Almost Heaven (70 page)

“I’ll get it back for her,” he promised with a somber smile. “Where is she?”

Alexandra’s mouth fell open at the tenderness in his eyes and voice.

“Where is she?” he repeated with calm determination.

“I cannot tell you,” Alex said with a twinge of regret. “You know I cannot. I gave my word.”

“Would it have the slightest effect,” Ian countered smoothly, “if I were to ask Jordan to exert his husbandly influence to persuade you to tell me anyway?”

“I’m afraid not,” Alexandra assured him. She expected him to challenge that; instead a reluctant smile drifted across his handsome face. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “You’re very like Elizabeth. You remind me of her.”

Still slightly mistrustful of his apparent change of heart, Alex said primly, “I deem that a great compliment, my lord.”

To her utter disbelief, Ian Thornton reached out and chucked her under the chin. “I meant it as one,” he informed her with a grin.

Turning, Ian started for the door, then stopped at the sight of Jordan, who was lounging in the doorway, an amused, knowing smile on his face. “If you’d keep track of your own wife, Ian you would not have to search for similarities in mine.” When their unexpected guest had left, Jordan asked Alex, “Are you going to send Elizabeth a message to let her know he’s coming for her?”

Alex started to nod, then she hesitated. “I-I don’t think so. I’ll tell her that he
asked
where she is, which is all he really did.”

“He’ll go to her as soon as he figures it out.”

“Perhaps.”

“You still don’t trust him, do you?” Jordan said with a surprised smile.

“I do after this last visit – to a certain extent – but
not
with Elizabeth’s heart. He’s hurt her terribly, and I won’t give her false hopes and, in doing so, help him hurt her again.”

Reaching out, Jordan chucked her under the chin as his cousin had done, then he pulled her into his arms. “She’s hurt him, too, you know.”

“Perhaps,” Alex admitted reluctantly.

Jordan smiled against her hair. “You were more forgiving when I trampled your heart, my love,” he teased.

“That’s because I loved
you,”
she replied as she laid her cheek against his chest, her arms stealing around his waist.

“And will you love my cousin just a little if he makes amends to Elizabeth?”

“I might find it in my heart,” she admitted, “if he gets Havenhurst back for her.”

“It’ll cost him a fortune if he tries,” Jordan chuckled. “Do you know who bought it?”

“No, do you?”

He nodded. “Philip Demarcus.”

She giggled against his chest. “Isn’t he that dreadful man who told the prince he’d have to pay to ride in his new yacht up the Thames?”

“The very same.”

“Do you suppose Mr. Demarcus cheated Elizabeth?”

“Not our Elizabeth,” Jordan laughed. “But I wouldn’t like to be in Ian’s place if Demarcus realizes the place has sentimental value to Ian. The price will soar.”

In the ensuing two weeks Ian managed to buy back Elizabeth’s emeralds and Havenhurst, but he was unable to find a trace of his wife. The town house in London felt like a prison, not a home, and still he waited, sensing somehow that Elizabeth was putting him through this torment to teach him some kind of well-deserved lesson.

He returned to Montmayne, where, for several more weeks, he prowled about its rooms, paced a track in the drawing room carpet, and stared into its marble-fronted fireplaces as if the answer would be there in the flames. Finally he could stand it no more. He couldn’t concentrate on his work, and when he tried, he made mistakes. Worse, he was beginning to be haunted with walking nightmares that she’d come to harm – or that she was falling in love with someone kinder than he – and the tormenting illusions followed him from room to room.

On a clear, cold day in early December, after leaving instructions with his footmen, butler, and even his cook that he was to be notified immediately if any word at all was received from Elizabeth, he left for the cottage in Scotland. It was the one place where he might find peace from the throbbing emptiness that was gnawing away at him with a pain that increased unbearably from day to day, because he no longer really believed she would ever contact him. Too much time had passed. If the beautiful, courageous girl he had married had wanted a reconciliation, she’d have done something else to bring it about by now. It was not in Elizabeth’s nature to simply let things happen as they may. And so Ian went home to try to find peace, as he had always done before, except now it was,. not the pressures of his life that brought him up the lane to the cottage on that unusually frigid December night; it was the gaping emptiness of his life.

