Almost Heaven

by Judith McNaught

  He looked up at her, but she had the feeling he’d almost forgotten she was there. “I’ve decided to do it tomorrow instead.” Ian went into the house, automatically putting the guns back on the mantel; then he wandered over to the table, frowning thoughtfully as he reached for the bottle of Madeira and poured some into his glass. He told himself it made no difference how she might have felt when her brother told her that falsehood. For one thing, she was already engaged at the time, and, by her own admission, she’d regarded their relationship as a flirtation. Her pride might have suffered a richly deserved blow, but nothing worse than that. Furthermore, Ian reminded himself irritably, he was technically betrothed, and to a beautiful woman who deserved better from him than this stupid preoccupation with Elizabeth Cameron.

  “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’d said.

  Her fiancé had evidently cried off because of him, and Ian felt an uneasy pang of guilt he couldn’t completely banish. Idly he reached for the bottle of Madeira, thinking of offering Elizabeth a glass. Lying beside the bottle was a note Elizabeth had been writing. It began, “Dearest Alex . . .” But it was not the words that made his jaw clench; it was the handwriting. Neat, scholarly, and precise. Suited to a monk. It was not a girlish, illegible scrawl like that note he’d had to decipher before he understood she wanted to see him in the greenhouse. He picked it up, staring at it in disbelief, his conscience beginning to smite him with a vengeance. He saw himself stalking her in that damned greenhouse, and guilt poured through him like acid.

  Ian downed the Madeira as if it could wash away his self-disgust, then he turned and walked slowly outdoors. Elizabeth was standing at the edge of the grassy plateau, a few yards beyond where they’d held their shooting match. Wind ruffled through the trees, blowing her magnificent hair about her shoulders like a shimmering veil. He stopped a few steps away from her, looking at her, but seeing her as she had looked long ago—a young goddess in royal blue, descending a staircase, aloof, untouchable; an angry angel defying a roomful of men in a card room; a beguiling temptress in a woodcutter’s cottage, lifting her wet hair in front of the fire—and at the end, a frightened girl thrusting flowerpots into his hands to keep him from kissing her. He drew in a deep breath and shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her.

  “It’s a magnificent view,” she commented, glancing at him.

  Instead of replying to her remark, Ian drew a long, harsh breath and said curtly, “I’d like you to tell me again what happened that last night. Why were you in the greenhouse?”

  Elizabeth suppressed her frustration. “You know why I was there. You sent me a note. I thought it was from Valerie—Charise’s sister—and I went to the greenhouse.”

  “Elizabeth, I did not send you a note, but I did receive one.”

  Sighing with irritation, Elizabeth leaned her shoulders against the tree behind her. “I don’t see why we have to go through this again. You won’t believe me, and I can’t believe you.” She expected an angry outburst; instead he said, “I do believe you. I saw the letter you left on the table in the cottage. You have a lovely handwriting.”

  Caught completely off balance by his solemn tone and his quiet compliment, she stared at him. “Thank you,” she said uncertainly.

  “The note you received,” he continued. “What was the handwriting like?”

  “Awful,” she replied, and she added with raised brows, “You misspelled ‘greenhouse.’ ”

  His lips quirked with a mirthless smile. “I assure you I can spell it, and while my handwriting may not be as attractive as yours, it’s hardly an illegible scrawl. If you doubt me, I’ll be happy to prove it inside.”

  Elizabeth realized at that moment he was not lying, and an awful feeling of betrayal began to seep through her as he finished, “We both received notes that neither of us wrote. Someone intended us to go there and, I think, to be discovered.”

  “No one could be so cruel!” Elizabeth burst out, shaking her head, her heart trying to deny what her mind was realizing must be true.

  “Someone was.”

  “Don’t tell me that,” she cried, unable to endure one more betrayal in her life. “I won’t believe it! It must have been a mistake,” she said fiercely, but scenes from that weekend were already parading through her memory: Valerie insisting that Elizabeth be the one to try to entice Ian Thornton into asking her for a dance . . . Valerie asking pointed questions after Elizabeth had gone to the woodcutter’s cottage . . . the footman handing her a note he said was from Valerie. Valerie, whom she’d believed was her friend. Valerie with the pretty face and watchful eyes . . .

