Susan Johnson (15 page)

As they rode down the lane to the Graham country house, Munro was debating who at the Grahams’ he could call on if Johnnie required subduing. After the third bottle, he knew, his brawny cousin took offense easily.

“Now you promised to remember your manners,” he warned, as the lights of the house came into view.

“Lord, Munro, you worry. I drink more than this at breakfast sometimes. Relax.”

“I’ll relax when you’re sober tomorrow.”

Johnnie’s grin shone in the moonlight. “What makes you think I’ll be sober tomorrow?”

Munro groaned. “You’re going to be a goddamned burden.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay out of your way,” Johnnie promised.

“That’s what I’m afraid of. I’ll have to keep you on a leash.”

“An interesting concept if I were into perversity,” Johnnie lazily replied, amusement in his voice. And then his head lifted slightly as the sound of music reached them over the moonlit meadow. “Ah, we haven’t missed the dancing at least,” he went on, as though the subject of his unmanageability hadn’t come up. “Does Elizabeth dance?”

“I don’t know. Lord, Johnnie,” Munro exclaimed, frustrated after their hindered journey south, “you’d think I’d been raised as her twin. You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

“Actually, I was planning to,” the Laird of Ravensby murmured. “In very short order …”

A swift half hour later, bathed, dressed, and at last smelling as if they hadn’t ridden all day, the two men descended the main staircase, followed the sound of music down a meandering corridor to the baronial ballroom in
the east wing, and stood in the doorway surveying the colorful throng.

Only two generations removed from a time of continuous border warfare, the ballroom reflected the Grahams’ martial traditions. Beneath the high-ribbed ceiling, the paneled walls held an array of weapons, enough for a small army, arranged in symmetrical patterns: swirls of swords centered by a targe; scores of pikes marching in perfect order across the wall; muskets and claymores placed in circular array or sweeping upward in series toward the ceiling. And colorfully punctuating the armorial decor, Graham family portraits repeated the distinctive Graham visage in subtle variations down through the centuries.

All of which went ignored by the Laird of Ravensby, whose interest was focused not on decorative detail but on discerning one particular lady in the crowd of dancers noisily engaged in a country dance.

His own appearance, however, didn’t go ignored. The powerful and bonny chief of the Roxburgh Carres always drew attention. The women immediately took notice, his magnificence in teal silk striking, his beauty and reputation tantalizing. Men noticed too; as a prominent magnate, Ravensby was an influential voice in Scottish politics, and in the current parliamentary debates, a strong force on the side of independence. They wondered what had drawn him so far from Edinburgh during the short adjournment. And while the men speculated on his reasons for being away from the capital, the women reflected more particularly on whether they might catch his eye; which conjecture, intrigued and conversational, rose like a soft buzzing hum above the sound of the violins.

“She’s not dancing. Are you sure she’s come?” Without turning from his scrutiny of the ballroom, Johnnie brusquely queried his cousin.

“Elizabeth’s here. The majordomo remembered her particularly. Maybe she’s in the card room or outside in the garden.”

“Why would she be outside in the garden?” Gruff
and curt, the blasé Earl of Graden sounded like an affronted guardian.

“For God’s sake, Johnnie,” Munro replied in murmured remonstrance, “you don’t own her. Perhaps she’s enjoying the summer night.”

“Then perhaps
I’ll
go outside and see with whom she’s enjoying it.” Johnnie was moving away from the doorway already, the tone of his voice provocative, heated. Munro hurried after his cousin, uneasy warder to a man with three bottles in him, looking to take exception.

The crowd parted before the chief of the Roxburgh Carres, as though propelled aside by the sight of Johnnie’s determined stride. He only casually acknowledged the numerous greetings, with a smile or a swift response or a hand raised in greeting. He stopped to speak to no one.

Where was he going? Whom was he looking for? He’d been drinking, for the smell of brandy drifted along his wake. Why had Johnnie Carre come so far to a Graham wedding when it was common knowledge he never attended weddings? The tittle-tattle of curiosity followed him, a roomful of gazes watched his purposeful progress, all the while wishful young ladies imagined delicious fantasies …

Until he suddenly stopped.

He’d found her.

