Susan Johnson (47 page)

When the laudanum tempered his breathing, when its effect had diminished his pain, Elizabeth had him transferred to the bed prepared for him in the open cart.

The cold winter day had helped stanch the worst of the bleeding, and in the remaining ten hours to Edinburgh the chill temperatures would further aid in reducing any fever. For an additional six thousand guineas, Elizabeth had bought herself a seat next to her husband in the cart with the stipulation that a guard accompany them. She’d agreed to no conversation beyond the most prosaic; she would have agreed to anything to stay beside him.

He barely stirred on the long journey, for which she was grateful, the laudanum sedating him, allowing his maimed body freedom from pain at least temporarily.
But after they reached Edinburgh late that night, they were immediately separated.

Her prison was more benign than Johnnie’s destination—Edinburgh Castle dungeons. Her place of detention was a spare but clean apartment in one of Queensberry’s properties off the Canongate. She was to be held incommunicado, she was told by her jailer, Christian Dunbar, Queensberry’s niece, until such a time as her testimony was required in court.

Because he was an accused felon in a notoriously political trial, Johnnie’s imprisonment was more public, although the dungeons at the castle were by no means accessible. They were deep in the old foundations, well guarded, secure. In any event it was still moot whether he would survive to stand trial.

Very late that night, immediately news of their return reached Queensberry, Harold Godfrey was summoned to Queensberry’s apartments, where he was exposed to the vicious blasts of the Duke’s wrath for having allowed his personal vendetta against Johnnie Carre to possibly deprive them of the richest estates in Scotland.

“In the future,” Queensberry said with barely contained fury, moving about his paneled office in agitation, “flog any number of your expendable soldiery. I don’t care how many you kill, nor does anyone else. But kindly use more discretion with prisoners of such importance. If Ravensby dies before he can be properly convicted, and I lose out on the finest property on the Borders, I’ll see that you pay dearly for your stupidity. I’m informed, too, your daughter refuses to cooperate if my Lord Carre dies, you damned fool! While we may not need her testimony, I’d rather have it than not.” Queensberry was a shrewd and skillful manipulator. He disliked displays of raw savagery. It made diplomacy difficult; people who preferred taking their bribes and quietly staying in the background balked at such notorious brutality.

“No need for hysteria. He’ll live,” the Earl of Brusisson insisted, sure in his skill at judging that precarious
line at which life was extinguished. “I know when to stop a flogging.”

“You’d better be right.”

“Really, James, consider you wouldn’t even have him in the castle dungeons if not for my persistence,” Harold Godfrey softly said from his comfortable chair. His pale eyes regarded the Duke of Queensberry’s exasperated pacing with mild disparagement. “Allow me my small amusements.”

“It won’t be so amusing if our defendant dies.” Regardless of the purchased judge and jury, Queensberry didn’t want the embarrassment of a dead defendant. He preferred not to show such a heavy hand. “I don’t want any problems convicting him. I don’t want them to say we killed him. I want the properties legally—without grey areas open to further litigation. Ravensby’s library alone will bring a fortune.”

“You’re welcome to it. I’ve my eye on his racing bloodstock.”

Queensberry’s head snapped around; he coveted the stable as well. But he smiled instead, not wishing to expose his interest. There remained adequate time to see to a favorable distribution of Ravensby’s holdings … one satisfactory to him. “We shall have to delay the trial,” he briskly said, as though they’d not been discussing outright robbery like two cutpurses, “until the prisoner is an object of less sympathy. Your perverse amusements will cost us a fortnight at least.”

“If it gives you pleasure to assign blame,” the Earl of Brusisson said in a wearying tone, “entertain yourself with my blessing, but I repeat, Your Grace,
I
brought the man in for you. Not your scheming or your clever manipulation of judges and impoverished nobles, but
my
steadfast pursuit.” He stood then, having accorded as much civility as he was willing to give after a long day on the road. “You needn’t thank me now, my Lord,” he sardonically said, with the merest indication of a bow. “Your gratitude can take the form of land deeds at a later date.” And with the faintest of smiles he turned and left the room.

