Suzanne Robinson (24 page)

“It won’t work, you sodding old prick. I don’t care who you tell.”

Elliot chuckled, which made Jocelin stare at him.

“Knew you had pluck. Damned if I don’t admire you for it. Too bad, though, if it came out. Bad for your young sister, that is, and your mother.”

Elliot sucked on his cigar, but Jocelin said nothing. His mind twisted and writhed in an effort to see a way out. He heard the hissing of the fire. Elliot made obscene sucking noises on his cigar, noises that reminded Jocelin of Yale. He closed his eyes, the first movement he’d made since his host had stopped talking. Georgiana, dear, whimsical little Georgiana. And Mother. He couldn’t let them endure the shame. He opened his eyes to meet the pitying gaze of his adversary.

“Checkmate, dear boy.”

“Has she known all along?”

“Elizabeth Maud? Of course not. Never discuss such things with the women. Not done, and you very well know it. We need never speak of this again. If, that is, you agree to a ceremony in the parish church tomorrow.”

Jocelin took a gulp of whiskey. He was recovering from his shock only to find himself in as great a rage as he’d ever experienced, but at least Liza hadn’t done this to him.

“By God, you’ve had this planned all along.”

Elliot waved his cigar. “Not all along, but for several weeks. Now, do I have your word, dear boy?”

Jocelin inclined his head, unable to trust himself to speak.

“Then you’ll see to my daughter.” Elliot rose. “I’ll send her to you at once. Be eloquent, for your own sake. Wouldn’t want to have to tell the dear girl anything about our little arrangement, now would we?”

Jocelin spoke quietly. “Get out of here before I decide to kill you instead of pay your price, you son of a—get out.”

When Elliot had gone, he poured himself another whiskey and downed the whole thing in a gulp. He winced as he thought of Georgiana’s face if she found out about him. He cursed, flew from his chair, and flung the glass at the fireplace. It hit the mantel and splintered. Crystal shards flew in all directions, and one cut his cheek. He brushed the splinter from his flesh, but ignored the cut.

He stared at the fire, unseeing. Bracing against the mantel, he forced himself to breathe steadily. His hands were shaking with rage. He couldn’t see Liza like this. Covering his face with his hands, he forced his thoughts away from horror.

He’d learned to cut off ugly thoughts and memories long ago. Like a surgeon, he excised them now, splicing them from his awareness, separating them. Then he buried the ugliness deep inside himself in a hole so black and fathomless that even he couldn’t retrieve them. By the time he heard a knock at the door, he was placid, undisturbed, remotely tranquil.

Turning to greet Liza, he felt confident he could play the part of a willing suitor, for what was left of him was surface, cake icing, a film of dew on grass. As she walked toward him, he concentrated on the swish of her silk skirts, the way she walked with her head slightly tilted, as though listening to a tune played by a distant flute. She drifted into his arms, and he breathed in lemons and Liza.

He kissed her. All at once his predicament didn’t seem so terrible. Elliot’s tactics were still unconscionable, but after all, he would have Liza. Liza, who could give him respite from his living nightmare, who
craved him as much as he craved her. The last of his confusion about their ability to suit each other vanished as he held her. If she could give solace to him when he was so greatly disturbed, he couldn’t bear not to have her.

In any case, he could justify his decision logically, couldn’t he?

He required a wife, one suitable to his temperament, one who understood duty and who would accommodate herself to him, as a lady of rank should. He also required a wife whose very existence would rankle in his father’s heart, whose children would deny Yale the hope of ever polluting the family title by his inheriting it. Yes, he was being calm and reasonable in his decision to keep Liza for himself forever. He would marry her, and deal with Elliot later.

Lifting his mouth from Liza’s, he set her in his armchair and knelt beside it. Liza was no fool. He would have to tell her some of the truth. He busied himself in removing her long gloves. He peeled one down her upper arm.

She watched him gravely. “Father sent me.”

His fingers tugged at the material gathered at her elbow.

“He tried to get you to make an offer, didn’t he?” she asked.

He nodded as he worked the glove down her forearm.

“You needn’t worry,” she said. “I’ll not let him hound you.”

The glove slid off her hand. He tossed it on the floor and began tracing straight lines from her hand to her elbow.

“But Liza, sweet, I’m not worried.”

