Susan Johnson (52 page)

His tall frame seemed taller in the shadowed room, his presence perilous to her shaky resolve. “How long have you been here?” she asked, as if it would help qualify her response.

“Not long. I went upstairs when I left you. I was going to be compliant.”

“And you’re not going to be now.” She found her heart begin to race with a disquieting excitement.

“I don’t think so.”

“This is my house,” she reminded him, standing straight-backed, attempting to intimidate him with a kind of propriety.

“I know.” His voice was quiet, without inflection.

“You’ve picked a poor night.”

“I know.”

“I should call for a servant to put you out.”

“You should,” he murmured, pushing away from the door and moving toward her. “You really should.”

The opened buckles on his leather jack jingled as he walked, and she found herself drawn to the small ringing sound, her gaze mesmerized by the lean, hard modeling of his chest, the ridged muscles sharply defined as he neared, the sleek length of his torso tantalizing at close range, his bronzed skin disappearing beneath his belt—her glance drifted lower … inside his chamois breeches.

As if reading her thoughts, he took her hand when he reached her and placed it on his chest, holding it there under his palm. “I’m on fire for you,” he whispered. “Feel me.”

He was hot, despite his lack of clothes, and her
hand quivered under his. “I’m trying to fight this,” she whispered, her eyes lifted to his.

“I am too. I told myself it was unseemly, indecent to intrude on your sorrow. Yet here I am, tactless, selfish, impatient, disinclined to listen to another rebuff.”

“Is that a warning?” But she said the words with a quiver in her voice.

He drew in a very slow, deep breath, shut his eyes for a moment, and then exhaled. “Probably not,” he said with a faint smile.

“A small equivocation yet?” Her tentative smile tantalized without meaning to.

He swore under his breath; he’d not had occasion before to restrain his desire, and he was finding the effort difficult if not impossible. “Come talk to me,” he suggested, curling her hand in his and pulling her toward the chairs arranged near the fire. “But don’t tell me you’re twenty-eight and have five children,” he said, looking down at her with a sidelong glance, “because I don’t care.”

And when she tried to sit across from him, he drew her onto his lap instead, leaned back, made her comfortable in his arms, smoothed her billowing skirt, and said, “I’m listening.”

“You’re too nonchalant,” she began, a small agitation fluttering up her spine.

He shook his head. “I’m serious.”

“I’m too vulnerable tonight.” She spoke in almost a whisper.

“I’ll hold you.”

“I’ll hate myself in the morning.”

“I’ll see that you don’t.”

“What will the servants say?”

He gazed at her from under his lowered lashes, his expression mildly incredulous. “That’s not a good one.”

Her grin was conciliatory. “I have a headache.”

“I can fix that,” he replied with an easy confidence. “Now, if you’ve run out of excuses …” His right hand leisurely slipped under her legs.

“Wait—”

Poised to lift her, he paused.

“You know this isn’t wise.”

At eighteen, not known for his prudence, Robbie smiled at her choice of words. “If that’s the best you can do …” His left arm tightened its hold on her back, and he rose from the chair with an effortless strength. “I’ll lock the door,” he casually added, “against early risers and,” he went on with a grin, “inquisitive servants.”

“I’m guilt-ridden,” Roxane whispered against his shoulder as he twisted the key in the lock. “Indecisive … totally unsure …”

“I know.” He held her very close for a moment, then bent his head and kissed the tip of her nose. “You’ll feel better in a few minutes.”

“Arrogant youngster,” she said, but her violet eyes held a strange heat, and her arms held him tightly.

“I’m so hot,” Robbie whispered, “I’m burning.…” And he strode swiftly toward the bed, not sure he could wait, not sure he could control himself much longer, not sure he could keep from ravishing her. Placing her gently on the bed, he slipped her silk shoes off, tossed them on the floor and began climbing on top of her.

“Your boots …” she incongruously said like a mother.

