Carre: Outlaw Part 35

"We'll have Johnnie free, Roxane," Robbie a.s.sured her. "One way or another."

"Remember, if you need them, those rooms on the top floor where you're staying will continue to be safe; I've enough influential friends-no one would dare search my home." She was being modest; as the reigning beauty in Edinburgh, some even said in Britain, she had most of the powerful men in the country eager to please her.

"We hope to make for the ship."

Robbie nodded his agreement. "Although it depends on Johnnie's health. Coutts says he's desperately weak."

"Where will Elizabeth be taken?"

"Directly to the Trondheim."

"I shall be at a dinner party and ball at the Chancellor's house tomorrow night anxiously awaiting news. I expect the outcry over the prison escape will reach some of the Privy Council before morning. Tonight I go to the Countess Pamure's. I may hear gossip of Queensberry, for he's known to have had a tendre for her in the past."

"We ride for the Trondheim after dark," Robbie said, "to bring in sufficient arms for tomorrow night. I'll leave one of our men to accompany you to the Countess's should you need to reach us with a message; he can pose as one of your footmen. I don't envy you your evening though," he added with a grin. "The Countess is likely to recite her newest love poems...."

"And you're not romantical?" Roxane teased.

"One in the family is enough," the young Master of Graden ironically noted. "Although none of his acquaintances would have bet a shilling on Johnnie Carre's understanding of love a year ago."

Redmond's men had been on surveillance at Harold G.o.dfrey's lodgings since they'd arrived in the city, changing watch every two hours so their appearance wouldn't be conspicuous, hoping the Earl of Brusisson would lead them to Elizabeth. But he'd not exited his apartments since the messenger had arrived. And according to the occupant of the floor below G.o.dfrey's flat, Harold G.o.dfrey lived alone.

As they continued their watch, an elegant coach drew up to the entrance of the building late in the evening, and moments later Harold G.o.dfrey, dressed modishly in blue velvet and black lace, strolled through the door and stepped into the gleaming carriage.

As the vehicle rolled away, a figure pushed away from the shadows of the wall and, picking his way across the garbage-strewn cobbled street, moved into another shadowed doorway on the opposite side. "He gave Countess Pamure's as his direction," one of Redmond's men said to him.

"I'll send another man to you," Redmond quietly replied, "and I'll find my way to the Countess's; the drivers should have some information. I'll see what I can discover."

So Redmond was curbside with a group of coachmen when Roxane's carriage deposited her at Countess Pamure's town home. While he didn't recognize the copper-haired beauty alighting from her carriage, he knew the woman's footman who was a.s.sisting her from her blue-lacquered coach.

As Roxane carefully navigated the short distance to the entrance on her high pattens, her hooped skirts and velvet cloak gripped firmly in her hands, Redmond moved slightly away from the gossiping drivers so he'd be visible to the footman following his mistress toward the torch-lit doorway. Neither man spoke to the other, cautious in a city of strangers, but their eyes met in recognition, and the Carre clansman murmured, "Wait."

A short time later, when the disguised Carre clansman came outside, he and Redmond walked away from the cl.u.s.ter of waiting coachmen and grooms, moving down the street a small distance. Briefly, they exchanged information, and Redmond made arrangements to speak to Robbie later that night at Roxane's. The men parted after only a few minutes, and Redmond returned to his surveillance.

CHAPTER 25.

Roxane had never met the Earl of Brusisson, but she knew the Duke of Queensberry as she knew everyone in the limited ranks of the Scottish n.o.bility. And the man standing beside the Duke met Robbie's description of Harold G.o.dfrey. Returning her attention to the young man who was complimenting her on the beauty of her gown while his gaze was focused several inches below her collarbones, she smiled graciously at him until his fulsome flattery came to an end and then said, "I'd be eternally in your debt, dear Buchan, if you'd fetch me a gla.s.s of claret. It's dreadfully hot in here." Tapping him lightly on his cheek with her ivory-and-lace fan, she added flirtatiously, "If you don't mind ..."

After he rushed off to accommodate her, she glanced in the candle-lit mirror on the wall beside her, minutely adjusted the lace at her decolletage, practiced a fleeting winsome smile and, satisfied at her theatrical skills, glided toward the man who was attempting to end Johnnie Carre's life.

