Susan Johnson (11 page)

She’d expected him to be disturbed by her note—she understood jealousy as well as he—but she’d not expected this implacable fury. “I thought it would be a reasonable solution to your difficulties. Argyll assures me he’ll nullify the charges of treason against your family.”

“He does, does he?” Robbie caustically drawled. “Isn’t he the kindest fucking traitor England’s sent north lately.” His face was so chill, his beautiful eyes had turned cruel. “And he’s doing this for me,” he silkily murmured, loathing in every word.

“Don’t be hateful,” she quietly said.

“Do you think I’d want my land and titles back because you spread your legs for him?” he lashed out. “Do you think I could live with that filthy thought?”

“You’re acting like an obnoxious child,” she tartly rebuked. “And don’t talk to me of morals as though you were a faultless and pure Presbyterian virgin.” She glared at him, angry that he dared order her life. “No one owns me, least of all you.” Her voice shook, because it had taken her years to reach independence and she had no intention of relinquishing it to a jealous eighteen-year-old. “Now, if you’d care to discuss this like an adult instead of insulting me, I’m willing to listen.”

His fine mouth curled in derision. “What are we going to talk about? Where you’re going to fuck him, how often, the different ways?” He was well beyond reason. His sense of possession was defiled, his
hot-tempered fury overwhelming any sense of perspective save his. “All I want to know,” he softly growled, “is whether You’re actually going to fuck him or not.”

Her nostrils flared at his presumption. “When did you become my keeper?”

“You want to fuck him? Is that what You’re saying?” His eyes burned into her.

“No.”

“Then don’t.”

“You’ll have your lands back, damn you. Can’t you understand that?” She bristled. “People do as much every day for less reason.”

“People?” he sardonically drawled. “You’re neutralizing what you’re saying, so it won’t be you fucking him. I’ll tell you what,” he gruffly muttered, “let’s neutralize the subject completely. I don’t want your help. I don’t need it. I won’t take it. Is that sufficiently clear? We’ll fight them our way.”

“And maybe get killed in the bargain,” she snapped.

“Better than dying of shame,” he snapped back.

“Male notions of shame always amaze me. Killing and slaughter isn’t shameful, but this is, my getting your land back with a signed agreement.”

“Don’t even fucking think of doing this for me,” he said in a savage whisper.

“You’d risk your life instead. That’s better?”

“It is for me.”

“Very well,” she declared, her anger as decisive. “Then I have some equally firm judgments. I want you to stay away from me until your lawsuit is settled and the Carres no longer represent a danger to my children.”

“That’s too long.”

“My decision isn’t negotiable.”

“And if I refuse?”

“You jeopardize my life and the lives of my children. I don’t like you doing this to me.”

“You’re asking too much.”

“I’m not asking,” she coldly said.

“I could take you away. You couldn’t stop me.”

“Would you want me like that?”

“I’m like Argyll,” he silkily murmured. “I’ll take you any way I can get you.”

“That offends me.”

“But Argyll’s wanting you doesn’t. His is—what word did you use—reasonable? Fucking him is some benign act of friendship?”

“Regardless of what you think, everything isn’t about sex.”

“It is with Argyll—make no mistake.”

“We would have a legal agreement,” she said, clipped and cool.

“You can separate it so neatly?” He inhaled deeply, his feelings not so tidily compartmentalized. He wouldn’t allow her to be with Argyll, or any man. “How can I put this to least offend you?” he said, hesitating in his search for the proper phrases. He took another deep breath and blew it out. He couldn’t say he wanted to own her body and soul when her eyes were so chill. He said instead, his voice deliberately soft and low, “I love you. Because of that, I’d rather die than let Argyll touch you. I’m sorry if my feelings disturb you. And I thought you loved me, too.” He made a disparaging gesture, as though brushing away that misunderstanding. A spasm of pain momentarily tightened his jaw.

She took a step toward him and then stopped, not allowing herself to be so easily assuaged. “You should
be in bed with that wound,” she quietly said, wishing she were able to take away his pain, wishing she weren’t so susceptible to his words of love.

