How much did he charge you?” he asked, intending to add that amount to her allowance.
“Originally he wanted $1,000 whether he finds news of Robert or not. But I offered to pay him twice his fee if he’s successful.”
“And if he isn’t?”
“Oh, in that case I didn’t think it was fair that he receive anything,” she said. “I persuaded him I was right.”
Ian’s shout of laughter was still ringing in the hall when they entered the drawing room to greet the Townsendes.
This is Winston, our footman and cook,” she told Ian, guessing his thoughts. Straight-faced, she added, “Winston taught me everything I knew about cooking.” Ian’s emotions veered from horror to hilarity, and the footman saw it.
“Miss Elizabeth,” the footman pointedly informed Ian, “does not know how to cook. She has always been much too busy to learn.”
Ian endured that reprimand without retort because he was thoroughly enjoying Elizabeth’s relaxed mood, and because she had actually been teasing him. As the huffy footman departed, however, Ian glanced at Jordan and saw his narrowed gaze on the man’s back, then he looked at Elizabeth, who was obviously embarrassed.
“They think they’re acting out of loyalty to me,” she explained. “They-well, they recognize your name from before. I’ll speak to them.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Ian said with amused irritation. To Jordan he added, “Elizabeth’s butler always tries to send me packing.”
“Can he hear?” Jordan asked unsympathetically.
“Hear?” Ian repeated. “Of course he can.”
“Then count yourself lucky,” Jordan replied irritably, and the girls dissolved into gales of laughter.
“The Townsende’s butler, Penrose, is quite deaf, you see,” Elizabeth explained.
A long time ago Ian had told her he was half in love with her, yet now that they were betrothed he’d never spoken a word of it, had not even pretended. She wasn’t certain of his motives or his feelings; she wasn’t certain of her own, either. All she really knew was that the sight of his hard, handsome face with its chiseled features, and hold amber eyes never failed to make her entire being feel tense and alive. She knew he liked to kis her, and that she very much liked being kissed by him. Added to his other attractions was something else that drew her inexorably to him: From their very first meeting, Elizabeth had sensed that beneath his bland sophistication and rugged virility Ian Thornton had a depth that most people lacked. “It’s so hard to know,” she whispered, “how I ought to feel or what I ought to think. And I have the worst feeling it’s not going to matter what I know or what I think,” she added almost sadly, “because I am going to love him.” She opened her eyes and looked at Alex. “It’s happening, and I cannot stop it. It was happening two years ago, and I couldn’t stop it then, either. So you see,” she added with a sad little smile, “it would be so much nicer for me if you could love him just a little, too.”
Alex reached across the table and took Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “If you love him, then he must be the very best of men. I shall henceforth make it a point to see all his best qualities!” Alex hesitated, and then she hazarded the question: “Elizabeth, does he love you?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “He wants me, he says, and he wants children.”
Alex swallowed embarrassed laughter. “He what?”
“He wants me, and he wants children.”
A funny, knowing smile tugged at Alexandra’s lips. “You didn’t tell me he said the first part. I am much encouraged,” she teased while a rosy blush stole over her cheeks.
“I think I am, too,” Elizabeth admitted, drawing a swift, searching look from Alex.
“Elizabeth, this is scarcely the time to discuss this-in fact,” Alex added, her flush deepening. “I don’t think there is a really good time to discuss it-but has Lucinda explained to you how children are conceived?”
“Yes, of course,” Elizabeth said without hesitation.
“Good, because I would have been the logical one otherwise, and I still remember my reaction when I found out. It was not a pretty sight,” she laughed. “On the other hand, you were always much the wiser girl than I.”
“I don’t think so at all,” Elizabeth said, but she couldn’t imagine what there was, really, to blush about. Children, Lucinda had told her when she’d asked, were conceived when a husband kissed his wife in be. And it hurt the first time. Ian’s kisses were sometimes almost bruising, but they never actually hurt, and she enjoyed them terribly.
As if speaking her feelings aloud to Alexandra had somehow relieved her of the burden of trying to deal with them, Elizabeth was so joyously relaxed that she suspected Ian noticed it at once when the men joined them in the drawing room.
Ian did notice it; in fact, as they sat down to play a game of cards in accordance with Elizabeth’s cheery suggestion, he noticed there was a subtle but distinct softening in the attitudes of both ladies toward him.
Realizing that the footman was still glowering at him, Ian looked down at the short man and said, “Your mistress is expecting me. Tell her I’ve arrived.”
