Jennifer Ashley: The Madness Of Lord Ian Mackenzie

“My wise little brother. Eleanor jilted me, if you remember. Forcefully.”

Ian shrugged. “You should have insisted. It would have been better for both of you.”

“The Queen of England I can handle, Gladstone I can tolerate, and the House of Lords I can make to dance to my tunes.” Hart shook his head. “But not Lady Eleanor Ramsay.”

Ian shrugged again and pulled his hand away. His thoughts moved from Hart and his troubles to Beth waiting for him in the warm lounge. “I have a train to catch.” “Wait.” Hart put himself in front of Ian. They were the same height, looking straight into each other’s faces, though Ian had to move his gaze to Hart’s cheekbone. “One more thing. Beth, too, was completely right about me. I use you shamelessly. But with one difference.” Hart put his hands on Ian’s shoulders. “I love you, if I can be unmanly and say so. I didn’t take you out of the asylum just so you could help me with my politics. I did it because I wanted you free from that hell and given the chance to live a normal life.” “I know,” Ian said. “I don’t help you because you command me to.”

He saw Hart’s eyes grow moist, and suddenly his brother pulled him into a bear hug. The crowd milling around them turned their heads, smiled, or raised eyebrows. Ian held Hart close, fists pressing into his brother’s back. The two released each other, but Hart kept his hands on lan’s arms.

“Take Beth home and be happy. It’s over.” Ian glanced over as Curry opened the door to the waiting room, and Beth came out. She looked at Ian and smiled. “Maybe it’s over for you. For me, it’s just beginning.” Hart looked surprised, and then he nodded in understanding as Beth came to Ian, her hands outstretched, a warm smile on her face. Beth turned and planted a kiss on a startled Hart’s cheek, then took lan’s arm and let him walk her to the train.

In the train compartment, Curry fussed about making sure they’d have everything for the long ride north, until Ian sent him off. Rain and gathering dusk darkened the sky. Beth sank to the cushions and watched Ian yank the curtains closed against the gloom.

The train’s whistle hooted, the steam hissed, and the train jerked forward. Ian braced himself against the polished wall as the train rolled away from the station.

Beth leaned against the cushions, exhausted. “I could wish Curry had found a book or something for me,” she said. “Or we could have stopped for my needlework.” “Why?”

“For when you go a-roaming, up and down the train. I must keep myself occupied somehow.”

“I’m not going to roam the train.” Ian snapped closed the lock on the door. “You are here.”

“You mean you will stay alone with me? Without a chaperone?” Despite their bit of play in her bedchamber the day Fellows’s secret had been revealed, Ian had again kept his distance.

“I have a question to ask you.”

Beth stretched one arm across the back of the seat, hoping she looked provocative. “And what is that, husband?” Ian leaned down, his body hemming her in. His large fists rested on the seat back behind her. “Do I love you?” Her heart banged in her chest. “What a question.” “When you were ill, when Mrs. Palmer hurt you, I knew I’d die if you died. There would be nothing inside me, just a hole where you used to be.”

“Exactly how I would have felt if Inspector Fellows had let you go to the gallows or back to the asylum,” Beth said softly.

“I never understood before. It’s like fear and hope, both warm and cold. All mixed together.”

“I know.”

He cupped his hands around her face. “But I don’t want to hurt you. I never, ever want to hurt you.”

“Ian, you aren’t your father. From what you and your brothers have told me, you’re nothing like him. You left Sally rather than hurt her. You protected Hart from Fellows, and you thought you were protecting Lily. Everything you’ve done is to try to help people, not harm them.”

He stood silently, as though debating whether to believe her. “I have the rage inside me.”

“Which you know how to control. He didn’t. That’s the difference.”

“Can I ever be sure?”

“I’ll make you sure. You said yourself he caused you too much misery and that you and your brothers need to be done with him. Please, Ian. Let him go.”

Ian closed his eyes. Beth watched emotions flicker across his face, the uncertainty, the stubbornness, the raw pain he’d lived with for so long. He didn’t always know how to express his emotions, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel them deeply.

When Ian slowly opened his eyes, he guided his gaze directly to Beth’s. His golden eyes shimmered and sparkled, pupils ringed with green. He held her gaze steadily, not blinking or shifting away.

“I love you,” he said.

Beth caught her breath, and sudden tears blurred her vision.

“Love you,” Ian repeated. His gaze bore into hers harder than Hart’s ever could hope to. “Love you, love you, love you, love you, love you love you love you...”

“Ian.” Beth laughed.

“Love you,” he murmured against her lips, her face, against the curve of her neck. “Love you.” “I love you, too. Are you going to say it all night?”

“I’ll say it until I’m in you so hard I can’t speak.” “I suppose I’ll have to put up with that. It might be difficult, though I wouldn’t mind finding out.”

He paused. “Are you joking?”

Beth laughed until she slid out of the seat, but when she landed on the floor, Ian was right beside her. “Yes. I was joking.” She caught lan’s lapels in her hands. “I believe carnality is definitely called for. Perhaps we should send for Curry to pull out the bed.”

Ian got to his feet, tossed the cushions onto the other bench, and unlatched the hooks that unrolled the seat into a bed. “I don’t want Curry.”

“I see.”

Ian yanked the bed into place, then lifted Beth and laid her on it. He unlaced her boots with quick jerks, then unbuckled and unfastened every bit of her brand-new traveling clothes.

Moments later she lay back, naked in the chill air. Beth lifted one hand over her head, letting her breasts arch forward, while lan’s gaze warmed her like a blanket. She bent her knee, scooting her foot to her hip so he could see between her legs. It felt delicious and exciting to lie back for Ian Mackenzie and let him look his fill.

“Do you still love me?” she asked. “Or is it only desire?”

“Both.”

Ian tossed off his jacket, cravat, collar, and waistcoat in a few smooth moves, and had his shirt unbuttoned at cuffs and throat before she could blink. She watched his vee of brown chest come into view, then his strong thighs as he kicked out of his trousers and underdrawers. The shirt came off last. Dark hair snaked down his chest, and muscles rippled as he tossed the shirt aside.

He didn’t give her much time to appreciate what she saw. He climbed up to the bed, on hands and knees around her.

“Carnality?” he repeated.

Her natural instinct to joke fled her. “Yes. Now. Please.”

Ian slid his ringers between her legs, swirling the moisture he found there. “Love me?”

“I do. I love you, Ian.”

He withdrew his fingers, sparkling wet, and licked one clean. “The best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

“Better than single-malt whiskey from the Mackenzie distillery?”

“I’d rather drink you than whiskey.”

“And you a Scotsman? You must be in love.”

“S’up.”

Beth clamped her lips shut, and they trembled. Ian lowered his head and licked between her legs. He savored that, eyes closed, than began to work on her studiously. The train moved back and forth in a steady rhythm, but the room seemed to spin.