Almost Heaven

by Judith McNaught

  An hour later, her hair still damp, she put on a simple peach gown with short puffed sleeves and a narrow peach ribbon at the high waist. Sitting on the bed, she brushed her hair slowly, letting it dry, while she reflected with some amusement on how ill-suited her clothes were for this cottage in Scotland. When her hair was dry she stood at the mirror, gathering the mass at her nape, then shoving it high into a haphazard chignon she knew would come unbound in only the slightest breeze. With a light shrug she let go of it, and it fell over her shoulders; she decided to leave it that way. Her mood was still bright and cheerful, and she was inwardly convinced it might stay that way from now on.

  Ian had started toward the back door with a blanket in his hand when Elizabeth came downstairs. “Since they aren’t back yet,” he said, “I thought we might as well eat something. We have cheese and bread outside.”

  He’d changed into a clean white shirt and fawn breeches, and as she followed him outside she saw that his dark hair was still damp at the nape.

  Outside he spread a blanket on the grass, and she sat down on one side of it, gazing out across the hills. “What time do you suppose it is?” she asked several minutes after he’d sat down beside her.

  “Around four, I imagine.”

  “Shouldn’t they be back by now?”

  “They probably had difficulty finding women who were willing to leave their own homes and come up here to work.”

  Elizabeth nodded and lost herself in the splendor of the view spread out before them. The cottage was situated on the back edge of a plateau, and where the backyard ended the plateau sloped sharply downward to a valley where a stream meandered among the trees. Surrounding the valley in the distance on all three sides were hills piled on top of one another, carpeted with wildflowers. The view was so beautiful, so wild and verdant, that Elizabeth sat for a long while, enthralled and strangely at peace. Finally a thought intruded, and she cast a worried look at him. “Did you catch any fish?”

  “Several. I’ve already cleaned them.”

  “Yes, but can you cook them?” Elizabeth countered with a grin.

  His lips twitched. “Yes.”

  “That’s a relief, I must say.”

  Drawing up one leg, Ian rested his wrist on his knee and turned to regard her with frank curiosity. “Since when do debutantes include rooting around in the dirt among their preferred entertainments?”

  “I am no longer a debutante,” Elizabeth replied. When she realized he intended to continue waiting for some sort of explanation, she said quietly, “I’m told my grandfather on my mother’s side was an amateur horticulturist, and perhaps I inherited my love of plants and flowers from him. The gardens at Havenhurst were his work. I’ve enlarged them and added some new species since.”

  Her face softened, and her magnificent eyes glowed like bright green jewels at the mention of Havenhurst. Against his better judgment Ian kept her talking about a subject that obviously meant something special to her. “What is Havenhurst?”

  “My home,” she said with a soft smile. “It’s been in our family for seven centuries. The original earl built a castle on it, and it was so beautiful that fourteen different aggressors coveted it and laid siege to it, but no one could take it. The castle was razed centuries later by another ancestor who wished to build a mansion in the classic Greek style. Then the next six earls enhanced and enlarged and modernized it until it became the place it now is. Sometimes,” she admitted, “it’s a little overwhelming to know it’s up to me to see that it is preserved.”

  “I’d think that responsibility falls to your uncle or your brother, not you.”

  “No, it’s mine.”

  “How can it be yours?” he asked, curious that she would speak of the place as if it was everything in the world that mattered to her.

  “Under the entailment Havenhurst must pass to the oldest son. If there is no son, it passes to the daughter, and through her, to her children. My uncle cannot inherit because he was younger than my father. I suppose that’s why he never cared a snap for it and resents so bitterly the cost of its upkeep now.”

  “But you have a brother,” Ian pointed out.

