Carre: Outlaw Part 39

Roxane continued to appear at those social affairs she couldn't politely refuse, and the night before the Trondheim was due to sail, she attended a dinner party at Countess of Sutherland's. A friend of long standing, the Countess was hosting an engagement party for her eldest daughter. Roxane intended to stay only for the small dinner party preceding the ball, having begged off from the larger entertainment open to an extended guest list.

She was in fact waiting in the entrance hall for her carriage to be brought up when Harold G.o.dfrey arrived with the Duke of Queensberry.

There was no avoiding them, and she dared not anyway, should her behavior arouse suspicion. While the initial widespread pursuit after Johnnie's escape had abated, a search was still in progress. So her smile was gracious as they approached her.

"You're just arriving too?" Queensberry said, bowing over her hand.

"Actually, I'm leaving," Roxane replied. "My children are ill, but I'd promised Jean I'd come for dinner."

"A shame," the Duke politely said, his attention suddenly caught by one of his aides waving him over to a group of guests at the foot of the staircase. "We'll miss your lovely company. Excuse me, Countess," he added, "Fenton seems agitated." And sketching a bow, he moved away.

Harold G.o.dfrey didn't follow him but stood large, solid, and glaring directly in front of her. "You've managed to avoid me, Countess, for many days." The heat in his voice matched the blaze-red damask of his lace-trimmed coat.

"I'm not avoiding you, G.o.dfrey. With my children sick, I'm not receiving visitors." She caught her orchid velvet cloak closer in unconscious protection.

"You're out occasionally," he gruffly declared. "You could come to my apartments."

"I'm sorry." She tried to project a courteous blandness to such coa.r.s.e bluntness. "But my time is very limited at the moment. I attend only those functions that are absolutely necessary. With five children, my Lord, all in various stages of smallpox,11 my social engagements are much curtailed. Perhaps later."

"Perhaps, madam, you could find the time now." He grasped her upper arm through the velvet of her cape, his grip painful.

"Really, G.o.dfrey, I dislike aggression." Her violet gaze held his steadily. "Kindly unhand me, or I'll call for a.s.sistance."

He held her arm for a moment more to indicate his capabilities. "I don't intend to wait much longer, madam." His tone was silky with malice as he released her.

"You'll wait, G.o.dfrey," Roxane softly replied, unable to disguise her rising temper, "upon my convenience."

"We'll see." His grey eyes, framed by his powdered, full-bottomed wig, were utterly cold.

"Indeed we will," she replied, her posture regal, her eyes meeting his boldly. And with the barest inclination of her head, she swept toward the doors, not caring whether her carriage was ready or not, raging at his brutish rudeness. d.a.m.ned Englis.h.!.+ And d.a.m.ned Queensberry, too, for all his smooth courtesy. She was sick to death of men with no principles.

The following evening Roxane was writing a note to her children when Johnnie walked into the drawing room. She was surprised to see him on the main floor. Regardless of his miraculous recovery, he was still weak.

She smiled across her small writing desk. "You managed three flights of stairs."

"As you see." He held his arms out briefly. He'd not regained all his weight yet, and he was leaner than he'd been in the past, but his smile was the same.

"You're ready to leave?" He wore an embroidered russet leather coat for travel, and his sword gleamed at his side.

"As soon as everyone returns from last-minute errands. They waited till dusk to go out." Strolling across the candlelit room, he dropped onto a high-backed sofa opposite her. "I wanted to come down and thank you again before I left."

"You're very welcome." Her smiled flashed. "It was a pleasure to thwart Queensberry and G.o.dfrey."

"You don't wish to join us in Holland, Robbie tells me."

She set aside the pen she was holding and folded her hands on the inlaid desktop before she answered. "I can't consider it, with the children-although I shouldn't consider it at all if I were sensible. He's much too young." She gazed across the small distance to where Johnnie rested, her mouth in a thoughtful moue. "I'm allowing myself to be very foolish about him."

"I probably would have agreed with you a year ago, when I didn't understand there were pleasures beyond those of a casual nature. But if you care about him, it's not foolish. Good G.o.d, Roxie, certainly you and I can distinguish the difference between love and amour. We've spent enough years practicing one and avoiding the other."

"It's different for a man in our world. A young woman's a delectable prize, as available to him as any bijoux he cares to possess."

Johnnie grinned. "Do you wish to possess my young brother?"

She smiled back. "Honestly, yes. Wouldn't that be simple? I could just add him to my collection of fine things and bring him out to admire when it suited me."

"If you didn't love him," Johnnie quietly volunteered.

"Yes-and therein lies the complexity. He wouldn't be docile, would he, like a young mistress?"

Johnnie laughed. "Knowing my brother, you'd he hard-pressed to find that word serviceable."

"It's a d.a.m.ned dilemma." Leaning back in her chair, she sighed.

"It doesn't have to be ... if it's only society that causes you misgivings."

