Almost Heaven Read online

“He was a decade too late!” Ian gritted. “My father was the rightful heir, and that old bastard never relented until after he died.”

  “I’m well aware of that. However, that’s not the point, Ian. You’ve lost the battle to remain distant from him. You must lose it with the grace and dignity of your noble lineage, as your father would have done. You are rightfully the next Duke of Stanhope. Nothing can really change that. Furthermore, I fervently believe your father would have forgiven the duke if he’d had the chance that you now have.”

  In restless fury Ian shoved away from the wall. “I am not my father,” he snapped.

  The vicar, fearing that Ian was vacillating, said pointedly, “There’s no time to lose. There’s every chance you may arrive at your grandfather’s only to be told he’s already done what he said he meant to do last week—name a new heir.”

  “There’s an equally good chance I’ll be told to go to hell after my last letter to him.”

  “Then, too,” said the vicar, “if you tary, you may arrive after Elizabeth’s wedding to this Belhaven.”

  Ian hesitated an endless moment, and then he nodded curtly, shoved his hands into his pockets, and started reluctantly up the stairs.

  “Ian?” he called after him.

  Ian stopped and turned. “Now what?” he asked irritably.

  “I’ll need directions to Elizabeth’s. You’ve changed brides, but I gather I’m still to have the honor of performing the ceremony in London?”

  In answer his nephew nodded.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” the vicar said quietly, unable to shake the fear that Ian’s anger would cause him to deliberately alienate the old duke. “Regardless of how your marriage turns out, you have no choice. You wreaked havoc in her life.”

  “In more ways than you know,” Ian said tersely.

  “What in God’s name does that mean?”

  “I’m the reason her uncle is now her guardian,” he said with a harsh sigh. “Her brother didn’t leave to avoid debts or scandal, as Elizabeth evidently thinks.”

  “You’re the cause? How could that be?”

  “He called me out, and when he couldn’t kill me in a legitimate duel he tried twice more—on the road—and damned near accomplished his goal both times. I had him hauled aboard the Arianna and shipped off to the Indies to cool his heels.”

  The vicar paled and sank down upon the sofa. “How could you do a thing like that?”

  Ian stiffened under the unfair rebuke. “There were only two other alternatives—I could have let him blow a hole through my back, or I could have handed him over to the authorities. I didn’t want him hanged for his overzealous determination to avenge his sister, I just wanted him out of my way.”

  “But two years!”

  “He would have been back in less than one year, but the Arianna was damaged in a storm and put into San Delora for repairs. He jumped ship there and vanished. I assumed he’d made his way back here somehow. I had no idea,” he finished as he turned and started back up the stairs, “that he had never returned until you told me a few minutes ago.”

  “Good God!” said the vicar. “Elizabeth couldn’t be blamed if she took it in her mind to hate you for this.”

  “I don’t intend to give her the opportunity,” Ian replied in an implacable voice that warned his uncle not to interfere. “I’ll hire an investigator to trace him, and after I find out what’s happened to him, I’ll tell her.”

  Duncan’s common sense went to battle with his conscience, and this time his conscience lost. “It’s probably the best way,” he agreed reluctantly, knowing how hard Elizabeth would undoubtedly find it to forgive Ian for yet another, and worse, transgression against her. “This all could have been so much easier,” he added with a sigh, “if you’d known sooner what was happening to Elizabeth. You have many acquaintances in English society; how is it they never mentioned it to you?”

  “In the first place, I was away from England for almost a year after the episode. In the second place,” Ian added with contempt, “among what is amusingly called Polite Society, matters that concern you are never discussed with you. They are discussed with everyone else, directly behind your back if possible.”

  Ian watched an inexplicable smile trace its way across his uncle’s face. “Putting their gossip aside, you find them an uncommonly proud, autocratic, self-assured group, is that it?”

  “For the most part, yes,” Ian said shortly as he turned and strode up the stairs. When his door closed the vicar spoke to the empty room. “Ian,” he said, his shoulders beginning to shake with laughter, “you may as well have the title—you were born with the traits.”

  After a moment, however, he sobered and lifted his eyes to the beamed ceiling, his expression one of sublime contentment. “Thank You,” he said in the direction of heaven. “It took You a rather long time to answer the first prayer,” he added, referring to the reconciliation with Ian’s grandfather, “but You were wonderfully prompt with the one for Elizabeth.”

  18

  It was nearly midnight four days later when Ian finally reached the White Stallion Inn. Leaving his horse with a hostler, he strode into the inn, past the common room filled with peasants drinking ale. The innkeeper, a fat man with a soiled apron around his belly, cast an appraising eye over Mr. Thornton’s expensively tailored charcoal jacket and dove-gray riding breeches, his hard face and powerful physique, and wisely decided it wasn’t necessary to charge his guest for the room in advance—something at which the gentry occasionally took offense.

  A minute later, after Mr. Thornton had ordered a meal sent to his room, the innkeeper congratulated himself on the wisdom of that decision, because his new guest inquired about the magnificent estate belonging to an illustrious local noble.

  “How far is it to Stanhope Park?”

  “ ’Bout an hour’s ride, gov’ner.”

  Ian hesitated, debating whether to arrive there in the morning unannounced and unexpected or to send a message. “I’ll need a message brought there in the morning,” he said after a hesitation.

  “I’ll have my boy take it there personal. What time will you be wantin’ it taken over t’ Stanhope Park?”

  Ian hesitated again, knowing there was no way to avoid it. “Ten o’clock.”

  * * *

  Standing alone in the inn’s private parlor the next morning, Ian ignored the breakfast that had been put out for him long ago and glanced at his watch. The messenger had been gone for three hours—almost a full hour more than it should have taken him to return with a message from Stanhope, if there was going to be a message. He put his watch away and walked over to the fireplace, moodily slapping his riding gloves against his thigh. He had no idea if his grandfather was at Stanhope or if the old man had already named another heir and would now refuse to see Ian in retaliation for all the gestures of reconciliation Ian had rebuffed in the last decade. With each minute that passed Ian was more inclined to believe the latter.

  Behind him the innkeeper appeared in the doorway and said, “My boy hasn’t yet returned, though there’s been time aplenty. I’ll have to charge ye extra, Mr. Thornton, if he don’t return within the hour.”

  Ian glanced at the innkeeper over his shoulder and made a sublime effort not to snap the man’s head off. “Have my horse saddled and brought round,” he replied curtly, not certain exactly what he meant to do now. He’d actually have preferred a public flogging to writing that curt message to his grandfather in the first place. Now he was being brushed off like a supplicant, and that infuriated him.

  Behind him the innkeeper frowned at Ian’s back with narrowed, suspicious eyes. Ordinarily male travelers who arrived without private coach or even a valet were required to pay for their rooms when they arrived. In this instance the innkeeper hadn’t demanded advance payment because this particular guest had spoken with the clipped, authoritative accents of a wealthy gentleman and because his riding clothes bore the unmistakable stamp of elegant cloth and custom tailoring.