  “Robert is my half-brother,” Elizabeth said, so soothed by the view and by having come to grips with what had happened two years ago that she spoke to him quite freely. “My mother was widowed when she was but twenty-one, and Robert was a babe. She married my father after Robert was born. My father formally adopted him, but it doesn’t change the entailment. Under the terms of the entailment the heir can sell the property outright, but ownership cannot be transferred to any relative. That was done to safeguard against one member or branch of the family coveting the property and exerting undue force on the heir to relinquish it. Something like that happened to one of my grandmothers in the fifteenth century, and that amendment was added to the entailment at her insistence many years later. Her daughter fell in love with a Welshman who was a blackguard,” Elizabeth continued with a smile, “who coveted Havenhurst, not the daughter, and to keep him from getting it her parents had a final codicil added to the entailment.”

  “What was that?” Ian asked, drawn into the history she related with such entertaining skill.

  “It states that if the heir is female, she cannot wed against her guardian’s wishes. In theory it was to stop the females from falling prey to another obvious blackguard. It isn’t always easy for a woman to hold her own property, you see.”

  Ian saw only that the beautiful girl who had daringly come to his defense in a roomful of men, who had kissed him with tender passion, now seemed to be passionately attached not to any man, but to a pile of stones instead. Two years ago he’d been furious when he discovered she was a countess, a shallow little debutante already betrothed—to some bloodless fop, no doubt—and merely looking about for someone more exciting to warm her bed. Now, however, he felt oddly uneasy that she hadn’t married her fop. It was on the tip of his tongue to bluntly ask her why she had never married when she spoke again. “Scotland is different than I imagined it would be.”

  “In what way?”

  “More wild, more primitive. I know gentlemen keep hunting boxes here, but I rather thought they’d have the usual conveniences and servants. What was your home like?”

  “Wild and primitive,” Ian replied. While Elizabeth looked on in surprised confusion, he gathered up the remains of their snack and rolled to his feet with lithe agility. “You’re in it,” he added in a mocking voice.

  “In what?” Elizabeth automatically stood up, too.

  “My home.”

  Hot, embarrassed color stained Elizabeth’s smooth cheeks as they faced each other. He stood there with his dark hair blowing in the breeze, his sternly handsome face stamped with nobility and pride, his muscular body emanating raw power, and she thought he seemed as rugged and invulnerable as the cliffs of his homeland. She opened her mouth, intending to apologize; instead, she inadvertently spoke her private thoughts: “It suits you,” she said softly.

  Beneath his impassive gaze Elizabeth stood perfectly still, refusing to blush or look away, her delicately beautiful face framed by a halo of golden hair tossing in the restless breeze—a dainty image of fragility standing before a man who dwarfed her. Light and darkness, fragility and strength, stubborn pride and iron resolve—two opposites in almost every way. Once their differences had drawn them together; now they separated them. They were both older, wiser— and convinced they were strong enough to withstand and ignore the slow heat building between them on that grassy ledge. “It doesn’t suit you, however,” he remarked mildly.

  His words pulled Elizabeth from the strange spell that had seemed to enclose them. “No,” she agreed without rancor, knowing what a hothouse flower she must seem with her impractical gowns and fragile slippers.

  Bending down, Elizabeth folded the blanket while Ian went into the house and began gathering the guns so that he could clean and and check them before hunting tomorrow. Elizabeth watched him removing the guns f
rom the rack above the mantel, and she glanced at the letter she’d begun to Alexandra. There was no way to post it until she went home, so there was no reason to finish it quickly. On the other hand, there was little else to do, so she sat down and began writing.

  In the midst of her letter a gun exploded outside, and she half rose in nervous surprise. Wondering what he’d shot so close to the house, she walked to the open door and looked outside, watching as he loaded the pistol that had been lying on the table yesterday. He raised it, aiming at some unknown target, and fired. Again he loaded and fired, until curiosity made her step outside, squinting to see what, if anything, he had hit.

  From the corner of his eye Ian glimpsed a slight flash of peach gown and turned.

  “Did you hit the target?” she asked, a little self-conscious at being caught watching him.

