly managed to put him in the position of either agreeing with her or else, by disagreeing, admitting that she had been something more to him than a flirtation, and Ian realized it. He’d guessed where her calm arguments were leading, but even so, be was reluctantly impressed with how skillfully she was maneuvering him into having to agree with her. “Flirtations,” he reminded her smoothly, “don’t normally end in duels.”
‘I know, and I am sorry my brother shot you.”
Ian was simply not proof against the appeal in those huge green eyes of hers. “Forget it,” he said with an irritated sigh, capitulating to all she was asking. “Stay the seven days.”
Suppressing the urge to twirl around with relief, she smiled into his eyes. “Then could we have a truce for the time I’m here?”
“That depends.” “On what?”
His brows lifted in mocking challenge. “On whether or not you can make a decent breakfast.”
“Let’s go in the house and see what we have.”
With Ian standing beside her Elizabeth surveyed the eggs and cheese and bread, and then the stove. “I shall fix something right up,” she promised with a smile that concealed her uncertainty.
“Are you sure you’re up to the challenge?” Ian asked, but she seemed so eager, and her smile was so disarming, that he almost believed she knew how to cook.
“I shall prevail, you’ll see,” she told him brightly, reaching for a wide cloth and tying it around her narrow waist.
Her glance was so jaunty that Ian turned around to keep himself from grinning at her. She was obviously determined to attack the project with vigor and determination, and he was equally determined not to discourage her efforts. “You do that,” he said, and he left her alone at the stove.
An hour later, her brow damp with perspiration, Elizabeth grabbed the skillet, burned her hand, and yelped as she snatched a cloth to use on the handle. She arranged the bacon on a platter and then debated what to do with the ten-inch biscuit that had actually been four small biscuits when she’d placed the pan in the oven. Deciding not to break it into irregular chunks, she placed the entire biscuit neatly in the center of the bacon and carried the platter over to the table, where Ian had just seated himself. Returning to the stove, she tried to dig the eggs out of the skillet, but they wouldn’t come loose, so she brought the skillet and spatula to the table. “I-I thought you might like to serve,” she offered formally, to hide her growing trepidation over the things she had prepared.
“Certainly,” Ian replied. accepting the honor with the same grave formality with which she’d offered it; then he looked expectantly at the skillet. “What have we here?” he inquired sociably.
Scrupulously keeping her gaze lowered, Elizabeth sat down across from him. “Eggs,” she answered, making an elaborate production of opening her napkin and placing it on her lap. “I’m afraid the yolks broke.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
When he picked up the spatula Elizabeth pinned a bright, optimistic smile on her face and watched as he first tried to lift, and then began trying to pry the stuck eggs from the skillet. “They’re stuck.” she explained needlessly.
“No, they’re bonded.” he corrected. but at least he didn’t sound angry. After another few moments he finally managed to pry a strip loose, and he placed it on her plate. A few moments more and he was able to gouge another piece loose, which he placed on his own plate.
In keeping with the agreed-upon truce they both began observing all the polite table rituals with scrupulous care. First Ian offered the platter of bacon with the biscuit centerpiece to Elizabeth. “Thank you,” she said, choosing two black strips of bacon.
Ian took three strips of bacon and studied the Oat brown object reposing on the center of the platter. “I recognize the bacon,” he said with grave courtesy, “but what is that?” he asked, eyeing the brown object. “It looks quite exotic.”
“It’s a biscuit,” Elizabeth informed him.
“Really?” he said, straight-faced. “Without any shape?”
“I call it a-a pan biscuit,” Elizabeth fabricated hastily. “Yes, I can see why you might,” he agreed. “It rather resembles the shape of a pan.” Separately they surveyed their individual plates, trying to decide which item was most likely to be edible. They arrived at the same conclusion at the same moment; both of them picked up a strip of bacon and bit into it. Noisy crunching and cracking sounds ensued-like those of a large tree breaking in half and falling. Carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, they continued crunching away until they’d both eaten all the bacon on their plates. That finished, Elizabeth summoned her courage and took a dainty bite of egg.
The egg tasted like tough, salted wrapping paper, but Elizabeth chewed manfully on it, her stomach churning with humiliation and a lump of tears starting to swell in her throat. She expected some scathing comment at any moment from her companion, and the more politely he continued eating, the more she wished he’d revert to his usual unpleasant self so that she’d at least have the defense of anger. Lately everything that happened to her was humiliating, and her pride and confidence were in tatters. Leaving the egg unfinished, she put down her fork and tried the biscuit. After several seconds of attempting to break a piece off with her fingers she picked up her knife and sawed away at it. A brown piece finally broke loose; she lifted it to her mouth and bit-but it was so tough her teeth only made grooves in the surface. Across the table she felt Ian’s eyes on her, and the urge to weep doubled. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked in a suffocated little voice.
“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 hoarsely, “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 shining 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 amusement 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 ineptitude, and for my inability to control my life,” she admitted.
The word “ineptitude” 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 breasts thrusting against the bodice of her gown, she was a picture of alluring innocence and intoxicating sensuality. Ian jerked his gaze from her breasts 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 fishing 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 assist 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 scraped 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, blushing. 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 assumed 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 balls; 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 naiveté 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 embarrassed 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 amusement on how ill-suited her clothes were for this cottage in Scotland. When her hair was dry she stood at the mirror, gathering the mass 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 shirt 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 grass, 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 classic 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 pass to the oldest SOD. If there is no son, it passes 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 ownership 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 passion, now seemed to be passionately 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, embarrassed 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 nobility 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 impassive 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 grassy 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 amusement 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 tassel 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 assumed he wouldn’t know much about either suitor. He raised the gun as she said, “There’s Sir Francis Belhaven, for one.”
Instead of firing immediately as he had before, he seemed to require a long moment to adjust his aim. “Belhaven’s an old man,” he said. The gun exploded, and the twig snapped off.
