Part 36 (1/2)

”Do you suppose Mr. Demarcus cheated Elizabeth?” ”Not our Elizabeth,” Jordan laughed. ”But I wouldn't like to be in Ian's place if Demarcus realizes the place has sentimental value to Ian. The price will soar.”

In the ensuing two weeks Ian managed to buy back Elizabeth's emeralds and Havenhurst, but he was unable to find a trace of his wife. The town house in London felt like a prison, not a home, and still he waited, sensing somehow that Elizabeth was putting him through this torment to teach him some kind of well-deserved lesson.

He returned to Montmayne, where, for several more weeks, he prowled about its rooms, paced a track in the drawing room carpet, and stared into its marble-fronted fireplaces as if the answer would be there in the flames. Finally he could stand it no more. He couldn't concentrate on his work, and when he tried, he made mistakes. Worse, he was beginning to be haunted with walking nightmares that she'd come to harm-or that she was falling in love with someone kinder than he-and the tormenting illusions followed him from room to room.

On a clear, cold day in early December, after leaving instructions with his footmen, butler, and even his cook that he was to be notified immediately if any word at all was received from Elizabeth, he left for the cottage in Scotland. It was the one place where he might find peace from the throbbing emptiness that was gnawing away at him with a pain that increased unbearably from day to day, because he no longer really believed she would ever contact him. Too much time had pa.s.sed. If the beautiful, courageous girl he had married had wanted a reconciliation, she'd have done something else to bring it about by now. It was not in Elizabeth's nature to simply let things happen as they may. And so Ian went home to try to find peace, as he had always done before, except now it was. not the pressures of his life that brought him up the lane to the cottage on that unusually frigid December night; it was the gaping emptiness of his life.

Inside the cottage Elizabeth stood at the window, watching the snow-covered lane, as she'd been doing ever since Ian's message to the caretaker had been delivered to her by the vicar three days before. Ian was coming home, she knew, but he obviously hadn't the slightest notion she was there. His message had simply said to have the cottage stocked with wood and food, and cleaned, because he intended to stay for two months. Standing at the window, Elizabeth watched the moonlit path, telling herself she was ridiculous to think he would arrive at night, more ridiculous yet to be dressed for his arrival in her favorite sapphire wool gown with her hair loose about her shoulders, as Ian liked best.

A tall, dark form appeared around the bend of the lane, and Elizabeth pulled shut the new, heavy curtains she'd made, her heart beginning to hammer with a mixture of hope and dread as she recalled that the last time she'd seen him, he'd been leaving a ball with Jane Addison on his arm. Suddenly the idea of being here, where he didn't expect her to be-and probably didn't want her to be-didn't seem good at all.

After putting his horse in the barn Ian rubbed him down, then made certain he had food. Dim light shone through the windows of the cottage as he walked through the snow, and the smell of woodsmoke rose from the chimney. The caretaker was evidently there, awaiting his arrival. Kicking the snow off his boots, he reached for the door handle.

In the center of the room Elizabeth stood stock still, clasping and unclasping her hands, watching the handle turn, unable to breathe with the tension. The door swung open, admitting a blast of frigid air and a tall, broadshouldered man who glanced at Elizabeth in the firelight and said, ”Henry, it wasn't necess-”

Ian broke off, the door still open, staring at what he momentarily thought was a hallucination, a trick of the flames dancing in the fireplace, and then he realized the vision was real. Elizabeth was standing perfectly still, looking at him. And lying at her feet was a young Labrador retriever.

Trying to buy time, Ian turned around and carefully closed the door as if latching it with precision were the most paramount thing in his life, while he tried to decide whether she'd looked happy or not to see him. In the long lonely nights without her, he'd rehea.r.s.ed dozens of speeches to her-from stinging lectures to gentle discussions. Now, when the time was finally here, he could not remember one d.a.m.n word of any of them.

Left with no other choice, he took the only neutral course available. Turning back to the room, Ian looked at the Labrador. ”Who's this?” he asked, walking forward and crouching down to pet the dog, because he didn't know what the h.e.l.l to say to his wife.

Elizabeth swallowed her disappointment as he ignored her and stroked the Labrador's glossy black head. ”I-I call her Shadow.”

The sound of her voice was so sweet, Ian almost pulled her down into his arms. Instead, he glanced at her, thinking it encouraging she'd named her dog after his. ”Nice name.”

Elizabeth bit her lip, trying to hide her sudden wayward smile. ”Original, too.”

