For the next twenty minutes Elizabeth asked for concessions, Ian conceded, Duncan wrote, and the dowager duchess and Lucinda listened with ill-concealed glee.. In the entire time Ian made but one stipulation, and only after he was finally driven to it out of sheer perversity over the way everyone was enjoying his discomfort: He stipulated that none of Elizabeth’s freedoms could give rise to any gossip that she was cuckolding him.
The duchess and Miss Throckmorton-Jones scowled at such a word being mentioned in front of them, but Elizabeth acquiesced with a regal nod of her golden head and politely said to Duncan, “I agree. You may write that down.” Ian grinned at her, and Elizabeth shyly returned his smile. Cuckolding, to the best of Elizabeth’s knowledge, was some sort of disgraceful conduct that required a lady to be discovered in the bedroom with a man who was not her husband. She had obtained that incomplete piece of information from Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones, who, unfortunately, actually believed it.
“Is there anything more?” Duncan finally asked, and when Elizabeth shook her head, the dowager spoke up. “Indeed, though you may not need to write it down.” Turning to Ian, she said severely, “If you’ve any thought of announcing this betrothal tomorrow, you may put it out of your head.”
Ian was tempted to invite her to get out, in a slightly less wrathful tone than that in which he’d ordered Julius from the house, but he realized that what she was saying was lamentably true. “Last night you went to a deal of trouble to make it seem there had been little but flirtation between the two of you two years ago. Unless you go through the appropriate courtship rituals, which Elizabeth has every right to expect, no one will ever believe it.”
“What do you have in mind?” Ian demanded shortly.
“One month,” she said without hesitation. “One month of calling on her properly, escorting her to the normal functions, and so on.”
“Two weeks,” he countered with strained patience.
“Very well,” she conceded, giving Ian the irritating certainty that two weeks was all she’d hoped for anyway. “Then you may announce your betrothal and be wed in-two months!”
“Two weeks,” Ian said implacably, reaching for the drink the butler had just put in front of him.
“As you wish,” said the dowager. Then two things happened simultaneously: Lucinda Throckmorton-Jones let out a snort that Ian realized was a laugh, and Elizabeth swept Ian’s drink from beneath his fingertips. “There’s-a speck of lint in it,” she explained nervously, handing the drink to Bentner with a severe shake of her head.
Ian reached for the sandwich on his plate.
Elizabeth watched the satisfied look on Bentner’s face and snatched that away, too. “A-a small insect seems to have gotten on it,” she explained to Ian.
“I don’t see anything,” Ian remarked, his puzzled glance on his betrothed. Having been deprived of tea and sustenance, he reached for the glass of wine the butler had set before him, then realized how much stress Elizabeth had been under and offered it to her instead.
“Thank you,” she said with a sigh, looking a little harassed. Bentner’s arm swopped down, scooping the wineglass out of her hand. “Another insect,” he said.
“Bentner!” Elizabeth cried in exasperation, but her voice was drowned out by a peal of laughter from Alexandra Townsende, who slumped down on the settee, her shoulders shaking with unexplainable mirth.
Ian drew the only possible conclusion: They were all suffering from the strain of too much stress.
Come inside with me,” he urged, increasing the pressure on her elbow, “and I’ll begin making it up to you.”
Elizabeth let herself be drawn forward a few steps and hesitated. “This is a mistake. Everyone will see us and think we’ve started it all over again-“
“No, they won’t,” he promised. “There’s a rumor spreading like fire in there that I tried to get you in my clutches two years ago, but without a title to tempt you I didn’t have a chance. Since acquiring a title is a holy crusade for most of them, they’ll admire your sense. Now that I have a title, I’m expected to use it to try to succeed where I failed before-as a way of bolstering my wounded male pride.” Reaching up to brush a wisp of hair from her soft cheek, he said, “I’m sorry. It was the best I could do with what I had to work with-we were seen together in compromising circumstances. Since they’d never believe nothing happened, I could only make them think I was in pursuit and you were evading.”
