"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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 G.o.dhead."

"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 d.a.m.n. 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.

"d.a.m.n right I am."

"I can help you ... relax." Suggestion, promise, drifted through his soft drawl.

"Won't you rise to anything, d.a.m.n 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 ..."

CHAPTER 28.

"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?"

"It sailed this morning. They're scouring the country for you. The cargo was on board; they couldn't wait."

"Eight days, then, to return from Veere."

"Or a fortnight, depending on the winds and gales this time of year."

"So I don't have to get up this morning," Johnnie said with a grin.

"Wait a day or so," Munro suggested with a pleased smile.

But the next morning Johnnie insisted he be helped into a chair. It took two men to bring him upright on the side of the bed, and he sat braced by his arms until he could unclench his teeth. Pale sweat beading on his brow and upper lip, he walked with a.s.sistance the short distance to the chair and eased himself down, using the chair arms for support.

Several minutes pa.s.sed before the color returned to his face, and a short time more was required before his breathing had subsided to normal. And then his pale blue eyes lifted to the circle of anxious faces surrounding him. "I'm not going to fall over," he said with a faint grin. "At least not for five minutes or so. Does my nursing staff think a gla.s.s of wine might be good for my health, because I'd prefer it to the morphine for pain."

Six people moved at once, and shortly Johnnie was drinking a very fine claret.

His recuperation was swift, his youth an a.s.set to the speed of his recovery, Roxane's apothecary skilled in those medicinals and herbs most useful in treating wounds. Often called upon to treat the hotheaded bucks who settled their arguments with duels, he understood how to heal brutally maimed flesh.

Roxane continued her social activities, albeit on a somewhat reduced schedule, so as not to call attention to her household. She managed to put off the Earl of Brusisson on the few occasions she met him in public, apologizing for her cancellation of his planned visit, explaining her children had taken ill and she wasn't accepting callers.

In public she was able to curb his demands to see her, for they were never alone, and politesse sufficed in those group drawing-room conversations. Her children had been surrept.i.tiously sent off to one of her country estates the morning after Johnnie was brought into her home. Although the older children understood the subtleties of politics and the need for silence, the younger ones were incapable of discretion. To the children's friends they were simply indisposed by illness.

But she didn't admit that her decision to send the children away for a fortnight might have been predicated by her irrepressible pa.s.sion for her young lover.

She and Robbie spent most of their time in her rooms, although they appeared often for luncheon in the Ravensbys' suite. It was obvious to all they were mad for each other, although both maintained a public silence about their feelings. But they seemed often oblivious to others even at times when they were in company, and they touched each other with that special privilege reserved for lovers. As a couple, they were striking, their coloring so similar, they had a conspicuous resemblance, like brother and sister. Even in likeness they bore a corresponding general conformity of cla.s.sic features, although Roxane's dark eyes were a deep violet and Robbie's a rich, vivid brown, nearly black, and her hair was touched with gleaming flame while Robbie's held darker auburn tones. And gender differences were manifest in their skin tones-hers supremely pale beside his as if she were a hothouse flower and he of rugged, less cultivated stock, bronzed from the sun and sea.

But in terms of ingenuous desire they were equal counterparts. Unaffected and natural, they'd given themselves up to love.

One night when Elizabeth had fallen asleep, when Roxane was out and Robbie was pacing restlessly waiting for her return, Johnnie asked him, "Are you bringing Roxane to Holland?"

"No."

"It's not serious then?" He was surprised. Appearances suggested otherwise.

Robbie stopped for a moment in his perambulations, his gaze on his brother, who lay on a chaise near the fire. "I told her we should be back by summer. Leaving would be too disruptive for her children anyway. But yes, it's serious. And don't mention her age, because I don't want to hear it."

"I wasn't going to." Roxane had been older than he as well, and he had a great affection for her. "We may not be back by summer though. It could take longer to arrange things."

Dropping into a nearby chair, Robbie grimaced at the unwelcome news. "Regardless," he muttered, "I'll return earlier, and we can decide then what to do."

"You're sure now."

"You of all people to ask that, with Harold G.o.dfrey's daughter your wife."

"You're right, of course. Forgive me."

"Lord," Robbie exclaimed, "will it take that long to regain the estates?" Impatient, not wishing to be thwarted in his designs, he'd been more optimistic.

"Queensberry has the court behind him. We, however, hold bills of exchange from every man of wealth in Scotland. We also factor their trade and handle most of their credit in Europe. And with the French privateers out in force, the international price of exchange has gone to extravagant heights ..." Johnnie smiled. "We control their exchange rate too. The potential for ruin becomes more powerful with each pa.s.sing day."10 "Being the Continental banker for most of Scotland has its advantages," Robbie murmured. The Carre commerce and banking contacts stretched from Paris and Bordeaux to London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Danzig, and Stockholm.

"Don't forget we're financing some of the Scottish regiments in Marlborough's war as well." Several officers banked with him in Rotterdam. "Coutts has made my position clear to everyone; I expect an urgent pet.i.tion to be presented to the Privy Council within the month."

Robbie sighed. "But they'll still have to set a date for the trial, and h.e.l.l, who knows how long that'll take."

"Not necessarily. The Privy Council can simply abandon the process. No trial, no conviction ... and Queensberry can move out of Goldiehouse. And then there's G.o.dfrey." Johnnie's voice went very quiet. "I look forward to killing him."

"What of Elizabeth?"

"I haven't talked to her about it, and I won't. G.o.dfrey's too dangerous to my family, regardless of how she might feel. Think of our child ... what he might do to it."

"Perhaps she won't know."

Johnnie shrugged. "It depends on how public the occasion."

"When you have your estates back, you mean."

"And my t.i.tle ..."

"As early as next summer perhaps."

Johnnie's smile was dangerous. "Wouldn't that be pleasant?"

The following days pa.s.sed serenely at the Countess Kilmarnock's home. Johnnie's health was steadily improving, Elizabeth's pregnancy moving very near term, and the Countess and Robbie exploring the rarefied world of new love.

And then the Trondheim sailed into the roads at Leith one sunny March afternoon.

And the guests at Kilmarnock House made ready to leave.

CHAPTER 29.

It took some days for the Trondheim to clear customs and have her cargo unloaded, time for those at Kilmarnock to ready themselves for the voyage. Food had to be brought on board and arrangements made for a doctor and midwife to accompany them. Although convalescing well, Johnnie was still not completely restored to his former strength, and Elizabeth was so near delivery, the baby might not wait until they reached Rotterdam.