"So you ran away."

"Yes."

"I came to Hawick only for you," he said.

"And not for the young bride and groom?" she queried with a smile, warmed by his simple admission.

He shrugged and shook his head. "I avoid weddings as a rule."

"I see."

And the silence surrounded them.

He had come to see her, Elizabeth happily thought, the proud and arrogant Ravensby had come to Hawick despite the pressing needs of his party and his country. Despite his better judgment apparently, if his moodiness and aloof stance were any indication. And with some constraining agreement with his cousin Munro, she suspected.

"Is Munro still a restraint?" she quietly said, enormously gratified to know a mutual desire overwhelmed them both, no longer guarded with her feelings. "Is it some wager?" she added with a smile when he still hadn't answered or moved.

"No." Uneasy at being so drawn to a woman, at having exposed his feelings, he resisted as if in some paradoxical way self-denial would preserve his freedom.

"Come sit by me then." Elizabeth gently patted the rough bark beside her, as if coaxing a small child to an unpleasant task.

He should leave, he thought. He shouldn't have ridden after her, he shouldn't be panting like a dog in heat for any woman ... particularly for this woman, the daughter of Harold G.o.dfrey, his lifelong enemy.

"Are you afraid of me?" She'd stopped running now from her desire. There was quixotic pleasure, too, in the new awareness of her power over Johnnie Carre. But perhaps paramount of the essential reasons impelling her, she was blissfully happy ... without thought or reason. It was an enormous leap of faith, a rash and venturesome sensation for a woman who'd always viewed the world with caution.

"I'm not afraid of anything," Johnnie answered, unhesitating confidence in his deep voice.

"I didn't think so," she replied. Dressed like a reiver in leather breeches, high boots, a shirt open at the throat, his hunting plaid the muted color of autumn foliage, he looked not only unafraid but menacing. The danger and attraction of scandalous sin, she thought-all dark, arrogant masculinity. "My guardsmen will wait indefinitely," she said very, very quietly, thinking with an arrogance of her own, There. That should move him.

And when he took that first step, she smiled a tantalizing female smile, artless and instinctive.

"You please me," she said, gazing up at him as he slowly drew near.

"You drive me mad," Johnnie said, sitting down on the fallen tree, resting his arms on his knees and contemplating the dusty toes of his boots.

"And you don't like the feeling."

"I dislike it intensely," he retorted, chafing resentment plain in his voice.

He wouldn't look at her. "Would you rather I leave?"

His head swiveled toward her then, a cynical gleam in his blue eyes. "Of course not."

An answer of sorts, she decided, but not one twined with daisy chains. "Why was it different at Hawick?" she asked. His mood was so different now, his familiar charm suppressed.

"Because it was a fashionable game with acceptable rules at Hawick," he said, surprised at his honesty. He was rarely frank with women. But Elizabeth Graham was different from the other women. That was why he was here, discontent and thoroughly aroused, wondering how to deal with his feelings.

"And now it isn't?"

He gazed at her from under the dark fringe of his lashes, not certain himself. And after a lengthy pause he said, "I don't think so."

"And you prefer games," she said, understanding a portion of his dilemma.

"Yes."

"Hmmm," Elizabeth murmured, pursing her lips, clasping her hands together and studying her yellow kidskin slippers. "This is awkward," she said after a moment, amus.e.m.e.nt in her voice. Sitting up straighter, she half turned to gaze at him. "I've never seduced a man before." A smile of unalloyed innocence curved her mouth. "Could you help me? If you don't mind, my Lord," she demurely added.

A grin slowly creased his tanned cheek. "You play the ingenue well, Lady Graham," he said, sitting upright to better meet her frankly sensual gaze. His pale blue eyes had warmed, restoring a goodly measure of his charm. "Upon reflection, Bitsy, my dear," he decided, "I suddenly find I don't mind at all...." It was a revelation of some consequence, considering his previous ill temper. "Actually, I'd be a d.a.m.ned fool to mind," he said, his grin in sharp contrast to the curious affection in his eyes.

