Almost Heaven (31 page)

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 flushed 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 houseguest.”

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.”