Susan Johnson (31 page)

But he was infinitely careful at first, until she purred, “If you don’t ride me, my Lord, I’ll have to ride you … or find someone else to satisfy me.”

He looked down at her, his eyes narrowed in heated contemplation. “You wouldn’t live long should you ever look.”

“Then you must satisfy me, my Lord,” she said, sweet and luscious and twined around him.

He laughed then, this man whose reputation for pleasing women was legend. “Will I be rewarded if I do?”

“I think you might consider it a reward, my Lord.” And he did.

After a lengthy interval of prenuptial consummation in which both came to understand the new measure of “insatiable,” Johnnie gasped, lying above her, breathless after his second orgasm, “If … you … would allow … a short … break in your … stud service … I think I hear someone rapping … at the door.” He’d ignored the sound the first time, glanced up the second, and, reliably sure it wasn’t going away now this third time, realized
some response was necessary. “How well–mannered … do you feel?”

Stretching like a sultry feline, she gazed up at him and whispered provocatively, “You have something new in mind?”

“The next seven months should be interesting,” he murmured, his blue eyes amused, “and no—not just yet, my darling bride. Listen.”

The knocking echoed in the room.

“Someone wants you?”

“Us.”

“Why?” Only luscious sensation strummed through her consciousness.

“For our wedding.”

“Oh dear.” She glanced at the clock on the mantel.

“We should let them in. It’s Mrs. Reid, I expect.” He grinned. “She has no respect for my consequence.”

“Now?” It was ten o’clock. “Like this?”

“If you don’t mind?”

“Without clothes?”

“I’m too hot for clothes, and since we have to go through the ritual bedding before witnesses anyway … why get dressed only to get undressed again? You can pull the covers up.”

Her eyes flew open, aghast, so he rose from the bed and rummaged through his bureau drawers to find her one of his nightshirts. He dressed her in it and brushed her hair and tied it back with his peacock-blue ribbon that he found after much searching under the sheets. “Now there,” he said patting the bow in place like a proud father, “the perfect bride.”

“There’s one other small thing,” Elizabeth mentioned, standing before him with his nightshirt in folds over her feet and the sleeves rolled up a dozen times and her green eyes uncertain.

“How small?” he asked, towering over her, unselfconsciously nude, his dark hair in soft waves on his shoulders, the width of his shoulders impressive from her viewpoint.

“Medium small.”

His brows rose at her puzzling ambiguity. “Is this a riddle that has to do with elephants and boxes?”

“I’m serious, Johnnie.”

“I’m listening,” he replied, his smile wiped away.

“It has to do with our vows … and well—you know—”

“Just say it, darling. You can have anything.”

“All right then. If I must promise to love, honor, and obey,” she answered in a rush, “so must you promise to obey.”

He thought for a moment, this man of authority, a child of fortune who bowed to no one. “Perhaps we could delete obey,” he quietly said, too long his own man to relinquish his sovereignty even to ritual.

She smiled. “Agreed.”

His answering smile was benevolent. He wished to give her the world on a string. “Is that all now?”

She nodded, content, the specters from her past banished.

Brushing back an errant curl on her forehead, he said, “Into bed with you then, love, and I’ll call in all the restless and avidly curious.”

After unlocking the door, he casually returned to the bed. Elizabeth expected his chaplain to walk in any minute and discover Johnnie naked. He’d settled back against the pillows and pulled the coverlet modestly up to his waist, however, before those outside seemed aware the door had been unlocked. Gazing fondly at his bride-to-be, who was blushing pink to her hair roots in anticipation of her public embarrassment, he said, “Relax, darling, everyone will be obliging, and this ceremonial drama is mainly for the benefit of all those who might take issue with our marriage.”
⁹

“Like my father,” she said, sighing.

“Or the Grahams, perhaps.”

She grinned. “Or your numerous disgruntled lovers.”

None of those he knew would be deterred for a second by his marriage, but he didn’t want to disturb Elizabeth’s good cheer, so he only nodded. “George Baldwin might consider breach of promise, too,” he
added, “so I want no question of our marriage’s consummation … particularly with the child arriving early. Smile now,” he said with a teasing grin as the door finally opened tentatively, and Helen peeked her head around. “Everyone is very pleased you’ve agreed to be my wife, and Mrs. Reid in particular feels I’ve at last done my duty to her satisfaction.”