  The pain of betrayal almost doubled Elizabeth over, and she wrapped her arms around herself, feeling as if she were crumbling into pieces. “It was Valerie,” she managed chokingly. “I asked the footman who’d given him the note, and he said Valerie had.” The unspeakable malice of the deed made her shudder. “Later I assumed you’d entrusted it to her, and she’d given it to the footman.”

  “I’d never have done anything of the sort,” he said shortly. “You were terrified we’d be discovered as it was.”

  His anger at what had been done only made the whole thing seem worse, because even he couldn’t shrug it off with casual urbanity. Swallowing, Elizabeth closed her eyes and saw Valerie riding in the park with Viscount Mondevale. Elizabeth’s life had been shattered—and all because someone she believed was her friend had coveted her fiancé. Tears burned the backs of her eyes, and she said brokenly, “It was a trick. My life was ruined by a trick.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Why would she do a thing like that to you?”

  “I think she wanted Mondevale, and—” Elizabeth knew she would cry if she tried to talk, and she shook her head and started to turn away, to find somewhere to weep out her anguish in privacy.

  Helpless to let her go without at least trying to comfort her, Ian caught her shoulders and pulled her against his chest, tightening his arms when she tried to wrench free. “Don’t, please,” he whispered against her hair. “Don’t go. She’s not worth your tears.”

  The shock of being held in his arms again was almost as great as Elizabeth’s misery, and the combination of emotions left her paralyzed. With her head bowed she stood silently in his arms, tears racing from her eyes, her body jerking with suppressed sobs.

  Ian tightened his arms more, as if he could absorb her hurt by holding her closer, and when that didn’t console her after several minutes, he began in sheer desperation to tease her. “If she’d known what a good shot you are,” he whispered past the unfamiliar tightness in his throat, “she’d never have dared.” His hand lifted to her wet cheek, holding it pressed against his chest. “You could always call her out, you know.” The spasmodic shaking in Elizabeth’s slender shoulders began to subside, and Ian added with forced tightness, “Better yet, Robert should stand in for you. He’s not as fine a shot as you are, but he’s a hell of a lot faster. . . .”

  A teary giggle escaped the girl in his arms, and Ian continued, “On the other hand, if you’re holding the pistol, you’ll have some choices to make, and they’re not easy . . . .”

  When he didn’t say more, Elizabeth drew a shaky breath. “What choices?” she finally whispered against his chest after a moment.

  “What to shoot, for one thing,” he joked, stroking her back. “Robert was wearing Hessians, so I had a tassel for a target. I suppose, though, you could always shoot the bow off Valerie’s gown.”

  Elizabeth’s shoulders gave a lurch, and a choked laugh escaped her.

  Overwhelmed with relief, Ian kept his left arm around her and gently took her chin between his forefinger and thumb, tipping her face up to his. Her magnificent eyes were still wet with tears, but a smile was trembling on her rosy lips. Teasingly, he continued, “A bow isn’t much of a challenge for an expert marksman like you. I suppose you could insist that she h
old up an earring between her fingers so you could shoot that instead.”

  The image was so absurd that Elizabeth chuckled.

  Without being conscious of what he was doing, Ian moved his thumb from her chin to her lower lip, rubbing lightly against its inviting fullness. He finally realized what he was doing and stopped.

  Elizabeth saw his jaw tighten. She drew a shuddering breath, sensing he’d been on the verge of kissing her, and had just decided not to do it After the last shattering minutes, Elizabeth no longer knew who was friend or foe, she only knew she’d felt safe and secure in his arms, and at that moment his arms were already beginning to loosen, and his expression was turning aloof. Not certain what she was going to say or even what she wanted, she whispered a single, shaky word, filled with confusion and a plea for understanding, her green eyes searching his: “Please—”

  Ian realized what she was asking for, but he responded with a questioning lift of his brows.

  “I—” she began, uncomfortably aware of the knowing look in his eyes.

  “Yes?” he prompted.

  “I don’t know—exactly,” she admitted. All she knew for certain was that, for just a few minutes more, she would have liked to be in his arms.

  “Elizabeth, if you want to be kissed, all you have to do is put your lips on mine.”

