Susan Johnson (21 page)

But just as they were leaving the Cheviot Hills, they were intercepted by Johnnie’s messenger, and before his gasping report had fully ended, Roxane had whipped her horse into a full gallop.

Quickly following her, Robbie drew alongside and tried to offer comfort but, tearful and angry, she vehemently brushed him away. Leaning over, he tried to grab her reins to draw her to a halt so he could talk to her.

“Stay out of my way!” she screamed, slashing at his hand with her quirt. “I don’t want to talk to you!” She forced her mount to more speed. Riding one horse almost to death, Robbie finally convinced her to stop long enough to get a fresh mount, and in the remaining miles to Edinburgh, she maintained a stony silence.

What could Robbie possibly say to relieve her fear
and guilt? How could any words mitigate the terror overwhelming her, the terror of not knowing where her children were, or how frightened, or who had them? She blamed herself for not being with her children, and as the hours passed, she blamed Robbie as well for involving her in Argyll’s vengeance.
¹⁴

A bitter sense of deja vu obsessed her, the relationship between love and male possessiveness too prominent in her life. It was never worth it for a woman, she thought, this giving in completely to love, because men always compromised the purity of the emotion with their need for power or mastery over a rival, their compulsion to covet, to win at all costs.

She should have know better than to give in to desire. She actually did, in her rational moments when Robbie Carre wasn’t holding her close. But if anything happened to her children because of him, she’d never forgive him—or herself. Never.

Please, God, she prayed, spurring her horse to more speed, her heart pounding as fast and hard as the hoof-beats on the road, please let my children be safe.

While Johnnie’s message had been written directly after his conversation with Amelia, he’d assured Roxane of her children’s safety. But the long ride did little to alleviate her worry, nor mollify her resentments. Only the blissful sound of her children’s voices when she arrived at Johnnie’s lodging offered her relief. Racing up the stairs, she followed the familiar noise, and dashing into the bedroom, she saw them all assembled around Angus. Cries of delight greeted her arrival, and laughing, crying, she ran toward them.

Angus was sitting up in bed eating a pudding.
“Your favorite, Mama!” he cried, holding it out to her. “Apple pudding!”

Smiling through her tears, she hugged her small brood as they crowded round her, trying to listen to the tumble of conversation with all of them talking at once, breathlessly conveying the story of their abduction and Angus’s illness. With her arms around them, she approached the bed and hugged her youngest son, too.

“You’re dressed like a boy, Mama,” Angus said, his voice still husky.

“I could ride faster, darling.” Sitting beside him, she stroked his tousled hair.

“Johnnie saved us from bad, bad Uncle Colter,” Angus exclaimed. “And I was sick, but I’m better now. See, feel my forehead. Mrs. Beattie says it’s cool as a cucumber.”

Roxane placed her hand on her young son’s forehead and, smiling, agreed. “Are you ready to go home?” Her voice was composed, her gratitude profound, but beneath her joyful happiness she wanted to take her children home away from everyone, away from any further danger.

“Can Mrs. Beattie come? Her pudding is really, really good.”

“Of course, she can,” Johnnie interposed, standing off to one side.

“Then I think we’re ready to go,” Roxane declared.

“Everything’s taken care of,” Johnnie quietly reported, a cryptic message in the brief phrase.

Color flared in Roxane’s face. “Children, why don’t you gather your things.” A modicum of restraint
cooled her voice. “I have to talk to Uncle Johnnie for a moment.”

The Laird of Ravensby had enough experience with women to recognize her tone, and with great courtesy he ushered her out of the room. “Why don’t we discuss this downstairs?” he suggested.

“So the children don’t hear me scream.”

He knew her temper. “That’s what I was thinking.”

She surveyed him for a taut moment and then turned, descending the stairs so swiftly he was hard-pressed to keep up with her. But he took that last four stairs in a bound and, touching her arm, guided her into a small room filled with armor and weapons.

