Almost Heaven (61 page)

After the footman left, the nerves that had seemed numb in Elizabeth came to vibrant life with a vengeance. The pendulum on the old grandfather clock in the hall began to swing ominously faster, and she began to imagine all sorts of vague, disastrous things happening. Sleep, she told herself; she needed sleep. Her imagination was running rampant because she’d had so little sleep.

Tomorrow she would have to face him, but only for a few hours . . .

Elizabeth snapped awake in a terrified instant as the door to her bed chamber was flung open near dawn, and Ian stalked into the darkened room. “Do you want to go first, or shall I?” he said tightly, coming to stand at the side of her bed.

“What do you mean?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“I mean,” he said, “that either you go first and tell me why in hell you suddenly find my company repugnant, or I’ll go first and tell you how I feel when I don’t know where you are or why you want to be there!”

“I’ve sent word to you both nights.”

“You sent a damned note that arrived long after nightfall both times, informing me that you intended to sleep somewhere else. I want to know
why?”

He has men beaten like animals,
she reminded herself. “Stop shouting at me,” Elizabeth said shakily, getting out of bed and dragging the covers with her to hide herself from him.

His brows snapped together in an ominous frown. “Elizabeth?” he asked, reaching for her.

“Don’t touch me!” she cried.

Bentner’s voice came from the doorway. “Is aught amiss, my lady?” he asked, glaring bravely at Ian.

“Get out of here and close that damned door behind you!” Ian snapped furiously.

“Leave it open,” Elizabeth said nervously, and the brave butler did exactly as she said.

In six long strides Ian was at the door, shoving it closed with a force that sent it crashing into its frame, and Elizabeth began to vibrate with terror. When he turned around and started toward her Elizabeth tried to back away, but she tripped on the coverlet and had to stay where she was.

Ian saw the fear in her eyes and stopped short only inches in front of her. His hand lifted, and she winced, but it came to rest on her cheek. “Darling, what is it?” he asked. It was his voice that made her want to weep at his feet, that beautiful baritone voice; and his face – that harsh, handsome face she’d adored. She wanted to beg him to tell her what Robert and Wordsworth had said were lies – all lies.
“My life depends on this. Elizabeth. So does yours. Don’t fail us,”
Robert had pleaded. Yet, in that moment of weakness she actually considered telling Ian everything she knew and letting him kill her if he wanted to; she would have preferred death to the torment of living with the memory of the lie that had been their lives – to the torment of living without him.

“Are you ill?” he asked, frowning and minutely studying her face.

Snatching at the excuse he’d offered, she nodded hastily. “Yes. I haven’t been feeling well.”

“Is that why you went to London? To see a physician?” She nodded a little wildly, and to her bewildered horror he started to smile – that lazy, tender smile that always made her senses leap. “Are you with child, darling? Is that why you’re acting so strangely?” Elizabeth was silent, trying to debate the wisdom of saying yes or no-she should say no, she realized. He’d hunt her to the ends of the earth if he believed she was carrying his babe.

“No! He – the doctor said it is just-just – nerves.”

“You’ve been working and playing too hard,” Ian said, looking like the picture of a worried, devoted husband. “You need more rest.”

Elizabeth couldn’t bear any more of this – not his feigned tenderness or his concern or the memory of Robert’s battered back. “I’m going to sleep now,” she said in a strangled voice.
“Alone.”
she added, and his face whitened as if she had slapped him.

During his entire adult life Ian had relied almost as much on his intuition as on his intellect, and at that moment he didn’t want to believe in the explanation they were both offering. His wife did not want him in her bed; she recoiled from his touch; she had been away for two consecutive nights; and – more alarming than any of that – guilt and fear were written allover her pale face.

“Do you know what a man thinks,” he said in a calm voice that belied the pain streaking through him, “when his wife stays away at night and doesn’t want him in her bed when she does return?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

“He thinks,” Ian said dispassionately, “that perhaps someone else has been taking his place in it.”

