Susan Johnson (27 page)

Slowly riding to the low stone wall separating the street from the churchyard, Johnnie dismounted, and with a bold courage Redmond couldn’t help but admire, he walked up to Elizabeth’s captain standing guard at the door.

“Were those friends of yours at the bridge?” Johnnie casually said, slapping the dust from his breeches.

“If you drove them off, I’d say no. Were they a motley crew with their leaders on grey chargers?”

“The same,” Johnnie said with a smile. “Did I do you a favor then?”

“A temporary one, no doubt. Those were Hotchane’s sons.”

“Here to wish the bride good fortune?” Johnnie’s smile this time didn’t reach his eyes.

“Not likely. They wish her to marry one of them.”

“Ah, and return the money to the family. Lady Graham prefers someone else, I hear.” His insolence was lightly pronounced.

“Perhaps.”

Johnnie’s gaze altered from the insouciant courtier to an instant deadly calm. “Meaning?”

“Meaning I’m not sure who to protect her from, Ravensby. You or her bridegroom.”

“Let me talk to her.” His voice, his eyes, his expression, were unflinchingly grave.

A moment passed, and then two, while the arrogant Laird of Ravensby waited as abject petitioner, his habitual insolence banished.

Then Redmond nodded his head once.

And Johnnie Carre broke into a wide grin.

“Thank you, Redmond, for your inestimable faith.”

When Johnnie Carre strode into the nave, disheveled and dust-covered, all heads turned as the heavy tread of his boots echoed in the hushed silence, the metallic clang of his sword and jangle of his spurs keeping rhythm with his long-legged stride. His dark hair framed his face in wild disarray, the plate of his jack flashed, the ivory-handled pistols tucked into his belt attracted an ominous scrutiny, and each guest drew in an unconscious inhalation of fear.

He looked to neither side, his gaze intent on the brilliantly gowned bride before the altar, and when he reached her at last, he said to her, as though the man beside her didn’t exist, “Don’t you think you should have told me about the child?”

“You needn’t answer, Elizabeth,” George interjected.

For the first time Johnnie seemed to take notice of Elizabeth’s companion. “If you don’t mind, Baldwin, I’d like to speak to her alone.”

“But I do mind.”

As Johnnie impetuously reached for his sword, Elizabeth furiously said, “Don’t you dare!” And while Johnnie hesitated, she quickly turned to George. “Just for a moment …” she placated. “I’ll be right back.”

“How did Redmond let you through?” she snapped a second later as Johnnie led her away to the side aisle, his fingers biting into her arm.

“He likes me,” he curtly said, not looking at her,
marching down the crossing without regard for the churchful of guests staring at them in dazed silence. “Or he doesn’t like George Baldwin. I’m not sure.” And he stopped her abruptly as they reached the wall, his restraining hand viselike. “Now explain why I wasn’t told.”

“No.”

The vehemence of her answer gave him pause for a moment. But his frustration hadn’t improved after seven hours in the saddle, and he said, low and heated, “You’d marry him with my child inside you?”

“I didn’t think it mattered,” she scornfully replied, as heated as he, as resentful. “Isn’t this simply another one of many for you?”

Thin-skinned and hot with temper, he wished to slap the mocking smugness from her face. He opened his mouth to speak, his nostrils flared in anger, then forced himself to curb his rage and said a second later with enormous self-control. “No, it isn’t. You should have told me.”

“To what purpose, pray tell? Will you marry me now that I carry your child—but not otherwise?”

“Would you have another man raise my child?” he snapped back.

“Don’t several already?”

“Talk to me about this child, damn you,” he raged. There was no question of dubious paternity here. This child was his. And it mattered.

“You’ve been drinking,” she spat, the smell of brandy cloying at close range. “Tomorrow you’ll wonder why you rode so far south on a whim.”

“I haven’t drunk in the last seven hours,” he said between clenched teeth. “I’m miserably sober. And I intend to have an answer to my question.” He pushed her back against the stone wall. “Now, madam,” he said in a harsh whisper, “don’t you think you should have told me?”

“Maybe it’s not your child?”

“Try again, Bitsy. My
drivers
even know it’s my child; your servants know, my servants know. Everyone knows apparently but me.”

“I don’t want you to want me simply because your
child is in my belly. Is that simple enough for you?” Raging insult firmed her mouth into a thin line.