“I’m here, Aaron,” Elizabeth’s voice said softly, and Ian turned. One look at her and Ian forgot the footman, the state of the house, and any knowledge of architecture he’d ever possessed. Garbed in a simple gown of sky-blue gauze, with her hair twisted into thick curls bound with narrow blue ribbons, Elizabeth was standing in the hall with the poise of a Grecian goddess and the smile of an angel. “What do you think?” she asked expectantly.
“About what?” he asked huskily, walking forward, forcing his hands not to reach out for her.
“About Havenhurst?” she asked with quiet pride. Ian thought it was rather small and in desperate need of repair, not to mention furnishings. In fact, he had an impulse to drag her into his arms and beg her forgiveness for all he’d cost her. Knowing such a thing would shame and hurt her, he smiled and said truthfully, “What I’ve seen is very picturesque.”
“Would you like to see the rest?”
“Very much,” he exaggerated, and it was worth it to see her face light up. “Where are the Townsendes?” he asked as they started up the staircase. “I didn’t see a carriage in the drive.”
“They haven’t arrived yet.”
Ian correctly supposed that was Jordan’s doing and made a mental note to thank his friend.
What is the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?”
Dragging his gaze from the beauty of the gardens, Ian looked down at the beauty beside him. “Any place,” he said huskily, “were you are.”
He saw the becoming flush of embarrassed pleasure that pinkened her cheeks, but when she spoke her voice was rueful. “You don’t have to say such things to me, you know-I’ll keep our bargain.”
“I know you will,” he said, trying not to overwhelm her with avowals of love she wouldn’t yet believe. With a grin he added, “Besides, as it turned out after our bargaining session, I’m the one who’s governed by all the conditions, not you.”
Her sideways glance was filled with laughter. “You were much too lenient at times, you know. Toward the end I was asking for concessions just to see how far you’d go.”
Ian, who had been multiplying his fortune for the last four years by buying shipping and import-export companies, as well as sundry others, was regarded as an extremely tough negotiator. He heard her announcement with a smile of genuine surprise. “You gave me the impression that every single concession was of paramount importance to you, and that if I didn’t agree, you might call the whole thing off.”
She nodded with satisfaction. “I rather thought that was how I ought to do it. Why are you laughing?”
“Because,” he admitted, chuckling, “obviously I was not in my best form yesterday. In addition to completely misreading your feelings, I managed to buy a house on Promenade Street for which I will undoubtedly pay five times its worth.”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said, and, as if she was embarrassed and needed a way to avoid meeting his gaze, she reached up and pulled a leaf off an overhanging branch. In a voice of careful nonchalance, she explained, “In matters of bargaining, I believe in being reasonable, but my uncle would assuredly have tried to cheat you. He’s perfectly dreadful about money.”
Ian nodded, remembering the fortune Julius Cameron had gouged out of him in order to sign the betrothal agreement.
“And so,” she admitted, uneasily studying the azure-blue sky with feigned absorption, “I sent him a note after you left itemizing all the repairs that were needed at the house. I told him it was in poor condition and absolutely in need of complete redecoration.”
“And?”
“And I told him you would consider paying a fair price for the house, but not one shilling more, because it needed all that.”
“And?” Ian prodded.
“He has agreed to sell it for that figure.”
Ian’s mirth exploded in shouts of laughter. Snatching her into his arms, he waited until he could finally catch his breath, then he tipped her face up to his. “Elizabeth,” he said tenderly, “if you change your mind about marrying me, promise me you’ll never represent the opposition at the bargaining table. I swear to God, I’d be lost.” The temptation to kiss her was almost overwhelming, but the Townsende coach with its ducal crest was in the drive, and he had no idea where their chaperones might be. Elizabeth noticed the coach, too, and started toward the house.
"About the gowns," she said, stopping suddenly and looking up at him with an intensely earnest expression on her beautiful face. "I meant to thank you for your generosity as soon as you arrived, but I was so happy to-that is-" She realized she'd been about to blurt out that she was happy to see him, and she was so flustered by having admitted aloud what she hadn't admitted to herself that she completely lost her thought.
"Go on," Ian invited in a husky voice. "You were so happy to see me that you-"
"I forgot," she admitted lamely.
Most of this is my contribution to Havenhurst,” she told him proudly.
The sight that Ian beheld when he looked up made his grin fade as tenderness and awe shook through him. Spread out before him in colorful splendor were the most magnificent flower gardens Ian had ever beheld. The other heirs of Havenhurst might have added stone and mortar to the house, but Elizabeth had given it breathtaking beauty.