Queensberry was left irritated, sulky, and nettled
over the delay in his plans. Harold Godfrey was always rankled when he had to deal with courtiers who never wished to actually soil their hands with the blood of the men they slaughtered. And both men’s designs on the Ravensby estates continued unabated.

Christian Dunbar greeted Roxane Forrestor, Countess Kilmarnock, with a mild restraint when the Countess was shown into her drawing room on a dull grey afternoon two days later. Gracefully sinking onto the crocus-yellow sofa, Roxane murmured, “Good God, Chrissie, you’d think I was here to steal your prisoner. Now what use would I have for Johnnie’s damned wife?”

“How did you know?” the small, dark-haired woman exclaimed, her normally prim mouth open wide in astonishment. The Duke had wanted Elizabeth’s location kept secret.

“Darling, what a silly question. The caddies even know who had dinner in Lady Nicky Murray’s bedchamber last night,” Roxane dissembled. Searching out Elizabeth’s jail had been more difficult than she expected. “Actually, I meant to come yesterday, but my dear Jeannie must have me watch her progress with the new Italian dance master, and before I knew it, it was too late to call. So tell me, what is the woman like?”

“The Duke left express instructions,” Christian
pointedly said, “she is not to be discussed.” As the daughter of Queensberry’s sister, a noblewoman who had formed a mésalliance but had returned to the family fold when her scapegrace husband had conveniently died, Christian Dunbar depended on the charity of her uncle, the Duke of Queensberry.

“Ah, well then … and I was hoping for some gossip about the woman who stole Johnnie from me. Admit you can understand my vindictive impulses.” The lovely Countess smiled. “Now that she’s less exalted.” Lounging back against the padded cushions, the yellow satin perfect foil for her vibrant red hair and aquamarine gown, she said with a theatrical small sigh, “And I was hoping to gloat over her reverses.”

“I just don’t dare,” the Duke’s niece replied, but her uncharitable soul was piqued by the possibility of a juicy scene.

“I understand,” Roxane replied with a gracious lenience. “But you know how it is with a rival. One loves the opportunity to be insulting. Tell me instead,” she dulcetly went on, “while you’re pouring us some of that very good claret your uncle favors, what you think of Katie Malcolm’s newest child. To my eye it’s definitely not a Malcolm.”

And the afternoon settled into a cozy exchange of malice, Roxane taking pains to offer up luscious tidbits of scandal, aware of Chrissie’s insatiable appetite for other people’s misfortune. Very much like her haughty mother, who considered her youthful indiscretion happily repaired by her husband’s death, Christian Dunbar had been raised to be conscious of her superior Douglas bloodlines. Overly proud, she’d not yet found a man who came up to her family’s standards; she was in fact a younger version of her mother, dainty, prim, concerned with appearances, and grudging of other’s happiness.

And Roxane’s hopes that the claret would relax her hostess’s restrictions against discussion of her uncle’s prisoner proved true as the afternoon progressed.

“Lady Carre’s very beautiful,” Christian Dunbar admitted after her third glass, a small grimace accompanying her words as if it pained her to utter them. “Even
now, when she’s big with child. And she’s not a bit afraid.” She divulged the last in irritation.

“Do you speak to her often?”

“She refuses conversation.”

“Arrogance in her position? I’m surprised.”

“She even railed at her father when he left her here. I think your lover found himself a shrew for a wife.”

“Perhaps her fortune interested him,” Roxane snidely said, her lip curved slightly in disdain.

“Not likely sixty thousand pounds will be overlooked by any man.” The bitterness in her voice was unsurprising; Christian’s own lack of fortune had been a distinct disadvantage in luring eligible men.

“No man had ever left me before Johnnie did,” Roxane quietly disclosed.

“I can see then why you’re interested in her.”

“There’s a certain resentment.” Roxane’s glance had narrowed, her dark eyes shadowed by her lashes. Then she flashed a brittle smile and lifted her wineglass in salute. “To all our rivals wherever they may be … Speaking of which … I heard the young Earl of Eglinton decided on Callander’s youngest daughter. What a shame, when he’d paid such pleasant attention to you last month.”

