Almost Heaven (72 page)

“I won’t argue with your conclusion, but I will swear to you not to ever do anything like that again to you. “

“Thank you. I don’t think I could bear it another time.”

“Could you enlighten me as to what Duncan told you to make you arrive at all that?“

Her smile was filled with tenderness and understanding. “He told me what you did when you returned home and discovered your family had died.”

“What did I do?”

“You severed yourself from the only other thing you loved – a black Labrador named Shadow. You did it so that you couldn’t be hurt anymore – at least not by anything over which you had control. You did essentially the same thing, although far more drastically, when you tried to divorce me.”

“In your place,” Ian said, his voice rough with emotion as he laid his hand against her cheek, “I think I’d hate me.”

His wife turned her face into his hand and kissed his palm. “Do you know,” she said with a teary smile, “how it feels to know I am loved so
much .
. .” She shook her head as if trying to find a better way to explain, and began again, her voice shaking with love. “Do you know what I notice whenever we are out in company?”

Unable to restrain himself, Ian pulled her into his arms, holding her against his heart. “No,” he whispered, “what do you notice?”

“I notice the way other men treat their wives, the way they look at them, or speak to them. And do you know what?”

“What?”

“I am the only wife,” she whispered achingly, “with the exception of Alex, whose husband adores her and doesn’t care if the whole world knows it. And I absolutely know,” she added with a soft smile, “that I am the
only
wife whose husband has ever tried to seduce her in front of the Hospital Fund Raising Committee.”

His arms tightened around her, and with a groaning laugh, Ian tried, very successfully, to seduce his wife on the sofa.

Snowflakes were falling outside the windows, and a log tumbled off the grate sending bright sparks up the chimney. Sated and happy, wrapped in Ian’s arms beneath the blanket he’d drawn over them, Elizabeth’s thoughts drifted lazily from the breakfast they hadn’t eaten yet to the sumptuous breakfast he would have undoubtedly been served, had they been at Montmayne. With a sigh, she moved away from him and got dressed.

When she was turning the bacon, he came up behind her, his hands settling on her waist as he peered over her shoulder. “That looks awfully edible,” he teased. “I was rather counting on our ‘traditional’ breakfast.”

She smiled and let him turn her around. “When do we have to return?” she asked, thinking whimsically of how cozy it was up here with him.

“How does two months sound?”

“It sounds wonderful, but are you certain you won’t be bored – or worried about neglecting your business affairs?”  

“If they were going to suffer overmuch from my neglect, my love, we’d have pockets to let after the last three months.  Evidently,” he continued with a grin, “I’m much better organized than I thought. Besides, Jordan will let me know if there’s a particular problem that needs my attention.”

“Duncan has provided me with nearly a hundred books. If,” she said, trying to think of ways he could occupy his time if they stayed, “but you’ve probably read them already, and even if you haven’t,” she said with laughing exaggeration, “you’d be done with the lot of them by Wednesday. I’m afraid you’ll be bored.”  

“It will be difficult for me,” he agreed dryly. “Snowbound up here with you. Without books or business to occupy my time, I wonder what I’ll do,” he added with a leer. She blushed gorgeously, but her voice was serious as she studied his face. “If things hadn’t gone so well for you – if you hadn’t accumulated so much wealth – you could have been happy up here, couldn’t you?”

“With you?”

“Of course.” His smile was as somber as hers. “Absolutely.”

“Although,” he added, linking her hands behind her back and drawing her a little closer, “you may not want to remain up here when you learn your emeralds are back in their cases at Montmayne.”

Her head snapped up, and her eyes shone with love and relief. “I’m so glad. When I realized Robert’s story had been fabrication, it hurt beyond belief to realize I’d sold them.”

“It’s going to hurt more,” he teased outrageously, “when you realize your bank draft to cover their cost was a little bit short. It cost me £45,000 to buy back the pieces that had already been sold, and £5,000 to buy the rest back from the jeweler you sold them to.”

“That-that unconscionable thief,” she burst out. “He only gave me £5,000 for all of them!” She shook her head in despair at Ian’s lack of bargaining prowess. “He took dreadful advantage of you.”

“I wasn’t concerned, however,” Ian continued teasing, enjoying himself hugely, “because I knew I’d get it all back out of
your
allowance. With interest, of course. According to my figures,” he said, pausing to calculate in his mind what it would have taken Elizabeth several minutes to figure out on paper, ‘‘as of today, you now owe me roughly £151,126.”

“One hundred and
–
what?”
she cried, half laughing and half irate.

“There’s the little matter of the cost of Havenhurst. I added that in to the figure.”

Tears of joy clouded her magnificent eyes. “You bought it back from that horrid Mr. Demarcus?”

“Yes. And he
is
‘horrid’ He and your uncle ought to be partners. They both possess the instincts of camel traders. I paid £100,000 for it.”

Her mouth fell open, and admiration lit her face. “£100,000! Oh, Ian –”

“I love it when you say my name.”

She smiled at that, but her mind was still on the splendid bargain he’d gotten. “I could not have done a bit better!” she generously admitted. “That’s exactly what he paid for it and he told me after the papers were signed that he was certain he could get £150,000 if he waited a year or so.”

“He probably could have.”

“But not from you!” she announced proudly.

“Not from me,” he agreed, grinning.

“Did he try?”

“He tried for £200,000
 
as soon as he realized how important it was to me
to
buy it back for you.”

“You must have been very clever and skillful
to
make him agree
to
accept so much less.”

Trying desperately not to laugh, Ian put his forehead against hers and nodded. “Very skillful,” he agreed in a suffocated voice. “Still, I wonder why he was so agreeable?” Swallowing a surge of laughter, Ian said, “I imagine it was because I showed him that I had something he needed more than he needed an exorbitant profit.”