“You should be there with me,” he gently replied, the cruelty in his eyes replaced now by tenderness. “We shouldn’t be arguing about this stupidity.”

How tempting he was, she thought. This the man she loved, now that his anger was gone. “It’s not stupid. It’s practical, it’s—”

He held up a hand to stop her words. “We’ll never agree on that, not if we argue till doomsday. Come away with me. Your children are safe. We’ll go to ground in the Cheviots.”

“Argyll would scour the country for us. He’s determined.”

“He can’t have you, and that’s final—if you’ll forgive my jealousy,” he added with a gracious smile. “I’d kill him first.”

“The queen and her ministers want their treaty. They’d see you dead for that.”

“As good a reason as any to die,” he murmured, bred to a code of honor she’d never understand.

“Don’t die for me, don’t even think it,” she whispered, terrified he’d waste his bonny life for her. “I’d much prefer a husband who lives this time.”

His dark eyes flared in surprise. “You’re marrying me?”

“No, no, I dinna’ mean that,” she said, lapsing into childhood dialect in her confusion.

“You meant it.” His smile shone white against the deep bronze of his skin. “I’ll have to see that I’m measured for my wedding clothes,” he teased.

“Don’t tempt fate, Robbie,” she pleaded, “not when
our lives are in such disarray. I shouldn’t have said what I said. I don’t know why I did, or why I feel the way I do about you,” she finished with a soft sigh.

“I’m irresistible.” His smile was beguiling, full of grace and charm, an undaunted smile of confidence and hope.

Nor could she disagree with the teasing arrogance of his words.

“Perhaps in better times when we’re safe again,” he said, humoring her reservations, crossing the small distance between them with an unhurried stride. “When the gods are smiling on us once more.” His slender fingers closed on her shoulders when he reached her and, drawing her into his arms, he smiled down at her. “Marry me then.”

How optimistic he was, she thought, and she hoped in that part of her brain immune to practicalities that he might be right. She was infatuated or in love or simply moonstruck mad, for all she saw was his bonny beauty and all she wanted to hear were his words of love, as though she were a lovestruck ingenue impressed by a gorgeous, handsome man. And there was no denying he was beautiful beyond words, she thought, smiling up at him, his stark cheekbones muted by the flawless blush of his youth, his dark, long-lashed eyes showy, ostentatious in their beauty, his sensual mouth smiling, tempting her.

“Tell me,” he murmured.

She hesitated, for what he was asking wasn’t only difficult, but perhaps impossible, and she wasn’t an ingenue, not by the farthest stretch. “If it were just me—”

“Say yes,” he interrupted.

“I can’t.”

“Ill make you happy.”

“I know.”

“It’s enough. Don’t you realize that?”

“All the rest is irrelevant, you mean, like my children, my age, your age even more—”

He kissed her then because he didn’t want to argue when he’d already made up his mind.

“There now,” he whispered, lifting his mouth several moments later, “just so you don’t forget me.”

“Not likely,” she breathed, her senses on fire.

He looked up at a sound in the corridor. “Stay away from Argyll,” he abruptly said, reality returned.

“I’ll try.”

“Wrong answer.”

“I’ll really try,” she lightly replied.

“Then I’ll really try not to see you,” he gently countered.

“I’ll think of something to keep him away.”

“Lord, how am I going to manage not seeing you?”

“Only until—what did you say—September?”

He swore. “That’s a lifetime.”

Footsteps approached the door.

“Go,” Roxane nervously told him.

“Be careful,” he murmured, releasing her.

Someone tried the knob and she pushed him away. The connecting door opened, and Amelia furiously motioned Robbie out.

He stood for an instant staring at Roxane, uneasy at leaving her within Argyll’s ken, and then compelled, he turned and ran.

D
ID YOU SEE WHERE HE WENT
?”