Inside the cottage Elizabeth stood at the window, watching the snow-covered lane, as she’d been doing ever since Ian’s message to the caretaker had been delivered to her by the vicar three days before. Ian was coming home, she knew, but he obviously hadn’t the slightest notion she was there. His message had simply said to have the cottage stocked with wood and food, and cleaned, because he intended to stay for two months. Standing at the window, Elizabeth watched the moonlit path, telling herself she was ridiculous to think he would arrive at night, more ridiculous yet to be dressed for his arrival in her favorite sapphire wool gown with her hair loose about her shoulders, as Ian liked best.

A tall, dark form appeared around the bend of the lane, and Elizabeth pulled shut the new, heavy curtains she’d made, her heart beginning to hammer with a mixture of hope and dread as she recalled that the last time she’d seen him, he’d been leaving a ball with Jane Addison on his arm. Suddenly the idea of being here, where he didn’t expect her to be – and probably didn’t want her to be – didn’t seem good at all.

After putting his horse in the barn Ian rubbed him down, then made certain he had food. Dim light shone through the windows of the cottage as he walked through the snow, and the smell of woodsmoke rose from the chimney. The caretaker was evidently there, awaiting his arrival. Kicking the snow off his boots, he reached for the door handle.

In the center of the room Elizabeth stood stock still, clasping and unclasping her hands, watching the handle turn, unable to breathe with the tension. The door swung open, admitting a blast of frigid air and a tall, broad shouldered man who glanced at Elizabeth in the firelight and said, “Henry, it wasn’t necess –”

Ian broke off, the door still open, staring at what he momentarily thought was a hallucination, a trick of the flames dancing in the fireplace, and then he realized the vision was real. Elizabeth was standing perfectly still, looking at him. And lying at her feet was a young Labrador retriever.

Trying to buy time, Ian turned around and carefully closed the door as if latching it with precision were the most paramount thing in his life, while he tried to decide whether she’d looked happy or not to see him. In the long lonely nights without her, he’d rehearsed dozens of speeches to her-from stinging lectures to gentle discussions. Now, when the time was finally here, he could not remember one damn word of any of them.

Left with no other choice, he took the only neutral course available. Turning back to the room, Ian looked at the Labrador. “Who’s this?” he asked, walking forward and crouching down to pet the dog, because he didn’t know what the hell to say to his wife.

Elizabeth swallowed her disappointment as he ignored her and stroked the Labrador’s glossy black head. “I-I call her Shadow.”

The sound of her voice was so sweet, Ian almost pulled her down into his arms. Instead, he glanced at her, thinking it encouraging she’d named her dog after his. “Nice name.”

Elizabeth bit her lip, trying to hide her sudden wayward smile. “Original, too.”

The smile hit Ian like a blow to the head, snapping him out of his untimely and unsuitable preoccupation with the dog. Straightening, he backed up a step and leaned his hip against the table, his weight braced on his opposite leg.

Elizabeth instantly noticed the altering of his expression and watched nervously as he crossed his arms over his chest, watching her, his face inscrutable. “You-you look well,” she said, thinking he looked unbearably handsome.

“I’m perfectly fine,” he assured her, his gaze level. “Remarkably well, actually, for a man who hasn’t seen the sun shine in more than three months, or been able to sleep without drinking a bottle of brandy.”

His tone was so frank and unemotional that Elizabeth didn’t immediately grasp what he was saying. When she did, tears of joy and relief sprang to her eyes as he continued: “I’ve been working very hard. Unfortunately, I rarely get anything accomplished, and when I do, it’s generally wrong. All things considered, I would say that I’m doing very well – for a man who’s been more than half dead for three months.”

Ian saw the tears shimmering in her magnificent eyes, and one of them traced unheeded down her smooth cheek.

With a raw ache in his voice he said, “If you would take one step forward, darling, you could cry in my arms. And while you do, I’ll tell you how sorry I am for everything I’ve done –” Unable to wait, Ian caught her, pulling her tightly against him. “And when I’m finished,” he whispered hoarsely as she wrapped her arms around him and wept brokenly, “you can help me find a way to forgive myself.”