"I wouldn't have considered myself so timid or vain. I'm surprised at myself."

"You're a beautiful woman familiar with adulation," Johnnie softly said, taking in the splendor of her pale skin, rich copper hair, her extravagant womanly body adorned in opulent green Genoa velvet. "Fear of mockery has to be a novel sensation for you. But consider, darling, once we've wrested our estates back from Queensberry, you'll have Robbie and myself to discourage any disparaging remarks."

"The children will surely be exposed to the ridicule as well," she added with a small frown.

"Are you talking about the same children I know? The ones who've tested the patience, endurance, and valor of a dozen tutors and governesses and dancing masters over the past decade? They've never struck me as overly sensitive."

"Are you saying my children are h.e.l.lions?" Her smile was companionable.

"In the nicest possible way-" He grinned. "Yes. But then that's why the children and I always got along so well."

There was a small silence in which she leaned forward and unnecessarily straightened the writing accessories on the desktop. Her voice when she finally spoke held a guarded apprehension. "Robbie's actually talking of marriage."

"I know." He understood the apprehension, this man who had so recently discovered the unfamiliar universe of love.

"I tried to dissuade him, but he won't have it."

"He's in love with you. He doesn't have a choice. Why not marry him?"

"So you're an advocate now that you find the state so blissful."

"A wholehearted advocate-if you love him. There's nothing better in the world."

"An authority speaks."

"One to another. Confess, darling, all these years after Jamie's death, aren't you truly happy again?"

She looked at him for a lengthy moment, her eyes pools of violet shade in the candlelight, then nodded her head. "I feel guilty because I don't feel more guilty about forsaking Jamie's memory. But I'm wildly in love again like I was at sixteen."

"At least you recognize the feeling."

"And you never did, until you met Elizabeth."

"I didn't recognize it even then, until she was about to marry someone else."

"You'd been running from women too long to so abruptly change your habits."

"Did I run from you?"

"No," she declared with an amiable smile, "but then I wasn't chasing you."

"Ah ..." He cast a discerning glance at the woman who'd shared his leisure for so long. "That's why we muddled through so well."

"It was a pleasant game, Ravensby."

"Yes, and thank you, too, for that," he softly said. "I enjoyed our friends.h.i.+p as I'll enjoy having you for a sister-in-law. By the way," he added, "you might wish to have your wedding dress ready by summer, because Robbie's intent on not waiting past June."

"And I must subordinate myself to his wishes?"

Johnnie put his palm up in mild defense at the touch of umbrage in her voice. "Leave me out of the conflict, darling. I was just repeating my brother's fond hopes." His eyes s.h.i.+fted toward the windows, the distinct sound of horses and a carriage stopping in the street below. "Are you expecting guests?"

She also turned to listen. "I can't imagine who that could be." She shrugged. "Samuel has orders to refuse all callers. He'll send them away."

And a moment later the m.u.f.fled echo of a male voice raised in agitation reached them-together with Samuel's more moderate tones.

"One of your disgruntled suitors?" Johnnie inquired with a grin. He was sprawled on her sofa as he had been so often in the past, and for a fleeting moment she had a sense of deja vu-the room quiet and candlelit, Johnnie's long, lean body so familiar.

"I don't think I have any disgruntled ones," she replied coquettishly.

"I don't suppose you do," Johnnie noted, his grin widening, his memory excellent.

The voices from the floor below quieted.

"Samuel seems to have taken care of it," Roxane said, relaxing in her chair.

Johnnie didn't mention that the carriage hadn't left yet, his ears alert for the sound. "How are the children doing?" he asked instead.

"They're enjoying the country. I was just writing to tell them I was coming to fetch everyone home." Her gaze swiveled toward the doorway as the measured cadence of striding footsteps reached the drawing room-agumented by Samuel's protests.

"Who ever it was got past Samuel," Johnnie casually said, listening like Roxane to the emphatic tread.

The drawing-room doors crashed open a moment later, and Roxane's hand came up to her cheek in a gesture of horror.

"At last, Countess ... I find you at home."

"I'm sorry, my Lady," Samuel apologized, one step behind Harold G.o.dfrey, his expression distraught, his face red from his racing progress upstairs. "He wouldn't listen."

"Out, you old fool," G.o.dfrey growled, pus.h.i.+ng the majordomo backward and slamming the door in his face. With quicksilver speed he turned the key in the lock, pocketed it, and spun around. "And now, my dear Roxane," he growled, malevolent and surly, "you can entertain me tonight."

"Why don't I entertain you instead?" Johnnie said, rising from the high-backed sofa that had hidden him from view.

If Harold G.o.dfrey was surprised, he masked it well. "Have I interrupted a love nest?" he sardonically drawled. "No wonder the Countess has been so reluctant for company. A willing wench, Ravensby, while your wife is breeding?"

"Just draw your sword, G.o.dfrey," Johnnie said in a controlled voice, flexing the fingers of his left hand, "so I can send you on your way to h.e.l.l."