When he looked at her his eyes had chilled, almost as if he thought less of her. Elizabeth told herself she was imagining that and determined to maintain their mood of light conviviality. Since it was her turn, she picked up a gun and lifted it.
“Who’s the other one?”
Relieved that he couldn’t possibly find fault with the age of her reclusive sportsman, she gave him a mildly haughty smile. “Lord John Marchman,” she said, and she fired.
Ian’s shout of laughter almost drowned out the report from the gun. “Marchman!” he said when she scowled at him and thrust the butt of the gun in his stomach. “You must be joking!”
“You spoiled my shot,” she countered.
“Take it again,” he said, looking at her with a mixture of derision, disbelief, and amusement.
“No, I can’t shoot with you laughing. And I’ll thank you to wipe that smirk off your face. Lord Marchman is a very nice man.”
“He is indeed,” said Ian with an irritating grin. “And it’s a damned good thing you like to shoot, because he sleeps with his guns and fishing poles. You’ll spend the rest of your life slogging through streams and trudging through the woods.”
“I happen to like to fish,” she informed him, striving unsuccessfully not to lose her composure. “And Sir Francis may be a trifle older than I, but an elderly husband might be more kind and tolerant than a younger one.”
“He’ll have to be tolerant,” Ian said a little shortly, turning his attention back to the guns, “or else a damned good shot.”
It angered Elizabeth that he was suddenly attacking her when she had just worked it out in her mind that they were supposed to be dealing with what had happened in a light, sophisticated fashion. “I must say, you aren’t being very mature or very consistent!”
His dark brows snapped together as their truce began to disintegrate. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Elizabeth bridled, looking at him like the haughty, disdainful young aristocrat she was born to be. “It means,” she informed him, making a monumental effort to speak clearly and coolly, “that you have no right to act as if I did something evil, when in truth you yourself regarded it as nothing but a-a meaningless dalliance. You said as much, so there’s no point in denying it!”
He finished loading the gun before he spoke. In contrast to his grim expression, his voice was perfectly bland. “My memory apparently isn’t as good as yours. To whom did I say that?”
“My brother, for one,” she said, impatient with his pretense.
“Ah, yes, the honorable Robert,” he replied, putting sarcastic emphasis on the word “honorable.” He turned to the target and fired, but the shot was wide of the mark.
“You didn’t even hit the right tree. Elizabeth said in surprise. “I thought you said you were going to clean the guns,” she added when he began methodically sliding them into leather cases, his expression preoccupied.
He looked up at her, but she had the feeling he’d almost forgotten she was there. “I’ve decided to do it tomorrow instead.” Ian went into the house, automatically putting the guns back on the mantel; then he wandered over to the table, frowning thoughtfully as he reached for the bottle of Madeira and poured some into his glass. He told himself it made no difference how she might have felt when her brother told her that falsehood. For one thing, she was already engaged at the time, and, by her own admission, she’d regarded their relationship as a flirtation. Her pride might have suffered a richly deserved blow, but nothing worse than that. Furthermore, Ian reminded himself irritably, he was technically betrothed, and to a beautiful woman who deserved better from him than this stupid preoccupation with Elizabeth Cameron.
“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’d said.
Her fiance had evidently cried off because of him, and Ian felt an uneasy pang of guilt he couldn’t completely banish. Idly he reached for the bottle of Madeira, thinking of offering Elizabeth a glass. Lying beside the bottle was a note Elizabeth had been writing. It began, “Dearest Alex . . .” But it was not the words that made his jaw clench; it was the handwriting. Neat, scholarly, and precise. Suited to a monk. It was not a girlish, illegible scrawl like that note he’d had to decipher before he understood she wanted to see him in the greenhouse. He picked it up, staring at it in disbelief, his conscience beginning to smite him with a vengeance. He saw himself stalking her in that damned greenhouse, and guilt poured through him like acid.
Ian downed the Madeira as if it could wash away his self-disgust, then he turned and walked slowly outdoors. Elizabeth was standing at the edge of the grassy plateau, a few yards beyond where they’d held their shooting match. Wind ruffled through the trees, blowing her magnificent hair about her shoulders like a shimmering veil. He stopped a few steps away from her, looking at her, but seeing her as she had looked long ago-a young goddess in royal blue, descending a staircase, aloof, untouchable; an angry angel defying a roomful of men in a card room; a beguiling temptress in a woodcutter’s cottage, lifting her wet hair in front of the fire-and at the end, a frightened girl thrusting flowerpots into his hands to keep him from kissing her. He drew in a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her.
“It’s a magnificent view,” she commented, glancing at him.
Instead of replying to her remark, Ian drew a long, harsh breath and said curtly, “I’d like you to tell me again what happened that last night. Why were you in the greenhouse?”
Elizabeth suppressed her frustration. “You know why I was there. You sent me a note. I thought it was from Valerie-Charise’s sister-and I went to the greenhouse.”
“Elizabeth, I did not send you a note, but I did receive one.”
Sighing with irritation, Elizabeth leaned her shoulders against the tree behind her. “I don’t see why we have to go through this again. You won’t believe me, and I can’t believe you.” She expected an angry outburst; instead he said, “I do believe you. I saw the letter you left on the table in the cottage. You have a lovely handwriting.”
Caught completely off balance by his solemn tone and his quiet compliment, she stared at him. “Thank you,” she said uncertainly.
“The note you received,” he continued. “What was the handwriting like?”
“Awful,” she replied, and she added with raised brows, “You misspelled greenhouse.”
His lips quirked with a mirthless smile. “I assure you I can spell it, and while my handwriting may not be as attractive as yours, it’s hardly an illegible scrawl. If you doubt me, I’ll be happy to prove it inside.”
Elizabeth realized at that moment he was not lying, and an awful feeling of betrayal began to seep through her as he finished, “We both received notes that neither of us wrote. Someone intended us to go there and, I think, to be discovered.”
“No one could be so cruel!” Elizabeth burst out, shaking her head, her heart trying to deny what her mind was realizing must be true.