“How convenient,” Roxane snapped, seeing Robbie discarding his weapons. “You can both hear what I have to say.”

Johnnie shut the door and leaned against it. “I understand your anger.”

She turned on him with fire in her eyes. “You couldn’t possibly understand my anger. You couldn’t come within ten leagues of understanding my anger. You men think you can do anything you want and then all you have to say is, It’s taken care of,’ and we’re supposed to thank you and consider ourselves fortunate. Well, for your information, both of you,” she heatedly rebuked, rounding on Robbie, “I don’t want anyone taking care of me. Not either of you, and not Argyll or Queensberry, not my damned brother, nor the Erskines. From this moment on, I stop being a pawn to be fought over and possessed. Kindly leave my children and me out of your damned
male contests for supremacy. I want all of you”—she swung her arm to include both men—“to leave me alone!”

Spinning around, she stalked toward the door.

Johnnie quickly moved aside, and seconds later the slam of the door echoed through the house.

The brothers looked at each other.

“She’s always had a temper,” Robbie murmured.

Johnnie exhaled softly. “I think she means it.”

“Is Argyll stopped?” Robbie asked, his concern for Roxane’s safety foremost in his mind.

“Paid off.”

“Stopped?” The emphasis was delicately put.

“One’s never completely certain with him, but I think so. He knows how many troops we can muster. It’s a concern for him. And he likes the money, of course.”

“How much?”

“A hundred thousand.”

“English?”

Johnnie nodded.

Robbie’s nostrils flared briefly. “That should purchase a degree of courtesy.”

“Even from a Campbell.”

“Who’s seeing her home?”

“Kinmont and Munro. They’ll know enough to stay, if she wants company.”

Robbie looked at his brother with a sidelong glance. “Not likely, in her present mood.”

“I don’t blame her. Angus was very sick last night.”

“Argyll’s a fucking animal,” Robbie muttered, beginning to unbuckle his jack.

“He’s not familiar with a woman like Roxane.”

“You mean a woman who doesn’t faint at the sight of his uniform?”

“Or grow weak in the presence of a queen’s commissioner,” Johnnie wryly noted.

“And now I’m going to have to suffer for his stupidity.”

“For your stupidity, too. You shouldn’t have endangered her by so blatant an entrance into town.”

Robbie dropped into a chair and slid into a disgruntled sprawl. “I’d missed her—which isn’t a good excuse, I suppose.”

“Some might think not,” Johnnie observed.

“I don’t imagine I could abduct her the way you did Elizabeth?”

“It might be a shade harder with five children,” Johnnie answered. “Let her temper cool for a few days.”

“And if I don’t want to wait?”

“You’ll be wasting your time. She’s damned angry. Besides, I need you for a week or so while we deal with the justices in the Privy Council. Coutts tells me we’re very near a settlement on our properties.”

Robbie shrugged out of his jack and reached for a bottle of brandy on the table. “If I decide to be prudent and polite and leave Roxie alone for a week, tell me what you want me to do. Who do we have to win over? And don’t say it’s Macfie, for he’s the most boring man on the face of the earth.”

“He’s an ardent opponent of Queensberry, however,” Johnnie said, sitting across from his brother.

“In that case, he’s suddenly acquired a riveting personality.
And talk of torts and petitions has my undivided attention.”

“It’s not as though you haven’t had training in the law.”

“Like any Scottish gentleman,” Robbie drolly remarked.
¹⁵
“But acquit me of an inspired enthusiasm such as Macfie’s. Rumor has it he’s aroused by the mere mention of a tort.”

“As long as he’s willing to vote against Queensberry, I don’t care if he’s aroused by a donkey’s behind.”

Robbie poured himself a glassful and lifted the goblet to his brother in toast. “If I’m obliged to bide my time with my lady love for a few days, I might as well contribute to the Carre cause.”

“Which is partially why we’re both in Scotland. Parliament opens soon.”

