Susan Johnson (49 page)

“You’re still beautifying it wonderfully, my dear,” the Duke replied with an easy smile. “I find myself suddenly wishing I’d come back sooner.”

“You haven’t lost your smooth tongue, darling.” Lightly brushing the lace edge of her fan under his chin, she winked at him, blatantly coquettish.

Harold Godfrey gently cleared his throat.

Queensberry’s glance drifted over to him, and he said as if in afterthought, “Roxane, I’d like you to meet the Earl of Brusisson. He’s in Scotland looking over some property. Brusisson, the Countess Kilmarnock.”

Raising her eyes to Godfrey’s extremely attentive regard, she immediately understood the accomplishment of her mission in approaching the two men was going well. Her smile took on a sultry opulence. “Will you be here long, Brusisson?”

“I haven’t entirely decided. Do you stay in the city?”

“Most always …” The brutality in his eyes gave her mild pause; he made no effort to conceal it. “My children go to school here,” she added, tamping down her squeamishness.

“Does your husband enjoy city life?”

“He did.”

“Roxane is the most beautiful widow in Britain,” Queensberry graciously interjected. “What do you hear of your brother? Is he still with Argyll?”

“He was in winter camp at The Hague last he wrote.” As in so many Scottish families, her politics and her brother’s didn’t always agree. “He’s enamored of the great Marlborough.”

“As are a great many of our young cubs. The man can command.”

“So Colter tells me with a nineteen-year-old’s unequivocal enthusiasm. Will you be in Edinburgh for the sessions this year?”

“Perhaps.”

“Then perhaps we’ll see each other again. Give my regards to Isobel. There’s Buchan now with my claret. It was a pleasure to meet you, Brusisson.” And with a nod of her perfectly coiffed head, she left.

“She was Ravensby’s lover for years,” Queensberry declared as the men watched her gracefully swaying walk.

“She didn’t seem stricken.”

“She’s buried two husbands. It tempers one’s sense of commitment, perhaps. But if you call on her, Harold, a small warning. She’s a friend of mine.”

“I didn’t say I was going to call on her.”

Queensberry’s smile was tolerant. “We both know you will.”

But Roxane’s very tight schedule wouldn’t allow for the leisure of uncertainty, so she made a point of running into Harold Godfrey later that evening when he was standing alone for a moment. As she approached him, he stepped into her path so she was obliged to stop.

“I find Edinburgh much more interesting suddenly,” he said, looking down at her from his formidable height.

“Could it be Cecilia’s fascinating poetry recital?” she purred in a lush undertone, noting his interest in her décolletage.

“I despise poetry.” He said the words very low, so she understood there were other things he saw he didn’t despise.

She smiled provocatively, a well-practiced device in her repertoire. “A shame,” she murmured, “for I’m having a few people over tomorrow night to listen to Edinburgh’s
favorite son. I thought you might enjoy his verse.”

“When?”

She tipped her head a little to one side and looked up at him from under her lashes. “Come later.…” Insinuation was rich in her voice. “When the readings are over …”

“When?” No subtlety in his harsh response; his message was explicit.

“Say, half-past nine?”

“I’ll be there,” he said.

And there was no doubt in her mind he would be.

The group assembled in Roxane’s private sitting room very late that night was augmented by Redmond’s presence. And every detail had been gone over, for timing was everything in the success of their venture.

“I can keep Godfrey waiting for perhaps an hour and a half,” Roxane said. “I’ll see that my company doesn’t leave as expected.…”

“Two of our men could pose as your guests, and after having sampled too much of your brandy could be disinclined to leave your fascinating presence,” Robbie suggested, finding himself reluctant to leave her alone with Godfrey.

“I won’t be able to put him off indefinitely, though, or he’s apt to become suspicious.”

“There’s absolutely no need to bring him into your bedroom. He could be dangerous.” Robbie gazed at her for a potent moment. “I know what you’re thinking, but
don’t
under any circumstances—”

“He
is
dangerous,” Redmond quietly interjected. “If I didn’t have to see Elizabeth to safety, I’d stay to help. He’s killed many times in particularly brutal ways,” he added in a carefully restrained murmur. “He’s not normal.”