“Later,” he murmured on a suffocated breath, and covered her body with his so she felt the extravagant extent of his arousal. Covered her mouth with his so she felt a reckless hot invasion as his tongue plunged like a portent of pleasure down her throat. A spiking lust streaked through her senses at his wild urgency; cool air swept over her thighs as he roughly pushed her skirts and petticoats out of his way. She lost the feel of his weight lightly braced above her for a moment while he ripped the buttons open on his breeches, and she wondered with a breathless gasp as he drove into her why she’d denied herself so long.

She’d forgotten how vital he was, how rash and reckless and wild.

She’d forgotten how he teased and tantalized, how he filled her so completely, rapture melted through her pores, sang through her senses.

She’d forgotten how orgasmic he was, how insatiable, how innovative.

“You didn’t want to remember,” he bluntly said when she told him much later that night, or morning, as it was—when he lay beside her stroking her breast in ever-widening circles as she arched her back and sighed in pleasure. “But I won’t let you forget again.” His hand slipped down her stomach, then lower, and she lifted her hips to encourage him. “I’ll leave an indelible memory tonight,” he whispered as his fingers slipped inside her.

And she realized in the morning when she woke to his kiss that against all reason and logic and sensible remonstrance, she was in love again after all these years. And she was terrified.

“You have to go,” she whispered, frantic with fear. How could she deal with the overwhelming problems? She couldn’t. Her life had resolved itself into a placid existence since Kilmarnock’s death. Falling in love would disrupt that hard-won serenity, disorder her children’s lives. And the shame of it! Everyone would titter. Ten years’ difference. It was too great a divide.

“Do you have chocolate for breakfast?” Robbie’s mouth was drifting over her cheek.

“You can’t stay. I can’t deal with the—”

“Scandal?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll put my clothes back on. I’ll be your gallant at your morning toilette. I’m not going.”

“Oh, God …”

“I’ve loved you since that night last summer.”

“No, don’t say that.”

His large hands imprisoned her head, and he held her face firmly between his palms. “Look at me,” he ordered. “I’m not going away. My loving you isn’t going to stop. I’m here, and I’m staying here, and you can deny and pretend, but I know better. You said you loved me last night.”

She tried to shake her head.

His dark eyes drilled into hers. “I remember.”

“No!” Distress. Alarm.

He smiled. “Maybe this time you won’t send all my presents back, like you did last summer.”

“Oh, Robbie …” Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “It won’t work. I can’t handle the ridicule. You’re going too fast. Why don’t we just take pleasure in the—”

“Sex?” His voice was curt, his eyes suddenly cool, and a second later he abruptly released his hold on her and rolled away. Lacing his arms beneath his head, he stared at the pleated canopy overhead. “Do you tell all the men that you love them?”

“There aren’t ‘all the men.’”

His head turned toward her, his eyes chill. “Really.” Insolence colored the single word. “There was only Johnnie after Kilmarnock?”

“No, of course not.”

“That’s right. There was that lapse with me when the sea air made you amorous. And how many others?”

“I don’t answer to you.”

“Answer this though. Do you tell them you love them?” A murmur, no more, wrought with hotspur temper.

She didn’t answer him at first, struggling with the tumult of her feelings, but his heated gaze impaled her where she lay on the stark white linen, and she answered honestly, “No,” in a faint breath.

“I didn’t hear you,” he harshly rebuked.

“No!” she sharply repeated, her own temper kindling at his enroachment, at his aggressive intrusion into her well-balanced life. “Are you satisfied? Are you happy now? I’m in love with you, dammit! And you’re going to ruin my life and my children’s lives! And I’m going to be miserable and the brunt of every May/December mockery in society! I hope you realize what you’ve done by walking into my room last night when I asked you not to, and climbing into my bed when I was trying to resist you! I hope you’re bloody happy!”

“Do you scream often?” Robbie’s grin blandly disregarded her temper.

“All the time,” she threatened, her fair skin flushed with anger. “I’d leave now while you have the chance.”

