Almost Heaven (30 page)

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 fiancé 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 fiancé cavorting about in cottages and greenhouses with you,”
she’d said.

Her fiancé 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 fiancé. 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 –”