“Someone was.” “Don’t tell me that,” she cried, unable to endure one more betrayal in her life. “I won’t believe it! It must have been a mistake,” she said fiercely, but scenes from that weekend were already parading through her memory. Valerie insisting that Elizabeth be the one to try to entice Ian Thornton into asking her for a dance. . . Valerie asking pointed questions after Elizabeth had gone to the woodcutter’s cottage. . . the footman handing her a note he said was from Valerie. Valerie, whom she’d believed was her friend. Valerie with the pretty face and watchful eyes. . .
The pain of betrayal almost doubled Elizabeth over, and she wrapped her arms around herself, feeling as if she were crumbling into pieces. “It was Valerie,” she managed chokingly. “I asked the footman who’d given him the note, and he said Valerie had.” The unspeakable malice of the deed made her shudder. “Later I assumed you’d entrusted it to her, and she’d given it to the footman.”
“I’d never have done anything of the sort,” he said shortly. “You were terrified we’d be discovered as it was.”
His anger at what had been done only made the whole thing seem worse, because even he couldn’t shrug it off with casual urbanity. Swallowing, Elizabeth closed her eyes and saw Valerie riding in the park with Viscount Mondevale. Elizabeth’s life had been shattered-and all because someone she believed was her friend had coveted her fiance. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, and she said brokenly, “It was a trick. My life was ruined by a trick.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why would she do a thing like that to you?”
“I think she wanted Mondevale, and-” Elizabeth knew she would cry if she tried to talk, and she shook her head and started to turn away, to find somewhere to weep out her anguish in privacy.
Helpless to let her go without at least trying to comfort her, Ian caught her shoulders and pulled her against his chest, tightening his arms when she tried to wrench free. “Don’t, please,” he whispered against her hair. “Don’t go. She’s not worth your tears.”
The shock of being held in his arms again was almost as great as Elizabeth’s misery, and the combination of emotions left her paralyzed. With her head bowed she stood silently in his arms, tears racing from her eyes, her body jerking with suppressed sobs.
Ian tightened his arms more, as if he could absorb her hurt by holding her closer, and when that didn’t console her after several minutes, he began in sheer desperation to tease her. “If she’d known what a good shot you are,” he whispered past the unfamiliar tightness in his throat, “she’d never have dared.” His hand lifted to her wet cheek, holding it pressed against his chest. “You could always call her out, you know.” The spasmodic shaking in Elizabeth’s slender shoulders began to subside, and Ian added with forced tightness, “Better yet, Robert should stand in for you. He’s not as fine a shot as you are, but he’s a hell of a lot faster.”
A teary giggle escaped the girl in his arms, and Ian continued, “On the other hand, if you’re holding the pistol, you’ll have some choices to make, and they’re not easy. . .
When he didn’t say more, Elizabeth drew a shaky breath. “What choices?” she finally whispered against his chest after a moment.
“What to shoot, for one thing,” he joked, stroking her back. “Robert was wearing Hessians, so I had a tassel for a target. I suppose, though, you could always shoot the bow off Valerie’s gown.”
Elizabeth’s shoulders gave a lurch, and a choked laugh escaped her.
Overwhelmed with relief, Ian kept his left arm around her and gently took her chin between his forefinger and thumb, tipping her face up to his. Her magnificent eyes were still wet with tears, but a smile was trembling on her rosy lips. Teasingly, he continued, “A bow isn’t much of a challenge for an expert marksman like you. I suppose you could insist that she hold up an earring between her fingers so you could shoot that instead.”
The image was so absurd that Elizabeth chuckled. Without being conscious of what he was doing, Ian moved his thumb from her chin to her lower lip, rubbing lightly against its inviting fullness. He finally realized what he was doing and stopped.
Elizabeth saw his jaw tighten. She drew a shuddering breath, sensing he’d been on the verge of kissing her, and had just decided not to do it. After the last shattering minutes, Elizabeth no longer knew who was friend or foe, she only knew she’d felt safe and secure in his arms, and at that moment his arms were already beginning to loosen, and his expression was turning aloof. Not certain what she was going to say or even what she wanted, she whispered a single, shaky word, filled with confusion and a plea for understanding, her green eyes searching his: “Please-”
Ian realized what she was asking for, but he responded with a questioning lift of his brows.
“I-” she began, uncomfortably aware of the knowing look in his eyes.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“I don’t know-exactly,” she admitted. All she knew for certain was that, for just a few minutes more, she would have liked to be in his arms.
“Elizabeth, if you want to be kissed, all you have to do is put your lips on mine.”
“What!” “You heard me.” “Of all the arrogant-” He shook his head in mild rebuke. “Spare me the maidenly protests. If you’re suddenly as curious as I am to find out if it was as good between us as it now seems in retrospect, then say so. His own suggestion startled Ian, although having made it, he saw no great harm in exchanging a few kisses if that was what she wanted.
To Elizabeth, his statement that it had been “good between us” defused her ire and confused her at the same time. She stared at him in dazed wonder while his hands tightened imperceptibly on her arms. Self-conscious, she let her gaze drop to his finely molded lips, watching as a faint smile, a challenging smile lifted them at the corners, and inch by inch, the hands on her arms were drawing her closer.
“Afraid to find out?” he asked, and it was the trace of huskiness in his voice that she remembered, that worked its strange spell on her again, exactly as it had so long ago. His hands shifted to the curve of her waist. “Make up your mind,” he whispered, and in her confused state of loneliness and longing, she made no protest when he bent his head. A shock jolted through her as his lips touched hers, warm, inviting-brushing slowly back and forth. Paralyzed, she waited for that shattering passion he’d shown her before, without realizing that her participation had done much to trigger it. Standing still and tense, she waited to experience that forbidden burst of exquisite delight… wanted to experience it, just once, just for a moment. Instead his kiss was feather-light, softly stroking. . . teasing!
She stiffened, pulling back an inch, and his gaze lifted lazily from her lips to her eyes. Dryly, he said, “That’s not quite the way I remembered it.”