“Really?” she said, fascinated and impressed. “What did you have?”

“His throat.”

EPILOGUE

Standing on the terrace near the balustrade, Ian gazed out at the magnificent gardens of Montmayne, where Elizabeth and their three-year-old daughter, Caroline, were kneeling among the geraniums, examining the vivid blooms. Their heads were so close together that it was impossible to distinguish where Elizabeth’s bright golden hair stopped and Caroline’s began. Something Elizabeth said caused Caroline to give forth a peal of happy laughter, and Ian’s eyes crinkled with a smile at the joyous sound.

Seated at a wrought-iron table behind him, his grandfather and Duncan were indulging in a game of chess. Tonight seven hundred guests would arrive to attend the ball Ian was giving to celebrate Elizabeth’s birthday. The silent concentration of the chess players, was abruptly interrupted by the arrival of a six-year-old boy, who already bore a remarkable resemblance to Ian, and the boy’s tutor, who looked like a man driven to the brink of despair at having to cope with a six-year-old intellect that also bore a remarkable resemblance to Ian’s.

“I beg your pardon,” Mr. Twindell said, bowing apologetically to the chess players, “but Master Jonathon and I have been engaged in a debate which I have just realized that you, Vicar, can settle, if you will be so kind?”

Dragging his gaze from the chessboard, and his mind from the victory that was almost in his grasp, Duncan smiled sympathetically at the harassed tutor. “How may I be of assistance?” he asked, looking from the tutor to the handsome six-year-old whose attention had momentarily shifted to the chessboard.

“It concerns,” Mr. Twindell explained, “the issue of heaven, Vicar. Specifically, a description of said place which I have, all morning, been attempting to convince Master Jonathon is not loaded with impossible inconsistencies.”

At that point Master Jonathon pulled his bemused gaze from the chessboard, clasped his hands behind his back, and regarded his great-uncle and his great-grandfather as if sharing a story too absurd to be believed. “Mr. Twindell,” he explained, trying to hide his chuckle, “thinks heaven has streets made of gold. But of course, it can’t.”

“Why
can’t it?” said the duke in surprise. “Because the streets would be too hot in summer for the horses’ hooves,” Jon said, looking a little stricken by his great-grandfather’s shortsightedness. Turning expectantly to his great-uncle, Jon said, “Sir, do you not find the idea of metal streets in heaven a highly unlikely possibility?”

Duncan, who was recalling similar debates with Ian at a similar age, leaned back in his chair while an expression of gleeful anticipation dawned across his face. “Jon,” said he with eager delight, “ask your
father.
He is right over there at the balustrade.”

The little boy nodded agreeably, paused to cup his hand over the duke’s ear and whisper something, then he turned to do as bidden.

“Why didn’t you answer Jon’s, question, Duncan?” the duke asked curiously. “A description of heaven ought to be right in your line.”

Duncan’s brows lifted in mocking denial. “When Ian was six years old,” he said dryly,
“he
used to engage me in theological and rhetorical debates just like this one. I used to lose. It was most disconcerting.” Shifting his gaze to the little boy who was waiting for his father to notice him, Duncan said gleefully, “I have waited for this day for decades. By the by,” he added, “what did Jon whisper to you just now?”

The duke flushed. “He . . . ah . . . said you’ll have my queen in check in four moves if I don’t move my knight.”

It was the burst of laughter from the two men at the chess table that made Ian glance over his shoulder and see Jonathon waiting beside, and slightly behind, him. Smiling, he turned to give his full attention to the son who was conceived that snowy night he’d returned to the cottage in Scotland. “You look,” he teased, “like a man with something on his mind.” He glanced at the harassed expression on the tutor’s face, then back at his son, and added sympathetically, “I gather you and Mr. Twindell have had another polite disagreement? What is it about this time?”

A relieved grin lit up Jon’s face and he nodded. While everyone else might be shocked by his thoughts or baffled by his questions, his father, he knew, would not only understand but provide acceptable answers. “It’s about heaven,” Jon confided, almost rolling his eyes in amusement as he explained in a low, conspiratorial voice, “Mr. Twindell wants me to believe heaven is a place with gold streets. Can you imagine,” he added with a chuckle, “the temperature pure gold would reach if the sun were to hit it for ten consecutive hours in July? No one would want to walk on the streets’“

“What did Mr. Twindell say when you mentioned that?” Ian asked with amused gravity.

“He said we probably wouldn’t have feet.”

“Now that’s an alarming thought,” Ian agreed “What do
you
think heaven will be like?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea. Do you?”

“Yes, but it’s only my opinion,” Ian explained to his puzzled son. Crouching down, he put his arm around the little boy’s shoulders and gestured toward the garden. As if Elizabeth and Caroline sensed that they were being observed, they both looked up at the terrace, and then they smiled and waved – two green-eyed girls with gilded hair and love shining in their eyes. “In my opinion,” Ian solemnly confided to his son, “that is heaven, right there.”

“There are no angels,” Jon noted.

“I see two of them,” his father quietly replied, then he glanced at his son and amended with a grin,
“three
of them.”

The little boy nodded slowly, a smile of comprehension drifting across his face. Turning to look up at the tall man beside him, he said, “You think heaven will have whatever a person most wants it to have, is that it?”
 

“I think it’s very possible.”

“So do I,” Jon agreed after another moment’s thought. He started to turn, saw his tutor and his relatives looking expectantly in his direction, then he turned back to his father and said with a helpless smile, “They’re going to ask what you said. And if I tell Mr. Twindell you said heaven will be like this, he’ll be very disappointed. He’s counting, you know, on gold streets and angels and horses with wings.”

“I see where that could be a problem,” Ian agreed, and he tenderly laid his hand against his son’s cheek. “In that case, you can tell him I said this is
almost
heaven.”