Susan Johnson (25 page)

She smoothed the skirt of her gown with her palms, a mindless gesture, and then inhaling deeply, she reminded herself of all she could be grateful for. She was safely home, far from the vicious gossip and self-indulgent diversions of society. And more than many women, she was capable of taking charge of her life.

So Robbie Carre could indulge in his libertine amusements, and she’d concentrate on living her life without men of his ilk. She should have known better, anyway. The Carres had never been monkish.

Pushing away from the door, she walked toward her dressing room, feeling more composed. Perhaps she should thank Janet for exposing the true nature of Robbie’s sense of commitment; she should send a polite note of gratitude. A smile flitted across her mouth at the droll anomaly. On second thought, she decided she’d much prefer slapping the little slut’s face. Reaching out, she began to open her dressing room door, but her fingers slipped from the handle, the door swung open, and the man she least wished to see stood on her threshold.

“You didn’t really think you could keep me out, did you?” he drawled.

“Leave this instant or I’ll see that you’re thrown out.” Her voice was cold and flat.

“I wouldn’t recommend that.” There was anger in his voice as well.

“Fortunately, I don’t take orders from you.” Sweeping away from him, she moved toward the bell pull.

She’d taken no more than two steps before his hand closed hard over her mouth and he pulled her to a
stop. “I’m afraid you
will
take orders from me. Now we can try to come to some understanding like adults, or—” He caught her swinging fist with effortless ease. “Don’t even start,” he growled. “I’m not in the mood.”

Eyes flashing, she struggled against his hold, wildly kicking and squirming, refusing to submit, and when her heel solidly connected with his shin in a powerful blow, he grunted in pain. Swearing, he bound her arms in a vicelike grip and shoved her forward, his stride so rapid she was hard-pressed to keep from falling. Reaching the hall door, he leaned into the door enough to grasp the key with his fingers and turn it in the lock. “How convenient you dismissed your maid,” he murmured, releasing her arms for a split second to drop the key into his coat pocket before redirecting their course toward her dressing room.

Her wrathful answer was muffled against his hand.

“Now we’ll have some privacy,” he softly breathed, tightening his grip on her, his sense of affront no less righteous than hers. He’d never groveled for forgiveness before, never in his life, and after weeks of trying to appease and act the gentleman, he’d reached the limits of his patience.

Marching her before him into the dressing room, he locked that door as well, and holding her hard against his tall frame, he said, “If you scream, I’ll gag you.” Lifting his hand a fraction, he waited, ready to muzzle her again if necessary.

“Will I have something to scream about?” she coldly inquired, brushing his hands aside and turning to face him.

“That depends.”

“On?”

“Your maturity.”

“Don’t talk to me of maturity,” she snapped. “You can’t distinguish between love and lust.”

“And you can?”

“Damn right I can. Although I’m sure Janet Lindsay’s heaving bosom can be distracting to rational thought,” she tartly observed.

“Fuck Janet.”

“Don’t let me keep you.” Mocking, contemptuous, she glared at him.

“I suppose you’d take offense if I slapped you,” he murmured, his jaw set.

“Not if you don’t mind a kick to your balls.”

“Sit down,” he ordered, his voice tight with restraint. “Over there.” He indicated a chair in the corner, needing distance in addition to self-control at the moment, with his temper barely curbed. “You’re really trying my patience.”

She didn’t move.

“Jesus God, you’re obstinate.” He moved away himself before he did something ungentlemanly. Sitting down, he gazed across the room at her. “Explain to me why we’re not lovers anymore,” he brusquely said, unbuttoning his jacket. There were degrees and then more subtle degrees of gentlemanly behavior, and his conduct tonight would press the limits of both.

“You don’t need me, with your harem. Don’t take that off.” The smallest touch of panic infused her swift warning.

“You didn’t answer my question.” Ignoring her command, he slipped his jacket from his broad shoulders.

“I prefer my independence.” But her pulse quickened as he kicked his shoes off.

“I’m not interested in curtailing your independence.”

“And yet somehow, as in recent moments,” she went on, tartly sarcastic, “you take on a dictatorial male role that offends me.”

He looked up, his silk hose slipped partway down his calves. “Then I’m sorry.”

Words, she thought, only words, without a hint of apology in his tone. “As you’ll be sorry a thousand times in the future, each time you choose to have your way.” Her violet gaze burned into his. “Maybe I’m not interested in a thousand more apologies. Maybe I’m not interested in a love affair that doesn’t take into account my protective feelings toward my children. I’ll never forget what happened to them, not if I live a thousand years. I should have been there when they needed me. So forgive me if I take a strong dislike to men who think they can order my life. Like now,” she ascerbically added. “And seeing you tonight with all your dear,
dear
lady friends reminds me afresh of your libertine ways. I’m sure you understand that I prefer to avoid such distasteful scenes in the future. So I’d suggest you go to see Janet. I’m sure she’s waiting.”

A muscle twitched along his jaw. “Are you finished?”

“For the moment,” she churlishly said, as sullen as he.

“Believe me, I deplore what happened to your children, and if I could apologize enough to placate you, I would. But I doubt I can ever sufficiently atone for that disaster. As to your independence, it’s bloody stupid to even argue about that. Everything’s different now. Argyll’s taken care of.” He put his palms up to allay her
heated remark. “Let me reword that. Argyll is paid off, and no one wants to order your life, least of all me. And regardless of what you think, other women don’t appeal to me. Janet literally threw herself at me in the hall, and I was trying to shove her away.”

“Spare me,” she retorted, her lips curled in cynical disbelief.

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“There are always choices,” he said, menace in his tone.

“Am I supposed to be intimidated?”

“I was thinking more of … accommodating. It was a long climb up here.”