“There,” Robbie declared with a stabbing look at Roxane. “Do you understand?”

“I’ll be extremely careful.”

“All right, let’s go over the schedule again,” Robbie briskly said. “At nine-thirty Redmond and his men go in for Elizabeth.…”

And everyone recited the timetable again and then once more again … until each minute was accounted for, until every possible eventuality had been discussed, until every option had been considered in the execution and accomplishment of their plan.

Near dawn, everyone had left except Robbie, who had made himself comfortable on the sofa and was reluctant to remove himself upstairs, and Roxane, who lounged across from him on her favorite chaise. The young Master of Graden spoke in a hushed murmur. “Johnnie didn’t appreciate you enough.”

“No, he didn’t,” she said with a faint smile, “but he was lovely in other ways.…”

“Did it hurt you when he married?”

She thought for a moment. “In a way I was happy for him, because he’d never believed in love.… How could I begrudge him that joy?”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“A long time ago; I was very young.”

“What happened?”

“I married him. Jamie Low, my first husband … and if he hadn’t been killed at Namur, I’d still be in love.”

“And what of Kilmarnock?”

“My parents said I was too young when Jamie died to be unmarried.”

“Kilmarnock was older.”

“Yes.”

He didn’t pursue his questioning about her second husband after Roxane’s brief, terse reply. Apparently, it hadn’t been a happy marriage. “And you’re contentedly widowed now.”

Her smile reappeared. “Very.”

“We should be back to Scotland by summer,” he said, thinking he’d miss her most of those he left behind, thinking it odd how tumultuous events distilled feelings to raw essentials. He lay there, elegant and lean, his raw-boned young body all muscle and sinew beneath his
well-cut clothes, one slender hand trailing on the floor, his long legs propped on the rolled arm of her sofa.

“I’m glad. I’ll be here.”

His head didn’t move from its restful ease on an embroidered pillow, but his eyes traveled slowly down her form. “Don’t marry again before I return.”

“Not likely. I definitely prefer my freedom.”

“I’m jealous of your freedom.” His voice was only a whisper, his dark eyes half-lidded in lazy appraisal.

“I don’t allow that.”

He shrugged, one dark brow rising speculatively. “As if you could stop me, darling Roxie.”

“You sound like your brother.”

“I’m not my brother though. I’d appreciate you.”

She gazed at him for a long moment, thinking how different their looks. Robbie’s features were more refined, more fluent, than the harsher modeling of his older brother, his auburn hair drifting in unconstrained curls to his shoulders. Robbie’s broad-shouldered, rangy body still retained a flaunting air of coltishness. “I’m ten years older than you,” she said, the rich flamboyance of his youth a striking reminder of her own age.

“It didn’t seem to matter that night last summer.”

She sighed, a soft sound of regret. “I shouldn’t have stayed.”

“But the stars were brilliant that night,” he reminded her with a grin.

“Ummm …” Her own smile recalled pleasant memories. “And the sea air always makes me amorous.”

“I’ll have to remember that.”

She shook her head. “Darling, you’re too young. I told you that the next morning … and my sentiments haven’t changed. I’ve five children, my oldest only a few years younger than you.” She gazed at him from under half-lowered lashes. “I can’t.”

“When I come back, I’ll change your mind.”

“No, you won’t.”

“We’ll see,” he said, dropping his booted feet on the carpet and hauling himself upright. “If I had more time tonight, I’d try to convince you.” And strolling over to the chaise, he leaned over, placed his hands gently on
her shoulders, and kissed her, not a youthful adolescent kiss, but a hot-blooded, dangerous kiss that recalled a wild, sensational night on Johnnie’s yacht last summer. “Promise not to get married, now,” he murmured when his mouth lifted from hers. “Because I’m coming back …”

“You shouldn’t,” she whispered, but her voice held an intoxicating tremor of passion, and her face lifted to his was enticingly flushed.

