Almost Heaven

by Judith McNaught

  There was a smile in his voice as he answered, “Not angry. Stunned.”

  “Well, I couldn’t let them call you a cheat when I knew perfectly well you weren’t.”

  “I imagine I’ve been called worse,” he said mildly. “Particularly by your hotheaded young friend Everly.”

  Elizabeth wondered what could be worse than being called a cheat, but good manners forbade her asking. Lifting her head, she gazed apprehensively into his eyes and asked, “You don’t mean to demand satisfaction from Lord Everly at a later date, do you?”

  “I hope,” he teased, grinning, “that I’m not so ungrateful as to spoil all your handiwork in the card room by doing such a thing. Besides, it would be very impolite of me to kill him when you’d just made it very clear he’d already engaged himself to escort you tomorrow.”

  Elizabeth chuckled, her cheeks warm with embarrassment. “I know I sounded like the veriest peagoose, but it was the only thing I could think of to say. My brother is hot-tempered, too, you see. I discovered long ago that whenever he flies into the boughs, if I tease or cajole him, he recovers his spirits much more quickly than if I try to reason with him.”

  “I very much fear,” Ian told her, “that you’ll still be without Everly’s escort tomorrow.”

  “Because he’ll be angry at me for interfering, do you mean?”

  “Because at this moment his beleaguered valet has probably been rudely awakened from his sleep and ordered to pack his lordship’s bags. He won’t want to stay here, Elizabeth, after what happened in the card room. I’m afraid you humiliated him in your effort to save his life, and I compounded it by refusing to duel with him.”

  Elizabeth’s wide green eyes shadowed, and he added reassuringly, “Regardless of that, he’s better off alive and humbled than dead and proud.”

  That, Elizabeth thought to herself, was probably the difference between a gentleman born, like Lord Everly, and a gentleman made, like Ian Thornton: A true gentleman preferred death to disgrace—according to Robert, at least, who was forever pointing out the distinguishing factors of his own class.

  “You disagree?”

  Too immersed in her own thoughts to think how her words would sound, she nodded and said, “Lord Everly is a gentleman and a noble—as such, he would probably prefer death to dishonor.”

  “Lord Everly,” he contradicted mildly, “is a reckless young fool to risk his life over a game of cards. Life is too precious for that. Ke’ll thank me same day for refusing him.”

  “It’s a gentleman’s code of honor,” she repeated.

  “Dying over an argument isn’t honor, it’s a waste of a man’s life. A man volunteers to die for a cause he believes in, or to protect others he cares about. Any other reason is nothing more than stupidity.”

  “If I hadn’t interfered, would you have accepted his challenge?”

  “No.”

  “No? Do you mean,” she uttered in surprise, “you’d have let him call you a cheat and not lifted a finger to defend your honor or your good name?”

  “I don’t think my ‘honor’ was at stake, and even if it was, I fail to see how murdering a boy would redeem it. As far as my ‘good name’ is concerned, it, too, has been questioned more than once.”

  “If so, why does the Duke of Hammund champion you in society, which he obviously has done tonight?”

  His gaze lost its softness, and his smile faded. “Does it matter?”

  Gazing up into those mesmerizing amber eyes, with his arms around her, Elizabeth couldn’t think very clearly. She wasn’t certain anything mattered at that moment except the sound of his deep, compelling voice. “I suppose not,” she said shakily.

  “If it will reassure you that I’m not a coward, I suppose I could rearrange his face.” Quietly he added, “The music has ended,” and for the first time Elizabeth realized they were no longer waltzing but were only swaying lightly together. With no other excuse to stand in his arms, Elizabeth tried to ignore her disappointment and step back, but just then the musicians began another melody, and their bodies began to move together in perfect time to the music.

  “Since I’ve already deprived you of your escort for the outing to the village tomorrow,” he said after a minute, “would you consider an alternative?”

  Her heart soared, because she thought he was going to offer to escort her himself. Again he read her thoughts, but his words were dampening.

  “I cannot escort you there,” he said flatly.

  Her smile faded. “Why not?”

