Almost Heaven by Judith McNaught

Author:Judith McNaught [McNaught, Judith]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-05-18T19:01:53.881000+00:00

Chapter 17

Ian left at first light the next morning to go hunting, and Duncan took advantage of his absence to try to glean from Elizabeth some answers to the problems that worried him. Repeatedly and without success he tried to question her about her original meeting with Ian in England, what sort of life she led there, and so on. By the time breakfast was over, however, he had received only the most offhand and superficial sort of replies-replies he sensed were designed to mislead him into believing her life was perfectly frivolous and very agreeable. Finally, she tried to divert him by asking about Ian's sketches.

In the hope that she would confide in him if she understood Ian better, Duncan went so far as to explain how Ian had dealt with his grief after his family's death and why he had banished the retriever. The ploy failed; although she exhibited sympathy and shock at the story, she was no more inclined to reveal anything about herself than she had been before.

For Elizabeth's part, she could scarcely wait for the meal to end so she could escape his steady gaze and probing questions. For all his kindness and Scots bluntness, he was also, she suspected, an extremely perceptive man who did not give up easily when he set his mind to get at the bottom of something. As soon as the dishes were put away she went to her work in the garden, only to have him appear at her side a few minutes later, a worried expression on his face. "Your coachman is here," he said. "He's brought an urgent message from your uncle."

A feeling of dread swept through Elizabeth as she stood up, and she rushed into the house where Aaron was waiting.

"Aaron?" she said. "What's wrong? How on earth did you get the coach up here?"

In answer to the first question he handed her a folded message. In answer to the second he said gruffly, "Your uncle was so anxious to have you start home that he told us to rent whatever we needed, just so's we'd get you back posthaste. There's a pair o' horses out there for you and Miss Throckmorton-Jones, and a carriage down at the road we can use to get back to the inn where yer coach is waitin' to take ye home."

Elizabeth nodded absently, opened the message, and stared at it in dawning horror.

"Elizabeth," her uncle had written, "Come home at once. Belhaven has offered for you. There's no reason to waste time in Scotland. Belhaven would have been my choice over Thornton, as you know." Obviously anticipating that she would try some tactic to stall, he'd added, "If you return within a sennight, you may participate in the betrothal negotiations. Otherwise I shall proceed without you, which, as your guardian, I have every right to do."

Elizabeth crumpled the note in her hand, staring at her fist while her heart began to thud in helpless misery. A disturbance in the front yard beyond the open door of the cottage made her look up.

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