“If we’re dealing with simplicities,” Johnnie hotly replied, “I don’t want you to marry George Baldwin.”

“Would you have cared if I weren’t having your child?”

And she hated him when he couldn’t answer. “There,” she said very, very softly. “I’m sorry you rode so far for no reason.”

“Then you misunderstand my purpose,” he replied as softly. “We’re going home to Goldiehouse.”

“Redmond won’t allow it.”

He noticed with satisfaction, she didn’t mention George Baldwin. “Why don’t we ask him?” he smoothly offered, pulling her along the shadowed side aisle to the monks’ door under the stairs.

And moments later they stood outside in the bright sunshine, an incongruous melange of armed riders, two commanders carefully taking each other’s measure, and one breathless, confounded bride.

“I’m taking her back to Goldiehouse,” Johnnie said to Redmond. “Do you have any objections that can’t be settled between”—he glanced briefly at the assembled troops—“say, four or five hundred men?”

“I
don’t
wish to go!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

Redmond glanced quickly at Johnnie, his brows raised in inquiry. “Did you lose your silver tongue, Ravensby?”

Johnnie shrugged, as resentful and angry as the bride, as uncertain of his feelings as she.

“I’ll give you two weeks, Ravensby,” Redmond offered, “to state your case. After that I’ll come for her.”

Elizabeth’s heated gaze locked with her captain’s. “Judas. What is this? Some masculine game with myself as pawn?”

“It’s a trial, Ravensby,” Redmond carefully pointed out, his expression grave as he looked at Johnnie. “You needn’t stay beyond the two weeks, Elizabeth,” he explained, his glance swinging back to her. “You can come back and marry George Baldwin later; I’ll tell him.”

“Have I no say in this?”

“In two weeks you decide.”

“Damn you, Redmond, when did you become my guardian!”

When I saw you crying this morning before you left for the church
, he wanted to say, but he wished to give Ravensby no added advantage, so he only apologized for his actions. “You may discharge me in a fortnight, my Lady, if you choose,” he quietly said, bowing to her. And then he lifted her onto the pillioned small mare that had been brought up.

And the three hundred Carres and one lady began the long journey home.

Once into Scotland, the majority of the riders pressed on, while a small escort remained behind to see Elizabeth to Goldiehouse. They traveled at a walk for the sake of her health and stopped often at local inns for rest and refreshments.

Johnnie never went inside, his feelings still too heated, too much in disarray, to politely converse with Elizabeth. What he had to say to her wouldn’t bear public scrutiny, so he let Munro and Adam and Kinmont entertain her while he remained outside.

It was after ten when they approached Goldiehouse, every window brilliant with lights, the drive lined with torches to illuminate their way, messengers having been sent ahead from Jedburgh.

And if she hadn’t been carried back without her consent, Elizabeth thought, like so much baggage, she would have felt joy at returning. If Johnnie Carre had come for her because he loved her, she would have felt inexpressible happiness. But he had come because he wouldn’t allow another man to have his child. And for that arrogant authority, she damned him.

She’d fought too hard to build a life for herself outside the perimeters of masculine control; she’d even given herself to Johnnie Carre in open celebration, free to choose for the first time in her life. And he hadn’t noticed the delineations of her independence—or cared.
She could be Hotchane’s property again or her father’s. Only now Johnnie Carre had appropriated her.

And rancor filled her heart and mind.

But all Johnnie’s servants greeted her with open arms, Mrs. Reid hugging her like a lost daughter, all smiles and cheerful words of welcome home. Dankeil Willie bowed deeply, his wide smile indication of his pleasure. He spoke for the staff when he said, “It’s a pleasure to have ye back at Goldiehouse, yer ladyship.”

She was escorted up the familiar ranks of stairways to the tower room by a host of servants and found Helen there to greet her. “Don’t ye do nothin now, my Lady,” the young maid immediately said, her smile lighting up her rosy-cheeked face, “but lie yourself down after yer long ride, and I’ll see to everything.” And with a bobbing curtsy she showed Elizabeth to her bed, already turned down for her arrival.

Genuinely grateful for Helen’s solicitude after a very long day and as sleepless a previous night as Johnnie Carre’s, Elizabeth let herself be helped into bed and undressed. She fell asleep before Helen finished buttoning the pearl buttons of the neckline of the nightgown.