Fury sent bright flags of color to her pale cheeks.

“You’re blushing, my dear,” he said in an awful voice.

“I am furious!” she countered, momentarily forgetting that she was confronting a madman.

His stunned look was replaced almost instantly by an expression of relief and then bafflement. “I apologize, Elizabeth.”

“Would you p-please get out of here!” Elizabeth burst out in a final explosion of strength. “Just go away and let me rest. I told you I was tired. And I don’t see what right you have to be so upset! We had a bargain before we married – I was to be allowed to live my life without interference, and quizzing me like this is interference!” Her voice broke, and after another narrowed look he strode out of the room.

Numb with relief and pain, Elizabeth crawled back into bed and pulled the covers up under her chin, but not even their luxurious warmth could still the alternating chills and fever that quaked through her. Several minutes later a shadow crossed her bed, and she almost screamed with terror before she realized it was Ian, who had entered silently through the connecting door of their suite.

Since she’d gasped aloud when she saw him, it was useless to pretend she was sleeping. In silent dread she watched him walking toward her bed. Wordlessly he sat down beside her, and she realized there was a glass in his hand. He put it on the bedside table, then he reached behind her to prop up her pillows, leaving Elizabeth no choice but to sit up and lean back against them. “Drink this,” he instructed in a calm tone.

“What is it?” she asked suspiciously.

“It’s brandy. It will help you sleep.”

He watched while she sipped it, and when he spoke again there was a tender smile in his voice. “Since we’ve ruled out another man as the explanation for all this, I can only assume something has gone wrong at Havenhurst. Is that it?”

Elizabeth seized on that excuse as if it were manna from heaven. “Yes,” she whispered, nodding vigorously.

Leaning down, he pressed a kiss on her forehead and said teasingly, “Let me guess – you discovered the mill overcharged you?” Elizabeth thought she would die of the sweet torment when he continued tenderly teasing her about being thrifty. “Not the mill? Then it was the baker, and he refused to give you a better price for buying two loaves instead of one.”

Tears swelled behind her eyes, treacherously close to the surface, and Ian saw them.
“That
bad?” be joked, looking at the suspicious sheen in her eyes. “Then it must be that you’ve overspent your allowance.” When she didn’t respond to his light probing, Ian smiled reassuringly and said, “Whatever it is, we’ll work it out together tomorrow.”

It sounded as though he planned to stay, and that shook Elizabeth out of her mute misery enough to say chokingly, “No – it’s the-the masons. They’re costing much more than I-I expected. I’ve spent part of my personal allowance on them besides the loan you made me for Havenhurst.”

“Oh, so it’s the
masons,”
he grinned, chuckling. “You have to keep your eye on them, to be sure. They’ll put you in the poorhouse if you don’t keep an eye on the mortar they’ll charge you for. I’ll have a talk with them in the morning.”  

“No!” she burst out, fabricating wildly. “That’s just what has me so upset. I didn’t want you to have to intercede. I wanted to do it all myself. I have it all settled now, but it’s been exhausting. And so I went to the doctor to see why I felt tired. He-he said there’s nothing in the world wrong with me. I’ll come home to Montmayne the day after tomorrow. Don’t wait here for me. I know how busy you are right now. Please,” she implored desperately, “let me do this, I beg you!”

Ian straightened and shook his head in baffled disbelief. “I’d give you my life for the price of your smile, Elizabeth. You don’t have to beg me for anything. I do not want you spending your personal allowance on this place, however. If you do,” he lied teasingly, “I may be forced to cut it off.” Then, more seriously, he said, “If you need more money for Havenhurst, just tell me, but your allowance is to be spent exclusively on yourself. Finish your brandy,” he ordered gently, and when she had, he pressed another kiss on her forehead. “Stay here as long as you must. I have business in Devon that I’ve been putting off because I didn’t want to leave you. I’ll go there and return to London on Tuesday. Would you like to join me there instead of at Montmayne?”

