Almost Heaven Read online

  Shadow had stayed because Shadow had never disobeyed a command of Ian’s.

  Duncan had remained for several hours, and when he left, Shadow was still sitting in the yard, her eyes riveted on the bend in the road, her head tipped to the side, waiting, as if she refused to believe Ian actually meant to leave her there.

  But Ian had never returned for her. It was the first time that Duncan had realized Ian’s mind was so powerful that it could completely override all his emotions when he wished. With calm logic Ian had irrevocably decided to separate himself from anything whose loss could cause him further anguish. Pictures of his parents and his sister had been carefully packed away, along with their belongings, into trunks, until all that remained of them was the cottage. And his memories.

  Shortly after their death a letter from Ian’s grandfather, the Duke of Stanhope, had arrived. Two decades after disowning his son for marrying Ian’s mother, the Duke had written to him asking to make amends; his letter arrived three days after the fire. Ian had read it and thrown it away, as he had done with the dozens of letters that followed it during the last eleven years, all addressed to him. When wronged Ian was as unyielding, as unforgiving as the jagged hills and harsh moors that had spawned him.

  He was also the most stubborn human being Duncan had ever known. As a boy Ian’s calm confidence, his brilliant mind, and his intractability had all combined to give his parents pause. As Ian’s father had once jokingly remarked of their gifted son, “Ian permits us to raise him because he loves us, not because he thinks we’re smarter than he is. He already knows we aren’t, but he doesn’t want to wound our sensibilities by saying so.”

  Given all that, and considering Ian’s ability to coldly turn away from anyone who had wronged him, Duncan had little hope of softening Ian’s attitude toward his grandfather now—not when he couldn’t appeal to either Ian’s intellect or his affection in the matter. Not when the Duke of Stanhope meant far less to Ian than his Labrador had.

  Lost in his own reflections, Duncan stared moodily into the fire, while across from him Ian laid aside his papers and watched him in speculative silence. Finally he said, “Since my cooking was no worse than usual, I assume there’s another reason for that ferocious scowl of yours.”

  Duncan nodded, and with a considerable amount of foreboding he stood up and walked over to the fire, mentally phrasing his opening arguments. “Ian, your grandfather has written to me,” the vicar began, watching Ian’s pleasant smile vanish and his face harden into chiseled stone. “He has asked me to intercede on his behalf and to urge you to reconsider meeting with him.”

  “You’re wasting your time,” Ian said, his voice steely.

  “He’s your family,” Duncan tried again.

  “My entire family is sitting in this room,” Ian bit out. “I acknowledge no other.”

  “You’re his only living heir,” Duncan persisted doggedly.

  “That’s his problem, not mine.”

  “He’s dying, Ian.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I do believe him. Furthermore, if your mother were alive, she would beg you to reconcile with him. It crushed her all her life that he disowned your father for marrying her. I shouldn’t have to remind you that your mother was my only sister. I loved her, and if I can forgive the man for the hurt he dealt her by his actions, I don’t see why you can’t.”

  “You’re in the business of forgiveness,” Ian drawled with scathing sarcasm. “I’m not. I believe in an eye for an eye.”

  “He’s dying, I tell you.”

  “And I tell you”—Ian enunciated each word with biting clarity—“I do not give a damn!”

  “If you won’t consider accepting the title for yourself, do it for your father. It was his by right, just as it is your future son’s birthright. This is your last opportunity to relent, Ian. Your grandfather allowed me a fortnight to sway you before he named another heir. Your arrival here was delayed for a full fortnight. It may be too late already—”

  “It was too late eleven years ago,” Ian replied with glacial calm, and then, while the vicar watched, Ian’s expression underwent an abrupt and startling transformation. The rigidity left his jaw, and he began sliding papers back into their case. That finished, he glanced at Duncan and said with quiet amusement, “Your glass is empty, Vicar. Would you like another?”

  Duncan sighed and shook his head. It was over, exactly as Duncan had anticipated and feared: Ian had mentally slammed the door on his grandfather, and nothing would ever change his mind. When he turned calm and pleasant like this, Duncan knew from experience, Ian was irrevocably beyond reach. Since he’d already ruined his first night with his nephew, Duncan decided there was nothing to be lost by broaching another sensitive subject that was bothering him. “Ian, about Elizabeth Cameron. Her duenna said some things—”

  That alarmingly pleasant yet distant smile returned to Ian’s face. “I’ll spare you further conversation, Duncan. It’s over.”

  “The discussion or—”

  “All of it.”

  “It didn’t look over to me!” Duncan snapped, nudged to the edge by Ian’s infuriating calm. “That scene I witnessed—”

  “You witnessed the end.”

  He said that, Duncan noted, with the same deadly finality, the same amused calm with which he’d spoken of his grandfather. It was as if he’d resolved matters to his complete satisfaction in his own mind, and nothing and no one could ever invade the place where he put them to rest Based on Ian’s last reaction to the matter of Elizabeth Cameron, she was now relegated to the same category as the Duke of Stanhope. Frustrated, Duncan jerked the bottle of brandy off the table at Ian’s elbow and splashed some into his glass. “There’s something I’ve never told you,” he said angrily.

  “And that is?” Ian inquired.

  “I hate it when you turn all pleasant and amused. I’d rather see you furious! At least then I know I still have a chance of reaching you.”

  To Duncan’s boundless annoyance, Ian merely picked up his book and started reading again.

  15

  Ian, would you go out to the barn and see what’s keeping Elizabeth?” the vicar asked as he expertly turned a piece of bacon frying in the skillet. “I sent her out there fifteen minutes ago to bring in some eggs.”

  Ian dumped an armload of wood beside the fireplace, dusted off his hands, and went searching for his house guest. The sight and sounds that greeted him when he reached the door of the barn halted him in his tracks. With her hands plunked upon her hips Elizabeth was glowering at the roosting hens, who were flapping and cackling furiously at her. “It’s not my fault!” she was exclaiming. “I don’t even like eggs. In fact, I don’t even like the smell of chickens.” As she spoke she started stealthily forward on tiptoe, her voice pleading and apologetic. “Now, if you’ll just let me have four, I won’t even eat any. Look,” she added, reaching forward toward the flapping hen, “I won’t disturb you for more than just one moment. I’ll just slide my hand right in there—ouch!” she cried as the hen pecked furiously at her wrist.

  Elizabeth jerked her hand free, then swung around in mortification at Ian’s mocking voice: “You don’t really need her permission, you know,” he said, walking forward. “Just show her who’s master by walking right up there like this . . . .”

  And without further ado he stole two eggs from beneath the hen, who did not so much as try to attack him; then he did the same thing beneath two more hens. “Haven’t you ever been in a henhouse before?” Ian asked, noting with detached impartiality that Elizabeth Cameron looked adorable with her hair mussed and her face flushed with ire.

  “No,” she said shortly. “I haven’t. Chickens stink.”

  He chuckled. “That’s it, then. They sense how you feel about them—animals do, you know.”

  Elizabeth slid him a swift, searching glance while an uneasy, inexplicable feeling of change hit her. He was smiling at her, even joking, but his eyes were blank. In the times they