  “Don’t be a henwit. Being seen in my company is hardly the sort of thing to enhance a debutante’s reputation.”

  Her mind whirled, trying to tally some sort of balance sheet that would disprove his claim. After all, he was a favorite of the Duke of Hammund’s . . . but while the duke was considered a great matrimonial prize, his reputation as a libertine and rake made mamas fear him as much as they coveted him as a son-in-law. On the other hand, Charise Dumont was considered perfectly respectable by the ton, and so this country gathering was above reproach. Except it wasn’t, according to Lord Howard. “Is that why you refused to dance with me when I asked you to earlier?”

  “That was part of the reason.”

  “What was the rest of it?” she asked curiously.

  His chuckle was grim. “Call it a well-developed instinct for self-preservation.”

  “What?”

  “Your eyes are more lethal than dueling pistols, my sweet,” he said wryly. “They could make a saint forget his goal.”

  Elizabeth had heard many flowery praises sung to her beauty, and she endured them with polite disinterest, but Ian’s blunt, almost reluctant flattery made her chuckle. Later she would realize that at this moment she had made her greatest mistake of all—she had been lulled into regarding him as an equal, a gently bred person whom she could trust, even relax with. “What sort of alternative were you going to suggest for tomorrow?”

  “Luncheon,” he said. “Somewhere private where we can talk, and where we won’t be seen together.”

  A cozy picnic luncheon for two was definitely not on Lucinda’s list of acceptable pastimes for London debutantes, but even so, Elizabeth was reluctant to refuse. “Outdoors . . . by the lake?” she speculated aloud, trying to justify the idea by making it public.

  “I think it’s going to rain tomorrow, and besides, we’d risk being seen together there.”

  “Then where?”

  “In the woods. I’ll meet you at the woodcutter’s cottage at the south end of the property near the stream at eleven. There’s a path that leads to it two miles from the gate—off the main road.” Elizabeth was too alarmed by such a prospect to stop to wonder how and when Ian Thornton had become so familiar with Charise’s property and all its secluded haunts.

  “Absolutely not,” she said in a shaky, breathless voice. Even she was not naïve enough to consider being alone with a man in a cottage, and she was terribly disappointed that he’d suggested it. Gentlemen didn’t make such suggestions, and well-bred ladies never accepted them. Lucinda’s warnings about such things had been eloquent and, Elizabeth felt, sensible. Elizabeth gave a sharp jerk, trying to pull out of his arms.

  His arms tightened just enough to keep her close, and his lips nearly brushed her hair as he said with amusement, “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that a lady never deserts her partner before the dance is over?”

  “It’s over!” Elizabeth said in a choked whisper, and they both knew she referred to more than just the dancing. “I’m not nearly the greenhead you must take me for,” she warned, frowning darkly at his frilled shirtfront. A ruby winked back at her from the folds of his white neckcloth.

  “I give you my word,” he said quietly, “not to force myself upon you tomorrow.”

  Oddly, Elizabeth believed him, but even so she knew she could never keep such an assignation.

  “I give you my word as a gentleman,” he said again.

  “If you were a gentleman, you’d never make me
such a proposition,” Elizabeth said, trying to ignore the dull ache of disappointment in her chest.

  “Now there’s an unarguable piece of logic,” be replied grimly. “On the other hand, it’s the only choice open to us.”

  “It’s no choice at all. We shouldn’t even be out here.”

  “I’ll wait for you at the cottage until noon tomorrow.”

  “I won’t be there.”

  “I’ll wait until noon,” he insisted.

  “You will be wasting your time. Let go of me, please. This has all been a mistake!”

  “Then we may as well make two of them,” he said harshly, and his arm abruptly tightened, bringing her closer to his body. “Look at me, Elizabeth.” he whispered, and his warm breath stirred the hair at her temple.

  Warning bells screamed through her, belated but loud. If she lifted her head, he was going to kiss her. “I do not want you to kiss me,” she warned him, but it wasn’t completely true.

  “Then say good-bye to me now.”