“Nor I,” Elizabeth admitted, unaware that he was referring to her lack of participation.
“Care to try it again?” Ian invited, still willing to indulge in a few pleasurable minutes of shared ardor, so long as there was no pretense that it was anything but that, and no loss of control on his part.
The bland amusement in his tone finally made her suspect he was treating this as some sort of diverting game or perhaps a challenge, and she looked at him in shock. “Is this a-a contest?”
“Do you want to make it into line?”
Elizabeth shook her head and abruptly surrendered her secret memories of tenderness and stormy passion. Like all her other former illusions about him, that too had evidently been false. With a mixture of exasperation and sadness, she looked at him and said, “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“You’re playing a game,” she told him honestly, mentally throwing her hands up in weary despair, “and I don’t understand the rules.”
“They haven’t changed,” he informed her. “It’s the same game we played before I kiss you, and,” he emphasized meaningfully, “you kiss me.”
His blunt criticism of her lack of participation left her caught between acute embarrassment and the urge to kick him in the shin, but his arm was tightening around her waist while his other hand was sliding slowly up her back, sensuously stroking her nape.
“How do you remember it?” he teased as his lips came closer. “Show me.” He brushed his lips over hers, rubbing lightly, and despite his humorous tone, this time there was a demand as well as a challenge in the stroking touch; Elizabeth answered it slowly, leaning into his arms, her hand sliding softly up his silk shirt, feeling his muscles tauten, the reflexive tightening of his arm at her back. His mouth opened on hers, and Elizabeth felt her heart begin to beat in painful lurches. His tongue flicked against her lips, teasing, inviting, and Elizabeth lost control and retaliated in the only way she could. Sliding her hands around his shoulders, she kissed him back with fierce shyness, letting him part her lips and, when his tongue probed, she welcomed the invasion.
She felt his sharp intake of breath at the same time Ian felt desire begin to beat in his veins. He told himself to let her go, and he tried, but her hands were sliding into the hair at his nape, her mouth was yielding with tormenting sweetness to his intimate kiss. With an effort he jerked his head up, unable to move more than an inch from that romantic mouth of hers. “Dammit!” he whispered, but his arms were already dragging her fully against his hardening body.
Her heart hammering like a wild, captive bird, Elizabeth gazed into those smoldering eyes, while his hand plunged into her hair, holding her head captive as he abruptly bent his head. His mouth opened over hers with fiery demand, slanting fiercely, and Elizabeth’s body responded helplessly to the intimate sensuality of it; her arms stole around his neck, and she leaned into him, kissing him back. With cruel pressure he parted her lips, his tongue probing, daring her to protest. But Elizabeth didn’t protest; she drew his tongue into her mouth, her fingers sliding over his jaw and temple in an innocent, feather-light caress. Lust roared through Ian in tidal waves, and he splayed his hand across her spine, forcing her into vibrant contact with his rigid arousal, burying his mouth in hers, kissing her with a demanding savagery he couldn’t control. His hands slid caressingly over her, then clenched convulsively when she fitted her body tighter to his, unaware of-or unconcerned with-the bold evidence of his desire thrusting insistently against her.
Automatically, his hands lifted toward her breasts, then he realized what he was doing, and he tore his mouth from hers, staring blindly over her head, as he debated whether to kiss her again or try to pass the entire matter off as some sort of joke. No woman he’d known had ever ignited this uncontrollable surge of pure lust with just a few kisses.
“It was the same as I remembered it,” she whispered, sounding defeated and puzzled and shattered.
It was better than he remembered. Stronger, wilder. . . And the only reason she didn’t know it was because he hadn’t succumbed to temptation yet and kissed her once more. He had just rejected that idea as complete insanity when a male voice suddenly erupted behind them:
“Good God! What’s going on here!”
Elizabeth jerked free in mindless panic, her gaze to a middle-aged elderly man wearing a clerical collar who was dashing across the yard. Ian put a steadying hand on her waist, and she stood there rigid with shock.
“I heard shooting-” The gray-haired man gasped, sagging against a nearby tree, his hand over his heart, his chest heaving. “I heard it all the way up the valley, and I thought-”
He broke off, his alert gaze moving from Elizabeth’s Bushed face and tousled hair to Ian’s hand at her waist.
“You thought what?” Ian asked in a voice that struck Elizabeth as being amazingly calm, considering they’d just been caught in a lustful embrace by nothing less daunting than a Scottish vicar.
The thought had scarcely crossed her battered mind when the man’s expression hardened with understanding. “I thought,” he said ironically, straightening from the tree and coming forward, brushing pieces of bark from his black. sleeve, “that you were trying to kill each other. Which,” he continued more mildly as he stopped in front of Elizabeth, “Miss Throckmorton-Jones seemed to think was a distinct possibility when she dispatched me here.”
“Lucinda?” Elizabeth gasped, feeling as if the world was turning upside down. “Lucinda sent you here?”
“Indeed,” said the vicar, bending a reproachful glance on Ian’s hand, which was resting on Elizabeth’s waist. Mortified to the very depths of her being by the realization she’d remained standing in this near-embrace, Elizabeth hastily shoved Ian’s hand away and stepped sideways. She braced herself for a richly deserved, thundering tirade on the sinfulness of their behavior, but the vicar continued to regard Ian with his bushy gray eyebrows lifted, waiting. Feeling as if she were going to break from the strain of the silence, Elizabeth cast a pleading look at Ian and found him regarding the vicar not with shame or apology, but with irritated amusement.
“Well?” demanded the vicar at last, looking at Ian. “What do you have to say to me?”
“Good afternoon?” Ian suggested drolly. And then he added, “I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow, Uncle.”
“Obviously,” retorted the vicar with unconcealed irony. “Uncle!” blurted Elizabeth, gaping incredulously at Ian Thornton, who’d been flagrantly defying rules of morality with his passionate kisses and seeking hands from the first night she met him.
As if the vicar read her thoughts, he looked at her, his brown eyes amused. “Amazing, is it not, my dear? It quite convinces me that God has a sense of humor.”
