Susan Johnson (10 page)

He readily obliged her, divesting himself of his clothing with a prompt readiness. Lying on the bed some
moments later, bronzed and powerful, a pagan god, half rogue, half sublime splendor, he opened his arms to her and caught her effortlessly in midair when she leaped at him in gamboling frolic. Tumbling over on the wide bed made in the days when families slept together, he rolled her under him and, amid giggles and laughter, kissed her while she wiggled and squirmed like a puppy and kissed him back.

She was by turns playful and serious that night, deeply moved at times by her new awareness of the pleasure two people could give each other.

“May I?” she’d asked once early in the night, her eyes on the object of all her pleasure. At his smiling accession she’d touched the thrusting tip lightly with her fingertip as though it were dangerous. It wasn’t, she discovered as she experimented with a growing assertiveness. Such tentative sensuality brought back long-forgotten memories to Johnnie Carre, and his smile was like the one enjoyed by the young Duchesse D’Artois during his schooldays in Paris.

“More, more … more, more …” Elizabeth joyfully demanded, long hours later, voluptuous and genial, sweet as marzipan kisses. And Johnnie Carre, young and captivated and willing, obliged.

Johnnie found himself curiously touched by her utter abandon and ingenuous appreciation, by the simple charm of her delight in him. Long after midnight, when the candles were burning low and the fire had almost died out, when she was once again momentarily sated and she lay in his arms, curled close to the warmth of his body, she told him, “I never thought I’d experience such pleasure. My measure of contentment was paltry in comparison. Thank you, Johnnie.” Reaching up, she kissed him gently.

With such unsophisticated candor, childlike in its naïveté, he found himself momentarily questioning all the casual entanglements in his past. And more than his usual self-indulgence affected his senses that night. He found his heart touched by the unreserved depth of her need.

“I never knew …” she murmured just before she
fell asleep. Smiling contentedly, she snuggled closer, her pale, fragrant hair draped over his arm, the warmth of her breath on his chest. “And now I do,” she finished with a sigh.

She reached up in her sleep later to touch his face.

“I’m here,” he whispered in reassurance, taking her hand and gently kissing her palm.

She smiled in her sleep, content.

When she’d had enough of all he could give her and she no longer woke, he discovered he couldn’t sleep.

Uncharacteristically for a man who could snatch a nap on horseback, sleep eluded him.

He didn’t know why, or, more precisely, he didn’t want to know why.

But he watched the sun rise before he kissed Elizabeth Graham awake, and when he made love to her before leaving, he experienced a poignant sense of sorrow.

A first for Johnnie Carre.

They said good-bye in the morning, because political factions didn’t realign and age-old enemies reconcile in recognition of two people sharing a night of pleasure.

In any event, a world of differences separated them.

Nations separated them.

Cause and motive and protocol separated them.

They understood.

“I’d like to cordially thank you,” she said at the end, when they’d both politely bid adieu to each other as if they weren’t lying nude in each other’s arms. As if they were parting instead at some obligatory afternoon soiree. “For a very enjoyable night.”

He looked down at her quickly from under his
lashes, gauging the exactitude of her words. He’d never been precisely thanked before.

She smiled up at him, her cheek resting against his chest as she lay in the curve of his arm. “You aren’t usually thanked, I presume, from the look on your face.”

A sudden smile lifted the corners of his mouth. “You’re the first, actually. But you’re very welcome. And if the borders separating us weren’t so vast, I’d say, Come and see me anytime.…”

“And if some international incident weren’t likely to occur because of my visit, I might be tempted.”

And he was tempted, too, if he didn’t hold her father in such loathing. “The discretion could be handled easily enough. We cross the border with great frequency. It’s the rest.…”

“My father, you mean.” She spoke of him with a sudden coolness in her voice.

“He and his keepers both. The Sassenach are looking for provocation since last year’s Parliament. I don’t intend to be their victim.”

“Will Scotland really seek independence?” She recalled that in November, when the first Scottish Parliament to sit since 1689 had adjourned, several acts hostile to England had been sent south to London. With the succession in question after a hundred years of a common monarch and Continental courts once again interested in Scottish affairs for their own private ends, Scotland’s opportunity for leverage against England had arrived.

Johnnie exhaled softly, reluctant to reveal any significant political intelligence; regardless of their intimacy, she was the daughter of his enemy. “There’re many who feel that way,” he neutrally replied.

“Do you?”

“Would I tell a Sassenach that?” he said with a grin, touching the tip of her nose lightly with his finger. “Even if she’s more fascinating than Circe herself.”

“Am I really?” Her voice was filled with a girl’s curiosity.

“Surely, other men have told you that.”

She paused for a moment, as if considering. “Never,” she said then, very simply.

Shocked at her answer, for her green-eyed, golden beauty was incomparable, he said, “Did Hotchane lock you away?”

“No, but I was his property.”

“And no one cared to die over a compliment.”

“Something like that.” Her voice had gone very quiet suddenly. But only seconds later her chin came up, a small pugnacious gesture. “It won’t happen to me again.”

“You say that with some conviction,” Johnnie said, his voice teasing.

“I’ve had eight years to become convinced of the merits of independence,” she softly replied.

“I wish you much luck then.” He knew the limits of female independence in the culture of his time and chose not to reply with complete frankness.

“You don’t need luck with an inheritance like mine.”

“Perhaps not as much,” he ambiguously said, in no position after a single night in her company to presume to direct her life. But women alone were prey to coercion of many kinds; he’d seen his share of females used as pawns by families with fewer scruples than avarice.

“Hotchane’s Redesdale men are an additional aid to my independence.”