She flinched from his touch but didn’t shove his hand away. “You don’t understand. What’s happening to me in there is no less than I deserve. I knew what the rules were, and I broke them when I stayed with you at the cottage. You didn’t force me to stay. I broke the rules, and-“
“Elizabeth,” he interrupted in a voice edge with harsh remorse, “if you won’t do anything else for me, at least stop exonerating me for that weekend. I can’t bear it. I exerted more force on you than you understand.”
Longing to kiss her, Ian had to be satisfied instead with trying to convince her his plan would work, because he now needed her help to ensure its success. In a teasing voice he said, “I think you’re underrating my gift for strategy and subtlety. Come and dance with me, and I’ll prove to you how easily most of the male minds in there have been manipulated.”
Despite his confidence, moments after they entered the ballroom Ian noticed the increasing coldness of the looks being directed at them, and he knew a moment of real alarm-until he glanced at Elizabeth as he took her in his arms for a waltz and realized the cause of it. “Elizabeth,” he said in a low, urgent voice, gazing down at her bent head, “stop looking meek! Put your nose in the air and cut me dead or flirt with me, but do not on any account look humble, because these people will interpret it as guilt!”
Elizabeth, who had been staring at his shoulder, as she'd done with her other dancing partners, tipped her head back and looked at him in confusion. "What?"
Ian's heart turned over when the chandeliers overhead revealed the wounded look in her glorious green eyes. Realizing logic and lectures weren't going to help her give the performance he badly needed her to give, he tried the tack that had, in Scotland, made her stop crying and begin to laugh: He tried to tease her. Casting about for a subject, he said quickly, "Belhaven is certainly in fine looks tonight-pink satin pantaloons. I asked him for the name of his tailor so that I could order a pair for myself."
Elizabeth looked at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses; then his warning about looking meek hit home, and she began to understand what he wanted her to do. That added to the comic image of Ian's tall, masculine frame in those absurd pink pantaloons enabled her to manage a weak smile. "I have greatly admired those pantaloons myself," she said. "Will you also order a yellow satin coat to complement the look?"
He smiled. "I thought-puce."
"An unusual combination," she averred softly, "but one that I am sure will make you the envy of all who behold you.
Am I to assume the Valerie I was introduced to earlier was the Valerie of our greenhouse notes?” He realized his mistake the instant her eyes clouded over and she glanced in the direction he’d looked.
“Yes.”
“Shall I ask Willington to clear his ballroom so you have the requisite twenty paces? Naturally, I’ll stand as your second.”
Elizabeth drew a shaky breath, and a smile curved her lips. “Is she wearing a bow?”
Ian looked and shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Does she have an earring?”
He glanced again and frowned. “I think that’s a wart.”
Her smile finally reached her eyes. “It’s not a large target, but I suppose-“
“Allow me,” he gravely replied, and she laughed.
The last strains of their waltz were dying away, and as they left the dance floor Ian watched Mondevale making his way toward the Townsendes, who’d returned to the ballroom.
“Now that you’re a marquess,” Elizabeth asked, “will you live in Scotland or in England?”
“I only accepted the title, not the money or the lands,” he replied absently, watching Mondevale. “I’ll explain everything to you tomorrow morning at your house. Mondevale is going to ask you to dance as soon as we reach the Townsendes, so listen closely-I’m going to ask you to dance again later. Turn me down.”
She sent him a puzzled look, but she nodded. “Is there anything else?” she asked when he was about to relinquish her to her friends.
“There’s a great deal else, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.”
Mystified, Elizabeth turned her attention to Viscount Mondevale.
Alex watched the byplay between Elizabeth and Ian but her mind was elsewhere. While the couple danced, Alex had told her husband exactly what she thought of Ian Thornton who’d first ruined Elizabeth’s reputation and now deceived her into thinking he was still a man of very modest means. Instead of agreeing that Thornton was completely without principles, Jordan had calmly insisted that Ian intended to set matters aright in the morning, and then he’d made her, and his grandmother, promise not to tell Elizabeth anything until Ian had been given the opportunity to do so himself. Dragging her thoughts back to the ballroom, Alex hoped more than anything that Ian Thornton would do nothing more to hurt her good friend.