A hysterical giggle welled up in Elizabeth as she saw Ian’s impervious expression begin to waver when the vicar promptly launched into a recitation of his tribulations as Ian’s uncle: “You cannot imagine how trying it used to be when I was forced to console weeping young ladies who’d cast out lures in hopes Ian would come up to scratch,” he told Elizabeth. “And that’s nothing to how I felt when he raced his horse and one of my parishioners thought I would be the ideal person to keep track of the bets!” Elizabeth’s burst of laughter rang like music through the hills, and the vicar, ignoring Ian’s look of annoyance, continued blithely, “I have flat knees from the hours, the weeks, the months I’ve spent praying for his immortal soul-”
“When you’re finished itemizing my transgressions, Duncan,” Ian cut in, “I’ll introduce you to my companion.”
Instead of being irate at Ian’s tone, the vicar looked satisfied. “By all means, Ian,” he said smoothly. “We should always observe all the proprieties.” At that moment Elizabeth realized with a jolt that the shaming tirade she’d expected the vicar to deliver when he first saw them had been delivered after all-skillfully and subtly. The only difference was that the kindly vicar had aimed it solely at Ian, absolving her from blame and sparing her any further humiliation.
Ian evidently realized it, too; reaching out to shake his uncle’s hand, he said dryly, “You’re looking well, Duncan despite your flattened knees. And,” he added, “I can assure you that your sermons are equally eloquent whether I’m standing up or sitting down.”
“That is because you have a lamentable tendency to doze off in the middle of them either way,” the vicar replied a little irritably, shaking Ian’s hand.
Ian turned to introduce Elizabeth. “May I present Lady Elizabeth Cameron, my house guest.”
Elizabeth thought that explanation sounded more damning than being seen kissing Ian, and she hastily shook her head. “Not exactly. I’m something of a-a-” Her mind went blank, and the vicar again came to her rescue.
“A stranded traveler,” he provided. Smiling, he took her hand in his. “I understand perfectly-I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your Miss Throckmorton-Jones, and she is the one who dispatched me here posthaste, as I said. I promised to remain until tomorrow or the next day, when she can return.”
“Tomorrow or the day after? But they were to return today.”
“There’s been an unfortunate accident-a minor one,” he hastened to assure. “That evil-tempered horse she was riding has a tendency to kick, Jake tells me.”
“Was Lucinda badly hurt?” Elizabeth asked, already trying to think of a way to go to her.
“The horse kicked Mr. Wiley,” the vicar corrected, “and the only thing that was hurt was Mr. Wiley’s pride and his. . . ah . . . nether region. However, Miss Throckmorton-Jones, rightly feeling that some form of discipline was due the horse, retaliated with the only means at her disposal, since she said her umbrella was unfortunately on the ground. She kicked the horse,” he explained, “which unfortunately resulted in a severely sprained ankle for that worthy lady. She’s been given laudanum, and my housekeeper is tending her injury. She should be well enough to put her foot in a stirrup in a day or two at the most.”
Turning to Ian, he said, “I’m fully aware I’ve taken you by surprise, Ian. However, if you mean to retaliate by depriving me of a glass of your excellent Madeira, I may decide to remain here for months, rather than until Miss Throckmorton-Jones returns.”
“I’ll go ahead and...and get the glasses down,” Elizabeth said, politely trying to leave them some privacy. As Elizabeth turned toward the house she heard Ian say, “If you’re hoping for a good meal, you’ve come to the wrong place. Miss Cameron has already attempted to sacrifice herself on the altar of domesticity this morning, and we both narrowly escaped death from her efforts. I’m cooking supper,” he finished, “and it may not be much better.”
“I’ll try my hand at breakfast,” the vicar volunteered good-naturedly.
When Elizabeth was out of earshot, Ian said quietly, “How badly is the woman hurt?”
“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 passion had finally cooled he was irritated as hell 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 hell.
Despite that angelic face of hers, Elizabeth Cameron was still what she had always been a spoiled brat, a skillful flirt with more passion than sense.

With a glass 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 passionate. She suited him perfectly, or he wouldn’t have offered for her. Before doing so, he’d considered it with the same combination of dispassionate 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 glasses 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, assailed 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, surreptitiously watching Elizabeth, then he glanced at Ian, who was lighting his cigar.
It was Ian’s attitude 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 spacious 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 wishing 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 makeshift apron 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 amass 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 God-given genius, to absolutely no avail. Ian had the calm arrogance of his noble 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 ship, thinking to surprise him.
Two nights before Ian’s ship 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 passed 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 worshipped 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 cocked 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 worshipped 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 God, that dog worships 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 spawned 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 attitude 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 assume 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 damn!”
“If you won’t consider accepting the title 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 amusement, “Your glass is empty, Vicar. Would you like another?”
Duncan sighed and shook his head. It was over, exactly as Duncan had anticipated 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 glass, “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 passion 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.
Ian returned his gaze dispassionately, but inwardly he was startled by his verbal thrust and genuinely annoyed with himself for making it. Last night he’d decided to no longer feel anything whatsoever for Elizabeth, and that decision was final. Therefore, it followed that it could make no difference to him that she was a pampered, shallow little aristocrat. Yet he’d deliberately baited her just now, when she’d done nothing whatsoever to deserve it other than sitting across the table looking almost outrageously alluring, with her hair tied at the nape with a bright yellow bow that matched her gown. So irritated with himself was he that Ian realized he’d lost the thread of their conversation.
“What sorts of games did you play with your brothers and sisters?” Duncan was asking her.
“I had only one brother, and he was away at school or off in London most of the time.”
“I imagine there were other children in the neighborhood however,” the vicar suggested kindly.
She shook her head, sipping her tea. “There were only a few cottagers, and none of them had children my age. Havenhurst was never properly irrigated, you see. My father didn’t think it was worth the expense, so most of our cottagers moved to more fertile ground.”
“Then who were your companions?”