  “Yes.” Since she was stranded in the country and obviously knew how to load a gun, Ian realized good manners required that he at least offer her a little diversion. “Care to try your skill?”

  “That depends on the size of the target,” she answered, but Elizabeth was already walking forward, absurdly happy to have something to do besides write letters. She did not stop to consider—would never have let herself contemplate —that she enjoyed his company inordinately when he was pleasant.

  “Who taught you to shoot?” he asked when she was standing beside him.

  “Our coachman.”

  “Better the coachman than your brother,” Ian mocked, handing her the loaded gun. “The target’s that bare twig over there—the one with the leaf hanging off the middle of it.”

  Elizabeth flinched at his sarcastic reference to his duel with Robert. “I’m truly sorry about that duel,” she said, then she concentrated all her attention for the moment on the small twig.

  Propping his shoulder against the tree trunk, Ian watched with amusement as she grasped the heavy gun in both her hands and raised it, biting her lip in concentration. “Your brother was a very poor shot,” he remarked.

  She fired, nicking the leaf at its stem.

  “I’m not,” she said with a jaunty sidewise smile. And then, because the duel was finally out in the open and he seemed to want to joke about it, she tried to follow suit: “If I’d been there, I daresay I would have—”

  His brows lifted. “Waited for the call to fire, I hope?”

  “Well, that, too,” she said, her smile fading as she waited for him to reject her words.

  And at that moment Ian rather believed she would have waited. Despite everything he knew her to be, when he looked at her he saw spirit and youthful courage. She handed the gun back to him, and he handed her another one he’d already loaded. “The last shot wasn’t bad,” he said, dropping the subject of the duel. “However, the target is the twig, not the leaves. The end of the twig,” he added.

  “You must have missed the twig yourself,” she pointed out, lifting the gun and aiming it carefully, “since it’s still there.”

  “True, but it’s shorter than it was when I started.”

  Elizabeth momentarily forgot what she was doing as she stared at him in disbelief and amazement. “Do you mean you’ve been clipping the end off it?”

  “A bit at a time,” he said, concentrating on her next shot.

  She hit another leaf on the twig and handed the gun back to him.

  “You’re not bad,” he complimented.

  She was an outstanding shot, and his smile said he knew it as he handed her a freshly loaded gun. Elizabeth shook her head. “I’d rather see you try it.”

  “You doubt my word?”

  “Let’s merely say I’m a little skeptical.”

  Taking the gun, Ian raised it in a swift arc, and without pausing to aim, he fired. Two inches of twig spun away and fell to the ground. Elizabeth was so impressed she laughed aloud. “Do you know,” she exclaimed with an admiring smile, “I didn’t entirely believe until this moment that you really meant to shoot the tassel off Robert’s boot!”

  He sent her an amused glance as he reloaded and handed her the gun. “At the time I was sorely tempted to aim for something more vulnerable.”

  “You wouldn’t have, though,” she reminded him, taking the gun and turning toward the twig.

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “You told me yourself you didn’t believe in killing people over disagreements.” She raised the gun, aimed, and fired, missing the target completely. “I have a very good memory.”

  Ian picked up the other gun. “I’m surprised to hear it,” he drawled, turning to the target, “inasmuch as when we met you’d forgotten you were betrothed. Who was the fop, anyway?” he asked unemotionally, aiming, firing, and hitting true again.

  Elizabeth had been reloading a gun, and she paused imperceptibly, then returned to the task. His casual question proved she’d been right in her earlier reflections. Flirtations were obviously not taken seriously by those mature enough to indulge in them. Afterward, like now, it was apparently accepted procedure to tease one another about them. While Ian loaded the other two guns Elizabeth considered how much nicer it was to joke openly about it than to lie awake in the dark, consumed with confusion and bitterness, as she had done. How foolish she’d been. How foolish she’d seem now if she didn’t treat the matter openly and lightly. It did seem, however, a little strange—and rather funny—to discuss it while blasting away with guns. She was smiling about that very thing when he handed her a gun. “Viscount Mondevale was anything but a ‘fop,’ ” she said, turning to aim.