Radiant in cherry-red georgette trimmed with lace and embroidered ribbon, Elizabeth had just entered the ballroom through the terrace door with a young man who was smiling down at her.

At the same moment the country dance ended.

A hushed, fascinated silence fell as the Laird of Ravensby stood motionless before Elizabeth Graham. And everyone in the ballroom understood why Johnnie Carre had journeyed south.

“Would you care to dance, Lady Graham?” he softly said, self-possessed and poised, his bow courtly perfection.

Her startled, upturned gaze rose to the man towering above her. Overcome by surprise, by the sudden acceleration
of her heartbeat, by an instant sensual response, she fought for composure before this stylish, dégagé Laird. He was more beautiful than she’d remembered, his potent virility heightened by the splendid brocade he wore, his shoulders broader, his hands larger, his eyes asking for more than a dance.

She glanced quickly at her escort, but he’d moved a half-step away in deference to such a powerful noble. “Perhaps later, my Lord, when the music resumes,” she quietly said, wanting more time to gather her emotions. A gentleman would accept her refusal politely.

“Come dance with me now,” he said. And raising his hand, he signaled for the musicians to begin. “You see,” he murmured, his gaze returning to her, “we’ve music again.”

What other man would assume all eyes were on him; what other man would understand the musicians in the gallery were concerned with his wishes? What other man indeed, she thought, but the Laird of Ravensby, who viewed the world as his personal playground. Powerfully attracted on a sheer physical level, she struggled to maintain a necessary distance. Johnnie Carre had been the only man in her young life to arouse her, and she’d wondered at times whether she was to blame or he. Lately, she’d even found herself surveying her guard on occasion, debating if bedding one of them would rid her mind of Johnnie’s image, or the memory of that night.

And now he was here, elegantly handsome—and waiting for her.

Fascinated, apprehensive, attracted, she fought against succumbing to his powerful masculinity. How could he so effortlessly make her want him? He had only to smile like that.…

But a lifetime of wariness intervened, and her practical nature firmed her wavering resolve. She would not, she resolutely decided—after months of assiduously obliterating memories of Johnnie Carre—so quickly fall under his spell.

She
could not
, not if she valued her hard-won independence.

But his strong hands closed around her waist, and
he grinned down at her. “We mustn’t disappoint all these gaping guests,” he said, and swung her out onto the dance floor. She shut her eyes against a surge of lust as she clutched at him to keep her balance, the feel of his body familiar, recognizable. With her hands at the small of his back and his firmly at her ribboned waist, they twirled halfway around the ballroom alone, the object of all eyes. Breath held, the throng watched the palpable display of stunning sensuality. And for a moment the beautiful young couple seemed oblivious to their surroundings: a slender, pale woman in the arms of a dark, predatory Border chief, sexuality incarnate, shameless, compelling.

“How does he know Hotchane’s widow?” a local matron asked her neighbor, both women observing the young couple from their vantage point near the door. Bolt upright in her chair as if struck rigid by the vivid, overt passion, the minister’s wife held her closed fan to her mouth in shocked wonder.

“Haven’t you heard of the abduction?” her less prudish companion remarked, a small smile on her face, her gaze riveted on the dance floor. “I thought all the Borders knew.”

“Oh!” her friend exclaimed, her mouth formed into a round O of astonishment, her fan dropping away at the word “abduction.” “How can she welcome the fiend?” she whispered in captivated horror.

“Has Ravensby ever been turned away?” One question answered the other, the reply uttered in a languid murmur, blatant appraisal in the speaker’s eyes as she viewed Johnnie Carre, resplendent in well-cut teal-blue silk.

“I didn’t know if you could dance,” Johnnie remarked, immune to the intent scrutiny, inured after a lifetime of scandal. “Hotchane must have allowed you the diversion.
You’re very good.” The country dances were intricate, involved. “But then you’re good at many things.…” he softly added, his voice no more than a whisper.

She could feel the heat race up her spine and down to the pit of her stomach, and it took a moment to find breath to respond. But she’d survived her father’s indelicate upbringing and Hotchane’s idea of marriage, she resolutely reminded herself, so even Johnnie Carre’s potent sexuality could be managed. “Thank you,” she said in the distinct enunciation of a prim spinster. “It was one of my few entertainments.”