“The servants mostly,” Elizabeth said. “We had grand times, however.”
“And now?” he prompted. “What do you do for amusement there?”
He’d drawn her out so completely and so expertly that Elizabeth answered without choosing her words or considering what conclusions he might later draw. “I’m very busy most of the time just looking after the place.”
“You sound as if you enjoy it,” he said with a smile. “I do,” she replied. “Very much. In fact,” she confided, “do you know the part I enjoy most?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“The bargaining that goes with purchasing our foodstuffs and supplies. It’s the most amazing thing, but Bentner-our butler-says I have a genius for it.”
“The bargaining?” Duncan repeated, nonplussed.
“I think of it as being reasonable and helping someone else to see reason,” she said ingenuously, warming to her subject. “For example, if the village baker were to make one single tart, it would take him, shall we say, an hour. Now, of that hour, half of his time would be used in getting out all his supplies and measuring everything out, and then putting everything away again.”
The vicar nodded his tentative agreement, and Elizabeth continued. “However, if he were to make twelve tarts, it would not take him twelve times as long, would it-since he would put out all his supplies and measure everything only once?”
“No, it wouldn’t take him nearly so long.”
“Exactly my thinking!” Elizabeth said happily. “And so why should I be required to pay twelve times more for twelve tarts if it didn’t take him twelve times longer to prepare them? And that’s before one considers that by making things in great quantity, one buys one’s supplies in quantity, and thus pays less for the single part. At least one should pay less,” she finished, “if the other person is reasonable.”
“That’s amazing,” the vicar stated honestly. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Neither, unfortunately, has the village baker,” Elizabeth chuckled. “I do think he’s coming around, though. He’s stopped hiding behind his flour bags when I come in.” Belatedly, Elizabeth realized how revealing her commentary might be to an astute man like the vicar, and she quickly added, “Actually, it’s not the cost. Not really. It’s the principle. you understand?”
“Of course,” Duncan said smoothly. “Your home must be a lovely place. You smile whenever you mention it.”
“It is,” Elizabeth said, her fond smile widening to encompass both the vicar and Ian. “It’s a wondrous place, and wherever you look there is something beautiful to see. There are hills and a lovely parkland and extravagant gardens,” she explained as Ian picked up his plate and mug and stood up.
“How large a place is it?” inquired the vicar sociably. “There are forty-one rooms,” she began.
“And I’ll wager that all of them,” Ian put in smoothly as he put his plate and mug near the dishpan, “are carpeted with furs and filled with jewels the size of your palm.” He stopped cold, glowering at his reflection in the window.
“Of course,” Elizabeth replied with artificial gaiety, staring at Ian’s rigid back, refusing to retreat from his unprovoked attack. “There are paintings by Rubens and Gainsborough, and chimneys by Adams. Carpets from Persia, too.” That had been true, she told herself when her conscience pricked her for the lies, until she’d had to sell everything last year to pay her creditors.
To her complete bafflement, instead of continuing his attack, Ian Thornton turned around and met her stormy eyes, an odd expression on his handsome face. “I apologize, Elizabeth,” he said grimly. “My remarks were uncalled for.” And on that amazing note he strode off, saying that he intended to spend the day hunting.
Elizabeth tore her startled gaze from his departing back, but the vicar continued staring after him for several long moments. Then he turned and looked at Elizabeth. An odd, thoughtful smile slowly dawned across his face and lit his brown eyes as he continued gazing at her. “Is-is something amiss?” she asked.
His smile widened, and he leaned back in his chair, beaming thoughtfully at her. “Apparently there is,” he answered, looking positively delighted. “And I, for one, am vastly pleased.”
Elizabeth was beginning to wonder if a tiny streak of insanity ran in the family, and only good manners prevented her from remarking on it. Instead she stood up and began clearing the dishes.
When the dishes were washed and put away, she ignored the vicar’s protest and went to work tidying the lower floor of the cottage and polishing the furniture. She stopped to have dinner with him and finished her house-keeping tasks in mid-afternoon. Her spirits buoyed up with a sense of grand accomplishment, she stood in the center of the cottage, admiring the results of her efforts.
“You’ve wrought wonders,” he told her. “Now that you’re finished, however, I insist you enjoy what’s left of the fine day.” Elizabeth would have loved a hot bath, but since that was impossible under the circumstances, she accepted his suggestion as her second choice and did just that. Outdoors the sky was bright blue, the air soft and balmy, and Elizabeth looked longingly at the stream below. As soon as Ian came home she’d go down there and bathe in the stream-her very first time to bathe anywhere but in the privacy of her own chamber. For the present, though, she’d have to wait, since she couldn’t risk having him come upon her while she bathed.
She wandered about the yard, enjoying the view, but the day seemed oddly flat with Ian gone. Whenever he was around the air seemed to vibrate with his presence, and her emotions fluctuated crazily. Cleaning his house this morning, which she’d decided to do out of a mixture of boredom and gratitude, had become an almost intimate act.
Standing at the edge of the ridge, she wrapped her arms around herself, gazing into the distance, seeing his ruggedly handsome face and amber eyes, remembering the tenderness in his deep voice and the way he had held her yesterday. She wondered what it would be like to be married, and to have a cozy home like this one that overlooked such breathtaking scenery. She wondered what sort of female Ian would bring here as his wife and imagined the two of them sitting side by side on the sofa near the fire, talking and dreaming together.
Mentally, Elizabeth gave herself a hard shake. She was thinking like-like a madwoman! It was herself she’d just imagined sitting on that sofa beside him. Shoving such outrageous ruminations aside, she looked about for something to occupy her time and her mind. She turned in a complete, aimless circle, glanced up at a rustling in the tree overhead. . . and then she saw it! A large tree house was almost completely concealed from view by the ancient branches of the huge tree. Her eyes alight with fascination, she gazed up at the tree house, then she called to the vicar, who’d stepped outside. “It’s a tree house,” she explained, in case he didn’t know what was up there. “Do you think it would be all right if I have a look? I imagine the view from up there must be spectacular.”
