Susan Johnson (28 page)

“And if I won’t?”

“Then I’ll pick it out for you.”

And he was there shortly after the dressmaker arrived, strolling into the room as if it were his lordly prerogative, seating himself comfortably in an advantageous viewing position, smiling at everyone—the servants, Madame Lamieur, Helen, and especially the dragooned Elizabeth, who stood resentfully in the center of the group of women, attired in only her ribbon-trimmed corset and chemise.

“Lady Graham will need a complete wardrobe,” he said, lounging back in one of the apostle chairs, incongruously framed by ascetic saints. “Something adaptable to her pregnancy.”

As Elizabeth blushed a furious red and the dressmaker swallowed her shock, he added, “Perhaps we should select the wedding gown first. Do you have a preference, dear?” His blue eyes regarded Elizabeth with amusement.

“Something black,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I prefer cream brocade,” Johnnie said, as though Elizabeth hadn’t spoken. “We’ll need it immediately. Can you manage that?” he inquired of the dressmaker with infinite politeness.

Not quite meeting the eyes of the most powerful man on the Borders, Madame Lamieur stammered her assent. Even Ravensby had outdone himself this time, she reflected … bringing home his future wife with a three-hundred-man escort—everyone in the county had the story this morning. And a reluctant wife from the look of it—pregnant too. But he paid extremely well, so who was she to question the bizarre conduct of the noble
class? “Perhaps something like this, my lord,” she obligingly suggested, offering him several watercolor sketches of gowns.

“Come and look, Elizabeth,” Johnnie softly ordered, his command seeming to hover palpably in the hushed silence, everyone’s expectant gaze on Elizabeth.

“I can see from here.”

“Don’t be a child.”

Her choices were limited short of throwing a temper tantrum and completely embarrassing herself before the servants and local dressmaker. So, after a contemplative moment, she walked over to the table spread with sketches.

Johnnie’s smile was benevolent, hers rigidly fixed, and the selection of suitable gowns was conducted as quickly as possible. When a sufficient number had been agreed on, everyone heard the distinct sharp inhalation of Elizabeth’s breath as Johnnie gripped her hand, drew her around the curve of the table, and pulled her down on his lap. “Now show us your fabrics, Madame Lamieur. Some warm cashmeres and woolens for the coming winter.”

He could feel her tremble on his lap, and unconscionably he felt an excitement streak through his senses. A primitive kind of possession seized him, captivated his imagination, and he restrained himself from summarily ordering everyone from the room. Her soft bottom warm on his thighs aroused him, access to that sweetness impeded by no more than flimsy silk aroused him, simply her presence in his home aroused him beyond reason. And he wondered for a moment whether she exuded some rare scent of undefiled virtue that made a man want to possess her.

She could feel his arousal swell against her, the heat from his body, his power and strength, tantalizing, aphrodisiac. And she steeled herself against the kindling heat inside her, spiking hotter than she remembered, more intense. She sat up straighter to distance herself from contact with his powerful chest and arms, only to find the movement exerted added pressure downward. And she shivered as his erection hardened.

In self-defense, knowing she had to escape, she rapidly decided on a score of different swatches, saying simply, “I’ll take that and that and those,” pointing at endless swatches, the colors a blur until Madame Lamieur caught a signal from the Laird of Ravensby’s blue eyes and said, “I think we have enough to begin, Lady Graham.”

“Am I finished then?” Elizabeth said, tense, taut with the old familiar feelings heating her blood, afraid of her susceptibility when she could feel him hard against her, when her body so easily responded to Johnnie Carre.

“A few more measurements, my Lady, if it’s amenable to you, my lord,” the village modiste cautiously added, looking for her directives from the Carre chieftain.

“Certainly,” Johnnie replied with well-bred civility.

The obvious deference Madame Lamieur demonstrated not to her but to the Lord of the manor further ignited the flame of Elizabeth’s temper, mitigating for a transient second the intensity of her arousal. Sharply jabbing her elbow into his chest, she rose from his lap and flounced with a distinct dramatic flair to the table ladened with measuring tapes and pins. “Hopefully, this shouldn’t take much longer,” Elizabeth coolly declared. “I find myself feeling hungry again.”