When the crowd pressed into the room like a flood breaking through a dike, Elizabeth was stunned at the numbers. Although generally two witnesses were sufficient for legal purposes, Johnnie had taken the precaution of including several members of the village outside his employ. In the event the marriage was disputed, witnesses beyond his personal retinue would be more valid as unbiased observers. He’d taken the precaution, too, to include a bishop of the Anglican Church in addition to his Church of Scotland domestic chaplain. All eventualities had been considered; he understood the extent of their enemies.

After instructing the clergymen about the minor modification in the vows, he rested back against the lacetrimmed pillows, his bare chest the ardent focus of many female eyes in the crowd of witnesses. Taking Elizabeth’s hand in his, as though nude Earls and tousled Ladies in nightshirts were normal wedding partners, he said, “We’re ready.”

The Reverend and Bishop, both keeping their eyes averted with polite restraint, read from their marriage services, and Elizabeth and Johnnie answered with the appropriate responses—twice; rings were exchanged; the license was signed by the participants and the witnesses; the marriage duly noted in both parish ledgers. The marriage of the Earl and Countess Graden was concluded.

“Could I have something to eat now?” Elizabeth whispered, leaning close to her new husband’s ear as the witnesses buzzed around them and the two clergymen saw to the final seals and notations.

“Does this mean your passion for me has been replaced by a veal cutlet now that we’re married?” Johnnie teased.

“It’s just that … I didn’t eat dinner tonight because
I was so nervous about—well …” She grinned. “And now I know I wouldn’t have had to be anxious … but anyway … I’m always hungry,” she finished in apology. “Since the baby.”

Johnnie had already gestured for Mrs. Reid before Elizabeth concluded her halting explanation. “We need a small wedding feast up here,” Johnnie said to Mrs. Reid, who was beaming uncontrollably like a matchmaker extraordinaire. “Everything else is arranged downstairs?” he inquired.

“The tables are full, the musicians are ready. Everything’s in place, my Lord.”

“Since Lady Carre is feeling a bit indisposed, we won’t be joining the festivities,” Johnnie dissembled with ease, not inclined to share his wife’s company that night. “Please make our excuses …

As if his word “indisposed” had been a cannon shot, Mrs. Reid immediately cleared the room with loud clucking noises of disapproval, shooing out the miscellany of locals who were looking forward to the wedding festivities. “And now for you,” she said, giving Johnnie a look of censure on her return bedside, “if Lady Elizabeth is feeling poorly, ye make certain ye don’t be a brute to her. The poor wee thing is having a bairn and needs to be coddled,” she ordered. “If you know what I mean,” she ominously added.

After having just spent a physically demanding hour or so in bed with his new wife, Johnnie had serious doubts concerning Mrs. Reid’s perception of Elizabeth’s delicacy, but in the interests of harmony he said with a smile, “Rest assured, Mrs. Reid, I shall coddle—most earnestly. My word on it.”

“Humpf.” Her snort was one of suspicion. “And I’ll see to it if ye don’t,” she warned with a raised finger and the authority of a despot.

“Actually, I
do
feel a little weak,” Elizabeth faintly interposed, like a bad actress from the provinces, and falling back against her pillows in a melodramatic swoon, she cast Johnnie a reproachful look.

“You see,” Mrs. Reid grumbled, glaring at her master, who was trying desperately to stifle his laughter.
“She’s not like those tarts of yourn in Edinbura, Johnnie, ready to take on any man jack in town. My lady needs to be treated with a right gentle hand. Now what do ye wish to eat, my Lady?” Mrs. Reid cooed, leaning over Elizabeth, tucking the covers under her chin.

“Maybe a little broth,” Elizabeth murmured, smiling weakly, “and an apple tart.” She sighed with a credible feebleness. “Perhaps a bite or two of that meat pie you sent up for dinner too—if it’s not too much trouble.”

“The chef can cook all night for you, my Lady, if you have a mind. You want that bairn of yourn to be strong.”

As it turned out, the chef did yeoman’s duty in the kitchen that night, adjusting his staff to Elizabeth’s changeable tastes and appetite. And much later, when the candles were burning low and the scent of roses was heavy in the air, when the new bride and groom lay amid the debris of a feast scattered across the bed, Johnnie said in amazement:

“How can you eat any more?”