He only smiled, his gaze drifting over her face. “I’m a tolerant man.”

“You’re a boy.”

“Not for a long time,” he quietly refuted, immune to her baiting, secure, self-possessed. When he’d left for the university at thirteen, the pattern at the time, he was already proficient with weapons, with raiding, with women; Edinburgh, and then subsequently Utrecht and Paris, had further schooled him in the academic disciplines and vice in equal measure. “And I’m unconcerned with your age, if vanity’s your problem.”

“Easy for you to say now. What about later? What about my having to face all the snide remarks? I don’t know if I’m that brave. I would have said I was, but when actually faced with the prospect—I’m not sure.”

“Think of it this way … the children like Johnnie. They’ve always treated him like an uncle, and now he will be.”

“I can’t
marry
you!” She’d been considering a liaison only, and even that would have been difficult enough. Many, however, would understand her amorous interest in his youth. But
marriage
! “It’s impossible. Every broadsheet in the nation will detail our love life.”

“Lord, Roxie, how can it matter?”

“You don’t
know
!”

“Apparently not. Why don’t you tell me.”

“Do you remember when Lady Keir married her young curate?”

“No.”

“Well, she did, and every jest for a year had to do with his youth, her age, and his godhead.”

“Now, darling, I don’t want to argue over your qualms about age or anything else, for that matter, but in all honesty, I’m bored to death with this issue because I don’t give a damn. And I wish you wouldn’t either. I’m going to be out of the country till summer anyway, so look—that will give you time to adjust.”

“Or
you
time to adjust,” she retorted, one dark brow arched speculatively.

“Yes, dear.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Lord, you’re argumentative.”

“Maybe you’ll find you don’t love me after all,” she said, moody and sullen.

“You’re frustrated.” His voice, in contrast, was mild.

“Damn right I am.”

“I can help you … relax.” Suggestion, promise, drifted through his soft drawl.

“Won’t you rise to anything, damn you?” she peevishly queried, sitting upright suddenly and glaring at him, her hair a blaze of color on her pale white shoulders.

His extremely long lashes drifted upward until he gazed at her from under their dark fringe. “I’d be happy to.”

She laughed and tossed her hands up in the air. “I give up.”

He unlaced his hands from behind his head and stretched leisurely. “It’s about time.” A smile slowly formed on his sensuous mouth. “Now about that frustration …”

“I can smell you.” A whisper of sound, a familiar deep resonance.

Elizabeth opened her eyes. Resting on Johnnie’s bed, she looked across the quilted coverlet to where he lay some distance from her. But his eyes were closed, his breathing moderate, and she dozed off again, short of sleep after a night of vigilance at her husband’s bedside.

Johnnie’s dark, spiky lashes raised a short time later, and his blue eyes scanned the immediate area, searching for the location of the recognizable fragrance. Where was she? Her scent filled his nostrils.
There
. Joy suffused his soul.

“Bitsy.” His voice was stronger.

She jerked awake and saw his eyes on her and squealed with delight.

His hand stirred in her direction.

Scrambling up, she moved closer so their fingers touched, the delicate contact life to life, heart to heart, a reunion of spirits, of love. And leaning over, she very carefully kissed him as he lay on his stomach, her cheek
resting on the pillow beside his. “You look wonderful,” she whispered, her unutterable joy overlooking the shocking state of his health. His vital spirit shone in his eyes, as if in the core of his being all was well.

“I missed you.”

She fought back her tears at the thought of his suffering, of all he’d gone through for her. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again.”

“Are we safe?” he asked, as if he, too, were remembering.

“We’re at Roxane’s.”

He smiled. “Good. Then kiss me a few hundred times more.”

Which she did, leisurely and with pleasure, until Munro interrupted them, waking early to check on Johnnie. He stood to the side of the bed so Johnnie could see him and filled him in on the details of the previous evening. When he finished, Johnnie asked, “How much longer do you think the
Trondheim
can ride at anchor?”