“If you’d like to eat, Elizabeth”—he glanced significantly at the case clock in the corner with his impudent smile shining from his eyes—“so soon again, Madame Lamieur could come back later.” Crossing his legs to conceal his arousal, he gently rubbed his chest where she jabbed him, recalling with pleasure her capacity for fierceness in bed. “Madame will be staying at Goldiehouse until your wardrobe is finished, so she can return at your convenience.”

Suddenly afraid he’d send everyone away and she’d be left alone with him, Elizabeth quickly replied, “That won’t be necessary. Actually, I’m not
that
hungry. Do let’s finish the fitting now.” She couldn’t trust herself; her body flushed with desire.

“I feel we should take a few more measurements
without your corset, my Lady, so—er—well … we can better anticipate for the coming weeks the … ah … waist size.”

Elizabeth found herself blushing again before the mantuamaker’s obvious discomfort. Or perhaps because she found herself uncomfortable discussing her pregnancy so publicly before an unknown tradeswoman and the servants.

“That is, my Lord,” Madame Lamieur went on addressing Johnnie, “if that meets with your approval … I mean … about the corset, of course, oh dear …” And the poor lady stammered to a close before the amused gaze of the most reckless of Border chieftains.

“There’s no need for delicacy, Madame Lamieur,” Johnnie graciously said. “Everyone is intensely pleased Lady Graham is breeding. Come here, Elizabeth, I’ll unlace you.”

“I can perfectly well unlace myself, Ravensby,” Elizabeth hotly retorted, frustrated at being talked about as though she didn’t exist, as though every movement of chalk and measuring tape and fabric sample had to have prior approval from the great Lord seated like some potentate in that damnable apostle chair that only reminded her of how much more devil he was than saint.

“But I wish to,” he declared. Although he spoke scarcely above a whisper, every person in the room heard the softly pronounced words and distinguished the touch of impatience beneath the quiet utterance. And the authority.

His command was like a lightly placed lash, and she flinched for a flashing moment as though he’d struck her. And she stood for an abrasive moment more while all eyes contemplated a pale-haired beauty, barefoot, in half-undress, waging a war of wills with one of the most powerful men in Scotland. “Are you playing lady’s maid now, Ravensby?” she sweetly inquired, her sarcasm rich with anger.

“I am with pleasure. Now come,” he said, unhampered by her derision, the role of sovereign Lord deeply inbred. And beneath the quiet of his words was a steely hardness.

“Certainly, my Lord Graden,” she formally replied with a studied coolness. “If it
pleases
you,” she snidely finished, having the last word at least in this uneven contest.

“It pleases me
immensely
, Lady Graham,” he replied, his lazy smile playful. “It’s your turn, I believe,” he murmured as she reached him, “for the final riposte.”

“My turn will come, Ravensby, when Redmond arrives to get me.”

“He’s not coming. Now move closer so I can reach the ribbons.”

“What do you mean, he’s not coming?” she said, shocked and standing utterly motionless before him.

“I mean I sent him a wedding announcement. I expect felicitations from him any day soon. Move or I’ll embarrass you.”

“More than you have already?”

“Infinitely more,” he dryly replied, his blue eyes raised to hers. “Here now,” he quietly indicated, pointing to the space between his sprawled legs.

And she went because she knew how shameless his audacity.

She shut her eyes when he pulled the blue silk bow over her stomach loose and wondered as she felt the ribbon slip through the lacings if she could resist the touch of his hands.

“Your breasts are much larger,” he whispered, his voice very close, the scent of him pungent in her nostrils. “Do they feel different?” And he brushed a light caress over their swelling abundance. The sound of his voice was intimate, lush, suggestive of all the heated passion in their past.

“Please don’t do this to me, Johnnie,” she pleaded, her eyes shut tight against the pulsing heat beginning deep within her. “Not in front of all these people.”

“But I can any time I want, my sweet,” he gently murmured, his fingers warm through the sheer batiste of her chemise. “Remember that,” he whispered. And he touched her nipples lightly before he lifted her corset free.

The piercing sensation flashed downward from her
distended nipples, instant, tremulous, melting into hidden recesses of desire. And she swayed forward infinitesimally, as if asking for surcease.

