Almost Heaven

  “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 fiancé’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 she 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 . . . .

  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 ter 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 being alone with a man rushed 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— ought to be twice as correct in our behavior,” she continued, a little desperately and illogically, “to atone for what happened last night!”