"Would you mind, Munro?" Elizabeth queried, grateful to the Baldwins for their kindness. "He knows so much more than I," she added as she smiled at her neighbors.

And the party proceeded out the gla.s.s-paned doors facing the gardens. The estate Elizabeth had purchased with her inheritance included a redbrick Tudor structure with a superb formal garden. The well-maintained grounds rose in terraced parterres to the top of the hill that had once held a small Romanesque folly-now much in ruins. On that picturesque elevation with a magnificent view of the countryside, Elizabeth had chosen to situate her new home.

"It's going to be a long afternoon," Johnnie sardonically murmured, his hand intimately at the small of her back as he and Elizabeth took up the rear of the procession through the neat, trimmed gardens, his gaze intent on the group ahead should he have to distant himself discreetly from his hostess. "No doubt the Gerard sisters will wish to know what he did last night in detail?"

"I'm sure they'd love to know anything at all about you, darling," Elizabeth teasingly replied, turning toward him in a swinging half-step, her full-skirted apple-green gown swirling around her ankles, her expression playful. "And if it were proper to pant in public, they surely would."

"Spare me," he grumbled, female busybodies decidedly outside his purview.

"Don't you find Lucy pretty?" she sweetly inquired, touching his fingertips lightly.

"No, I do not."

"Perhaps Jane is more your style." Her grin was cheerful.

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" he said with a sudden smile. "And no, Jane is not my style; I dislike simpering blondes."

"She hasn't simpered yet."

"She will, trust me."

"So sure, Ravensby," she teased. "Does it come from vast experience?"

"d.a.m.ned right it does, Bitsy, my sweet, and if you don't stop aggravating me with talk of those simpleton gossips, I'll embarra.s.s you right now before every one of your neighbors."

"Are you threatening me?" She didn't look alarmed.

"Absolutely."

She cast him a sportive sidelong glance. "Well, maybe I'll just embarra.s.s you back."

"Impossible, darling." He gazed over at her from under the dark drift of his lashes. "Belive me, you're years too late."

"Arrogant man."

"No, just honest. I've been out in the world more than you. And I've also met more Gerard sisters than you could imagine."

He was right; he was also right about the Gerard sisters' avid curiosity. "How do I respond to Lucy and Jane?" Elizabeth said with a small sigh, her teasing smile fading, genuine concern motivating her as they approached the party at the crest of the hill.

"You don't," Johnnie succinctly declared. "They have no right to inquire into your personal life."

"We in the country are less blase. Personal lives are the subject of much comment."

He shrugged. "As they are everywhere, darling. But if you allow people to go beyond certain boundaries, they'll eat you alive."

"Should I fall suddenly ill?" Elizabeth facetiously suggested, each step drawing them nearer to the group at the construction site. The possibility of restraining the Gerard sisters for an entire afternoon was suddenly daunting.

"Perhaps later." A faint smile curved his mouth. "If I can't think of something more plausible."

"I wish now I'd sent a messenger last night to cancel the invitation-even if it was midnight."

"Amen to that," he murmured, an effortless social smile appearing on his face as they came within speaking distance of the party. "Well, Munro, have you sufficiently explained the need for such sizable masonry in the foundations?" His smile held an open, natural charm. "I find it particularly fascinating how Munro can calculate the exact weight-bearing load of the walls and roof beforehand. Tell them how you learned that in Rome."

And with consummate skill he quite literally controlled the conversation throughout the tour of the building site, on the walk back to the house, with cultivated ease over luncheon. He entertained them with stories of the Court in London-a world removed from the environs of Northumbria; he talked of the China seas and the trading depots in the Orient; he described the Sun King's magnificent Versailles, not currently accessible to English subjects. He promised to send the ladies some distinguished French wines, very dear and difficult to obtain in England since the war; to the men he offered some aged brandies impossible to buy for love or money.

And they talked some more of the war on the Continent, and later, more pertinently, of possible war between Scotland and England.