By the end of the evening a majority of the guests at the Willington ball had drawn several conclusions: first, that Ian Thornton was definitely the natural grandson of the Duke of Stanhope (which everyone claimed to have always believed); second, that Elizabeth Cameron had very probably rebuffed his scandalous advances two years ago (which everyone claimed to have always believed); third, that since she had rejected his second request for a dance tonight, she might actually prefer her former suitor Viscount Mondevale (which hardly anyone could really believe).
Your butler informed me you were here. I thought-that is, I wondered how things were going.”
“And since my butler didn’t know,” Ian concluded with amused irritation, “you decided to call on Elizabeth and see if you could discover for yourself?”
“Something like that,” the vicar said calmly. “Elizabeth regards me as a friend, I think. And so I planned to call on her and, if you weren’t here, to put in a good word for you.”
“Only one?” Ian said mildly.
The vicar did not back down; he rarely did, particularly in matters of morality or justice. “Given your treatment of her, I was hard pressed to think of one. How did matters turn out with your grandfather?”
“Well enough,” Ina said, his mind on meeting with Elizabeth. “He’s here in London.”
“And?”
“And,” Ian said sardonically, “you may now address me as ‘my lord.’”
“I’ve come here,” Duncan persisted implacably, “to address you as ‘the bridegroom.’”
A flash of annoyance crossed Ian’s tanned features. “You never stop pressing, do you? I’ve managed my own life for thirty years, Duncan. I think I can do it now.”
Duncan had the grace to look slightly abashed. “You’re right, of course. Shall I leave?”
Ian considered the benefits of Duncan’s soothing presence and reluctantly shook his head. “No. In fact, since you’re here,” he continued as they neared the top step, “you may as well be the one to announce us to the butler. I can’t get past him.”
Duncan lifted the knocker while bestowing a mocking glance on Ian. “You can’t get past the butler, and you think you’re managing very well without me?”
Declining to rise to that bait, Ian remained silent. The door opened a moment later, and the butler looked politely from Duncan, who began to give his name, to Ian. To Duncan’s startled disbelief, the door came crashing forward in his face. An instant before it banged into its frame Ian twisted, slamming his shoulder into it and sending the butler flying backward into the hall and ricocheting off the wall. In a low, savage voice he said, “Tell your mistress I’m here, or I’ll find her myself and tell her.”
With a glance of furious outrage the older man considered Ian’s superior size and powerful frame, then turned and started reluctantly for a room ahead and to the left, where muted voices could be heard.
Duncan eyed Ian with one gray eyebrow lifted and said sardonically, “Very clever of you to ingratiate yourself so well with Elizabeth’s servants.”
The group in the drawing room reacted with diverse emotions to Bentner’s announcement that “Thornton is here and forced his way into the house.” The dowager duchess looked fascinated, Julius looked both relived and dismayed, Alexandra looked wary, and Elizabeth, who was still preoccupied with her uncle’s unstated purpose for his visit, looked nonplussed. Only Lucinda showed no expression at all, but she laid her needlework aside and lifted her face attentively toward the doorway.
Despite her grave concern over her uncle, Elizabeth chuckled inwardly as she introduced Duncan. Everyone exhibited the same stunned reaction she had when she’d discovered Ian Thornton’s uncle was a cleric. Her uncle gaped, Alex stared, and the dowager duchess glowered at Ian in disbelief as Duncan politely bent over her hand. “Am I to understand, Kensington,” she demanded of Ian, “that you are related to a man of the cloth?”
Ian’s reply was a mocking bow and a sardonic lift of his brows, but Duncan, who was desperate to put a light face on things, tried ineffectually to joke about it. “The news always has a peculiar effect on people,” he told her.
“One needn’t think too hard to discover why,” she replied gruffly.
