Susan Johnson (42 page)

“Don’t make me cry, Johnnie,” she whispered, touching his cheek with her fingers. “I’ve no regrets of loving you.”

Taking her hand, he held her fingers to his lips, his grip tender, his breath warm in the coolness of the hut. He kissed each finger, a butterfly caress. “It’s my fault. This is all because of my selfishness,” he murmured, tormented by the pain he’d caused, by the horrendous consequences of that casual seduction so many months ago.

“I wanted this baby, Johnnie, ever so much. You gave me what I wanted. You made me happy, Johnnie.”

He shivered, this powerful man who ruled men’s lives. Then, placing her hand under the warm plaid, tucking the wool material around her neck, he said, disquieted, restless under conflicting emotions, “I’ll be back in a minute. I have to finish carrying in the wood so you won’t get cold.”

He walked a few feet beyond the small door that required care to navigate for a man his size, past the shadow of the hut, feeling the hypocrite because he’d always been indifferent to the gods of other men, to the need for intercession in his life. Clenching his fists at his sides, he lifted his head, his powerful body etched against the endless blue sky. “You don’t know me,” he whispered, “but please listen.” He stood motionless for a moment more, handicapped by the previous impiety of his life, grappling with the means of communication. Then he slowly dropped to his knees on the snowy ground and bowed his dark head under the sun-drenched
heavens and, clasping his capable strong hands together, prayed for the lives of his wife and unborn child.

He beseeched in a swift, wrenching entreaty, pressed for time with Elizabeth expecting his return. He pleaded with a directness natural to him, promising atonement, promising concessions, offering all he had for their safety. Then he came to his feet with swift grace and brushed the snow from his knees. And wiped the wetness from his eyes.

When he returned to the hut with the wood, he stoked the fire high so the small room lost its chill, and he sat beside Elizabeth, entertaining her with stories of his escapades with his cousins at Ravensby, safe adolescent stories without the knotted entanglements of maturity. He poured them both some claret and unearthed a tin of Mrs. Reid’s plum cake for a snack when Elizabeth complained of hunger, taking it for a good sign that she still had her healthy appetite. She ate one piece and then two and then a half more as he found himself counting bites, cheered at the mounting numbers. After refilling her wine cup and seeing that the crumbs from the cake were brushed away from under her chin, he continued his innocuous tales. His voice was no more than a deep, low intonation in the silence of the mountain hut, a distraction to possible catastrophe, perhaps—at some primitive level—a means of keeping evil at bay.

When she dozed off, he kept talking, the resonance of his voice filling the dim interior of the hut. He didn’t move for a lengthy time as he continued his soliloquy, superstitious like some pagan from long ago that the spell would be broken, not wishing to disturb the tranquillity of his wife’s sleep. But when Elizabeth sighed in a great relaxing exhalation that soothed the crease between her light brows and brought a faint smile to her face, he gently placed a hand on her belly mounded beneath the green pattern of his plaid and waited to feel the contractions that she’d had him monitor a short time before.

And he waited, every muscle poised, tense, a man of logic, too, as well as pagan sensibilities. He counted to fifty, slowly, a reasonable man attuned to empirical evidence,
then to fifty again, not daring yet to give way to elation. And then to a fresh one hundred because his wife and child were too important, too essential to his life, to allow credulous hope.

But at the last uttered number computed under his breath, when no movement had occurred under the light pressure of his palm, not a ripple or shiver or the tiniest quake, he lifted his hand, covered his mouth with it and, falling back on the packed earthen floor, let out a mute whoop of jubilation.

He looked very young at that moment in the rough shepherd’s hut despite his mighty body, despite his reputation as a warrior and rogue, despite his titles and honors and acclaim. He was only twenty-five, and the woman he loved in all his mercurial moods, who had brought him love when he’d not thought it possible, his dear and precious wife, was safe.