  “What

  “You heard me.”

  “Of all the arrogant—”

  He shook his head in mild rebuke. “Spare me the maidenly protests. If you’re suddenly as curious as I am to find out if it was as good between us as it now seems in retrospect, then say so.” His own suggestion startled Ian, although having made it, he saw no great harm in exchanging a few kisses if that was what she wanted.

  To Elizabeth, his statement that it had been “good between us” defused her ire and confused her at the same time. She stared at him in dazed wonder while his hands tightened imperceptibly on her arms. Self-conscious, she let her gaze drop to his finely molded lips, watching as a faint smile, a challenging smile lifted them at the corners, and inch by inch, the hands on her arms were drawing her closer.

  “Afraid to find out?” he asked, and it was the trace of huskiness in his voice that she remembered, that worked its strange spell on her again, exactly as it had so long ago. His hands shifted to the curve of her waist. “Make up your mind,” he whispered, and in her confused state of loneliness and longing, she made no protest when he bent his head. A shock jolted through her as his lips touched hers, warm, inviting—brushing slowly back and forth. Paralyzed, she waited for that shattering passion he’d shown her before, without realizing that her participation had done much to trigger it. Standing still and tense, she waited to experience that forbidden burst of exquisite delight . . . wanted to experience it, just once, just for a moment. Instead his kiss was feather-light, softly stroking . . . teasing!

  She stiffened, pulling back an inch, and his gaze lifted lazily from her lips to her eyes. Dryly, he said, “That’s not quite the way I remembered it.”

  “Nor I,” Elizabeth admitted, unaware that he was referring to her lack of participation.

  “Care to try it again?” Ian invited, still willing to indulge in a few pleasurable minutes of shared ardor, so long as there was no pretense that it was anything but that, and no loss of control on his part.

  The bland amusement in his tone finally made her suspect he was treating this as some sort of diverting game or perhaps a challenge, and she looked at him in shock. “Is this a—a contest?”

  “Do you want to make it into one?”

  Elizabeth shook her head and abruptly surrendered her secret memories of tenderness and stormy passion. Like all her other former illusions about him, that too had evidently been false. With a mixture of exasperation and sadness, she looked at him and said, “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re playing a game,” she told him honestly, mentally throwing her hands up in weary despair, “and I don’t understand the rules.”

  “They haven’t changed,” he informed her. “It’s the same game we played before—I kiss you, and,” he emphasized meaningfully, “you kiss me.”

  His blunt criticism of her lack of participation left her caught between acute embarrassment and the urge to kick him in the shin, but his arm was tightening around her waist while his other hand was sliding slowly up her back, sensuously stroking her nape.

  “How do you remember it?” he teased as his lips came closer. “Show me.” He brushed his lips over hers, rubbing lightly, and despite his humorous tone, this time there was a demand as well as a challenge in the stroking touch; Elizabeth answered it slowly, leaning into his arms, her hand sliding softly up his silk shirt, feeling his muscles tauten, the reflexive tightening of his arm at her back. His mouth opened on hers, and Elizabeth felt her heart begin to beat in painful lurches. His tongue flicked against her lips, teasing, inviting, and Elizabeth lost control and retaliated in the only way she could. Sliding her hands around his shoulders, she kissed him back with fierce shyness, letting him part her lips and, when his tongue probed, she welcomed the invasion.

  She felt his sharp intake of breath at the same time Ian felt desire begin to beat in his veins. He told himself to let her go, and he tried, but her hands were sliding into the hair at his nape, her mouth was yielding with tormenting sweetness to his intimate kiss. With an effort he jerked his head up, unable to move more than an inch from that romantic mouth of hers. “Dammit!” he whispered, but his arms were already dragging her fully against his hardening body.