“She has blond ringlets,” Chrissie said with scathing sarcasm, “and a grandfather who’s given her twenty thousand for a portion. Andrew didn’t have to look any farther.” Her face had reddened at the affront to her own cherished plans.

“Blondes often find favor in men’s eyes,” Roxane thoughtfully noted.

“True enough—your Johnnie Carre’s wife’s hair is flaxen pale,” Christian said hotly, as though the mere ownership of such hair were a personal insult.

“Does she have bouncing ringlets like Callander’s daughter?” Roxane flippantly inquired, watching the rising flush on her hostess’s face—a condition of either the wine or her discontent.

“Nothing so girlish for the proud Lady Carre. Her tresses fall in sleek, gleaming waves.”

“She doesn’t wear it up?”

Christian peered at her over the rim of her wineglass, her eyes speculative. “Can I trust you?”

“Most assuredly,” Roxane smoothly replied.

“Do you want to see her?”

After two hours of banal conversation having prayed for such an offer, Roxane struggled to appear suitably blasé. “Out of curiosity only,” Roxane murmured, balancing the bowl of her wineglass between her ringed fingers, “I’d find it interesting … to see this woman who lured Johnnie away.”

“Not a word to anyone now.”

“Of course not.” Her smile was indulgent.

“Come then,” Christian said, rising somewhat unsteadily from her chair, her diminutive body more susceptible to spirits than Roxane’s tall, voluptuous figure.

And leaving her small beaded purse behind on the sofa, Roxane followed her hostess through the door of the drawing room to the narrow stairway curving upward to the stories above.

When they entered the unguarded apartment, secured only with a simple lock opened with a key hung from Christian’s chatelaine, Elizabeth looked up from her reading, wondering at the change in her routine. It was too early for dinner.

“I’ve brought you a visitor,” her jailer said.

Elizabeth, immediately recognizing the slightly slurred speech, understood to what she owed this unusual appearance, but when the spectacular redhead behind Christian Dunbar surreptitiously put her finger to her mouth in a swift gesture of caution, she rose from her chair, alert to possibility.

Turning around to Roxane, Christian said with a sneer, “Well, what do you think of your rival?”

“She looks very blond,” Roxane said with a grin. “To be sure, we’ve been struck by a plague of fair hair this year.”

“Damned irritating, too,” Christian said with pursed lips. “You may gloat now if you wish.”

“Thank you, Chrissie, for your understanding.” Roxane patted her hostess’s arm. Then she strolled across
the room until she stood before the small table behind which Elizabeth stood, her back to the light from the window. “I had to see for myself … what Johnnie Carre’s wife looked like.” Her tone was a well-modulated drawl verging on a sneer, but her eyes, incongruously, were friendly.

“You see then,” Elizabeth quietly said, taking in the gorgeous redhead, something about the splendid beauty striking her as familiar, and the mixed messages she was receiving cautioning her to temperance.

“He was mine, you know,” the fashionable woman said then, her tone sharper.

Roxane
, Elizabeth immediately knew it must be. Johnnie’s liaisons had been discussed by the servants during her first stay at Goldiehouse. The beautiful redhead, the belle of Edinburgh … standing before her now like the Queen of Sheba, exactly as she was described in the servants’ hall.

“I’m sorry.” It wasn’t apology but acknowledgment.

“I hadn’t considered your ploy,” the redhead coolly said, her gaze traveling down Elizabeth’s swollen belly.

“I don’t have to talk to you. But you may look if it pleases you,” Elizabeth calmly answered.

“I told you she was arrogant,” Christian said, moving closer. “Tell her how long Ravensby was your lover.”

“Better yet, Chrissie, I’ll show her,” Roxane decided, turning back to her hostess. “There’re some love letters from Johnnie in my bag on the sofa. Would you mind getting them?” She knew Chrissie Dunbar couldn’t resist; since they’d been girls in school, she’d been prying and meddlesome.