  Elizabeth lifted her head, dragging her eyes past his finely sculpted mouth to meet his gaze. “Good-bye,” she told him, amazed that her voice didn’t shake.

  His eyes moved down her face as if he were memorizing it, then they fixed on her lips. His hands slid down her arms and abruptly released her as he stepped back. “Good-bye, Elizabeth.”

  Elizabeth turned and took a step, but the regret in his deep voice made her turn back . . . or perhaps it had been her own heart that had twisted as if she was leaving something behind—something she’d regret. Separated by less than two feet physically and a chasm socially, they looked at each other in silence. “They’ve probably noticed our absence,” she said lamely, and she wasn’t certain whether she was making excuses for leaving him there or hoping he’d convince her to remain.

  “Possibly.” His expression was impassive, his voice coolly polite, as if he was already beyond her reach again.

  “I really must go back.”

  “Of course.”

  “You do understand, don’t you . . .” Elizabeth’s voice trailed off as she looked at the tall, handsome man whom society deemed unsuitable merely because he wasn’t a blue blood, and suddenly she hated all the restrictions of the stupid social system that was trying to enslave her. Swallowing, she tried again, wishing that he’d either tell her to go or open his arms to her as he had when he’d asked her to dance. “You do understand that I can’t possibly be with you tomorrow . . .

  “Elizabeth,” he interrupted in a husky whisper, and suddenly his eyes were smoldering as he held out his hand, sensing victory before Elizabeth ever realized she was defeated. “Come here.”

  Of its own accord Elizabeth’s hand lifted, his fingers closed around it, and suddenly she was hauled forward; arms like steel bands encircled her, and a warm, searching mouth descended on hers. Parted lips, tender and insistent, stroked hers, molding and shaping them to fit his, and then the kiss deepened abruptly while hands tightened on her back and shoulders, caressing and possessive. A soft moan interrupted the silence, but Elizabeth didn’t know the sound came from her, she was reaching up, her hands grasping broad shoulders, clinging to them for support in a world that had suddenly become dark and exquisitely sensual, where nothing mattered except the body and mouth locked hungrily to hers.

  When he finally dragged his mouth from hers Ian kept his arms around her, and Elizabeth laid her cheek against his crisp white shirt, feeling his lips brush the hair atop her head. “That was an even bigger mistake than I feared it would be,” he said, and then he added almost absently, “God help us both.”

  Strangely, it was that last remark that frightened Elizabeth back to her senses. The fact that he thought they’d gone so far that they’d both need some sort of divine assistance hit her like a bucket of ice water. She pulled out of his arms and began smoothing creases from her skirt. When she felt able, she lifted her face to his and said with a poise born of sheer terror, “None of this should have happened. However, if we both return to the ballroom and contrive to spend time with others, perhaps no one will think we were together out here. Good-bye, Mr. Thornton.”

  “Good night, Miss Cameron.”

  Elizabeth was too desperate to escape to remark on his gentle emphasis on the words “good night,” which he’d deliberately used instead of “good-bye,” nor did she notice at the time that he didn’t seem to realize she was correctly Lady Cameron, not Miss Cameron.

  Choosing one of the side doors off the balcony rather than the ones entering directly into the ballroom, Elizabeth tried the handle and gave a sigh of relief when the door opened. She slipped into what looked to be a small salon with a door at the opposite end leading, she hoped, into an empty hallway. After the relative silence of the night the house seemed to be a crashing cacophony of laughter, voices, and music that rubbed on her raw nerves as she tiptoed across the little salon.

  Luck seemed to be smiling on her, because the hall was deserted, and once there she changed her mind and decided to go to her chamber, where she could quickly freshen up. She hurried up the staircase and had just crossed the landing when she heard Penelope ask in a puzzled voice from the lower landing, “Has anyone seen Elizabeth? We’re going down to supper shortly, and Lord Howard wishes to escort her.”

  Inspired, Elizabeth hastily smoothed her hair, shook out her skirt, and uttered a silent prayer that she didn’t look like someone who had been engaging in a forbidden assignation in the arbor only minutes before.