Exhaling theatrically, Elizabeth said, "Thank you, my Lord," in a blatant parody of grat.i.tude. "Without your a.s.sistance I despaired of properly arousing you."

He laughed, a warmhearted sound of natural pleasure. "On that count you needn't have worried. I've been in rut since I left Edinburgh to see you."

"How charming," Elizabeth said, mischievous, teasing.

"Only from your point of view, pet, I a.s.sure you," he drawled.

"Could I be of some help?" she murmured, her voice husky, enticing.

His erection grew sizably at her invitation, and he found himself attentively searching the ground for a suitable place to lie with her. "I warn you," he said very low, his mouth in a lazy grin, "I'm days past the need for seduction. I hope you don't mind the gra.s.s. My bed at Hawick would have been softer."

"But then all of Hawick would have known."

"That matters?" Genuine surprise registered in his voice.

"We can't all live undisturbed by scandal." But in contrast to her conventional words, she was feeling as though she'd be willing to endure anything for Johnnie Carre's body next to hers.

All Johnnie could think of was feeling her close around him. Society's censure was so far down his list of concerns, it didn't bear comment. Rising abruptly, he held out his hand and said, "Hawick be d.a.m.ned. All I can offer is this country setting. Do you mind?"

She smiled up at him as she put her hand in his. "As long as you hold me, my Lord, and as long as the gra.s.s stains don't show."

He paused for a moment with her small hand light on his palm. "You're very remarkable," he softly said. The women in his life had been careful to avoid sincerity.

"Too candid for you, my Lord?" she playfully inquired.

His long fingers closed around her hand in an act of possession, pure and simple, as if he would keep this spirited, plain-speaking woman who startled him. "Your candor excites me," he said. "Be warned," he murmured, drawing her to her feet, "I've been wanting you for three days past; I won't guarantee finesse." Releasing her hand, he held his own hands up so she could see them tremble. "Look."

"I'm shaking inside so violently, I may savage you first, my Lord," Elizabeth softly breathed, swaying toward him, her fragrance sweet in his nostrils, her face lifted for a kiss. "I've been waiting four months since I left Goldiehouse."

A spiking surge of l.u.s.t ripped through his senses, gut-deep, searing, her celibacy a singular flamboyant ornament offered to him as if it were his duty, his obligation, to bring her pleasure. In a flashing moment his hands closed on her shoulders. Pulling her sharply close, he slid his palms down her back-then lower, swiftly cupping her bottom, dragging her into the rigid length of his erection. He moaned deep in his throat as she touched him there. His mouth dipped to hers, and he forced her mouth open, plunging his tongue deep inside.

Like a woman too long denied, Elizabeth welcomed him, pulling his head down so she could reach his mouth more easily, straining upward on tiptoe so she could feel him hard against her, tearing at the b.u.t.tons on his shirt so the heat of his skin touched hers.

"Hurry, Johnnie, please ..." she whispered into his mouth, impatient, moving her hips in age-old enticement.

As if he needed any incentive to hurry; as if he had anything on his mind but consummation. As if he didn't ache so desperately to bury himself inside her, he felt his brain burning away.

"You should take your dress off," he murmured, acting the gentleman only with extreme effort, setting her at arm's length, reaching for the bow at her neck. "For the gra.s.s stains," he muttered. Shutting his eyes briefly against the overwhelming desire engulfing him, he groaned, a suffocated sound of superhuman restraint. Then, concentrating, he drew her cape from her shoulders and reached for the b.u.t.tons on her frock.

Brushing his hands aside, she whispered, "I can't wait." Her eyes already heavy-lidded with pa.s.sion, she breathed, "Please ..."