  He looked surprised, but his voice was bland. “Mondevale, was it?”

  “Mmmm.” Elizabeth blasted the end off the twig and laughed with delight. “I hit it! That’s three for you and one for me.”

  “That’s six for me,” he pointed out drolly.

  “In any case, I’m catching up, so beware!” He handed a gun to her, and Elizabeth squinted, taking careful aim.

  “Why did you cry off?”

  She stiffened in surprise; then, trying to match his light, mocking tone, she said, “Viscount Mondevale proved to be a trifle high in the instep about things like his fiancée cavorting about in cottages and greenhouses with you.” She fired and missed.

  “How many contenders are there this Season?” he asked conversationally as he turned to the target, pausing to wipe the gun.

  She knew he meant contenders for her hand, and pride absolutely would not allow her to say there were none, nor had there been for a long time. “Well . . .” she said, suppressing a grimace as she thought of her stout suitor with a houseful of cherubs. Counting on the fact that he didn’t move in the inner circles of the ton, she assumed he wouldn’t know much about either suitor. He raised the gun as she said, “There’s Sir Francis Belhaven, for one.”

  Instead of firing immediately as he had before, he seemed to require a long moment to adjust his aim. “Belhaven’s an old man,” he said. The gun exploded, and the twig snapped off.

  When he looked at her his eyes had chilled, almost as if he thought less of her. Elizabeth told herself she was imagining that and determined to maintain their mood of light conviviality. Since it was her turn, she picked up a gun and lifted it.

  “Who’s the other one?”

  Relieved that he couldn’t possibly find fault with the age of her reclusive sportsman, she gave him a mildly haughty smile. “Lord John Marchman,” she said, and she fired.

  Ian’s shout of laughter almost drowned out the report from the gun. “Marchman!” he said when she scowled at him and thrust the butt of the gun in his stomach. “You must be joking!”

  “You spoiled my shot,” she countered.

  “Take it again,” he said, looking at her with a mixture of derision, disbelief, and amusement.

  “No, I can’t shoot with you laughing. And I’ll thank you to wipe that smirk off your face. Lord Marchman is a very nice man.”

  “He is indeed,” said Ian with an irritating grin. “And it’s a damned good thing you like to
shoot, because he sleeps with his guns and fishing poles. You’ll spend the rest of your life slogging through streams and trudging through the woods.”

  “I happen to like to fish,” she informed him, striving unsuccessfully not to lose her composure. “And Sir Francis may be a trifle older than I, but an elderly husband might be more kind and tolerant than a younger one.”

  “He’ll have to be tolerant,” Ian said a little shortly, turning his attention back to the guns, “or else a damned good shot.”

  It angered Elizabeth that he was suddenly attacking her when she had just worked it out in her mind that they were supposed to be dealing with what had happened in a light, sophisticated fashion. “I must say, you aren’t being very mature or very consistent!”

  His dark brows snapped together as their truce began to disintegrate. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Elizabeth bridled, looking at him like the haughty, disdainful young aristocrat she was born to be. “It means,” she informed him, making a monumental effort to speak clearly and coolly, “that you have no right to act as if I did something evil, when in truth you yourself regarded it as nothing but a—a meaningless dalliance. You said as much, so there’s no point in denying it!”

  He finished loading the gun before he spoke. In contrast to his grim expression, his voice was perfectly bland. “My memory apparently isn’t as good as yours. To whom did I say that?”

  “My brother, for one,” she said, impatient with his pretense.

  “Ah, yes, the honorable Robert,” he replied, putting sarcastic emphasis on the word “honorable.” He turned to the target and fired, but the shot was wide of the mark.

  “You didn’t even hit the right tree,” Elizabeth said in surprise. “I thought you said you were going to clean the guns,” she added when he began methodically sliding them into leather cases, his expression preoccupied.