  “I believe,” Valerie said in a cool voice, “that she was last seen going out into the garden. And it appears Mr. Thornton has also vanished—” She broke off in astonishment as Elizabeth made her poised descent down the staircase she’d hurtled up only moments before.

  “Heavens,” Elizabeth said sheepishly, smiling at Penelope and then Valerie, “I don’t know why the heat seems so oppressive this evening. I thought to escape it in the garden, and when that failed I went upstairs to lie down for a short while.”

  Together the girls strolled through the ballroom, then past the card room, where several gentlemen were playing billiards. Elizabeth’s pulse gave a nervous leap when she saw Ian Thornton leaning over the table closest to the door, a billiard cue poised in his hand. He glanced up and saw the three young ladies, two of whom were staring at him. With cool civility he nodded to all three of them, then he let fly with the cue stick. Elizabeth listened to the sound of balls flying against wood and dropping into pockets, followed by the Duke of Hammund’s admiring laugh.

  “He is wondrously handsome in a dark, frightening sort of way,” admitted Georgina in a whisper. “There’s something—well—dangerous about him, too,” she added with a delicate shiver of delight.

  “True,” remarked Valerie with a shrug, “but you were right earlier—he is without background, breeding, or connections.”

  Elizabeth heard the gist of their whispered conversation, but she paid it little heed. Her miraculous good fortune of the last few minutes had convinced her that there was a God who watched over her now and then, and she was uttering a silent prayer of thanks to Him, along with a promise that she would never, ever put herself in such a compromising situation again. She had just said a silent “Amen” when it occurred to her that she’d counted four billiard balls dropping into the pockets after Ian had taken his shot Four! When she played with Robert, the most he’d ever been able to drop was three, and he claimed to excel at billiards.

  Elizabeth’s sense of buoyant relief remained with her as she went down to supper on Lord Howard’s arm. Oddly, it began to disintegrate as she talked with the gentlemen and ladies seated around them at their table. Despite their lively conversation, it took all Elizabeth’s control to keep herself from looking about the lavishly decorated, huge room to see at which of the blue-linen-covered tables Ian was seated. A footman who was serving lobster stopped at her elbow, offering to serve her, and Elizabeth looked up at him and nodded. Unable to endure the suspense any longer, she used the footman�
�s presence as an excuse to idly glance about the room. She scanned the sea of jeweled coiffures that shifted and bobbed like brightly colored corks, the glasses being raised and lowered, and then she saw him—seated at the head table between the Duke of Hammund and Valerie’s beautiful sister Charise. The duke was talking with a gorgeous blonde who was said to be his current mistress; Ian was listening attentively to Charise’s animated discourse, a lazy grin on his tanned face, her hand resting possessively on the sleeve of his jacket He laughed at something she said, and Elizabeth snapped her gaze from the pair, but her stomach felt as if she’d been punched. They seemed so right together—both of them sophisticated, dark-haired, and striking; no doubt they had much in common, she thought a little dismally as she picked up her knife and fork and went to work on her lobster.

  Beside her, Lord Howard leaned close and teased, “It’s dead, you know.”

  Elizabeth glanced blankly at him, and he nodded to the lobster she was still sawing needlessly upon. “It’s dead,” he repeated. “There’s no need to try to kill it twice.”

  Mortified, Elizabeth smiled and sighed and thereafter made an all-out effort to ingratiate herself with the rest of the party at their table. As Lord Howard had forewarned, the gentlemen, who by now had all seen or heard about her escapade in the card room, were noticeably cooler, and so Elizabeth tried ever harder to be her most engaging self. It was only the second time in her life she’d actually used the feminine wiles she was born with—the first time being her first encounter with Ian Thornton in the garden —and she was a little amazed by her easy success. One by one the men at the table unbent enough to talk and laugh with her. During that long, trying hour Elizabeth repeatedly had the strange feeling that Ian was watching her, and toward the end, when she could endure it no longer, she did glance at the place where he was seated. His narrowed amber eyes were leveled on her face, and Elizabeth couldn’t tell whether he disapproved of this flirtatious side of her or whether he was puzzled by it.