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. You ‘vent well above yourself, my gel. See that you don’t make a meal of it.
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 love you’s. Now Ian wandered the train, and Beth sat alone, watching the green countryside of England rush by. She heard the echo of
Ian’s matter-of-fact statement from weeks ago: I wouldn’t expect love from you. I can’t love you back.
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. Ian answered with a brief nod. Beth peered through the window at gloomy, rainy London, which looked grimier and duller now that she’d seen the wide boulevards and parks of Paris. “Is your house near here?”
“My London household was packed and sent to Scotland while I was in France.”
“Where will we stay, then?”
“We are going to visit a dealer.”
Enlightenment came when Ian led her into a narrow shop in the Strand filled floor-to-ceiling with Oriental curiosities. “Oh, you’re buying more Ming pottery,” she said. “A vase?”
“Bowl. I know nothing about Ming vases.”
“Aren’t they much the same?”
His look told her she’d lost her mind, so Beth closed her mouth and fell silent.
The dealer, a portly man with dull yellow hair and a limp mustache, tried to interest Ian in a vase that was ten times the price of the small, rather chipped bowl Ian asked to see, but Ian ignored his maneuverings.