She shivered as his fingers skimmed up her arm. “Oh?”

“I’m grateful.” He kissed her bare arm just below the shoulder, and she shivered again. “You see, your father jolted me out of my brain fever long enough to make me realize how stupid I’ve been.”

She looked away from him. “I knew you wouldn’t want me for long.”

“What?” He caught her chin and turned her to face him. “What’s this? Do you mean you’ve expected me to leave you all along?”

Liza closed her eyes and nodded. Jocelin sat back on his heels and put his hands on his hips.

“Is that so? You thought I’d taste and bolt.” His voice rose. “And you let me! Elizabeth Maud Elliot, is that any way to behave? Where are your virtue and your sense of propriety?”

She faced him and snapped. “You didn’t seem to miss them last night.”

He quieted, realizing what he was saying. “Oh. Yes. Well. Hmm. Yes. Hmm.” He burst out again, “But I’m different. You may trust me. I want to marry you.”

She gripped the chair arms and stared at him wordlessly. He rose to his knees again and cursed himself for being so clumsy. He tried again.

“Liza, sweet, you’re my bread and wine. I wake up needing to see your face and touch your hair. I spend my days listening for the rustle of your gowns and my nights dreaming of you skating on that pond and then gliding into my bed. You make me happy, and I can’t conceive of a time when you wouldn’t. Make me happy all the time, Liza.”

She still didn’t say anything. Her eyes had widened as he spoke until they were larger than his
jacket buttons. He grew uneasy at the silence and decided to plead with her in a different way. While she gazed at him in confusion, he raised himself, bent over her, and took her lips. He snaked his tongue inside her mouth, bit lightly at her lips. His hand soothed her neck for long moments, then slipped beneath the sleeve of her gown to cup her bare shoulder. He brushed his mouth across her cheek, to her temple, to her ear, and whispered.

“Say yes.”

“But we don’t—”

He kissed her again. “Say yes.”

“Yes.”

He plunged into her mouth again, and she wrapped her arms about his neck. He straightened, bringing her with him, until they both stood erect. He shoved his body against hers and felt her hand stray down his back to his buttock. His blood churned. He felt as if his flesh were roasting on a spit. His fingers curled, dug into the bare flesh of her back, then fastened around the buttons that secured her gown.

The knock at the door almost made him tear one of them off her gown. Liza jumped. He swore and hugged her to him before setting her away and asking the intruder to enter. He walked away from Liza to stare at the fire while he battled with his unruly body. Richard Elliot bustled into the room. Jocelin put his fist behind his back and stiffened his spine.

Elliot waved his cigar. “Well, well, well, wonderful news. Wonderful news.”

He kissed Liza on the cheek. She accepted the embrace, but gave her father a look of wary surmise. Jocelin tried to interrupt him, but Elliot slapped him on the back.

“Grand news, my boy, and I’ve arranged for the
parish church tomorrow night. Special permission from the archbishop, you know.”

Jocelin scowled at Elliot, then glanced at Liza, who was frowning at her father. She had a hand on the back of an armchair and was drumming her fingers on the leather.

He hastened to interrupt her speculation by returning to her side and slipping his arm around her waist. “Your father has been playing Cupid. I told him I couldn’t bear to wait to make you my wife, and he surprised me with these arrangements.” He gave Elliot a lynxlike glance. “Thoughtful of you, Elliot.”

“Papa!”

Both men cringed.

“Papa,” Liza said as she slipped from Jocelin’s grasp and rounded on her father. “Lord Radcliffe is the heir to a dukedom. He can’t marry in such haste. There’s the duke and his family, and don’t forget her majesty. Why, we don’t even know if his father will approve.”

“My father already knows I’m looking for a wife,” Jocelin said.

Liza turned slowly to look at him. She cocked her head to the side. “You’ve been searching all along.”

The lies were beginning to stick in his throat, so he merely nodded.

“See there,” Elliot said. “Nothing to worry about. You don’t want all that fuss, my dear.”

Jocelin slipped his arm around her shoulders. “No indeed. It’s awful. And if Mother involves herself, we’ll end up in St. Peter’s in Eaton Square.”

“Oh, no,” she said.

“That is, of course, unless her majesty takes it
into her head to insist upon Buckingham Palace or Windsor.”

“You’re teasing me.” Liza wet her lips and swallowed. “Aren’t you?”