  Her heart hammering like a wild, captive bird, Elizabeth gazed into those smoldering eyes, while his hand plunged into her hair, holding her head captive as he abruptly bent his head. His mouth opened over hers with fiery demand, slanting fiercely, and Elizabeth’s body responded helplessly to the intimate sensuality of it; her arms stole around his neck, and she leaned into him, kissing him back. With cruel pressure he parted her lips, his tongue probing, daring her to protest. But Elizabeth didn’t protest; she drew his tongue into her mouth, her fingers sliding over his jaw and temple in an innocent, feather-light caress. Lust roared through Ian in tidal waves, and he splayed his hand across her spine, forcing her into vibrant contact with his rigid arousal, burying his mouth in hers, kissing her with a demanding savagery he couldn’t control. His hands slid caressingly over her, then clenched convulsively when she fitted her body tighter to his, unaware of—or unconcerned with—the bold evidence of his desire thrusting insistently against her.

  Automatically, his hands lifted toward her breasts, then he realized what he was doing, and he tore his mouth from hers, staring blindly over her head, as he debated whether to kiss her again or try to pass the entire matter off as some sort of joke. No woman he’d known had ever ignited this uncontrollable surge of pure lust with just a few kisses.

  “It was the same as I remembered it,” she whispered, sounding defeated and puzzled and shattered.

  It was better than he remembered. Stronger, wilder . . . And the only reason she didn’t know it was because he hadn’t succumbed to temptation yet and kissed her once more. He had just rejected that idea as complete insanity when a male voice suddenly erupted behind them:

  “Good God! What’s going on here!”

  Elizabeth jerked free in mindless panic, her gaze flying to a middle-aged elderly man wearing a clerical collar who was dashing across the yard. Ian put a steadying hand on her waist, and she stood there rigid with shock.

  “I heard shooting—” The gray-haired man gasped, sagging against a nearby tree, his hand over his heart, his chest heaving. “I heard it all the way up the valley, and I thought—”

  He broke off, his alert gaze moving from Elizabeth’s flushed face and tousled hair to Ian’s hand at her waist.

  “You thought what?” Ian asked in a voice that struck Elizabeth as being amazingly calm, considering they’d just been caught in a lustful embrace by nothing less daunting than a Scottish vicar.
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  The thought had scarcely crossed her battered mind when the man’s expression hardened with understanding. “I thought,” he said ironically, straightening from the tree and coming forward, brushing pieces of bark from his black sleeve, “that you were trying to kill each other. Which,” he continued more mildly as he stopped in front of Elizabeth, “Miss Throckmorton-Jones seemed to think was a distinct possibility when she dispatched me here.”

  “Lucinda?” Elizabeth gasped, feeling as if the world was turning upside down. “Lucinda sent you here?”

  “Indeed,” said the vicar, bending a reproachful glance on Ian’s hand, which was resting on Elizabeth’s waist. Mortified to the very depths of her being by the realization she’d remained standing in this near-embrace, Elizabeth hastily shoved Ian’s hand away and stepped sideways. She braced herself for a richly deserved, thundering tirade on the sinfulness of their behavior, but the vicar continued to regard Ian with his bushy gray eyebrows lifted, waiting. Feeling as if she were going to break from the strain of the silence, Elizabeth cast a pleading look at Ian and found him regarding the vicar not with shame or apology, but with irritated amusement.

  “Well?” demanded the vicar at last, looking at Ian. “What do you have to say to me?”

  “Good afternoon?” Ian suggested drolly. And then he added, “I didn’t expect to see you until tomorrow, Uncle.”

  “Obviously,” retorted the vicar with unconcealed irony.

  “Uncle!” blurted Elizabeth, gaping incredulously at Ian Thornton, who’d been flagrantly defying rules of morality with his passionate kisses and seeking hands from the first night she met him.

  As if the vicar read her thoughts, he looked at her, his brown eyes amused. “Amazing, is it not, my dear? It quite convinces me that God has a sense of humor.”

  A hysterical giggle welled up in Elizabeth as she saw Ian’s impervious expression begin to waver when the vicar promptly launched into a recitation of his tribulations as Ian’s uncle: “You cannot imagine how trying it used to be when I was forced to console weeping young ladies who’d cast out lures in hopes Ian would come up to scratch,” he told Elizabeth. “And that’s nothing to how I felt when he raced his horse and one of my parishioners thought I would be the ideal person to keep track of the bets!” Elizabeth’s burst of laughter rang like music through the hills, and the vicar, ignoring Ian’s look of annoyance, continued blithely, “I have flat knees from the hours, the weeks, the months I’ve spent praying for his immortal soul—”