Elizabeth nodded.

“There’s just one thing more,” he finished, studying her pale face and strained features. “Will you give me your word the doctor didn’t find anything at all to be alarmed about?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “I give you my word.”

She watched him walk back into his own bed chamber. The moment his door clicked into its latch Elizabeth turned over and buried her face in the pillows. She wept until she thought there couldn’t possibly be any more tears left in her, and then she wept harder.

Across the room the door leading out into the hall was opened a crack, and Berta peeked in, then quickly closed it. Turning to Bentner – who’d sought her counsel when Ian slammed the door in his face and ripped into Elizabeth, Berta said miserably, “She’s crying like her heart will break, but he’s not in there anymore.”

“He ought to be shot!” Bentner said with blazing contempt.

Berta nodded timidly and clutched her dressing robe closer about her. “He’s a frightening man, to be sure, Mr. Bentner.”

CHAPTER 33

When Elizabeth hadn’t arrived at the town house in Upper Brook Street by Tuesday night, all the misgivings Ian had been trying to stifle came back with a vengeance. At eleven o’clock that night he sent two footmen to Havenhurst to ask if they knew where she was, and two others to Montmayne to see if she was there.

At ten-thirty the next morning he was apprised of the fact that the Havenhurst servants thought she’d gone to Montmayne five days ago, while his servants believed her to have been at Havenhurst the entire time. Elizabeth had vanished five days ago, and no one had thought to sound an alarm.

At one o’clock that afternoon Ian met with the head of Bow Street, and by four o’clock he’d hired a private team of one hundred investigators to search for her. There was little he could tell them. All anyone knew for certain was that Elizabeth had vanished from Havenhurst, where she had last been seen that night with him; that she had apparently taken nothing with her except whatever clothes she was wearing; and no one yet knew what clothes they were.

There was one other thing Ian knew, but he wasn’t yet ready to reveal it unless he absolutely had to, and it was the sole reason he was desperately trying to keep her disappearance a secret. He knew his wife had been terrified of something, or someone, the last night she was with him. Blackmail was the only thing Ian could think of, but blackmailers didn’t kidnap their victims, and for the life of him he couldn’t imagine what in Elizabeth’s innocent young life she might have done to attract a blackmailer. Without blackmail as a motive, no criminal would be demented enough to abduct a marchioness and set the entire English justice system on his heels.

Beyond all that, he could not bear to consider the one remaining possibility. He wouldn’t let himself even imagine that she might have run away with some unknown lover. But as hour merged into day and day followed night, it became harder to banish the ugly, tormenting thought. He prowled around the house, he stood in her room to be closer to her, and then he drank. He drank to still the ache of her loss and the unnamed terror inside him.

On the sixth day the newspapers learned of the investigations into the disappearance of Lady Elizabeth Thornton, and the news was splashed across the front pages of the
Times
and the
Gazette,
along with a great deal of lurid speculation that included kidnapping, blackmail, and even broad hints that the Marchioness of Kensington might have decided to leave “for unknown reasons of her own.”

After that, not even the combined power of the Thornton and Townsende families could keep the press from printing every word of truth, conjecture, or blatant falsehood they could discover or invent. They seemed to know, and to print, every morsel of information that Bow Street and Ian’s investigators were discovering. Servants were questioned at all of Ian’s houses and at Havenhurst, and their statements were “quoted” by the avid press. Details of Ian and Elizabeth’s private life were fed to the insatiable public like shovelfuls of fodder.

In fact, it was from an article in the
Times
that Ian first learned that he was now a suspect. According to the
Times,
the butler at Havenhurst had supposedly witnessed a quarrel between Lord and Lady Thornton on the very night Lady Thornton was last seen. The cause of the quarrel, the butler said, had been Lord Thornton’s vicious attack on Lady Thornton’s moral character as it pertained to “certain things best left unsaid.”