Amelia, who had been standing by the windows facing the garden when Roxane entered the drawing room, turned at her inquiry. “No, and I don’t want to know.
You
don’t want to know. My majordomo was the one at the study door and I’m not so sure he wasn’t eavesdropping. So just tell me Robbie Carre’s going to be sensible and leave you alone, and I’ll sleep much better at night.”

“I think so.”

Amelia rolled her eyes. “That’s reassuring.”

“We have an agreement of sorts.”

“Humor me. Use less equivocal words.”

Roxane smiled, in sublime favor with the world at the moment. “He’s absolutely unbelievable.”

“Unbelievably stupid? Unbelievably naive? Unbelievably sexy? Tell me when I’m getting warm. Merde,” Amelia said in an explosive breath, regarding her friend’s expression with unease. “You’re in deep, aren’t you?”

“There’s no possible explanation. Don’t ask me for one. If I were religious, I’d say it was God’s will.”

“But since you aren’t, might it have something to do with his virile young body and flagrant carnality?”

“Definitely a factor,” Roxane said with a grin.

“You’re going to need a keeper if you don’t get that lovesick look off your face. I mean it. Or Queensberry will put the thumbscrews on you and find your lover.”

“I don’t know where Robbie is, so I couldn’t tell him anyway.”

“He may not care whether you know or not. The man’s not precisely normal, and who can tell what tales his army of spies may have fed him. Think of your children, too.”

Her last words were like a drenchihg sluice of ice water, effectively obliterating any further lovesick fantasies. “You’re right about Queensberry, of course,” Roxane agreed. “Thanks for reminding me. I also have to discourage Argyll.”

“That’ll require a miracle of the first magnitude.”

“If he’s
not
cooperative, I myself might have to disappear for a time. Should you hear of such an event, don’t take alarm.”

“Don’t tell me any more,” Amelia quickly interposed. “I don’t want to know.”

Roxane nodded. “Understood. Now take the children, and go quickly in case Queensberry is already on Robbie’s trail.”

“You’ll be careful.”

“As cautious as possible considering I’m caught between the Carres and their enemies.”

Amelia frowned. “Robbie shouldn’t have done that to you.”

“I could have made him leave two nights ago and I didn’t. So some of the responsibility is mine. And they can’t accuse me of anything more than sleeping with Robbie Carre, anyway,” she dismissively added.

“Even that is considered treason by those who oppose him—and Queensberry is in the vanguard of his enemies. Remember that,” her friend reminded her. “If you should need help,” she went on, her tone worried, “old Lannie is trustworthy, even if some of the newer servants aren’t. Send him to me with a message.”

“Ill be fine,” Roxane maintained. “Without the responsibility of the children, I’m relatively unconstrained in my options. Now go.”

W
HEN ROXANE ARRIVED AT KILMARNOCK HOUSE
, she found Agnes Erskine standing beside her luggage, directing the porters and footmen with her cane. Her thin face was wreathed in smiles, her good cheer even extending to Roxane as she entered the entrance hall. “It seems young Angus will have his earldom,” the old lady cheerfully remarked. “Argyll’s ADC was here a short time ago. I hear you had the sense to take my advice and encourage Argyll,” she said with a wicked crackle. “You’re not completely witless, after all.”

“Argyll promised me he’d have you gone by noon, Agnes,” Roxane coolly returned, taking off her gloves. “Weren’t his instructions clear? It’s after two.”

“I’ll go home gladly, you nasty bitch, since it leaves you alone with Argyll. Now make sure you properly flatter the young commissioner.”

“Advice on romance from you, Agnes? I thought you witches were heartless,” she murmured, moving toward the stairway.

“Just do your duty to your son,” her mother-in-law snapped, “or I’ll see that you rue the day you entered the Erskine family.”

“You’re years too late on that score.” She’d given in to her parents’ pressure to remarry, and bitterly regretted her decision. Reaching the base of the staircase, suddenly tired of the years of viciousness, she turned back. “Henceforth, my doors will be closed to you and your family, Agnes. Don’t ever return to this house.”