Tortured by her tears, he clasped her tighter and rubbed his jaw against her temple, his voice a ravaged whisper: “I’m sorry,” he told her. He cupped her face between his palms, tipping it up and gazing into her eyes, his thumbs moving over her wet cheeks. “I’m sorry.” Slowly, he bent his head, covering her mouth with his. “I’m so damned
sorry.
“

She kissed him back, holding him fiercely to her while shattered sobs racked her slender body and tears poured from her eyes. Tormented by her anguish, Ian dragged his mouth from hers, kissing her wet cheeks, running his hands over her shaking back and shoulders, trying to comfort her. “Please darling, don’t cry anymore,” he pleaded hoarsely. “Please don’t.” She held him tighter, weeping, her cheek pressed to his chest, her tears soaking his heavy woolen shirt and tearing at his heart.

“Don’t,” Ian whispered, his voice raw with his own unshed tears. “You’re tearing me apart.” An instant after he said those words, he realized that she’d stop crying to keep from hurting him, and he felt her shudder, trying valiantly to get control. He cupped the back of her head, crumpling the silk of her hair, holding her face pressed to his chest, imagining the nights he’d made her weep like this, despising himself with a virulence that was almost past bearing.

He’d driven her here, to hide from the vengeance of his divorce petition, and still she had been waiting for him. In all the endless weeks since she’d confronted him in his study and warned him she wouldn’t let him put her out of his life, Ian had never imagined that she would be hurting like this.

She was twenty years old and she had loved him. In return, he had tried to divorce her, publicly scorned her, privately humiliated her, and then he had driven her here to weep in solitude and wait for him. Self-loathing and shame poured through him like hot acid, almost doubling him over. Humbly, he whispered, “Will you come upstairs with me?”

She nodded, her cheek rubbing his chest, and he swung her into his arms, cradling her tenderly against him, brushing his lips against her forehead. He carried her upstairs, intending to take her to bed and give her so much pleasure that – at least for tonight – she’d be able to forget the misery he’d caused her.

Elizabeth knew, the moment he put her down in the bed chamber and began gently undressing her, that something was different. Confusion fluttered through her as he took her in his arms in bed, his body rigid with desire, his mouth and hands skillful as he kissed and caressed her, but the moment she tried to caress him in return, he forced her back onto the pillows, evading her touch, gently imprisoning her wrists. Kissed and caressed into near insensibility, desperate to please him as he had taught her to do, Elizabeth reached for him the moment his grip loosened on her hands. His body jerked away from her touch. “Don’t,” he whispered, but she heard the passion thickening his voice, and so she obeyed.

Refusing to let her do anything to increase his pleasure, he brought her to the very brink of fulfillment with his hands and mouth before he shifted on top of her and entered her with one sure, powerful thrust. Elizabeth strained toward him in trembling need, her nails biting into his back as his rhythmic thrusts began, and then slowly, he started increasing their tempo. The sweetness of being filled by him again, combined with the fierce power of his body driving deeply into hers again and again, sent pleasure streaking through her and she instinctively arched herself upward in a fevered need to share it with him. His hands gripped her hips, while he quickened the pace of his deep plunging strokes, circling his hips, forcing the trembling ecstasy to overtake her until she cried out, shuddering with the sweet violence of it, her arms locked fiercely around his broad shoulders.

Slowly, Elizabeth began to surface from the stormy splendor of his lovemaking, aware in some passion-drugged part of her mind that she had been the only one to find that quaking fulfillment. She opened her eyes, and in the firelight, she could see the harsh effort Ian was exerting to stop himself from moving within her and finding his own release. His hands were braced on either side of her shoulders, and he was holding his upper body away from hers; his eyes were clenched shut, and a muscle jerked spasmodically in his cheek. They had been so attuned to each other during the months of their marriage, that Elizabeth instinctively realized what he was doing, and the knowledge filled her with poignant tenderness. He was trying to atone to her in the only way he could right now – by unselfishly prolonging their lovemaking.
 
And in order to do that, he was deliberately denying himself the release that Elizabeth knew he desperately wanted. It was, she thought tenderly, a loving gesture – and a futile one. Because this was not at all what she wanted, and Ian had taught her to show him what she wanted. He had also taught her the power she had over his body – and he had shown her how to use it. Always an excellent student, Elizabeth put her knowledge into immediate – and very effective use.