The smile hit Ian like a blow to the head, snapping him out of his untimely and unsuitable preoccupation with the dog. Straightening, he backed up a step and leaned his hip against the table, his weight braced on his opposite leg.

Elizabeth instantly noticed the altering of his expression and watched nervously as he crossed his arms over his chest, watching her, his face inscrutable. ”You-you look well,” she said, thinking he looked unbearably handsome.

”I'm perfectly fine,” he a.s.sured her, his gaze level. ”Remarkably well, actually, for a man who hasn't seen the sun s.h.i.+ne in more than three months, or been able to sleep without drinking a bottle of brandy.”

His tone was so frank and unemotional that Elizabeth didn't immediately grasp what he was saying. When she did, tears of joy and relief sprang to her eyes as he continued: ”I've been working very hard. Unfortunately, I rarely get anything accomplished, and when I do, it's generally wrong. All things considered, I would say that I'm doing very well-for a man who's been more than half dead for three months.”

Ian saw the tears s.h.i.+mmering in her magnificent eyes, and one of them traced unheeded down her smooth cheek.

With a raw ache in his voice he said, ”If you would take one step forward, darling, you could cry in my arms. And while you do, I'll tell you how sorry I am for everything I've done-” Unable to wait, Ian caught her, pulling her tightly against him. ”And when I'm finished,” he whispered hoa.r.s.ely as she wrapped her arms around him and wept brokenly, ”you can help me find a way to forgive myself.”

Tortured by her tears, he clasped her tighter and rubbed his jaw against her temple, his voice a ravaged whisper: ”I'm sorry,” he told her. He cupped her face between his palms, tipping it up and gazing into her eyes, his thumbs moving over her wet cheeks. ”I'm sorry.” Slowly, he bent his head, covering her mouth with his. ”I'm so d.a.m.ned sorry. ”

She kissed him back, holding him fiercely to her while shattered sobs racked her slender body and tears poured from her eyes. Tormented by her anguish, Ian dragged his mouth from hers, kissing her wet cheeks, running his hands over her shaking back and shoulders, trying to comfort her. ”Please darling, don't cry anymore,” he pleaded hoa.r.s.ely. ”Please don't.” She held him tighter, weeping, her cheek pressed to his chest, her tears soaking his heavy woolen s.h.i.+rt and tearing at his heart.

”Don't,” Ian whispered, his voice raw with his own unshed tears. ”You're tearing me apart.” An instant after he said those words, he realized that she'd stop crying to keep from hurting him, and he felt her shudder, trying valiantly to get control. He cupped the back of her head, crumpling the silk of her hair, holding her face pressed to his chest, imagining the nights he'd made her weep like this, despising himself with a virulence that was almost past bearing.

He'd driven her here, to hide from the vengeance of his divorce pet.i.tion, and still she had been waiting for him. In all the endless weeks since she'd confronted him in his study and warned him she wouldn't let him put her out of his life, Ian had never imagined that she would be hurting like this.

She was twenty years old and she had loved him. In return, he had tried to divorce her, publicly scorned her, privately humiliated her, and then he had driven her here to weep in solitude and wait for him. Self-loathing and shame poured through him like hot acid, almost doubling him over, Humbly, he whispered, ”Will you come upstairs with me?”

She nodded, her cheek rubbing his chest, and he swung her into his arms, cradling her tenderly against him, brus.h.i.+ng his lips against her forehead. He carried her upstairs, intending to take her to bed and give her so much pleasure that-at least for tonight-she'd be able to forget the misery he'd caused her.

Elizabeth knew, the moment he put her down in the bed chamber and began gently undressing her, that something was ,different. Confusion fluttered through her as he took her in his arms in bed, his body rigid with desire, his mouth and hands skillful as he kissed and caressed her, but the moment she tried to caress him in return, he forced her back onto the pillows, evading her touch, gently imprisoning her wrists. Kissed and caressed into near insensibility, desperate to please him as he had taught her to do, Elizabeth reached for him the moment his grip loosened on her hands. His body jerked away from her touch. ”Don't,” he whispered, but she heard the pa.s.sion thickening his voice, and so she obeyed”

Refusing to let her do anything to increase his pleasure, he brought her to the very brink of fulfillment with his hands and mouth before he s.h.i.+fted on top of her and entered her with one sure, powerful thrust. Elizabeth strained toward him in trembling need, her nails biting into his back as his rhythmic thrusts began, and then slowly, he started increasing their tempo. The sweetness of being filled by him again, combined with the fierce power of his body driving deeply into hers again and again, sent pleasure streaking through her and she instinctively arched herself upward in a fevered need to share it with him. His hands gripped her hips, while he quickened the pace of his deep plunging strokes, circling his hips, forcing the trembling ecstasy to overtake her until she cried out, shuddering with the sweet violence of it, her arms locked fiercely around his broad shoulders.

