“We’ll go to Kilmorgan. You’ll be part of it, now.”
“Do stop trying to make me feel better, Ian.”
He frowned, Ian always taking her words literally. She went on. “A lady likes to be wooed a bit before she’s thrust into marriage. Offered a diamond ring and so forth.” Ian’s grip tightened. “I’ll buy you the largest ring you ever saw, covered with sapphires to match your eyes.” Her heart skipped a beat. His gaze was so intense, even when he couldn’t meet hers directly.
She remembered the breathless moment when he’d actually looked at her when they’d made love. His eyes had been so beautiful, fixed on her as though she were the only person in the world. The only person who mattered. What would she give to have him look at her like that again?
Everything she had.
“Blast you, Ian Mackenzie,” she whispered.
Someone tapped on the door, and Curry stuck his head around it. “The rain’s slackened, and the good inspector’s getting impatient.”
“Beth,” Ian said, his grip crushing.
Beth closed her eyes. She hung onto Ian’s hands as though he were the only thing between her and drowning. “All right, all right,” she said, her voice shaking as much as her. body. “We’d better do it quickly, before the inspector storms the battlements.”
And it was done. Beth’s eyes were heart-wrenchingly blue as she repeated the vows. Then the marriage was sealed by the priest, witnessed by Curry, Mac, and Bellamy. Ian slipped a plain ring he’d instructed Curry to bring onto Beth’s finger, a placeholder until he could buy her the wide sapphire band. When he kissed her, he tasted the heat left over from their lovemaking as well as her nervousness.
They walked out together, Ian holding an umbrella over both himself and Beth. Ian pointedly ignored Fellows and the crowd of Paris police and journalists who waited on the opposite side of the street.
Ian’s carriage pulled forward as they emerged, blocking Fellows’s view. The man strode around the carriage anyway as Ian was handing Beth in.
Fellows’s eyes were grim, his mustache soaked with rain. His stance bore the furious exhaustion of a man who’d stalked his prey all night and now saw it slipping away.
“Ian Mackenzie,” he said heavily. “My friends in the Surete have come to arrest you for abducting Mrs. Beth Ackerley and holding her hostage in this inn.” Beth gazed out of the carriage, a warm, lighted haven from the rain. “Oh, don’t be so ridiculous, Inspector. He didn’t abduct me.”
“I have witnesses who saw him drag you out of that gambling den and hustle you here.”
Ian slowly folded his umbrella, shook it out, and stowed it inside the carriage. “Mrs. Beth Ackerley is no longer here,” he said, focusing on the pension they’d just left. “Lady Ian Mackenzie is.”
He turned and climbed into the carriage before Fellows could begin to splutter. Mac came out of the pension, a wide grin on his face, followed by Curry with a valise, and Bellamy with a basket of wine and bread Ian had bought from the hotelier.
“You lost that round, Fellows,” Mac said, clapping the inspector on a soggy shoulder. “Better luck next time.” He climbed up into the carriage and thumped down opposite Beth and Ian, smiling broadly at them. Bellamy climbed up with the coachman, but Curry sprang into the coach and slammed the door in Fellows’s face. The inspector’s eyes were hard as agates, and Ian knew he’d thwarted the man only briefly. The battle had been won, but the war would rage on.
They left immediately for Scotland. Beth had only a few hours to pack and say good-bye to Isabella, because Ian was suddenly in a tearing hurry.
“Oh, darling, I’m so happy.” Tears wet Isabella’s lashes as she gathered Beth in a right hug. “I’ve always wanted a sister, and you are the best I can think of.” She held Beth at arm’s length. “Make him happy. Ian deserves to be happy, more than any of them.”
“I’ll try,” Beth promised.
Isabella’s dimples showed. “When I move back to London, you’ll come down and stay with me, and we’ll have scads of fun.”
Beth clung to Isabella’s hands. “Are you certain you won’t come with us now? I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you, too, darling, but no. You and Ian need to be alone together, and Kilmorgan—“ She broke off, pain in her eyes. “Too many memories for me. Not yet.” They hugged again. Beth hadn’t realized how fond she’d grown of Isabella, the openhearted young woman who’d taken Beth under her wing and shown her a new and astonishing world.
Isabella hugged Ian as well, expounding upon how happy she was for him.
At last Ian and Beth made their way to the train station, with Curry and Katie and another carriage full of boxes and bags. Beth quickly learned how much aristocrats took for granted when Ian guided her into the first- class compartment and left Curry to see to the baggage, the tickets, and Katie. For all Ian’s assertions that he didn’t fit anywhere, he was still a lord, a duke’s brother, rich and lofty enough to ignore the tiny details of life. He had people to pay attention to those details for him.
Mrs. Barrington’s voice in Beth’s head had grown fainter in the last days, and Beth heard it only weakly now.
She wondered what Thomas would have said, and found his voice completely gone. Tears blurred the ponderous station that slid past the windows as the train began to move.
Ian hadn’t even bothered to wonder whether Curry made it aboard before they went. Beth compared this leaving to her own departure from Victoria Station: Mrs. Barrington’s wheezing, elderly butler trying to help but dropping everything he picked up, Katie convinced their luggage would be stolen and never seen again, and the lady’s maid Beth had hired having hysterics about “foreign parts” and running off at the last minute.
Of course, Curry had no such problems. He appeared calmly at the door of their compartment as they glided through Paris to tell them he’d ordered tea and squared the tickets, and asked if they wanted anything else. Very efficient, very calm, as though his master hadn’t just rushed into a marriage and a journey of hundreds of miles on top of it. Beth also discovered, as they left Paris behind and chugged across rain-soaked France, how restless Ian could be. After only half an hour in their private compartment, Ian left to roam the train, walking up and down, up and down. When they reached Calais and boarded the boat for England, he paced the deck above while Beth slept alone in their private cabin.
Finally, during the journey from Dover to Victoria Station, Beth stuck out her foot when Ian again rose to leave the compartment.
“Is anything the matter?” she asked. “Why don’t you want to sit?”
“I don’t like to be confined.” Ian opened the door to the corridor as he spoke, fine beads of sweat on his upper lip. “You don’t mind carriages.”
“I can make carriages stop whenever I like. I can’t step off a train or boat whenever I please.”
“True.” She touched her lip. “Perhaps we can find something to take your mind from it.”
Ian abruptly closed the door. “I also leave because keeping my hands off you is a strain.”
“We’ll be on the train for a few more hours,” Beth continued.
“And I’m certain Curry will ensure we’re not disturbed.” Ian pulled down the curtains and turned to her. “What did you have in mind?”
Beth hadn’t thought they could do very much in a small railway carriage, but Ian proved to be quite resourceful. She found herself half-undressed with her legs wrapped around him as he knelt in front of her. In that position they were face-to-face, and Beth studied his eyes, hoping he’d look at her fully again. But this time, when climax hit him, Ian closed his eyes and turned his head.
Only a few minutes later, Beth was dressed again and sitting breathlessly on the seat while Ian went out to pace the train.
When Beth had shared a bed with Thomas, they’d been less exuberant and more conventional, but at the end, there had been quiet kisses and whispered I
Ian’s matter-of-fact statement from weeks ago: I
The luggage made it to the station intact, but when they entered an elegant coach outside—hired by Curry —it took them toward the Strand instead of Euston Station. “Are we stopping in London?” Beth asked in surprise.