"Hope it don't come to that, by G.o.d," Lord Ayton muttered. "London don't always know what's best." Coming from an ancient Roman Catholic family, Lord Ayton had reservations about the Succession. "Don't care for the Hanovers," he bluntly said. What was left unsaid was his strongly Jacobite preference.

"Everyone knows the Scottish Parliament has concerns about the Succession too," Johnnie said.

"Are the Scots going to march?" Ayton demanded. Like so many of the country barons, he was a plain-speaking man without artifice.

"It's a moot question at the moment," Johnnie neutrally replied, disinclined to offer details to any Englishman, no matter his Border affiliation.

"My Scottish cousin tells me the counties are raising levies," Ayton said. "d.a.m.ned if that don't smell of war. And a regiment of horse came up from Doncaster last week. We're going to be caught in the d.a.m.ned middle again." The boundary between England and Scotland was an arbitrary line on the map; extended families living on both sides of that artificial border often overlooked national interests in favor of familial ones.

"There's some talk of union," George Baldwin said. "Would that allay these overtures to war?"

"The union commission was disbanded in February," Johnnie replied. "Through lack of interest. Have you heard of renewed purpose in Westminster?" It was a polite question only. No one in Scotland wanted union except those magnates who owned property in England and seats on the board of the East India Company and might lose them if war broke out. And the business interests in London and Bristol that controlled Parliament were adamantly opposed to Scotland entering their trade territories. As for the Court, if the English could secure Scottish approval for the Succession, they could continue to control Scotland completely. A union was of no interest to either country, for the moment.

"Thurlow, who represents our riding, tells me the Tories bring up the subject on occasion as though to test the waters."

"Or to gauge their enemies," Johnnie said.

"You go back to the sessions soon then?" George asked.

"Almost immediately," Johnnie answered with deliberate vagueness, having decided on a means of escape for himself and Elizabeth. "It was a short adjournment. You must all call on me," he cordially went on, "if you're ever in Edinburgh or Ravensby."

All in all, he managed to ingratiate himself nicely with the local gentry. He also effectively restrained the Gerard sisters from asking any impertinent questions. And when he said after dessert, "I promised Lady Graham to survey her wine cellar before I leave with regards to setting in a new supply. I'm sorry time is so limited. Would you excuse us, please?" everyone obligingly waved them off.

After a generous measure of wine for lunch, even Munro didn't mind being left behind to see the neighbors off. After an hour or two of Johnnie's best wines, he found even simpering blondes had taken on an added allure.

Johnnie and Elizabeth retired to their private hermitage, relieved to have gotten away so easily.

"Thank you enormously," Elizabeth whispered, throwing herself into his arms before he'd completely entered her bedroom.

"It was a purely selfish impulse, darling," he murmured, his arms closing around her as he kicked the door shut behind him. "I was literally counting hours," he said, "and I didn't want to waste any more with strangers."

"Umm ... I love the feel of you." Her hands ran up the back of his beige linen coat. "I kept wanting to touch you this afternoon, but I couldn't."

"I almost dragged you out of the dining room a dozen times, thinking to h.e.l.l with them all."

"The Gerard sisters could have dined on that for a lifetime."

"My princ.i.p.al deterrent." His grin was beautiful again, personal, for her alone.

"We've a whole day and a half left," she murmured, her answering smile redolent with happiness.

"Two-and-a-half days."

She leaned back in his arms to gain a better view of him. "You said you had to leave by six Friday morning."

He squeezed her, a delicate nuance of movement, as delicate as the slow upcurving of his smile. "I decided to make it Sat.u.r.day morning."

Her green eyes shone with delight. "Because you adore me so," she cheerfully supplied.

"Because I adore you so...." he repeated.