Slowly, Elizabeth began to surface from the stormy splendor of his lovemaking, aware in some pa.s.sion-drugged part of her mind that she had been the only one to find that quaking fulfillment. She opened her eyes, and in the firelight, she could see the harsh effort Ian was exerting to stop himself from moving within her and finding his own release. His hands were braced on either side of her shoulders, and he was holding his upper body away from hers; his eyes were clenched shut, and a muscle jerked spasmodically in his cheek. They had been so attuned to each other during the months of their marriage, that Elizabeth instinctively realized what he was doing, and the knowledge filled her with poignant tenderness. He was trying to atone to her in the only way he could right now-by unselfishly prolonging their lovemaking. And in order to do that, he was deliberately denying himself the release that Elizabeth knew he desperately wanted. It was, she thought tenderly, a loving gesture-and a futile one. Because this was not at all what she wanted, and Ian had taught her to show him what she wanted. He had also taught her the power she had over his body-and he had shown her how to use it. Always an excellent Student, Elizabeth put her knowledge into immediate-and very effective use.

Since his weight prevented any sort of seductive movement, Elizabeth used her hands and her voice to seduce him. Her voice shaking with love and desire, she s.h.i.+fted her hands down his back, caressing the bunched muscles of his shoulders and the hollow of his spine. ”I love you,” she whispered. He opened his eyes and Elizabeth met his smoldering gaze as she continued achingly, ”I've dreamed of this for so long. . . dreamed of the way you always hold me in your arms after we make love-and of how beautiful it is to lie beside you, knowing a part of you is still inside of me and that you might have given me your child.” Lifting her hands, Elizabeth took his face between her palms, her fingers moving over his hard cheekbones in a trembling caress as she slowly drew his mouth toward hers. ”But most of all,” she whispered, ”I dreamed of how exquisite it feels to have you moving deep inside of me-”

Ian's restraint broke under her sweet a.s.sault. A tortured groan tore from his chest, and he seized her mouth in a devouring kiss, wrapped his arms tightly around her, and drove into her, thrusting fiercely again and again, seeking absolution within her. . . finding it when she molded herself to him while his body jerked convulsively, shuddering violently, and he poured himself into her. His heart thundering against his ribs, his breath coming in deep, painful pants, Ian kept thrusting into her, willing her body to again respond to the fierce hunger of his driving strokes, determined to pleasure her again. She cried out his name, her hips arching, her body racked with tremors.

When some of his strength returned, he slid one arm beneath her hips, the other around her shoulders, and moved onto his side, taking her with him, still intimately joined to her, his seed deep inside her. It was, he thought, the most profound moment of his life. Stroking her hair, he swallowed and spoke, but his voice was shattered. ”I love you,” he said, telling her what she had told him that terrible day in his study. ”I never stopped loving you.”

She raised her face to his, and her answer made his chest ache. ”I know.”

”How did you know, sweetheart?” he asked, trying to smile.

”Because,” she said, ”I wanted it so badly to be true, and you've always given me everything I wanted. I couldn't believe you wouldn't do it, just one more time. Just once more.”

She moved slightly and Ian checked her, tightening his arms. ”Stay still, darling.” he whispered tenderly, and seeing her confusion, he told her, ”because our child is being conceived. ”

Her eyes searched his. ”Why do you think so?” ”Because,” he said, slowly smoothing her hair off her cheek, ”I want it so badly to be true, and you've always given me everything I wanted.” A lump of emotion swelled in Ian's chest as she pressed closer against him, cradled in his arms, not moving. She was willing it to be true; he knew it as surely as he knew that, somehow, it was.

Bright morning sunlight was glancing off the windowpanes when Ian finally began to surface from his deep slumber. A sense of well-being, absent from his life for more than three months, filled him, and oddly, it was the very unfamiliarity of the sensation that awakened him. Thinking some dream had caused it, he rolled onto his stomach, keeping his eyes closed, reaching for the dream, for unconsciousness, rather than awakening to the emptiness that normally inhabited his waking hours.