Queensberry saw her first as she approached and half-turned toward her with a welcoming smile, interrupting his conversation so the taller man beside him turned to look as well. Roxane smiled at them both, flipped open her fan with practiced ease and, dipping into a minute curtsy that showed off her fine bosom to advantage, raised her seductive dark eyes. "It's so pleasant to see you back in town, James," she cordially declared. "The city loses a certain sophistication when you're absent."

"You're still beautifying it wonderfully, my dear," the Duke replied with an easy smile. "I find myself suddenly wishing I'd come back sooner."

"You haven't lost your smooth tongue, darling." Lightly brushing the lace edge of her fan under his chin, she winked at him, blatantly coquettish.

Harold G.o.dfrey gently cleared his throat.

Queensberry's glance drifted over to him, and he said as if in afterthought, "Roxane, I'd like you to meet the Earl of Brusisson. He's in Scotland looking over some property. Brusisson, the Countess Kilmarnock."

Raising her eyes to G.o.dfrey's extremely attentive regard, she immediately understood the accomplishment of her mission in approaching the two men was going well. Her smile took on a sultry opulence. "Will you be here long, Brusisson?"

"I haven't entirely decided. Do you stay in the city?"

"Most always ..." The brutality in his eyes gave her mild pause; he made no effort to conceal it. "My children go to school here," she added, tamping down her squeamishness.

"Does your husband enjoy city life?"

"He did."

"Roxane is the most beautiful widow in Britain," Queensberry graciously interjected. "What do you hear of your brother? Is he still with Argyll?"

"He was in winter camp at The Hague last he wrote." As in so many Scottish families, her politics and her brother's didn't always agree. "He's enamored of the great Marlborough."

"As are a great many of our young cubs. The man can command."

"So Colter tells me with a nineteen-year-old's unequivocal enthusiasm. Will you be in Edinburgh for the sessions this year?"

"Perhaps."

"Then perhaps we'll see each other again. Give my regards to Isobel. There's Buchan now with my claret. It was a pleasure to meet you, Brusisson." And with a nod of her perfectly coiffed head, she left.

"She was Ravensby's lover for years," Queensberry declared as the men watched her gracefully swaying walk.

"She didn't seem stricken."

"She's buried two husbands. It tempers one's sense of commitment, perhaps. But if you call on her, Harold, a small warning. She's a friend of mine."

"I didn't say I was going to call on her."

Queensberry's smile was tolerant. "We both know you will."

But Roxane's very tight schedule wouldn't allow for the leisure of uncertainty, so she made a point of running into Harold G.o.dfrey later that evening when he was standing alone for a moment. As she approached him, he stepped into her path so she was obliged to stop.

"I find Edinburgh much more interesting suddenly," he said, looking down at her from his formidable height.

"Could it be Cecilia's fascinating poetry recital?" she purred in a lush undertone, noting his interest in her decolletage.

"I despise poetry." He said the words very low, so she understood there were other things he saw he didn't despise.

She smiled provocatively, a well-practiced device in her repertoire. "A shame," she murmured, "for I'm having a few people over tomorrow night to listen to Edinburgh's favorite son. I thought you might enjoy his verse."

"When?"

She tipped her head a little to one side and looked up at him from under her lashes. "Come later...." Insinuation was rich in her voice. "When the readings are over ..."

"When?" No subtlety in his harsh response; his message was explicit.

"Say, half-past nine?"

"I'll be there," he said.

And there was no doubt in her mind he would be.

The group a.s.sembled in Roxane's private sitting room very late that night was augmented by Redmond's presence. And every detail had been gone over, for timing was everything in the success of their venture.

"I can keep G.o.dfrey waiting for perhaps an hour and a half," Roxane said. "I'll see that my company doesn't leave as expected...."

"Two of our men could pose as your guests, and after having sampled too much of your brandy could be disinclined to leave your fascinating presence," Robbie suggested, finding himself reluctant to leave her alone with G.o.dfrey.

"I won't be able to put him off indefinitely, though, or he's apt to become suspicious."