“Of course,” he said. But they wouldn’t follow her; they required a man who’d proved himself their leader, who added to their coffers with occasional lucrative raids. He expected several members of Hotchane’s family were already jockeying for that powerful position. “Do you have a personal guard?” he inquired, debating how much he owed her for the pleasure she’d given him.

“A small one.”

“How many?” Trained to border-raiding, he was already calculating the number required for her safety.

“Sixty.”

Not a small force in anyone’s estimation; clearly she understood her peril. “Are they trustworthy?”

“Infinitely.”

Sliding up on the pillows stacked behind him into a sitting position, he shifted her onto his lap in a swift, graceful movement that belied the enormous strength required to lift her weight so effortlessly. “You sound very certain,” he said. “How do you know they’re completely loyal to you?” Hotchane’s bloodthirsty relatives occasioned in him a genuine concern for her safety. The extent of her wealth made her excessively vulnerable.

“They’ve been my personal bodyguard for eight years; I trust them implicitly.”

Sixty lawless Redesdale men should prove sufficient, he decided, relieved at her certainty. “You know Hotchane’s sons will be after your money,” he cautioned.

“The list of persons anxious to relieve me of my money is extensive, beginning with my father. Are you sure you don’t want any?” she facetiously inquired, comfortable in his arms, strangely secure even knowing she was theoretically his enemy.

“I don’t take money from women,” he quietly said, “even if I needed it—which I don’t.”

“A wealthy Scotsman? Surely, you’re a rarity.” She was teasing still, feeling curiously happy.

“There
are
a few of us, despite England’s disadvantageous trading terms for Scotland,” he dryly replied.

“I’m sorry,” she instantly returned, aware of England’s prejudicial policies and her recent uncharitable reaction to the Darien colony that had further beggared Scotland.
⁵
“Forgive my tactlessness.”

“Forgiven,” he said with a smile. “And now, if you don’t mind … With a beautiful woman in my arms, I prefer a less political conversation.” His mouth softly brushed the curve of her cheek. “We don’t have to leave,” he murmured, his breath warm on her skin, “for another ten minutes.…”

“How nice,” she whispered, lacing her arms around his broad shoulders, reaching up to nibble on his bottom lip. “But then,” she murmured against his mouth, her words a delicate vibration on his lips, “I don’t really care if Father waits for me.…”

Harold Godfrey didn’t wait, as it turned out, because Johnnie Carre had a young brother to ransom, and he wasn’t taking any chances. But the Laird of Ravensby’s houseguest had no complaints, and the Carre troop arrived at the designated rendezvous point precisely as agreed.

Waiting for the English to appear, they sat their horses side by side in the open field at Roundtree, a chill breeze from the north promising rain. Swirling remnants of fog covered the low ground, twisted between the horses’ legs on fitful gusts, mist from the nearby loch drifting by in wispy fingers. The sun, hidden behind lowering clouds, tipped the uppermost reaches of the overcast, as if silvery lace edged the vast canopy of sky.

Separated by a dozen yards from the Carre horsemen, Elizabeth and Johnnie waited in silence, the little they could say to each other of farewell having been said in bed that morning. Both were experiencing a novel sense of loss, unusual for two people who had long ago learned to hide their emotions. Both were paradoxically
wishing for the Harbottle troop to appear more swiftly or not at all. Both were acutely aware of each other’s presence.

Johnnie shifted his gaze from the southern horizon over which Godfrey’s horsemen would appear and turned to Elizabeth. He found himself drawn to her as though minutes were ticking away in some internal timepiece that would break forever when they parted. Framed by the softly draped lavender wool of a hooded cape, her exquisite face was pinked from the breeze; pale wisps of her hair, loosened by the wind, blew across her cheeks. She had faint blue shadows under her eyes, he noted, her fair skin bruised by fatigue.

“Forgive me for keeping you up all night,” Johnnie murmured, reaching out to gently touch her gloved hand where it rested on the saddle pommel, the embroidered violet leather a vibrant touch of color in the misty landscape. “You must be tired.”

Her smile when she turned to him held that particular winsome innocence he found so captivating, and he almost said, “I’m keeping you,” the impulse instant, powerful. He could have, too … and taken his chances at overcoming Godfrey’s troopers guarding Robbie. But he didn’t confess his transient urge to possess her, nor did Elizabeth express the tumult of her emotions. “I’m
pleasantly
tired,” she simply replied, “and there’s no need to apologize.”

She could have been assuring him the hospitality of his dinner table had been adequate, so temperate was her tone.

Her words strengthened his brief lapse from practicality. “In that case,” he said with a charming nonchalance she immediately suspected came effortlessly to a man reputed to be accessible to all the beautiful women pursuing him, “I’ll save my small reserves of gallantry for the coming confrontation with your father. I’ll need whatever politesse was beaten into me by my tutors to keep from strangling him.” His grin mitigated the threat of his words.

Her own grin was equally casual. He had the capacity to inspire cheer no matter how dismal the circumstances.
It was his lighthearted smile, she decided. “Never fear, your brother’s safe,” she assured him. “Father is intent on having my inheritance.”

“Will you be all right?” Genuine concern colored his words; he knew the ruthless character of Harold Godfrey.

“My money’s hidden; Hotchane understood my father well.”

“After hammering out the marriage settlement, no doubt,” Johnnie dryly noted.

“Exactly.”

“You’re sure you’re safe then?” His need for assurance surprised him. Women rarely interested him beyond the immediacy of lovemaking.

“I’m not sixteen anymore,” she whispered.

One dark brow rose wolfishly. And his voice, too, was hushed. “No argument there.”

“You project an outrageous sexuality, my Lord,” she murmured, as a tingling heat raced through her senses. Dressed in a black leather jack, worn chamois breeches, and riding boots, his sleek, dark hair lying free on his shoulders, he exuded an intense virility, his lean, athletic body relaxed, graceful in the saddle.