“
Elizabeth?” Ian said in a clipped voice.
She whirled around, her heart slamming against her ribs, her hand flying to her throat, her knees turning to jelly.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You-you startled me,” she said as he strolled up to her, his expression oddly impassive. “I didn’t expect you to come here,” she added nervously.
“Really?” he mocked. “Whom did you expect after that note-the Prince of Wales?”
The note! Crazily, her first thought after realizing ti was from him, not Valerie, was that for an articulate man his handwriting verged on the illiterate. Her second thought was that he seemed angry about something. He didn’t keep her long in doubt as to the reason.
“Suppose you tell me how, during the entire afternoon we spent together, you neglected to mention that you are Lady Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth wondered a little frantically how he’d feel if he knew she was the Countess of Havenhurst, not merely the eldest daughter of some minor noble or knight.
“Start talking, love. I’m listening.”
Elizabeth backed away a step.
“Since you don’t want to talk,” he bit out, reaching for her arms, “is this all you wanted from me?”
“No!” she said hastily, backing out of his reach. “I’d rather talk.”
He stepped forward, and Elizabeth took another step backward, exclaiming, “I mean, there are so many interesting topics for conversation, are there not?”
“Are there?” he asked, moving forward again.
“Yes,” she exclaimed, taking two steps back this time. Snatching at the first topic she could think of, she pointed to the table of hyacinths beside her and exclaimed, “A-Aren’t these hyacinths lovely?”
“Lovely,” he agreed without looking at them, and he reached for her shoulders, obviously intending to draw her forward.
Elizabeth jumped back so swiftly that his fingers merely grazed the gauze fabric of her gown. “Hyacinths,” she babbled with frantic determination as he began stalking her step for step, pas the table of potted pansies, past the table of potted lilies, “are part of genus Hyacinthus, although the cultivated variety, which we have here, is commonly called the Dutch hyacinth, which is part of H. orientalis-“
“Elizabeth,” he interrupted silkily, “I’m not interested in flowers.” He reached for her again, and Elizabeth, in a frantic attempt to evade his grasp, snatched up a pot of hyacinths and dumped it into his outstretched hands.
“There is a mythological background to hyacinths that you may find more interesting than the flower itself,” she continued fiercely, and an indescribable expression of disbelief, amusement, and fascination suddenly seemed to flicker across his face. “You see, the hyacinth is actually named for a handsome Spartan youth-Hyacinthus-who was loved by Apollo and by Zephyrus, god of the west wind. One day Zephyrus was teaching Hyacinthus to throw the discus, and he accidentally killed him. It is said that Hyacinthus’s blood caused a flower to spring up, and each petal was inscribed with the Greek exclamation of sorrow.” Her voice trembled a little as he purposefully set the pot of hyacinths on the table. “A-Actually, the flower that sprang up would have been the iris or larkspur, not the modern hyacinth, but that is how it earned its name.”
“Fascinating.” His unfathomable eyes locked onto hers.
Elizabeth knew he was referring to her and not the history of the hyacinth, and though she commanded herself to move out of his reach, her legs refused to budge.
”
”