He blew her a kiss, restless in his jubilation, and came standing in a smooth uncoiling of muscled strength. “Thank you,” he whispered heavenward, his sense of obligation profound. She looked so peaceful now on her rough bed, he almost wondered if it’d been some evil dream. Until his gaze fell on the crumpled linen handkerchief, and his stomach tightened. He
had
to bring her safe to the coast; his thoughts raced ahead, planning their flight, assessing all the possibilities when their travel required even more restraint. Elizabeth couldn’t be jarred or jostled or forced to ride too long. Where to stop, what tracks best met their needs, how close must he stay to villages should they need a midwife?

She was too fragile and he too uninformed to tolerate this isolation again. He would have been helpless if the baby had come early … helpless to save Elizabeth or the child in case of complications. He wouldn’t allow that danger again.

They didn’t leave that night as planned, although when Elizabeth woke, she insisted she was well again.

“Wait one more day,” Johnnie suggested. “We’ve
still food. Give yourself a chance to recuperate from your fall. Whether we leave tonight or tomorrow won’t matter to Robbie.”

“Once we start,” Elizabeth said, her voice level, her glance steady, “don’t stop. No matter how I feel, I can survive four or five hours. Mrs. Reid tells me first babies are slow in coming. She said sometimes it takes one or two days.”

Johnnie blanched noticeably even in the flickering firelight. “Two days?” he said in a choked voice. “Good God.”

“Promise me, Johnnie. I won’t be the cause of our capture. I’ve done enough to ruin your life.”

“You didn’t ruin my life. When one opposes England’s Privy Council in such a public way, one understands the risks. The possibility of retaliation was always there.”

“But the rape charges are related to me, to my father’s partisanship with Queensberry. I feel responsible.”

“If you’re going to discuss responsibility, darling,” he gallantly noted, “my seduction began it all. You didn’t stand a chance.”

Elizabeth sighed. “You’re too damned honorable.”

He grinned. “Never with seduction. But I shall drive us unmercifully tomorrow night if it pleases you,” he went on, capitulating, not wishing to argue uselessly over an issue upon which he had his own strong feelings. “You win.”

But he was too cordial to believe entirely, and Elizabeth wished in a small part of her brain, as she had on occasion lately, that she wasn’t pregnant at this inopportune time.

They left the small hut in the foothills of the Cheviots when the slim crescent moon had risen midpoint in the winter sky. The descent down the snow-covered slopes was treacherous, a thin glaze of ice from the day’s hot sun left on the surface of the snow. When Johnnie’s barb went down on its knees on loose stones and ice, it only managed to scramble upright because Johnnie had instantly leaped from the saddle. After that, Johnnie slowly led both horses down the rough track, not wishing to risk a like tumble with Elizabeth’s mount.

Once they reached flat country, despite Elizabeth’s urgings, Johnnie kept the horses to a walk. They passed Eccles on the outskirts of the village, only two dogs giving warning of their presence, and Johnnie cut cross-country shortly after, moving in the direction of Blackadder, his cousins’ property. The bulk of the darkened manse rose on the crest of a rise as they traveled on the fringes of the parkland an hour later, reminding Johnnie of carefree times long gone. Hunted by his enemies now with torture and death the outcome were he captured,
the land and old house took on a poignant tranquillity.

Godfrey had done this to him, and Godolphin’s puppet, Queensberry, who never had enough money to sate his greed. A burning need for reprisal, for vengeance, burned inside his brain. Once he had Elizabeth safe in Holland, he could unsheath his sword and retaliate against his enemies. He’d never run from a confrontation before, and were it not for Elizabeth and the child, he’d be riding now to kill Godfrey wherever he was.

He glanced up at the moon, ever conscious of the passage of time; the trip down the foothills had caused delay, as he knew it would. He wasn’t sure they could reach the cove before daylight.

“What time do you think it is?” Elizabeth asked, aware of his concern.

“Close to midnight. Do you need to stop?”

Elizabeth shook her head.

Leaning over, he touched her hand. “It’s a cold night. Everyone’s inside.”

“Including the patrols, I hope,” she said.