Nothing moved in the bulk of Brusisson's large frame but his gaze drifted down Johnnie's rangy body. "You've lost weight, Ravensby," he silkily murmured, antic.i.p.ation in his voice. "Do you think you're up to it?"

"Come and find out, G.o.dfrey," Johnnie murmured, his quiet voice clear in the utter silence. Without turning toward Roxane, he added in an undertone, "Step back into the window seat and don't move." He was sliding his dirk out as he spoke, the fluted blade dagger held lightly in his right hand, its finely worked handle custom fit to his grip.

"I'll take pleasure in killing you, Ravensby," the Earl of Brusisson casually said, stripping off his citrine satin coat, "and d.a.m.n Queensberry's trial."

Johnnie had slipped his coat off as well in those brief seconds; aware of the man's treachery, he never took his gaze off G.o.dfrey. "You can try, G.o.dfrey...."

They stood facing each other, G.o.dfrey's sword in his right hand, his dagger in the left, the sheen of silver hilt and chased work gleaming in the candlelight, the wolf mark of Pa.s.sau on Johnnie's German blade glinting like the evil eye. With the left hand dominant in the Carres, Johnnie met G.o.dfrey not juxtaposed in the normal way so dagger met rapier, but thin-tempered rapier matching rapier, and dagger, dirk. More dangerous ... making the outer arm and outside line more vulnerable.

Johnnie stood motionless in Roxane's drawing room, tall, slender, calm, only his eyes vivid with antic.i.p.ation, waiting for his enemy to advance.

Face-to-face, G.o.dfrey's proportions appearing measurably broader since Johnnie had lost weight, the Earl of Brusisson cooly said, "You'll never last, Ravensby...."

"Then I'll have to kill you quickly," Johnnie softly said.

There was an angry growl from G.o.dfrey, and he thrust, traversed, and lunged, his rapier in a straight path for Johnnie's gut.

Johnnie slipped sideways. "You're slower than you used to be, G.o.dfrey." His voice was insolent. Then he ducked as the dagger blade slide by his ear.

After that no one spoke as the blades cracked together, slipped in and out, and the men fought in earnest-sliding, moving, their respiration labored after a short time, the four blades a flas.h.i.+ng blur in the candlelight.

Redmond recognized the Earl's blue carriage from the bottom of the street even in the indistinct light from the lanterns outside Kilmarnock House.

"Your father's equipage," he said, pulling Elizabeth around the corner so they could approach the house from the back. "He must be trying to see Roxane again."

As they entered the kitchen, it was immediately apparent a crisis existed. The servants were in a ferment, chaotically ma.s.sed near the upstairs doorway, their conversation agitated, disordered, everyone speaking at once. Two footmen armed with kitchen knives guarded the stairway. Setting aside the packages they'd received from the apothecary, Redmond and Elizabeth quieted the tumult enough to discover what had transpired. "Stay here," Redmond ordered Elizabeth when the story was disclosed. "I'll go up to help. There's nothing you can do," he added in warning, familiar with the determined look in her eyes. "Don't get in the way," he admonished, already halfway across the kitchen.

With no intention of quietly waiting to see if her husband was killed, Elizabeth followed immediately as Redmond disappeared up the stairs.

The conspicuous, rending sound of splintering wood gave indication to those inside the drawing room that the door would soon be breached, but neither man could chance a glance at the gilded panels.

Roxane, pressed against the wall of the draped embrasure overlooking the street, wanted to scream, "Hurry! Hurry!" Johnnie was exhausted, and looked almost at the end of his endurance. No longer forced to defend himself, G.o.dfrey was attacking now. Fearful of attempting to lend aid if her efforts would compromise Johnnie's concentration, she'd helplessly watched as Johnnie's strength declined.

For a man only recently risen from his deathbed, he'd fought with unusual vigor. But both men were wounded, and Johnnie had fewer reserves to call on, his loss of blood more debilitating to his weakened body.

Although he still defended himself effortlessly, his sword parrying G.o.dfrey's attacks smoothly, precisely, he no longer had the quickness needed to lunge, the strength to thrust, and it was just a matter of time before his ability to parry would flag.

G.o.dfrey had been counting on Johnnie's weakness, advancing, retreating, forcing him to constantly keep moving, waiting for him to tire and let down his guard.

Johnnie fought by instinct, coordination between hand, eye, and brain automatic after the years under his father's tutelage, after the refinements of his Parisian training, each parry an unconscious response, fluid, sure.

But he needed that vital power to launch an attack, to lunge, to go in for the kill-and he wasn't sure he had it.

G.o.dfrey was attacking with increased intensity, knowing the door would give way soon, moving brutally fast, and Johnnie met him with every trick at his command, his parrying arm taking again and again the jar of the meeting blades.

G.o.dfrey fought with textbook mastery, taking every advantage offered him, protecting himself cautiously, biding his time, practicing cla.s.sic swordplay.