“But I am,” he softly said, no more likely to take orders than his brother. He glanced quickly at the clock on the mantel. “I suppose your children will be up soon.” It was a question, too, but lightly put because there wasn’t time to press his suit with the seriousness of their ventures that night.

“Yes … very soon,” Roxie swiftly answered, moving back the scant margin the bolster behind her would allow, as if mere physical distance would save her from Robbie Carre’s temptation.

He smiled, recognizing her response. And then his expression changed, and he said in a serious tone that didn’t sound young at all, but like that of a man familiar with command, “If I don’t see you again before we leave, thank you for all you’ve done for Johnnie and Elizabeth. All the Carres are deeply indebted to you.” Then his voice took on a curt, flinty edge. “And you’re to take no chances tonight with Godfrey. Absolutely none. I won’t have you hurt by him. I want your word.”

She looked at him for a moment, fascinated by his abrupt transformation, his penetrating stare. And then she quietly said, “My word on it.”

His smile reappeared. “I wish you luck then.”

“You’ll be careful?”

“Of course.”

“Send me a note through Coutts when you reach Holland.”

“That air of assurance sounds like a blessing.”

“It is. I never tempt the deities with the possibility of misfortune.”

He preferred less mythical benefactors, good weapons and loyal clansmen his first choice, but he smiled his
agreement. “Until next summer then,” he said with a small bow. And left.

Roxane found it difficult to sleep after he’d gone, her emotions in turmoil. It was all well and good to repudiate Robbie’s advances and declare herself aloof from his youthful charm. But she wasn’t, of course, physically at least, and he’d perfectly well understood her response. It was unthinkable though, utterly impossible. The boy was eighteen.

At nine o’clock in Edinburgh that night, Roxane was listening to the renowned poet as she sat in her drawing room, surrounded by her guests. The candlelit room was ablaze with light; footmen circulated among the guests offering wines and spirits as harpsichord music drifted in from the adjoining room, soft background to the poetry. She glanced at the clock, felt the palms of her hands sweating inside her kidskin gloves, and reached for her glass of claret, fortification for her dangerous game with Harold Godfrey.

At the same time, Redmond and his men were in place in a shadowed wynd near Queensberry’s Canongate house, waiting for nine-thirty. A timepiece rested in Redmond’s palm, tipped slightly toward the meager light shining from a window across the narrow lane, and the gold-chased minute hand was moving slowly toward the six. A carriage waited on the next street, its shades drawn, the driver well armed, alert for the arrival of his passenger.

In a tavern near the castle gate Robbie, Munro,
Adam, and Kinmont sat in a curtained cubicle, its grimy drapery left open enough so the doorway was visible. When the runner from Redmond crossed that portal, it was their signal to leave.

Elizabeth sat at the table in her room, a book open before her, the words an unfocused blur. She’d not heard again from Roxane, but she was alert to any sound—tomorrow night, Roxane had said. Tonight, now. She cast a glance toward the armoire where she’d left her cloak conveniently hanging near the half-opened door, tried to calculate for the hundredth time how many hours had elapsed since her dinner had been brought to her. Without a clock in the room she was desperately unsure and so tense, her clasped hands showed white at her knuckles.

Outside the house Redmond whispered, “Now,” jamming the watch into his coat pocket. “Stay out of sight until the servant opens the door,” he warned his men. And he walked out of the wynd into the cobbled street that faced on Queensberry’s house, the bodyguard from Three Kings like shadows behind him.

But he stood alone at the door when he knocked, dressed like the city guard, his face composed, his hands empty of weapons. When the small peephole slid open and the servant inquired his business so late at night, Redmond said, “The Duke has sent me with a message for Miss Dunbar.”

The sound of bolts sliding brought his men melting closer to the entrance from their positions along the masonry wall, and when the studded door opened that first fraction of an inch, Redmond was inside in a flash, his hand over the old porter’s mouth. No one spoke, not a sound indicated that ten men had just entered the narrow six-story house. The porter was bound and gagged in seconds and deposited in the entrance closet where he normally slept—with two of Redmond’s men to guard him and their exit route.