“I’d say yes, regardless of your father or Queensberry’s orders. The common soldier knows they’re both lying in a warm bed tonight.”

“A pleasant thought … a warm bed,” Elizabeth said with a smile.

As they made for the coast that night, neither was aware of the critical events transpiring in the days of their flight, events that might impact on their plans for escape.

Westminster had finally passed the Alien Act, and as part of its immediate implementation, British cruisers were now patrolling the coast “to seize all Scottish ships trading with Her Majesty’s enemies.” In addition, in an incident altogether separate but incendiary in the present climate of hostility, the British East India Company had seized and confiscated a Scottish ship in the Thames, citing breach of its privileges in its hiring of English seamen in an English harbor. Outraged, Scotland had
instantly retaliated by capturing the
Worcester
, in harbor at Leith, a ship reportedly belonging to the East India Company. The captain and crew had been swiftly charged with piracy, robbery, and murder, all charges punishable by hanging. The British seamen were currently standing trial in Edinburgh. Angry mobs were out in the streets north and south of the border.

Animosities were high in both England and Scotland. A raging storm of retaliation was brewing … a retaliation that would be hazardous to their escape.

They reached Margarth Cove at last, coming to the grassy verge of the harsh rocky shore when the moon had begun to fade. Gazing out over the small secluded cove where Robbie’s ship should have been anchored, they saw only the grey winter sea.

No ship rested there. Only white-capped waves, a few hardy birds. And emptiness.

Johnnie swore, a long, low steady stream of invective. Elizabeth burst into tears, hating herself even as she sobbed for being so susceptible to her emotions. The hours of the past night had been excruciatingly tense, each sluggish mile passed in a nightmare of apprehension, fear in every sudden sound. And now that they’d reached their destination, now when they should have been safe, their vision of freedom evaporated before them.

Nudging his barb closer to Elizabeth’s mount, Johnnie reached over and wiped her tears away with the back of his gloved hand, the leather warm from the heat of his body. “The British patrols must be out. We’ll just wait. Don’t cry, darling. Robbie will come.”

“What if they’ve captured him?”

He stared out to sea for a moment, then shook his head. “They’ll come for him later … after I’ve been found guilty. As he’s my present heir, they’ll want him, too, but”—he paused, understanding how laws were often despotically managed—“even if I was convicted
in
absentia
, Robbie would have had sufficient warning from Munro.”

“Oh, God,” she whispered at the word “conviction.” It meant a hunted death, anywhere in the world. Fresh tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she apologized, knowing strength and resolution would be more useful to Johnnie now, not a sobbing woman. “All I do is cry … I never used to cry.… Really,” she added in a hiccupy holding back of her tears.

“Lord, sweetheart, you’ve reason enough,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “
I
felt like crying when that damn ship wasn’t there. But, look,” he went on in a reasonable tone that belied none of his intense frustration, “there’s an inn south of Saint Abbs—it’s off the main road, local and secluded. It’s only another few miles.” His voice softened. “Are you tired of riding? Should I carry you?”

She shook her head and smiled at him, licking away a tear that had slid into the corner of her mouth. “Do they have good food?”

He laughed, her appetite a constant now. “Better than yours or my cooking.”

“An enormous incentive then,” she said with an experimental smile she wasn’t sure she could maintain. Sitting up a little straighter, adjusting her reins in her fingers, she said, “Lead on.”

Within the hour, before daylight had fully replaced the dawn, Elizabeth was ensconced in a soft feather bed in Traquir’s best bedchamber, contemplating her third boiled egg and crumpet with more pleasure than she should feel, considering their danger. Johnnie sat by the window, still dressed, his gaze on the sea beyond the low hedges, a pewter tankard of ale in his hand, the remains of his breakfast on the table beside him. He’d seen two British cruisers patrolling the coast in the past hour, indication of a near blockade. And on their arrival the landlord had heatedly related the recent news of the Alien Act, the capture of the
Annandale
, and the repercussions of both.