Their days together were the stuff of dreams, lazy, indolent hours in bed, late breakfasts, leisurely walks in the shady forest or along the slow-moving stream, the water sluggish in the heat of summer; they rode once, although Elizabeth murmured no the next morning when he suggested it as they leaned against the cool stone of the pasture fence-"My bottom's too tender...." And sweeping her into his arms, he carried her into the house from the pasture beyond the stables: "To save you ... for later...." he said with a lush smile. They ate private dinners with Munro, and he marveled at the attachment shown by his cousin, a man not p.r.o.ne to public displays of affection. Johnnie called Elizabeth "my darling" and "sweetheart" and sat close beside her and fed her. Or she him. It was a side of Johnnie Carre Munro had never seen. And he'd known Johnnie a lifetime.

Their last night together was more tender than rapacious, as if the end of their time together tempered the greedy compulsions of the days past.

It was as if both understood the final limit of their pa.s.sionate holiday was mere hours away.

Their kisses were sweet and slow and languid, so the memory of them was etched more powerfully in their minds. Their lovemaking grew measured and gentle; the flash and violence and flagrant fever was replaced by a sensitivity, an intensity of emotion.

Elizabeth didn't dare call it love, the word incongruous with the Laird of Ravensby's dissolute life, but she felt a kind of indelible pa.s.sion that would suffer the precious loss of him.

Johnnie experienced a sense of latent deprivation, obscure and perplexing. He wouldn't recognize love if it knocked at his door dressed in cloth of gold, carrying a placard. But he knew already he'd miss her.

And to that feeling his new tenderness spoke.

Into this blissful night of sweet desire, Elizabeth found herself thinking how wonderful it would be to have a child by this wild, beautiful man. An absurdity she immediately understood as completely irrational.

But the thought lingered with all the buried feelings from her past. She'd always wanted a child in the loneliness of her life with Hotchane. And each of her monthly courses that appeared like clockwork in the years of her marriage had brought with it a feeling of hopelessness and sorrow. It had been easier to blame her aged husband than face the dread possibility her own womb might be barren, but she couldn't know. And as the years went by, her yearning for a child increased; she found herself watching babies and young children with a keen, aching hunger, coveting their soft plumpness and happy smiles, wanting to wipe away their tears, wondering if she would ever be called-lovingly-Mother.

She'd forgotten that dream in the months since Hotchane had died, too concerned with her struggle for survival as an independent widow. She'd not had time between fighting off her father's scheme for her remarriage, selecting and purchasing her land, drawing up the necessary plans, and arranging for a construction crew. But the thought of babies surfaced instinctively as she lay against the heated strength of the quintessentially male Johnnie Carre.

"Do you have children?" she asked into the dimness of the candlelit room.

Shocked from a brief daydreaming doze, he murmured, "Ummm?" hoping he'd misunderstood her question.

"I was wondering if you had children?"

"Why?" he said, automatically evasive.

"I just wanted to know." Ungenerous envy stole into her mind at his cautious response; some fortunate women must have his children.

"I'm not sure." Masculine equivocation.

"Tell me," she said.

He sighed, realizing from her tone it wasn't going to be possible to avoid this conversation. "A few," he reluctantly disclosed.

"That's suitably vague."

"I'm not being vague. There are simply no absolutes, since I never sleep with virgins. A certain difficulty blurs the results. And acknowledging possible children isn't always feasible, even if I were certain."

"Are you saying the women are married?"

He sighed again. "Generally, yes. Why are we on this subject?"

"I was simply thinking how pleasant it would be to have your child."

"Oh, Lord ..." Even as his groan wafted upward, his brain went on full alert.

"Don't be alarmed. I'd never be coercive."

"It's a little late to be discussing this," Johnnie said, not alarmed at female coercion with his finely honed instincts of avoidance, but distinctly wary. His voice had taken on an edge, and unfolding his arm from around her, he rolled onto his side, braced his head on his hand, and settled an exacting look on her. "Are you suggesting I should have thought of the possible consequences?" he gruffly said, wondering if this conversation was moving toward either of two unwelcome topics in bed-marriage or money.