Ian opened his mouth to give the outrageous harridan a richly deserved setdown, but Julius Cameron’s presence was worrying him; a moment later it was infuriating him as the man strode to the center of the room and said in a bluff voice, “Now that we’re all together, there’s no reason to dissemble. Bentner, being champagne. Elizabeth, congratulations. I trust you’ll conduct yourself properly as a wife and not spend the man out of what money he has left.”
In the deafening silence no one moved, except it seemed to Elizabeth that the entire room was beginning to move. “What?” she breathed finally.
“You’re betrothed.”
Anger rose up like flames licking inside her, spreading up her limbs. “Really?” she said in a voice of deadly calm, thinking of Sir Francis and John Marchman. “To whom?”
To her disbelief, Uncle Julius turned expectantly to Ian, who was looking at him with murder in his eyes. “To me,” he clipped, his icy gaze still on her uncle.
“It’s final,” Julius warned her, and then, because he assumed she’d be as pleased as he to discover she had monetary value, he added, “He paid a fortune for the privilege. I didn’t have to give him a shilling.” Elizabeth, who had no idea the two men had ever met before, looked at Ian in wild confusion and mounting anger. “What does he mean?” she demanded in a strangled whisper.
“He means,” Ian began tautly, unable to believe all his romantic plans were being demolished, “we are betrothed. The papers have been signed.”
“Why, you-you arrogant, overbearing”-She choked back the tears that were cutting off her voice-“you couldn’t even be bothered to ask me?”
Dragging his gaze from his prey with an effort, Ian turned to Elizabeth, and his heart wrenched at the way she was looking at him. “Why don’t we go somewhere private where we can discuss this?” he said gently, walking forward and taking her elbow.
She twisted free, scorched by his touch. “Oh, no!” she exploded, her body shaking with wrath. “Why guard my sensibilities now? You’ve made a laughingstock of me since the day I set eyes on you. Why stop now?
What are your terms?” he asked, and he made a final effort to tip the balance of power into her hands and out of his by adding, “I’m scarcely in a position to argue.”
Elizabeth hesitated and then slowly began stating her terms: “I want to be allowed to look after Havenhurst without interference or criticism.”
“Done,” he agreed with alacrity while relief and delight built apace in him.
“And I’d like a stipulated amount set aside for that and given to me once each year. In return, the estate, once I’ve arranged for irrigation, will repay your loan with interest.”
“Agreed,” Ian said smoothly. Elizabeth hesitated, wondering if he could afford it, half-embarrassed that she’d mentioned it without knowing more about his circumstances. He’d said last night that he’d accepted the title but nothing else. “In return,” she amended fairly, “I will endeavor to keep costs at an absolute minimum.”
He grinned. “Never vacillate when you’ve already stipulated your terms and won a concession-it gives your opponent a subtle advantage in the next round.”
Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed suspiciously; he was agreeing to everything, and much too easily. “And I think,” she announced decisively, “I want all this written down, witnessed, and made part of the original agreement.”
Ian’s eyes widened, a wry, admiring smile tugging at his lips as he nodded his consent. There was a roomful of witnesses in the next room, including her uncle, who’d signed the original agreement, and a vicar who could witness it. He decided it was wise to proceed now, when she was in the mood, rather than scruple over who knew about it. “With you as a partner a few years ago,” he joked as he guided her from the room, “God knows how far I might have gone.” Despite his tone and the fact that he’d been on her side during the negotiations, he was nevertheless impressed with the sheer daring of her requests.
The truth is that I want you. I have always wanted you, and you know that.”
“I hate that word,” she burst out, trying unsuccessfully to break free of his grasp.
“I don’t think you know what it means.”
“I know you say it every time you force yourself on me.”
“And every time I do, you melt in my arms.”
“I will not marry you,” Elizabeth said furiously, mentally circling for some way out. “I don’t know you. I don’t trust you.”
“But you do want me,” he told her with a knowing smile.
“Stop saying that, damn you! I want an old husband, I told you that,” she cried, mindlessly saying anything she could think of to put him off. “I want my life to be mine. I told you that, too. And you came dashing to England and-and bought me.” That brought her up short, and her eyes began to blaze.