Elizabeth smiled at him across the rumpled sheets and crumbs and half-eaten food. “I’m still hungry. Pass me another of those crème cakes, will you? You didn’t eat much.”

He’d eaten with his usual good appetite, demolishing a meat pie and a bottle of claret along with a plateful of tarts. But he only smiled at his lush bride, pink-cheeked and sticky from crème cakes, her long, pale hair in tangled disarray, her contented smile reason alone for living. “I wasn’t very hungry,” he lied. “Would you like some more kidney pie? I should think it would be healthy for the baby.”

And that night a variation on Eden took shape on the Borders of Scotland in a baronial mansion, in a sumptuous bedchamber, in an elaborate bed of state with green brocade curtains that shut out the world. It was sweet, lavish delight, heaven on an earthly realm; it was love found after months of disarray. And if it wasn’t paradise under the canopy of elegant Italian brocade, it was divinely within shouting distance.

No one saw the newlywed Lord and Lady Carre for
two more days except for the servants who brought in food and carried it away, who saw to bathwater, clean linens, flowers, and fires in the hearth. And even they rarely caught sight of them, for the Laird and his Lady were generally busy behind the billowing green bedcurtains.

But they appeared outside the bedchamber on the morning of the third day for a dress fitting Johnnie had ordered with Madame Lamieur—for Elizabeth’s wedding gown. The formal ceremony had finally been scheduled for the following day.

“Oh, dear,” Elizabeth said, a short time later, standing in the midst of sewing assistants as Madame Lamieur tried to bring the closing at her waist together.

“My Lady has put on some weight,” the dressmaker grunted, tugging at the fabric that wouldn’t meet.

As Elizabeth caught Johnnie’s gaze over the modiste’s head, she broke into giggles. “Come here, darling,” Johnnie interposed, waving her over. “Let’s see how impossible Madame Lamieur’s task is going to be.”

It was immediately apparent as Elizabeth walked over to her husband, her hips swaying seductively, that a reconciliation had taken place since last she’d seen them, Madame Lamieur realized. She watched with fascination as Elizabeth seduced her husband as if no one else were in the room.

Moving between his legs, she stood very close to him as he sat in his chair, bending over to whisper in his ear, sliding her fingertip over his mouth, kissing him before she stood upright again.

And he held her casually, imprisoned between his legs, his hands gliding down her waist, then lower over her hips, his mouth moving in conversation meant only for her ears. With a lazy upward drift of his hands, his fingers slipped inside her gown where it gaped at the waist, and Madame Lamieur almost gasped aloud.

Johnnie and Elizabeth both laughed a moment later over some private comment, and she fell into his lap, with the languid propensity of a courtesan out to entice, rubbing against him like a kitten who wanted petting. Her head lay back on his shoulder; he held her
close, wrapped in his arms. “Since Lady Carre will no longer be wearing corsets,” he quietly said to his rapt audience while his wife nibbled at his neck, “adjustments will be necessary in all the gowns. I hope it won’t be inconvenient to you, Madame Lamieur.”

“Of course not, my Lord,” the dressmaker replied, wondering how rapidly she could arrange for new fabric, wondering, too, how to talk to the Earl without actually looking at him, because his wife had begun unbuttoning his waistcoat.

“We’ve decided it’s best for the baby,” he added, kissing his wife lightly in full view of everyone, an affectionate gesture of great gentleness that would have astonished any of Johnnie’s old friends. “You’ll have to do your best without a fitting for the wedding tomorrow,” he went on, curtailing his wife’s public undressing of him with a gentle restraining hand over hers. He smiled at everyone. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, my Lady is going to rest.”

It was clear to everyone the nature of his Lady’s rest, and when Helen went down to the kitchen to fill in Mrs. Reid on the shocking proceedings of the abbreviated dress-fitting, she finished in breathless animation, “They’re doin’ it right this minute on that fine silk sofa in the morning room. Himself locked the door.”

“Well, I’d best get the chef to cheffing then, for my lady will be hungry in a wee bit.” Mrs. Reid’s pleased smile creased her round face. “I expect my Lady will keep the Laird busy enough so we won’t be seeing the likes of Lady Lindsay any time soon. And more’s the pleasure in that.”

“From the looks of it, I think my Lady will keep him at Goldiehouse permanent like.”

“And that’s no bad a thing,” Mrs. Reid said with satisfaction. “Goldiehouse will be a right fine place to raise their bairns.”