Undeterred by her fastidiousness, as aware as the Graham guests of her quivering response, he softly asked, “Have you more entertainments now, in your widowhood?” Insinuation sweet as honey flowed through his words.

And she understood in a clarifying instant why women threw themselves at him; he promised pleasure so genially. “I only work, my Lord,” she carefully said. “I have no diversions at all.” Her polite smile gave away none of her feelings.

“Perhaps you need a holiday then.” Distinguished for his seductive charm, he could be infinitely polite.

“I don’t have time.”

“It wouldn’t take long.”

“Are we speaking of the same thing, my Lord?” She found a degree of pleasure in maintaining her sangfroid before such pointed motive.

“I believe we are.”

“Such assurance, Ravensby.”

His smile, enchanting and poised, was answer in itself. Although his words were modest. “I’d never presume to be assured with you, Lady Graham. You strike me as a woman of remarkable confidence and self-control.”

“Keep that in mind, Johnnie.”

It was a mistake to pronounce his name, for the sound of it, intimate and hushed, brought intemperate memory to the fore. They both remembered with a singular feeling of heated urgency when she’d last spoken his name in that intoxicating way. “I wonder then …” he
murmured, his deep voice pitched low, “whether you might change your mind about the sights in Edinburgh. A few days away from your construction … you might enjoy yourself.”

“I know I’d enjoy myself,” Elizabeth replied with honesty, wishing very much to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him for days despite the interested crowd. “But my life continues once you leave again, Johnnie. And selfishly, I’m unwilling to accept your habits of impermanence. So thank you for the invitation, but no.”

“You’re not coy, Lady Graham. Perhaps you might be induced to change your mind concerning impermanence?” He had time here in Teviotdale, and she wasn’t unresponsive.…

“I’ve never acquired the fine art of coyness. I’ve missed the company of women in my life. And I won’t change my mind, because I’d be a fool, considering your reputation for dalliance. Now wouldn’t I?” She gazed up at him with a half-smile.

Disconcerted by her candor, he ruefully admitted, “You’re blunt about seduction, pet. Munro must have been right.”

“About?”

“About you not entertaining yourself with your guardsmen. He adamantly defended your honor.”

She grinned. “I see. You stand corrected, I presume. Contrary to your assumption, my Lord, I’ve been quite celibate.”

No explicit sexual advance, however contrived, could have equaled the power of her simple declaration, and for a feverish moment Johnnie Carre was hard-pressed to keep from carrying her off the dance floor and up the stairs to his room, public be damned.

“I would find celibacy difficult,” he said on a half-suffocated breath, wondering how much his honor would be impugned if he failed to act the gentleman as promised.

“I don’t doubt that, my Lord. But then, we live in a world in which men and women are judged by different standards.” She had had a lifetime to be certain of that principle.

“Widows have considerably more freedom,” he pointed out to her, well aware of the double standard but driven by desire to distinguish the nuances.

“But not unlimited freedoms.”

“You’ve become prudish since Goldiehouse,” he murmured, remembering a night of wildness and passion.

“More sensible, I think, with distance.”

“From me.”

“Yes.” But her smile suddenly held a touch of playfulness.

“I can be persistent,” he promptly teased, unruffled by her practical reasons, delighted by her smile, astute at recognizing subtleties in the game of
amour
.

“And I obstinate.”

“About sex.”

She smiled. “Were we talking about sex?”

He laughed. “No, of course not.” He pulled her closer so their thighs brushed as they danced, and his hands moved up slightly on her rib cage. “I believe the discussion concerned whether you had time for a holiday.”

“You’re very smooth, my Lord. Does it come with practice?”

“Everything comes with practice, my darling Bitsy.”

“And you should know … my dissolute Ravensby … about that.…”

“While you, Lady Graham, know how to play the coquette with irresistible sincerity.”

“Do I really?” She seemed flattered.

“You do.”

“But I shouldn’t with you.”

“Not if you actually mean it. My well-bred civility has its limits.”

“I should take warning then.”

“With anyone else I’d say no, but, yes, I think, you should.”