“And you’re determined to be there to fight the union treaty.”

“We’re both going to be there. Scotland needs our votes.”

“I’m more cynical than you, dear brother. I think we’re fortunate to have our wealth well away from English interests.”

“Don’t think me naive. But in the process of hammering out whatever agreement is finally reached, Scotland must be defended as fiercely, as ardently as possible. And those who don’t resist the grasping English are simply allowing our country and heritage to be taken away without a fight.”

“I’m with you, of course,” Robbie quietly said. “How can one not be, when people like Argyll and Queensberry are planning on ruling Scotland? But,
realistically, will our case be settled before Parliament sits?”

“Coutts assures me it will.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Robbie said with a grin, “and to beautiful red-haired countesses.”

“To the Carre interests and to the women we love,” Johnnie said, lifting his glass.

R
OXANE WAS INCENSED TO DISCOVER HER
brother in residence when she returned to Kilmarnock House. Shepherding her children and Mrs. Beattie up to the nursery, she stayed with them until everyone was comfortably settled once again, until all the servants had been informed of the last fortnight’s events and assured of everyone’s safety. Until she’d been apprised as well of her brother’s high-handed treatment of her staff. Excusing herself from her children with the stipulation that she would return shortly, she proceeded downstairs to find her villainous brother.

But not before instructing her majordomo to see that Colter’s belongings were all packed and set outside on the steps, nor before making a short detour to the stables.

She found him in her drawing room, lounging in his boots on her primrose silk sofa. Shutting the door behind her, she said, vicious and low, “You have five minutes to vacate my house. And if you ever dare to return, I’ll have my footmen whip you.”

“Don’t take that imperious air with me, sister dear. I’m here on Argyll’s orders.”

“Angus could have died because of Argyll’s orders and the treatment you accorded him, while the other
children were terrified out of their wits. Get out of my house now, or I’ll whip you myself.”

“You look like some damned urchin,” he drawled, his gaze insulting. “Does young Carre like the boyish look?”

She gently flicked the horsewhip she held in her hand, and the long braided leather uncoiled at her feet. “That fine silk shirt is going to be damaged, if you don’t move.”

“You wouldn’t dare.” His brows rose negligibly.

Her arm flashed up and down in a blur, and a thin red line appeared down the front of his shirt.

Screaming, he leaped from the sofa as her second blow struck him, the shoulder of his shirt ripped away, another slice of his flesh oozing blood. “Damn you!” he roared, racing toward her, but her next snap of the whip coiled around his ankle and, with a powerful jerk, she yanked his foot out from under him. He fell hard, his shriek bringing the front hall servants running to the drawing room door to listen.

Swiftly unloosening the whip from around his ankle with an expert flick of her wrist, she struck again, laying another lash mark across his shoulders. And then another and another, each whip stroke retaliation for her children’s suffering, for her own violent rage, until finally, breathless and panting, her arm dropped to her side, the whip trailing on the floor.

Uncurling from his protective huddle, Colter sat up and snarled, “You should be whipping Argyll, you bitch.”

“And you shouldn’t grovel to masters like him,” she retorted, her voice like ice. “Get out of my house
now. And if you have any sense you’ll get out of Edinburgh, too.”

He slowly came to his feet, his shirt in tatters, blood-spattered, his eyes bitter with hatred. “You chose the wrong side this time, darling sister. The English are going to take this country over. And when they do, don’t come to me for help.”

“Don’t worry, Colter. I’ll never be that desperate.”

“The beautiful Roxane always has options from the circling tomcats,” he sneered. “I hope the wealthy Carres protect you, because Argyll believes in vengeance.”

“I’ll protect myself.”

“As you always have in the past,” he jibed, pulling the shreds of his shirt together. “With one man or another.”

“Just get out, Colter. I don’t need your venom and treachery. There’s more than enough of that in this town, with all the Scots turncoats scrambling for English gold and favors.”