But awareness was already returning. The bed felt smaller and harder than it should; and, thinking he was at Montmayne, he decided dully that he'd fallen asleep on the sofa in his bedchamber. He'd drunk himself into oblivion on that sofa dozens of times, and slept there, rather than in the cavernous emptiness of the huge bed he'd shared with Elizabeth. Ian felt it start again-the dull ache of regret and worry, and, knowing sleep would evade him now, he flung himself onto his back and opened his eyes. His pupils recoiled from the glaring sunlight, his dazed eyes taking in the familiarity of his unexpected surroundings. And then it hit him, where he was, who had spent the night with him in naked splendor and uninhibited sharing. Joy and relief swept over him and he closed his eyes, letting it wash over him.

Slowly, however, his nose became aware of something else-the aroma of bacon cooking. A smile tugged at his lips, evolving into a lazy grin as he remembered the last time she had cooked bacon for him. It had been here, and she had burned it. This morning, he happily decided, he would eat charred paper-so long as he could feast his eyes on her while he did.

Clad in a soft gown of green wool with a bright yellow ap.r.o.n tied around her waist, Elizabeth stood at the stove, pouring tea into her mug. Unaware that Ian had just sat down on the sofa, she glanced at Shadow who was concentrating hopefully on the bacon cooling in the skillet. ”What do you think of your master?” Elizabeth asked the Labrador as she added milk to her tea. ”Didn't I tell you he was handsome? Although,” she confided with a smile, bending down to pat the satiny head, ”I'll admit I'd forgotten just how handsome he is.”

”Thank you,” Ian said with a tender smile. Surprise brought her head around so quickly that Elizabeth's hair spilled over her shoulder in a gilt waterfall. She stood up, smothering a laugh at the picture of absolute, masculine contentment she beheld before her. Clad in a chamois peasant s.h.i.+rt with coffee-colored breeches, Ian was sitting on the sofa, his hands linked behind his head, his feet crossed at the ankles and propped on the low table in front of him. ”You look like a Scottish sultan,” she said with a chuckle.

”I feel like one.” His grin faded to a somber smile when she handed him a mug of coffee. ”Can breakfast wait a little while?” he asked.

Elizabeth nodded. ”I thought I heard you moving about almost an hour ago, and I put the bacon on then. I intended to make more when you finally came down. Why?” she finished, wondering if he was afraid to eat her cooking.

”Because we have some things to talk about.” Elizabeth felt an unexpected lurch of dread. Last night, she'd lain beside him and explained everything that had happened from the time Robert appeared at Havenhurst until she arrived at the House of Lords. By the time she was finished, she'd been so exhausted from her tale and from Ian's lovemaking that she'd fallen asleep before he could explain his own actions. Now he obviously wanted to discuss the subject, and she wasn't entirely certain she wanted to spoil the beauty of their reconciliation by reopening it.

”We've wronged each other,” Ian said quietly, seeing her reluctant expression. ”If we try to hide from it, to pretend it didn't happen, it will always be there, lurking. It will come back to haunt both of us at odd times, for odd reasons, and when it does, it will come between us. Some little thing I say or do will rip open your scar from this, and I won't know why you're angry or hurt or mistrustful. Neither will you. Last night, you made your explanations to me, and there's no need to go into it again. I think you have a right to some explanations from me.”

”How did you become so wise?” she asked with a soft smile.

”If I were wise,” he said dryly, ”this separation would have ended months ago. However, I've had several agonizing weeks to try to think how we could best go on after this-a.s.suming you ever let me find you, and it seemed to me that talking about it, openly and thoroughly, was the only way.”

Elizabeth still hesitated, remembering the murderous fury he'd turned on her in his study the day of his acquittal. If talking about it would make him angry again, she wasn't certain it was worthwhile.

Reaching for her hand, Ian drew her down onto the sofa, watching as she tucked her skirts around her, fidgeted with each fold, and then looked apprehensively at the snowcovered windowpane. She was nervous, he realized with a pang. ”Give me your hand, sweetheart. You can ask me anything you want to know without fear of any anger from me.”

The sound of his deep, rea.s.suring voice, combined with the feeling of his strong warm fingers closing around hers, did much to dissolve her misgivings. Her gaze searching his face, Elizabeth asked, ”Why didn't you tell me Robert had tried to kill you and you'd had him taken aboard your s.h.i.+p? Why did you let me go on believing he'd simply vanished?”