He steadied her. “Not yet, puss,” he softly said, his hands on her hips holding her back, more in control after a decade of calculated
amours
. “Now open your eyes, darling,” he gently teased, “because all these people in this room are becoming breathless.…”

“I hate you so,” she hissed, although her green eyes beneath the lacy fringe of her lashes still held a smoldering heat.

“I know how you feel because I hate you, too … but in a different way.” His smile as he leaned back in his chair held a grim mockery. “And yet I still want to fuck you every minute.” His brows rose in a mild irony. “If I were a religious man, I might think I were being punished for my sins. But I’m not, of course … so it’s only a personal dilemma, soon to be resolved.”

“Without my consent, no doubt.”

“That’s up to you, my dear.” He rose abruptly, his derisive smile still in place until his gaze shifted beyond her. “Thank you, Madame Lamieur, for your indulgence,” he politely declared to the modiste across the room, as if he and Elizabeth had indeed been discussing fashion plates. “Lady Graham will give you whatever further orders are required. Good day to you all.” He bowed gracefully to the room at large. “And I’ll see you later,” he said to Elizabeth with an insolent wink. “I look forward to taking your new gowns off.”

But he stayed away the rest of that day, and she didn’t see him again until the following morning, when he strode into her tower room without invitation in his usual way.

“Have you decided on a wedding date?” he asked, dropping into a chair and motioning the servants out with a casual gesture.

“Tell me how long this ludicrous game is going to continue,” she snappishly replied. Looking across the table
where she’d been seated reading, she laced her hands together and firmly said, “I’ll not be ruled by your authority
or
your polite civility that sees this marriage as nothing more than a negotiated business arrangement. Thank you, but I already had a marriage like that.”

“Do you want me to fall on my knees in supplication? Is that it? I thought I’ve been more or less doing that—at least figuratively—since Hexham.”

“Everything’s just an amusing diversion for you, isn’t it? Even this marriage. How do you keep your feelings so easily in check?”

“While you don’t? Come, Elizabeth, you’re no less restrained than I.” He grinned. “Except, of course, for your sensuality, which is damnably easy to arouse.”

“Or yours.”

His grin widened. “An asset, I’ve always thought.”

“I just don’t know if lust is reason enough to marry.”

“Better than no reason at all, as in your planned marriage to George Baldwin.”

“I needed him against the Grahams. Is that so terrible? You don’t
know
the Grahams, so kindly acquit me of your blame. The future of this child matters fiercely to me.”

“As it does to me.”

“A sore point, as you already know.”

“Look,” he said with a frustrated sigh, “I don’t know exactly what the word ‘love’ implies, although I know the definition is a point of contention between us. But if love is missing you and wanting you when I know I shouldn’t, when I’d prefer not caring for an Englishwoman who happens to be the daughter of bloody Harold Godfrey, then this damnable misery is love.”

“Which charming explanation only strengthens my resolve to refuse your kind offer of marriage. How will we live together with that hatred between us?” And she wished to ask him, too, how to deal with her jealousy of all the women in his life, but she’d not humiliate herself with that admission.

“You can’t always deduce the proper answers, Elizabeth,
with logic and practicality.” And he knew better than most, this man who lived on the edge.

“And you can’t always have your way, Johnnie.”

He stood abruptly as though she’d shot him, and gazing at her for a piercing moment, he turned away from her to gaze out the windows. “Maybe I’ll just bring in my own clergyman and be done with it,” he heatedly said, not familiar with such continuing resistance, pressed to previously unknown limits of forbearance. This was an era of sovereignty for men; women’s wishes counted for less. “Why am I being so polite?” he said, half to himself.

But she heard him in the quiet room and answered with a small heat of her own. “Because I might disgrace you by screaming my dissent in the middle of the ceremony.”

She didn’t understand, he realized, that his politeness had nothing to do with himself; what efforts at compromise he exerted were for her sake alone. Whether she screamed to the heavens before his clergyman, whose living depended exclusively on his suffrage, was incidental to him. Whether she cried her objection to the entire town mattered not. What mattered to him were her feelings, her sensibilities, and he decided in a moment of revelation that he’d been approaching the situation entirely wrong: he’d been polite and rational.