Susan Johnson

EDINBURGH
LATE APRIL, 1705

R
OBBIE CARRE IS BACK.
”

“So I’ve heard. The question is where?”

The two men spoke in undertones, their words lost in the sounds of music, conversation, and laughter swirling around them. Guests of honor at the evening soiree, they’d found a rare moment of privacy in the crowded ballroom, but both men cautiously scanned the room as they spoke. Robbie Carre had friends everywhere.

“He’ll come for her. There’s no doubt,” the Duke of Queensberry murmured. A thin, swarthy man of middle age, he had the natural look of a conspirator.

“She’s unrivaled.” The words, husky, low, palpably lustful, were uttered by the Duke of Argyll, the new commissioner who’d come from London to bring Scotland to heel.

Queensberry wondered if their hostess would be able to thwart the young man’s predatory instincts. “I hear she’s in love,” he maliciously noted.

“So?” Argyll shot Queensberry an insolent look.

“So you might wish to cultivate your seductive skills. The Countess of Kilmarnock is no ingenue. Twice widowed and with her pick of suitors, from the
Indies to the poles, she might prove a formidable challenge.”

“Then the prize will be that much sweeter,” Argyll said, his gray gaze following Roxane Forrestor’s twirling progress across the ballroom.

M
AY KILMARNOCK’S WRETCHED FAMILY ROT IN
hell!” Slamming the bedroom door behind her so hard the paintings quivered on the silk-hung walls, Roxane stalked across the rich Turkey carpet, pulling her tiara from her coiffed head. “They have their damned nerve!” She flung the diamond headpiece across the room with such fury it bounced twice before coming to rest.

“Could I be of some help?” a deep voice drawled.

Spinning around, she scrutinized the shadowed reaches of her large bedchamber. The indolent voice was familiar, and a sudden stark fear gripped her senses.

“Lord God, you can’t
be
here!” she exclaimed, shock and horror in her tone, her eyes tracing the dim outlines of the young man lounging on her gilded chair, her frustration and anger dissipating before the horrendous jeopardy of his position in Edinburgh. “The house is awash with your enemies!”

As if to punctuate her exclamation, the melodious strains of violins drifted in through the opened windows from the floor below, numerous voices joining in on the chorus of the familiar Scottish ballad of Muirland Willie.

“Like Muirland Willie I’ve come for you,” Robbie said, his pose utterly still, his dark eyes traveling slowly
down the countess’s fashionably attired form. “Do you know how long it’s been?”

“Not long enough. You’re insane, Robbie.” She glanced back at him in her swift passage to the windows. “They’ll hang you if they find you here!” Shutting a window, she pulled the green velvet drapes closed, then moved to a second window. “You have to leave.”

“I thought I might keep you company tonight.” He rose from the chair, all grace and languid power.

“No! Don’t even think that.” Her words ended on a hushed vibrato, for he’d walked from the shadows, tall, lean, beautiful, his hair lying in waves on his shoulders, the auburn curls striking against the pure black leather of his jack.

“I can’t do this, Robbie,” she whispered, moving away, as though putting distance between them could allay her clamorous heartbeat. How beautiful he looked—breathtaking, dressed in leather like some pagan warrior, taller than she remembered, broader as if he’d grown in the month of their separation, the powerful intensity of his youth dazzling.

“I thought of you every second the month past.” He advanced across the carpet, immune to the sense of danger terrifying her. “I counted the hours….”

“No, Robbie,” she gasped, retreating, the faint music reminding her of the hundreds of guests below, many of them dangerous. “Don’t say that, don’t pretend everything is fine when it isn’t. It’s terrifyingly
not
fine.” She glanced fearfully at the draped windows as though they might be seen through the heavy velvet. “You have to leave
right
now!”

He shook his head so faintly his long hair barely
rippled in the candlelight. “Sorry,” he murmured, moving toward her, “I’m staying.”

“Than one of us has to be sensible,” she sharply replied, the way she might speak to a recalcitrant child. “In any event, I have to go back downstairs or I’ll be missed. I’m hosting this political soiree,” she went on, trying to maintain her composure against his inexorable advance.

“Is the reptile Queensberry still as charming as ever?” The outlawed young Earl of Greenlaw’s words were casual, as though he wasn’t a mere floor away from his mortal enemy.

“Yes, no—” She moved back a step, then another. “Lord, Robbie, you know what he’s like.”

“Filled with gentle malice. Smiling while he shoves his knife into your heart.” He took note of the short distance between the countess’s back and the wall. “We’ll have to see what we can do to curb his arrogance.”

“Not
we
, Robbie,” she corrected him. Finding her retreat arrested, she pressed her palms into the cherry-wood wainscoting and tried to hold herself steady against the violent beating of her heart. Robbie Carre’s tall, rawboned body was much too close, and the memories and implications of that closeness made her tremble. “Please, Robbie, just leave.” Her voice was taut with emotion.

“I can’t. I wish I could.” He stood very still, his expression grave. “But the last month was the longest of my life.”

“Please, Robbie, be sensible. In a few years you’ll forget this ever happened.”

“Us, you mean?”

“There can’t be any us, Robbie. Do you want me to begin listing all the reasons? The very first one is that my five children are in peril if I’m seen with you.” Her brows came together in apprehension. “And the other thousand after that don’t matter.”

“Go, then.” All suave charm and indulgence, he shifted slightly so his body no longer curbed her departure. “We’ll talk about this later.”