“No,” Jocelin said.

“All settled, then,” said Elliot. “No fuss. Have all the preparations in hand, dear boy.”

As Elliot expounded, Jocelin noticed that Liza kept quiet. She was frowning at her father again. Suddenly she looked up at him. He smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. The darkness and gaslight brought out the teal in her eyes.

“I want to wait,” she said, cutting her father off in midsentence.

Elliot’s cheeks puffed out. “Wait!”

“Now, Liza, sweet,” Jocelin said, kissing her hand and making her shiver. “I realize you’ve been taken by surprise. Perhaps we should speak to each other alone again.”

He saw the muscles of her throat work as she swallowed, and gave her a smile that said he was quite aware of what he was doing to her. She yanked her hand from his grasp, snatched her glove, and began putting it on.

“I don’t want to wait,” he said.

“I need time.” Her hands were trembling as she smoothed the glove over her arm. “Six months.”

Elliot’s curses exploded over them. “By God, you little fool, you can’t wait six months!”

Liza gripped the chair back and stared at her father.

“Why not?”

“Don’t make me—”

“Elliot,” Jocelin said. “Leave this to me.”

He repossessed Liza’s hand and moved close to
her so that he could look into her eyes. He felt her body strain toward him and knew she was fighting her own urges. Bending over her, he lowered his voice and filled it with the somnolent heat of the Texas hill country in August.

“Liza, sweet, you don’t want to make me wait, now do you?”

“Don’t do that,” she whispered.

“What, love?”

“Your voice, don’t do that. It sounds like boiling honey. Don’t do that. I can’t think.”

“You don’t need to think. You said you’d marry me. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

He leaned down and kissed her temple. His tongue laved her skin, and she squirmed. He smiled and whispered something lurid in her ear. Crying out, Liza shied away from him.

“No,” she said, holding out her hand to ward him off. “You’re trying to rush me. I don’t like it. Why have you changed so suddenly? What did Papa say to you?”

Elliot bellowed. “By God! You trample your own virtue in the mud and then quibble about a rushed marriage?”

“What have you done, Papa? You’re too pleased with yourself. You can’t treat Jocelin like some pimply apprentice.”

Chest swelling, face coloring to the hue of a tomato, Elliot raised his arm and pointed at his daughter. “ ‘A whore is a deep ditch,’ my girl. And it’s my shame that I should be forced to speak so to a woman. You would do well to read your Bible and spend this night on your knees in prayer, for the word of God says that we should abstain from fleshly lusts.”

Elliot subsided, out of breath and biblical references.
Jocelin moved to stand between Liza, who had gone pale and silent, and her father. He stood over the man, who backed up until his back hit the mantel.

Jocelin drawled quietly, “If you ever speak to my lady like that again, I’ll stuff that cigar down your throat.”

Mouth popping open and closed like a beached salmon, Elliot couldn’t seem to find a retort. Jocelin returned to Liza, took her hand, and gazed at her anxiously, worried that her father’s cruelty had wounded her. As he had feared, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. He squeezed her hand and brought it to his cheek.

“Don’t listen to him,” he said.

She drew in a ragged breath and released his hand. “I haven’t for a long time. I will marry you, my lord, but not in haste and secret. Why, your mother and sister will want to be at your wedding.”

The mention of Mother and Georgiana spurred him, called up the fear he’d thought he had banished.

“Damn it, Liza, why must you be so stubborn?”

“I’m not being stubborn,” Liza cried as she paced back and forth and shook her head. She was trembling as she burst out, “This isn’t what I expected. It’s not what I planned.”

To Jocelin the room seemed to jolt on its foundations at the sound of that one word. “Planned? Did you say planned?”

“I meant—”

“Wait a moment. Wait.” They stared at him while he thought furiously, then raised his gaze to Liza. “You said planned.” His voice faded as dread strangled him. “By God, you’re a clever girl, far more clever than I’d imagined. You want a grand wedding all right.”

“Of course she does,” snapped Elliot. “Only natural.”

“That one word doesn’t mean anything,” Liza said. “You don’t—”

Jocelin stopped her with a raised hand. He could barely hear his own voice, it was so low. “One little word betrayed you.”

Liza put her hands on her hips and glared up into his face. “Dear Lord, he thinks I’ve concocted some ornate plot.”