“When I was young,” she confided softly, looking out at the sloping gardens and the hills beyond, “I used to think this was the most beautiful place on earth.” Feeling a little foolish over her confidences, Elizabeth glanced up at him with an embarrassed smile. “What is the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?”
Dragging his gaze from the beauty of the gardens, Ian looked down at the beauty beside him. “Any place,” he said huskily, “where you are.
Standing at the window overlooking the lawn, Jordan and Alexandra Townsende watched the couple heading toward them. “If you’d asked me to name the last man on earth I would have expected to fall head over heels for a slip of a girl, it would have been Ian Thornton,” he told her.
His wife heard that with a sidewise look of extreme amusement. “If I’d been asked, I rather think I would have named you.”
“I’m sure you would have,” he said, grinning. He saw her smile fade, and he put his arm around her waist, instantly concerned that her pregnancy was causing her discomfort. “Is it the babe, darling?”
She burst out laughing and shook her head, but she sobered again almost instantly. “Do you think,” she asked pensively, “he can be trusted not to hurt her? He’s done so much damage that I-I just cannot like him, Jordan. He’s handsome, I’ll grant you that, extraordinarily handsome-“
“Not that handsome,” Jordan said, stung. And this time Alexandra dissolved in mirth. Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly. “Actually, he rather reminds me of you,” she said, “in his coloring and height and build.”
“I hope that hasn’t anything to do with why you can’t like him,” her husband teased.
“Jordan, do stop. I’m worried, really I am. He’s-well, he almost frightens me. Even though he seems very civilized on the surface, there’s a forcefulness, maybe even a ruthlessness beneath his polished manners. And he stops at nothing when he wants something. I saw that yesterday when he came to the house and persuaded Elizabeth to agree to marry him.”
Turning, Jordan looked at her with a mixture of intent interest, surprise, and amusement. “Go on,” he said.
“Well, at this particular moment he wants Elizabeth, and I can’t help fearing it’s a whim.”
“You wouldn’t have thought that if you’d seen his face blanch the other night when he realized she was going to try to brave society without his help.”
“Really? You’re certain?”
“Positive.”
“Are you certain you know him well enough to judge him?”
“Absolutely certain,” he averred.
“How well do you know him?”
“Ian,” Jordan said with a grin, “is my sixth cousin.”
“Your what? You’re joking! Why didn’t you tell me before?
I suspect, however, that the thing that confuses you about Ian is that he’s half Scot. In many ways he’s more Scot than English, which accounts for what you’re calling a ruthless streak. He’ll do what he pleases, when he pleases, and the devil fly with the consequences. He always has. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him or of what he does.”
Pausing, Jordan glanced meaningfully at the couple who’d paused to look at a shrubbery on the front lawn. Ian was listening to Elizabeth intently, an expression of tenderness on his rugged face. “The other night, however, he cared very much what people thought of your lovely friend. In fact, I don’t like to think what he might have done had anyone actually dared to openly insult her in front of him. You’re right when you aren’t deceived by Ian’s civilized veneer. Beneath that he’s a Scot, and he has a temper to go with it, though he usually keeps it in check.”
“I don’t think you’re reassuring me,” Alex said shakily.
“I should be. He’s committed himself completely to her. That commitment is so deep that he even reconciled with his grandfather and then appeared with him in public, which I know was because of Elizabeth.”
“What on earth makes you think that?”
“For one thing, when I saw Ian at the Blackmore he had no plans for the evening until he discovered what Elizabeth was going to do at the Willingtons’. The next I knew, he was walking into that ball with his grandfather at his side. And that, my love, is what we call a show of strength.”
She looked impressed by his powers of deduction, and Jordan grinned. “Don’t admire me too much. I also asked him. So you see, you’re worrying needlessly,” he finished reassuringly. “Scots are a fiercely loyal lot, and Ian will protect her with his life.”
“He certainly didn’t protect her with his life two years ago, when she was ruined.”
Sighing, Jordan looked out the window. “After the Willingtons’ ball he told me a little of what happened that long-ago weekend. He didn’t tell me much-Ian is a very private man-but reading between the lines, I’m guessing that he fell like a rock for her and then got the idea she was playing games with him.”
“Would that have been so terrible?” Alexandra asked, her full sympathy still with Elizabeth.
Jordan smiled ruefully at her. “There’s one thing Scots are besides loyal.”
“What is that?”