"There's absolutely no need to bring him into your bedroom. He could be dangerous." Robbie gazed at her for a potent moment. "I know what you're thinking, but don't under any circ.u.mstances-"

"He is dangerous," Redmond quietly interjected. "If I didn't have to see Elizabeth to safety, I'd stay to help. He's killed many times in particularly brutal ways," he added in a carefully restrained murmur. "He's not normal."

"There," Robbie declared with a stabbing look at Roxane. "Do you understand?"

"I'll be extremely careful."

"All right, let's go over the schedule again," Robbie briskly said. "At nine-thirty Redmond and his men go in for Elizabeth...."

And everyone recited the timetable again and then once more again ... until each minute was accounted for, until every possible eventuality had been discussed, until every option had been considered in the execution and accomplishment of their plan.

Near dawn, everyone had left except Robbie, who had made himself comfortable on the sofa and was reluctant to remove himself upstairs, and Roxane, who lounged across from him on her favorite chaise. The young Master of Graden spoke in a hushed murmur. "Johnnie didn't appreciate you enough."

"No, he didn't," she said with a faint smile, "but he was lovely in other ways...."

"Did it hurt you when he married?"

She thought for a moment. "In a way I was happy for him, because he'd never believed in love.... How could I begrudge him that joy?"

"Have you ever been in love?"

"A long time ago; I was very young."

"What happened?"

"I married him. Jamie Low, my first husband ... and if he hadn't been killed at Namur, I'd still be in love."

"And what of Kilmarnock?"

"My parents said I was too young when Jamie died to be unmarried."

"Kilmarnock was older."

"Yes."

He didn't pursue his questioning about her second husband after Roxane's brief, terse reply. Apparently, it hadn't been a happy marriage. "And you're contentedly widowed now."

Her smile reappeared. "Very."

"We should be back to Scotland by summer," he said, thinking he'd miss her most of those he left behind, thinking it odd how tumultuous events distilled feelings to raw essentials. He lay there, elegant and lean, his raw-boned young body all muscle and sinew beneath his well-cut clothes, one slender hand trailing on the floor, his long legs propped on the rolled arm of her sofa.

"I'm glad. I'll be here."

His head didn't move from its restful ease on an embroidered pillow, but his eyes traveled slowly down her form. "Don't marry again before I return."

"Not likely. I definitely prefer my freedom."

"I'm jealous of your freedom." His voice was only a whisper, his dark eyes half-lidded in lazy appraisal.

"I don't allow that."

He shrugged, one dark brow rising speculatively. "As if you could stop me, darling Roxie."

"You sound like your brother."

"I'm not my brother though. I'd appreciate you."

She gazed at him for a long moment, thinking how different their looks. Robbie's features were more refined, more fluent, than the harsher modeling of his older brother, his auburn hair drifting in unconstrained curls to his shoulders. Robbie's broad-shouldered, rangy body still retained a flaunting air of coltishness. "I'm ten years older than you," she said, the rich flamboyance of his youth a striking reminder of her own age.

"It didn't seem to matter that night last summer."

She sighed, a soft sound of regret. "I shouldn't have stayed."

"But the stars were brilliant that night," he reminded her with a grin.

"Ummm ..." Her own smile recalled pleasant memories. "And the sea air always makes me amorous."

"I'll have to remember that."

She shook her head. "Darling, you're too young. I told you that the next morning ... and my sentiments haven't changed. I've five children, my oldest only a few years younger than you." She gazed at him from under half-lowered lashes. "I can't."

"When I come back, I'll change your mind."

"No, you won't."

"We'll see," he said, dropping his booted feet on the carpet and hauling himself upright. "If I had more time tonight, I'd try to convince you." And strolling over to the chaise, he leaned over, placed his hands gently on her shoulders, and kissed her, not a youthful adolescent kiss, but a hot-blooded, dangerous kiss that recalled a wild, sensational night on Johnnie's yacht last summer. "Promise not to get married, now," he murmured when his mouth lifted from hers. "Because I'm coming back ..."

"You shouldn't," she whispered, but her voice held an intoxicating tremor of pa.s.sion, and her face lifted to his was enticingly flushed.