“No,” he stated firmly, though it was splitting hairs, “I made a settlement on your uncle.”
The tears she’d been fighting valiantly to hide began to spill over her lashes. “I am not a pauper,” she cried. “I am not a p-pauper,” she repeated, her voice choking with tears. “I have-had-a dowry, damn you. And if you were so stu-stupid you let him swindle you out of it, it serves you right!
A husband is the only possible solution to your problems.”
“Don’t you dare suggest a man as the solution for my troubles,” she cried. “You’re all the cause of them! My father gambled away the entire family fortune and left me in debt; my brother disappeared after getting me deeper in debt; you kissed me and destroyed my reputation; my fiancé left me at the first breath of a scandal you caused; and my uncle is trying to sell me! As far as I’m concerned,” she finished, spiting fire, “men make excellent dancing partners, but beyond that I have no use for the lot of you. You’re all quite detestable, actually, when one takes time to ponder it, which of course one rarely does, for it would only cause depression.
I’m willing to bargain with you,” he said gently, “for the same reason anyone tries to bargain-you have something I want.” Desperately trying to prove to her she wasn’t powerless or empty-handed, he added, “I want it badly, Elizabeth.”
“What is it?” she asked warily, but much of the resentment in her lovely face was already being replaced by surprise.
“This,” he whispered huskily. His hands tightened on her shoulders, pulling her close as he bent his head and took her soft mouth in a slow, compelling kiss, sensually molding and shaping her lips to his. Although she stubbornly refused to respond, he felt the rigidity leaving her; and as soon as it did, Ian showed her just how badly he wanted it. His arms went around her, crushing her to him, his mouth moving against hers with hungry urgency, his hands shifting possessively over her spine and hips, fitting her to his hardened length. Dragging his mouth from hers, he drew an unsteady breath. “Very badly,” he whispered.
Lifting his head, he gazed down at her, noting the telltale flush on her cheeks, the soft confusion in her searching green gaze, and the delicate hand she’d forgotten was resting against his chest. Keeping his own hand splayed against her lower back, he held her pressed to his rigid erection, torturing himself as he slid his knuckles against her cheek and quietly said, “For that privilege, and the others that follow it, I’m willing to agree to any reasonable terms you state. And I’ll even forewarn you,” he said with a tender smile at her upturned face, “I’m not a miserly man, nor a poor one.”
Elizabeth swallowed, trying to keep her voice from shaking in reaction to his kiss. “What other privileges that follow kissing?” she asked suspiciously.
The question left him nonplussed. “Those that involve the creation of children,” he said, studying her face curiously. “I want several of them-with your complete cooperation, of course,” he added, suppressing a smile.
“Of course,” she conceded without a second’s hesitation. “I like children, too, very much.”
Ian stopped while he was ahead, deciding it was wiser not to question his good fortune. Evidently Elizabeth had a very frank attitude toward marital sex-rather an unusual thing for a sheltered, well-bred English girl.
Oui,” the lady said in a slightly dazed voice, “but I cannot give you the emerald silk. That has already been selected by Lady Margaret Mitcham and promised to her.”
Ian’s expression took on a look of surprised displeasure. “I’m surprised you allowed her to choose it, madame. It will make her complexion look sallow. Tell her I said so.”
He turned and left the shop without the slightest idea of who Lady Margaret Mitcham was. Behind him an assistant came to lift the shimmering emerald silk and take it back to the seamstresses. “Non,” the modiste said, her appreciate gaze on the tall, broad-shouldered man who was bounding into his carriage. “It is to be used for someone else.”
“But Lady Mitcham chose it.”
With a last wistful glance at the handsome man who obviously appreciated exquisite cloth, she dismissed her assistant’s objection. “Lord Mitcham is an old man with bad eyes; he cannot appreciate the gown I can make from this cloth.”
“But what shall I tell Lady Mitcham?” the harassed assistant implored.
“Tell her,” her mistress said wryly, “that Monsieur Thornton-no, Lord Kensington-said it would make her complexion sallow.
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