“Unforgiving,” he said flatly. “They expect the same loyalty as they give. Moreover, if you betray their loyalty, you’re dead to them. Nothing you do or say will change their heart. That’s why their feuds last from generation to generation.”
“Barbaric,” Alexandra said with a shiver of alarm.
“Perhaps it is. But then let’s not forget Ian is also half English, and we are very civilized.” Leaning down, Jordan nipped her ear. “Except in bed.
I would like to see you cheat,” Elizabeth said impulsively, smiling at him.
His hands stilled, his eyes intent on her face. “I beg your pardon?”
“What I meant,” she hastily explained as he continued to idly shuffle the cards, watching her, “is that night in the card room at Charise’s there was mention of someone being able to deal a card from the bottom of the deck, and I’ve always wondered if you could, if it could…” She trailed off, belatedly realizing she was insulting him and that his narrowed, speculative gaze proved that she’d made it sound as if she believed him to be dishonest at cards. “I beg your pardon,” she said quietly. “That was truly awful of me.”
Ian accepted her apology with a curt nod, and when Alex hastily interjected, “Why don’t we use the chips for a shilling each,” he wordlessly and immediately dealt the cards.
Too embarrassed even to look at him, Elizabeth bit her lip and picked up her hand.
In it there were four kings.
Her gaze flew to Ian, but he was lounging back in his chair, studying his own cards.
She won three shillings and was pleased as could be.
He passed the deck to her, but Elizabeth shook her head. “I don’t like to deal. I always drop the cards, which Celton says is very irritating. Would you mind dealing for me?”
“Not at all,” Ian said dispassionately, and Elizabeth realized with a sinking heart that he was still annoyed with her.
“Who is Celton?” Jordan inquired.
“Celton is a groom with whom I play cards,” Elizabeth explained unhappily, picking up her hand.
In it there were four aces.
She knew it then, and laughter and relief trembled on her lips as she lifted her face and stared at her betrothed. There was not a sign, not so much as a hint anywhere on his perfectly composed features that anything unusual had been happening.
Lounging indolently in his chair, he quirked an indifferent brow and said, “Do you want to discard and draw more cards, Elizabeth?”
“Yes,” she replied, swallowing her mirth, “I would like one more ace to go with the ones I have.”
“There are only four,” he explained mildly, and with such convincing blandness that Elizabeth whooped with laughter and dropped her cards. “You are a complete charlatan!” she gasped when she could finally speak, but her face was aglow with admiration.
“Thank you, darling,” he replied tenderly. “I’m happy to know your opinion of me is already improving.”
The laughter froze in Elizabeth’s chest, replaced by warmth that quaked through her from head to foot. Gentlemen did not speak such tender endearments in front of other people, if at all. “I’m a Scot,” he’d whispered huskily to her long ago. “We do.” The Townsendes had launched into swift, laughing conversation after a moment of stunned silence following his words, and it was just as well, because Elizabeth could not tear her gaze from Ian, could not seem to move. And in that endless moment when their gazes held, Elizabeth had an almost overwhelming desire to fling herself into his arms. He saw it, too, and the answering expression in his eyes made her feel she was melting.
“It occurs to me, Ian,” Jordan joked a moment later, gently breaking their spell, “that we are wasting our time with honest pursuits.”
Ian’s gaze shifted reluctantly from Elizabeth’s face, and then he smiled inquisitively at Jordan. “What did you have in mind?” he asked, shoving the deck toward Jordan while Elizabeth put back her unjustly won chips.
“With your skill at dealing whatever hand you want, we could gull half of London. If any of our victims had the temerity to object, Alex could run them through with her rapier, and Elizabeth could shoot him before he hit the ground.”
Ian chuckled. “Not a bad idea. What would your role be?”
“Breaking us out of Newgate!” Elizabeth laughed.
“Exactly.
After Ian left for the Greenleaf Inn, where he planned to stop for the night before continuing the trip to his own home, Elizabeth stayed downstairs to put out the candles and tidy up the drawing room. In one of the guest chambers above, Jordan glanced at his wife’s faint, preoccupied smile and suppressed a knowing grin. “Now what do you think of the Marquess of Kensington?” he asked.
Her eyes were shining as she lifted them to his. “I think,” she softly said, “that unless he does something dreadful, I’m prepared to believe he could truly be your cousin.”
“Thank you, darling,” Jordan replied tenderly, paraphrasing Ian’s words. “I’m happy to see your opinion of him is already improving.
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