“The poor lady …” Helen murmured, waving the other servants out of the room.

“Ye send for food the minute she wakes now,” Mrs. Reid ordered, standing at the foot of the bed, her affectionate gaze on Elizabeth’s peaceful form. “And the mantua-maker will be here in the morning to see to my lady’s new clothes. He dinna want to see that wedding dress again, himself says. He sent a rider into Kelso to summon Madame Lamieur for the morn.”

“She’ll need robes right soon, with the wee bairn on the way,” Helen cheerfully noted.

“And a new wedding dress, himself says,” Mrs. Reid said with satisfaction.

The two women smiled at each other.

No one, of course, had consulted Elizabeth Graham.

• • •

The next morning Johnnie entered the room as the servants were clearing Elizabeth’s breakfast dishes away. As if previously ordered, Helen followed them out of the room. At the doorway she turned to say, “Be careful of the bairn, me Lord.…”

“What did you tell her?” he asked when the door closed behind Helen. “That I’d ravish you like some pillaging reiver?” His brows rose in gentle remonstrance. “I have no intention of using you violently.” He sat down like an elegant courtier, casual and leisured and smelling of cologne, in control of his emotions after a good night’s sleep.

She moved away to the window because her heart had inexplicably begun beating a tattoo against her ribs when he’d entered the room.

“Did you sleep well?” he pleasantly inquired, watching her walk away, his temper gone now that he had Elizabeth Graham where he wanted her.

“Are we going to discuss the weather, too, as though nothing happened yesterday, as though you didn’t abduct me from my wedding?”

“Marry me instead,” he offered in succinct answer to her heated inquiry.

“I don’t care to marry a man who didn’t so much as send me a note in the weeks since he left Three Kings. I don’t care to marry a man who now feels some unfathomable obligation because of the child I carry. I don’t want to marry a man who has no compunction about taking me against my will. Is it some masculine feeling of ownership? If it is—I don’t care to be owned again.”

“I’m sorry about not writing … and about the manner of my reappearance in your life. I don’t understand the ownership. And it’s not obligation, Elizabeth.”

“What is it then? How much do you love me? Honestly tell me you would have ridden after me if not for this child.”

For a man who’d perfected facile rejoinder to a fine art, he found himself nonplussed by her bluntness.

“You see?”

“You can’t separate one from the other. The child
exists, I know it exists, and I want you to marry me. I don’t want you to marry George Baldwin or anyone else.”

“A heartfelt declaration of love if I ever heard one.”

He sighed, trying to empathize with her feelings, trying perhaps to express his own as well. “Look, I’m not very experienced with confessions of love, but I wish us to marry. As soon as possible.”

“Maybe this child isn’t yours?”

He shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, a flicker of anger shimmered in their blueness. “Jesus, Elizabeth, you’re making this difficult.”

“Pardon me, Ravensby. I forget you’re only used to obeisance. Men like you who command what—two or three thousand men—only give orders, never take them. But you won’t know for certain, will you, Johnnie, that this child is yours? And then maybe this marriage you want will be entirely wasted.”

“You
can
be a bitch,” he said very softly, his fingers clenched white over the chair arms. He was making the most significant concession in his life; he was offering his name, his family, his wealth, in marriage, when he’d had no intention of marrying for another decade at least. And all he was getting in return was sarcasm. “Well, let’s just say I’ll take my chances … on the paternity of this child.”

“A familiar circumstance for you in any event,” she sweetly retorted, incensed that he didn’t understand a speck of her anger. His apology was supposed to be enough to wipe clean the slate on his weeks of indifference, on his shocking abduction of her from the church at Hexham—although Redmond was no better in allowing it. Men, she fumed in righteous anger. Damn them all to hell. Reason had been relegated to the farther reaches of her mind at the moment, outrage full stage center in the footlights. And she wouldn’t marry Johnnie Carre if he were the last man on the face of the earth.

Which she told him in icy accents.

He wondered for a moment if he was making an enormous mistake, child or not. But he trusted his instincts; he’d survived on more than one occasion because of them. And he’d had plenty of time on the ride to
Three Kings to change his mind about marrying her. “Madame Lamieur will be here at half-past ten for a dress fitting,” he mildly replied, restraining the hot-tempered reply that came to mind. “Be ready to pick out the fabric for your wedding gown.”