Almost Heaven

  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 all over 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 pay off 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 Bentner 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.

  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 or 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 roue. 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.

&n
bsp; “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 roue 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.

  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 roue. To add to her nunlike appearance, Elizabeth’s hair was scraped back off her face, pinned into a bun à 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.