The vicar crossed the yard and studied the haphazard “steps,” which were old boards nailed to the huge tree. “It might not be safe to step on those boards.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Elizabeth said cheerfully. “Elbert always said I was half monkey.”
“Who is Elbert?” “One of our grooms,” she explained. “He and two of our carpenters built a tree house for me at home.”
The vicar looked at her shining face and could not deny her such a small pleasure. “I suppose it’s all right, if you promise you’ll take care.”
“Oh, I will. I promise.” He watched her kick off her slippers. For several minutes she circled the tree, and then she vanished to the far side where there were no steps. To Duncan’s shock, he saw a flash of jonquil skirts and realized she was climbing the tree without aid of the old boards. He started to callout a warning to her, then realized it wasn’t necessary-with carefree abandon she’d already gained the middle branches and was edging her way along toward the tree house.
Elizabeth reached the floor of the tree house and bent over to get inside. Once through the door, however, the ceiling was high enough for her to stand without stooping-which made her think Ian Thornton must have been tall even in his youth. She glanced around with interest at the old table, chair, and large, flat wooden box that were the only items in the tree house. Dusting off her bands, she looked through the window in the side of the tree house and breathed in the splendor of the valley and hills, decked out in bright hawthorn, cherry, and bluebells, then she turned back to inspect the little room. Her gaze slid to the white-painted box, and she reached down to brush the grime and dust off the lid. Etched across the top were the words “Private property of Ian Thornton. Open at your own peril!” As if the young boy had felt that written warning was insufficient, he’d etched a gruesome skull and crossbones below the words.
Elizabeth stared at it, remembering her tree house at home, where she’d held lavish and lonely tea parties with her dolls. She’d had her own “treasure chest,” too, although she hadn’t needed to put a skull and crossbones across it. A smile touched her lips as she tried to remember exactly what treasures she’d kept in that large chest with the shiny brass hinges and latches. . . a necklace, she remembered, given to her by her father when she was six. . . and the miniature porcelain tea set her parents had given her for her dolls when she was seven. . . and ribbons for her dolls’ hair.
Her gaze was drawn again to the battered box on the table while she accepted the evidence that. the virile, indomitable male she knew had actually been a youth who had secret treasures and perhaps played make-believe as she had done. Against her will and the dictates of her conscience Elizabeth put her hand on the latch. The box would probably be empty, she told herself, so it wasn’t really snooping. . . .
She raised the lid, then stared in smiling bafflement at the contents. On top was a bright green feather-from a parrot, she thought. There were three ordinary-looking gray stones, that, for some reason, must have been special to the boy Ian had been, because they’d been painstakingly polished and smoothed. Beside the stones was a large seashell with a smooth pink interior. Recalling the seashell her parents had once brought her, Elizabeth lifted the shell and held it to her ear, listening to the muted roaring of the sea; then she carefully laid it aside and picked up the drawing pencils strewn across the bottom of the box. Beneath them was something that looked like a small sketchbook. Elizabeth picked up the pad and lifted the cover. Her eyes widened with admiration as she beheld a skillfully executed pencil sketch of a beautiful young girl with long hair blowing in the wind, the sea in the background. She was seated on the sand, her legs curled beneath her, her head bent as she examined a large seashell that looked exactly like the shell in the box. The next sketch was of the same girl, looking sideways at the artist, smiling as if they shared some funny secret. Elizabeth was awed by the zest and sparkle Ian had captured with a pencil, as well as the detail. Even the locket the girl wore around her neck was finely drawn.
There were other sketches, not only of the same girl, but of a couple Elizabeth presumed to be his parents, and more sketches of ships and mountains and even a dog. A Labrador retriever, Elizabeth knew at a glance, and she found herself smiling again at the dog. Its ears were forward, its head cocked to one side, its eyes bright-as if it were just waiting for the chance to run at its master’s feet.
So dumbfounded was she by the sensitivity and skill evidenced by the sketches that she stood stock still, trying to assimilate this unexpected facet of Ian. It was several minutes before she snapped out of her reverie and considered the only other object in the box-a small leather bag. Regardless of what the vicar had said when he gave her permission to explore to her heart’s content, she already felt like a trespasser into Ian’s private life, and she knew she shouldn’t compound that transgression now by opening the bag. On the other hand, the compulsion to learn more about the enigmatic man who’d turned her life upside down from the moment she’d set eyes on him long ago was so strong it couldn’t be denied. Loosening the string on the leather bag, she turned it over, and a heavy ring dropped into her hand. Elizabeth studied it, not quite able to believe what she was seeing. In the center of the massive gold ring an enormous square-cut emerald glowed and winked, and embedded in the emerald itself was an intricate gold crest depicting a rampant lion. She was no expert on jewels, but she had little doubt that a ring of such splendid craftsmanship was real-and worth a ransom in value. She studied the crest, trying to match it up with the pictures of crests she’d been required to memorize before making her debut, but though it seemed vaguely familiar, she could not positively identify it. Deciding the crest was probably more ornamental than real, Elizabeth slid the ring back into the leather bag, pulled the drawstring tight, and made up her mind. Apparently Ian had placed no more value on it than he did on three stones and a seashell when he was a youth, but she knew better, and she felt certain that if he saw it now he’d recognize its value and realize it had to be put somewhere for safekeeping. With an inward grimace she anticipated his anger when he realized she’d been snooping through his things, but even so she had to at least bring it to his attention. She’d bring the sketchbook, too, she decided. Those sketches were so beautifully executed they deserved to be framed, not left outdoors to eventually crumble.
Closing the box, Elizabeth put it back beside the wall where she’d found it, smiling at the skull and crossbones. Without her realizing what had happened, her heart had softened yet more toward a boy who’d carried his dreams up here and hidden them in a treasure chest. And the fact that the boy had become a man who was frequently cold and distant had little effect on her tender heart. Untying the scarf from her hair, Elizabeth put it around her waist; then she slid the sketchbook between the makeshift belt and her gown and slid the ring onto her thumb, for want of anywhere else to keep it while she climbed down.