Remembering her premature release at Goldiehouse, in a rushing second he stripped his plaid from his shoulders, unbuckled his belt to release the folds of fabric, spread the soft wool on the gra.s.s at their feet, and, sweeping her up into his arms, whispered, "Wait for me."

A second later he lowered her to their makeshift bed, swiftly pushing the fullness of her skirt and petticoats upward with a practiced touch.

"Hurry," she breathed, the touch of his fingers leaving a trail of fire on her thighs, her breath caught in her throat as his fingertips stroked her mons.

"I'm almost there," he whispered, reaching for the b.u.t.tons on his breeches.

"Lord, Johnnie ..." she pleaded, her eyes shutting against the flame-hot need streaking through her body, her arms reaching for him.

Heedlessly, he wrenched the last b.u.t.ton off, dropped between her pale legs, and, still booted and spurred, plunged inside her.

She cried out, a high, keening pleasure sound, as he filled her, her hands clutching his muscled back. And he sank hilt-deep inside her, his breath in abeyance as violent sensation pulsated through his body and brain and heated blood. She was worlds better than he'd remembered; she was perfect ... exquisite, the fit of her tight, sublime.

With the pressure of her hands hard at the base of his spine, she suddenly lifted her hips, reminding him of her four months' celibacy, and he began moving in her, penetrating, withdrawing, sliding in and gliding out, bracing his booted feet to gain more leverage, plunging in again....

She wanted this always, Elizabeth thought, almost purring with rapture, she wanted the feel of the Laird of Ravensby deep inside her, she wanted the solid weight of him under her hands and over her, she wanted this inexplicable feeling of bliss to never end.

Then she smiled at the notion, because after months of s.e.xual deprivation, her o.r.g.a.s.m was fast approaching, and "never" had a finite quality.

In a flashing heartbeat her breathing changed, intensified. Her hands slid lower down his back, and he matched her new rhythm, following her, until at the peaking last he drove in and held himself hard against her womb. With her arms laced around his neck she arched into the hard length of him and clung to him as if he were the indispensable center of her world. And he was, for that long, endless, feverish s.p.a.ce of time that melted reality into oblivion. As she shuddered around him, he poured into her with a pent-up wildness, soul-stirring, tumultuous, explosive.

Trembling, shaken, moments later they gasped like swimmers rescued from drowning.

"I'm ... not used ... to this," Johnnie panted. A spontaneous utterance-his climax so pure, so relentless, he was near prostrate, a unique sensation for the suave, sophisticated Laird of Ravensby.

"Nor I ..." Elizabeth whispered.

He smiled down at her, an odd triumph in his eyes, as if he'd won a great victory. Her pale hair lay like shimmering pearl on the subdued colors of his plaid; her gleaming emerald eyes looked directly into his, a glimpse of their recent vision of paradise in their depths. She was unutterably glorious, he thought.

Elizabeth had never felt the exquisite wonder of carnal l.u.s.t and utter happiness, of warm affection, and more-a kind of hot-blooded pa.s.sion fused with inexpressible joy.

"How could you ... have married him?" he whispered, a kind of shock in the words. It seemed a sacrilege, although he knew how prevalent the practice of bartering young girls for family profit. But she was too perfect to be sold away to an old man of Hotchane's evilness.

If I had known you then, she wanted to say, I would have killed myself before I'd ever gone to Hotchane. "I didn't realize I had a choice," she said, her voice unconsciously touched with her newfound jubilation so his brows drew together at her seeming indifference.