"Neither of us were thinking much," Elizabeth calmly replied. "And you needn't worry. I'm not positioning myself for advantage."

"Rumor has it you're barren," he softly said, thinking at least one topic of discussion was eliminated. As for money, he was generous to all his lovers. He just didn't care to count guineas in bed.

"You see, you're safe then," she briskly replied. But her eyes grew bright with unshed tears, and her bottom lip began to quiver. She'd never reconciled herself to her deprivation; she'd always hoped.

"Oh, Lord ... I'm sorry," he murmured, reaching for her, gathering her in his arms. He gently stroked her hair. "I didn't mean to be unfeeling."

"How could ... you know ... it mattered-" she replied in a tiny voice, fighting back her tears, his comfort and concern only deepening her melancholy.

"Don't cry, darling. Please ..." he whispered, the coolness of her tears sliding down his chest. "Maybe you'll have a child someday," he said, his words so exceptional in the context of his amorous pleasure, he questioned his sanity for a moment. But he was oddly touched by her distress; she seemed suddenly so vulnerable, so exposed.

"It's not your problem," she replied in a wisp of a breath, bravely trying to stifle her sorrow, aware the subject of babies made Johnnie uneasy. All her old feelings of emptiness were causing her discomfort as well. "Consider the topic closed."

"Gladly," Johnnie said with the haste of a profligate rake. No different from any male of his cla.s.s, he enjoyed a self-indulgent life in terms of entertainments. There were few rules for wealthy peers. It was a time of carnal license for aristocratic men, for men of wealth, for men of any station who could charm. And the law required only the poor and middling sort to marry the mothers of their children. "I think you need some cheering up," he softly said, lifting her onto his chest so her toes brushed the rough hair on his calves, the warmth of his body solid, strong, a lush inducement to happiness. "I could sing for you." A roguish smile accompanied his offer.

Gazing down into his handsome face, the candlelight modeling its fine bone structure in graceful shadow and plane, his sky-blue eyes under his heavy dark lashes lazily offering her anything she wanted, the elegant curve of his mouth suggestive of options other than song, Elizabeth basked in his seductive charm. Her answering smile, delicious and winsomely amused, radiated a palatable heat. "Now, Ravensby, consider.... why would I want you to sing," she huskily whispered like any modish coquette bent on seduction, "when that glorious c.o.c.k of yours is nudging my stomach?"

"You have something else in mind then," he said, his grin creeping into the sky blue of his eyes.

"I have a few hours more to take advantage of you."

"And I to amuse you." His voice was hushed.

"How fortunate we agree." She reached up to trace the perfect dark curve of his brow.

"But don't we always, Bitsy, my pet?" he whispered, moving her hand down from his brow, easing one of her fingers into his mouth, softly nibbling on the tender pad.

Morning came too early, too swiftly. As the sun rose over the rim of the Redesdale horizon in a glorious flux of gold and dazzling peony, the two lovers witnessed the melting away of shadow in their private universe, the soft glow of sunshine drifting in. And both knew the ride to Edinburgh could no longer be delayed.

Replete, full of love and longing, cradled against Johnnie's powerful body, Elizabeth said, "Remember to come and visit me sometime when the business of state allows. I'll have some new walls for you to see."

"I will," Johnnie promised, warmed by the heated afterglow of pa.s.sion, his fingertips tracing the silken curve of her spine. "The first chance I get."

A kind of love or affection or fondness had grown between them, indescribable and nameless, a strangely blissful enchantment. And their good-bye kiss was sweet with tenderness.

Their public farewells took place on the graveled drive before Munro, Redmond, servants and bodyguards. He politely bowed, she graciously smiled, and they exchanged all the expected social phrases of leave-taking. Then he kissed her hand lightly, already reverting to the polite courtier, and, mounting his horse, joined Munro, who'd been waiting patiently for some time.