Ian, who’d been coming toward the yard from the woods to the west, had seen Elizabeth walk around the tree and vanish. Leaving the game he’d shot at the barn, he started for the house, then changed his direction and headed for the tree.
With his hands on his hips he stood beneath the tree, looking down the mossy slope that led to the stream, his forehead furrowed in a puzzled frown as he wondered how she’d scrambled down the incline fast enough to disappear. High overhead branches began to rustle and sway, and Ian glanced up. At first he saw nothing, and then what he did see made him doubt his vision. A long, shapely bare leg was poking out of the branches, toes feeling about for a sturdy branch on which to begin a descent. Another leg joined it, and the pair of them seemed to hang there, levitating.
Ian started to reach up for the hips to which the legs would surely be attached somewhere further up in the leaves, then he hesitated, since she seemed to be managing well enough on her own. “What in hell are you doing up there?” he demanded.
“Climbing down, of course,” Elizabeth’s voice said from among the leaves. Her right toes wiggled, reaching for the wooden step and finally touching it; then, as Ian looked on, still ready to catch her if she fell, she shimmied down the branch a bit more and got the toes of her left foot on the step.
Amazed by her daring, not to mention her agility, Ian was about to back away and let her finish descending unaided when the rotted step on which she stood gave way. “Help!” Elizabeth cried as she came plunging out of the tree into a pair of strong hands that caught her by the waist.
Her back to him, Elizabeth felt her body slide down Ian’s hard chest, his flat stomach, and then his thighs. Embarrassed to the depths of her soul by her clumsy egress, by the boyhood treasures she’d discovered while snooping in the tree house, and by the odd feelings that shook through her at the intimate contact with him, Elizabeth drew a shaky breath and turned uneasily to face him. “I was snooping in your things,” she confessed, lifting her green eyes to his. “I hope you won’t be angry.”
“Why should I be angry?”
“I saw your sketches,” she admitted, and then, because her heart was still filled with the lingering tenderness of her discovery, she continued with smiling admiration, “They’re wonderful, truly they are! You should never have taken up gambling. You should have been an artist!” She saw the confusion that narrowed his eyes, and in her eagerness to convince him of her sincerity she pulled the sketchbook from her “belt” and bent down, opening it carefully on the grass, smoothing the pages flat. “Just look at this!” she persisted, sitting down beside the sketches and smiling up at him.
After a moment’s hesitation Ian crouched down beside her, his gaze on her entrancing smile, not the sketches.
“You aren’t looking,” she chided him gently, tapping the first sketch of the young girl with her tapered fingernail. “I can’t believe how talented you are! You captured everything in the tiniest detail. Why, I can almost feel the wind blowing on her hair, and there’s laughter in her eyes.” His gaze shifted from her eyes to the open sketchbook, and Elizabeth watched in shock as he glanced at the sketch of the young girl and pain slashed across his tanned features.
Somehow Elizabeth knew from his expression that the girl was dead. “Who was she?” she asked softly. The pain she’d imagined vanished, and his features were already perfectly composed when he looked at her and quietly answered, “My sister.” He hesitated, and for a moment Elizabeth thought he wasn’t going to say more. When he did, his deep voice was strangely hesitant, almost as if he was testing his ability to talk about it: “She died in a fire when she was eleven.”
“I’m sorry,” Elizabeth whispered, and all the sympathy and warmth in her heart was mirrored in her eyes. “Truly sorry,” she said, thinking of the beautiful girl with the laughing eyes. Reluctantly pulling her gaze from his, she tried lamely to lighten the mood by turning the page to a sketch that seemed to vibrate with life and exuberant joy. Seated on a large boulder by the sea was a man with his arm around a woman’s shoulders; he was grinning at her upturned face, and her hand was resting on his arm in a way that somehow bespoke a wealth of love. “Who are these people?” Elizabeth asked, smiling as she pointed to the sketch.
“My parents,” Ian replied, but there was something in his voice again that made her look sharply at him. “The same fire,” he added calmly.
Elizabeth turned her face away, feeling a lump of constricting sorrow in her chest.
“It happened a long time ago,” he said after a moment, and reaching out slowly, he turned to the next sketch. A black Labrador looked back from the pages. This time when he spoke there was a slight smile in his voice. “If I could shoot it, she could find it.”
Her own emotions under control again, Elizabeth looked at the sketch. “You have an amazing way of capturing the. essence of things when you sketch, do you know that?”
His brows lifted in dubious amusement, then he reached out and turned the other pages, pausing when he came to a detailed sketch of a four-masted sailing ship. “I intended to build that one someday,” he told her. “This is my own design.”
“Really?” she said, looking as impressed as she felt. “Really,” he confirmed, grinning back at her. Their faces only inches apart, they smiled at each other; then Ian’s gaze dropped to her mouth, and Elizabeth felt her heart begin to pound with helpless anticipation. His head bent imperceptibly, and Elizabeth knew, she knew he was going to kiss her; her hand lifted of its own accord, reaching toward his nape as if to draw him down to her; then the moment was abruptly shattered. Ian’s head lifted sharply, and he stood up in one smooth motion, his jaw rigid. Stunned, Elizabeth hastily turned to the sketchbook and carefully closed it. Then she, too, stood up. “It’s getting late,” she said to cover her awkward confusion. “I’d like to bathe in the stream before the air turns chilly. Oh, wait,” she said, and carefully she pulled the ring from her thumb, holding it out to him. “I found this in the same box where the sketches were,” she added, putting it in his outstretched palm.
“My father gave it to me when I was a boy,” he said in an offhand voice. His long fingers closed around it, and he slipped it into his pocket.
“I think it may be very valuable,” Elizabeth said. imagining the sorts of improvements he could make to his home and lands if he chose to sell the ring.
“As a matter of fact,” Ian drawled blandly, “it’s completely worthless.”