Unlacing her arm from around his back, she touched the crease of his scowl in soothing gentleness. "Now I wouldn't have," she said, moved by his concern. "Now I would have rather picked turnips in the fields or begged work at the village school." She smiled then, a small exultation of the soul. "Now that I've met you." She kissed him, a b.u.t.terfly kiss of sheer joy. "And I'm glad you rode after me," she confessed. "I shouldn't tell you ... but ... I've only wanted you since Goldiehouse. I've never felt that way before ... about a man-desperate to feel him." Her words came tumbling out in a rush of emotion, liberated after months of yearning. "I even considered inviting one of my guards to sleep with me to clarify whether it was actually you or simply some unfathomable impulse, or, well ... your-" A blush stole over her face; she drew in a swift breath and quickly said "enormous size" in a tiny voice. Lifting her lashes, she found him grinning and grinned back. "But I never did," she quickly added, plunging on as though the words had been locked away for four long months and required divulgence. "Sleep with my guards or George Baldwin, who's forever underfoot and pleading for a kiss, or-"

"George Baldwin?" Johnny interrupted, as if he had the right to inquire.

"A neighbor who's very kind and sweet-"

"Sweet?" The single word was a sibilant hiss.

"Are you jealous? How interesting," she added before he could deny it or even consider the astonishing possibility. "But he's only nice, like an amiable curate."

"He's a curate?" A curious sense of relief colored his tone.

"Well, no ..."

"Well, what is he?"

"He's not you, darling," she replied in her blunt way that continued to fascinate him. "Nor is any man I meet. And I really shouldn't tell you this, because even a tyro in dalliance should know better, but I pa.s.sionately desire only you, and even my brawny guardsmen don't intrigue me. So much as I considered bedding them-or one of them ..." she quickly modified when his brow rose in conjecture, "I couldn't."

Inexplicably, he found her artless naivete had a lurid effect on his psyche. And the discovery that she'd saved her delectable pa.s.sion for him alone strangely provoking.

Arousing.

Exciting.

"So I was wondering ... since you rode so far ..."-her lashes half lowered over saucy green eyes-"to-keep me company," she delicately teased, vividly conscious of his swelling erection. "I was wondering whether I might impose on your-er-renewed interest."

He grinned. "Greedy child."

"My abstinence, no doubt," she explained, her voice altered to a throaty lushness as his arousal filled her.

The concept of abstinence stupefied him, the doctrine mystifying to a dissolute worldly man. But he had no difficulty interpreting the muted suggestion in her voice. "Could we approach this with less speed this time?" he inquired with a charming smile.

"I've all day," she replied in a languid whisper, moving her hips in a lithe, imaginative incitement.

His body instantly responded to the compelling invitation of "all day" with Elizabeth Graham, to her stirring stimulation. "In that case," he offered with a wolfish grin, "I'll set my mind to some more leisurely pleasures. Beginning," he said, touching the rumpled lace kerchief at her bosom, "with fewer clothes and more-contact."

"Ummm ... I like that."

"I like it with you."

"Good. I'm not too forward for your sensibilities?"

He smiled and shook his head.

"I can attack you then with impunity?" She was enjoying herself like a young child practicing a new game.

"You can always attack me with impunity." A lazy insouciance drawled through his words; he'd been playing the game for a long time.

Always. She liked the sound of the word although even she knew better than to mention permanence to a man of Ravensby's notoriety. Bracing her feet, she experimented with a delicate form of attack, lifting her hips so the sensation of pleasure intensified, so the throbbing pulse inside her quickened, so she felt him penetrate farther.

And his hand slid behind automatically to grasp her lifted thigh, forcing it higher, forcing himself deeper.

And they both stopped breathing for a moment as stabbing ecstasy trembled anew.

"You don't understand," he whispered when he found his breath again, releasing his hold on her leg, relaxing as much as possible in his present position of arrested intercourse. "You're not having your way this time."

"But I like having my way." And she moved in a slow rhythm of arousal, the undulating friction delectable. Part teasing, partly testing her newly discovered powers of persuasion, she smiled up at him with a flaunting coquetry.

"No," he said, his voice deceptively soft. "Although," he quietly went on, his graceful smile mitigating his unrelenting authority, "if I didn't plan on making love to you all day, I might be more susceptible to your enchanting temptation."

"I shall pout," she warned, which she did with melodrama and sweet charm.