Almost Heaven (Sequels 3)

Wrapping the woman in a tight hug, Elizabeth said, "Thank you-both of you. Mr. Hogan. how much would you earn for a week's excellent catch?"

He told her, and Elizabeth reached into her reticule, extracted some bills, counted them, and thrust them into his bands, squeezing his fingers closed over them. "That is five times the amount you named," she told him. It was the first time in all her life Elizabeth Cameron Thornton had ever paid more than she absolutely had to for anything. "Can we leave tonight?'"

"I-I s'pose, but it ain't wise to be out there at night." "It has to be tonight. I can't spare a moment." Elizabeth shook off the unspeakable notion that she might already be too late;.

"What's going on in here?" Robert's voice rose in surprise as he noticed Elizabeth's clothing tumbled onto the bed. Then his gaze riveted on the newspaper, and his eyes narrowed in anger. "I told you-" he began, turning furiously on the Hogans.

"Robert, you and I need to talk." Elizabeth interrupted. "Alone."

"John," said Mrs. Hogan, "I think we ought to go for a nice walk."

It was at that moment that Elizabeth realized for the first time that Robert must have had the newspaper hidden from her because he already knew what was in it. The idea that he knew and hadn't told her was almost as unspeakable as discovering that Ian was being accused of their murder. "Why?" she began in a sudden burst of anger.

"Why what?" he snapped. "Why haven't you told me about the things in the paper?" "I didn't want to upset you."

"You what?" she cried, then she realized she didn't have time to debate the technicalities with him. "We have to go back."

"Go back," he jeered. "I'm not going back. He can hang for my murder. I hope he does, the bastard!"

"Well, he's not going to hang for mine," she said, shoving her clothes into her valise.

"I'm afraid he is, Elizabeth." It. was the sudden softness of his tone, his complete indifference, that made her heart freeze and an awful, unformed suspicion begin to tear through her. "If I had left a note, as I wanted to do," she began, "none of this would have been necessary. Ian could have showed the note to . . ." She broke off as a realization hit her. According to the testimony of witnesses published in the paper, Robert had twice tried to kill Ian, not the other way around. If he'd lied about that, then he could have would have lied about the rest. The old, familiar pain of betrayal began to hammer in her mind, only this time it was Robert's betrayal, not Ian's. It had never been Ian's.

"It's all a dirty lie, isn't it?" she said with a calm that belied her rioting feelings.

"He destroyed my life," Robert hissed, wrathfully looking at her as if she were the traitor. "And it's not all a lie. He had me hauled aboard one of his ships, but I escaped in San Delora."

Elizabeth drew a shaky breath. "And your back? How did that happen?

"I had no money, damn you-nothing but the clothes on my back when I escaped. I sold myself as a bond servant to pay for passage to America." he flung at her, "and that is how my master dealt with bond servants who sto-who didn't work fast enough."

"You said ?stole'!" Elizabeth flung back at him in shaking fury. "Don't lie to me-not again. What about the mines the mines you talked about-black pits ?in the ground?"

"I worked in a mine for a few months," he gritted, walking toward her with menacing steps.

Elizabeth snatched up her reticule and stepped back as he grabbed her shoulders in a vicious grip. "I've seen unspeakable things, done unspeakable things-and all because I tried to defend your honor while you were playing the slut for that son of a bitch."

Elizabeth tried to twist free and couldn't, and fear began spiraling through her.

"When I finally made it back here, I picked up a paper and read all about how my little sister's been doing the elegant at all the ton parties while I was rotting in a jungle picking sugar cane."

"Your little sister," Elizabeth cried in a shaking voice, "was selling everything we had to pay off your debts, damn you! You'd have landed in debtors' gaol if you showed your face here before I stripped Havenhurst of everything." Her voice broke, and she panicked. "Robert, please," she choked. her tear brightened eyes searching his hard face. "Please. You're my brother. And part of what you say is true I am the reason for much of what's happened to you.

"Not Ian, me. He could have done much worse to you if he were truly cruel," she argued. "He could have turned you over to the authorities. That's what most men would have done, and you would have spent the rest of your life in a

dungeon."

His grip tightened, and his jaw was rigid; Elizabeth lost the battle against her tears, and even her battle to hate Robert for what he had planned to do to Ian. Drawing a suffocated breath, she laid her hand against his lean cheek while tears danced in her eyes. "Robert," she said achingly, "I love you, and I think you love me. If you're going to stop me from going to London, I'm afraid you're going to have to kill me to do it."

He shoved her backward, as if the touch of her skin suddenly burned his hands, and Elizabeth landed on the bed, still clutching her open reticule. Filled with sorrow for all he had been through, she watched him pace the room like a caged animal. Carefully she pulled all her money out and put it on the bed, then she separated some bills to hire the coach she would need. "Bobby," she said quietly. She saw his shoulders stiffen at the use of his boyhood nickname. "Please come here."

She could see the battle going on in his mind as he continued to pace, then abruptly turned and stalked over to the bed as she stood up. "There's a small fortune here," she continued in the same gentle, sad voice. "It's yours. Use it to go anywhere you want." She touched his sleeve with her left hand. "Bobby?" she whispered, searching his face. "It's over. There'll be no more vengeance. Take the money and leave on the first boat going anywhere."

He opened his mouth, and she hastily shook her head. "Don't tell me where, if that's what you were going to do. There'll be questions about you, and if I don't know the answers, you'll know you're safe from me and Ian and even English law." She saw him swallow repeatedly, his forlorn gaze on the money lying on the bed. "In six months," she continued, as desperation lent an odd clarity to her thoughts, "I'll deposit more money into any bank you tell me to use. Put an ad in the Times for Elizabeth-Duncan," she fabricated hastily, "and I'll deposit it in the name of whoever signs the ad."