“Why didn’t you say so,” she derisively jibed. “Certainly I should be willing to oblige an unwelcome intruder if he’s put himself to such effort.”

“You seemed willing earlier.”

“Before Janet, you mean.” Each word was clipped.

“Do I need a note from her exonerating me?”

“Would she give you one—without a
special
favor?” Roxane insolently murmured.

“You are a bitch.”

“And you’re interested in fucking any female within range.”

“How convenient for me, then. I scarcely have to move. Think of this as a farewell fuck,” he mockingly noted, “if you really mean what you say.”

“You question my sincerity?”

“I question the extent your temper might govern your feelings.” He came to his feet, moving toward her, tired of talking, tired of apologizing and explaining,
weary of arguing nuances of perception. Wanting to take care of their differences in his own way.

Quickly backing away, she put out a hand to protest his advance. “Stay away from me.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’ll scream.”

“Not if I’m kissing you.”

“Damn you, Robbie.” But her lips began to tingle as though he were kissing her already and her voice had turned hushed.

“Damn us both, then,” he whispered, following her retreat, “because you’ve made my life a living hell the last weeks. Do you know how much liquor I’ve drunk to sleep at night without you? Do you know how many times I’ve walked by your house like a lovesick boy? Too much and too many, and I’m going to make love to you now. And if you’re not sure, I’m sure enough for both of us.”

She’d come up against the locked door. “What if I hate you for this?”

The equivocation warmed his heart. “What if you love me instead? It’s been two weeks, three days, fifteen hours, give or take twenty minutes, and I’m dying without you.”

“Fourteen hours,” she whispered.

“It seemed longer,” he said with a faint smile. “But whatever you say, darling. Whatever you
want. Whatever
makes you happy in all this world. And I suppose I could get a note if I had to,” he finished with a grin.

She looked at him, the smallest twinkle of amusement in her eyes. “You’re not allowed within a mile of her.”

“Done.”

“I’ll keep you leashed.”

“Sounds intriguing,” he impudently returned. “Oh, Robbie.” She sighed. “What are we going to do?”

“First I’m going to kiss you.” He bent to brush her lips with his, the pressure delicate. After a moment, his mouth lifted and he said, so low the words were scarcely a vibration on her lips, “Tell me I’m forgiven.”

She shook her head.

“Maybe I could earn my way into your good graces,” he murmured, a teasing heat in his words.

“Take the easy way out, when I want a decade of penance.”

“Why didn’t you say you wanted me on my knees?” He began to kneel.

She pulled him up by his hair, grabbing thick hand-fuls of his long silken tresses. “I want you to be serious.”

His expression immediately turned grave as he stood upright again. “If you want penance, I’ll do penance,” he said, covering her hands with his, drawing them to his mouth, brushing them with his lips. “But love me as I love you.”

She did; she had for ever so long. “Tell me I won’t regret this,” she whispered, frightened at how much he meant to her.

“I won’t let you.”

“I’m crazy enough to believe you.”

“And I’m crazy in love. Could I interest you, Lady Kilmarnock, in some very casual lovemaking? I understand you prefer that.”

“I prefer anything, so long as a bonny young man with red hair and the devil’s own charm is beside me.”

“That’s what I was hoping as I scaled those damnably slippery granite walls tonight.”

“Next time I’ll open the door.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

“Nor I you. There were too many women purring around you.”

“We won’t speak of the men,” he gruffly said, curbing his displeasure in the interests of their new detente.

“You frightened them away. I should take lessons from the Janet Lindsays and the Duncans.”

“Don’t waste your time. I felt like a monk with them, totally uninterested—and you felt the same with
your
admirers?”

“Yes, yes,” she laughingly replied. “Like a nun.”

“Sensible answer,” he murmured.

She drew back a step, her gaze disconcerted. “I don’t like your tone of voice. Nor do I have to be sensible for you.”

A small silence fell. The emotion-fraught evening, their jealousies, the reasons for their separation, were all deterrents to a facile reconciliation.

“My apologies,” he finally said.

“You’re sure.”

Silence again.

“You want me to beg, don’t you? When—” He took a deep restraining breath. Supplication was disastrously new to him.

“When what?” Perhaps she’d drunk too much wine
tonight in the debacle of Amelia’s dinner party, she thought, her temper high. Or maybe she
did
want him to beg.

His dark eyes narrowed and he looked for a moment at his fingers, scraped raw by his climb. “All right, then. When all the men around you at Amelia’s seemed to be enjoying your seductive charms without groveling.”

“I’m singling you out, you’re saying?”

“Do you want the truth?”

“By all means.”

“I don’t think I can grovel.”

“But you’re not sure.”

“Fuck you.”

“Go home. I didn’t
ask
you to come.”

“Would you prefer Lord Jeffrey?”

“Hardly.”

“Or Winton?”

“No.”

“The Marquis of Rosslyn, perhaps?” They’d all been around her tonight, eager and waiting.

“No, no, no to all of them. Does that soothe your ego?”

“My ego isn’t involved.”

“And what is?”

“My heart.”

“And?”

He sighed. “Don’t bait me, Roxie. I didn’t come here to fight.”

“And yet you do.”

“I care too much. It’s easier to charm when you don’t give a damn.”

“Casual amours are less unnerving.”

He grimaced slightly. “Lord, you’re in a mood.”

“Perhaps watching you with a dozen other women put me out of sorts. And then, of course, that scene in the entrance hall rather nicely sealed my evening.”

“Mine wasn’t much better,” he muttered, thinking of the banal company he’d had to endure. “But I can improve the remainder of the night if you’d let me. Look.” He held out his hands. “This is the third time I’ve bled for you.”

“I’m supposed to be placated by your blood?”

“No, you’re supposed to love me as much as I love you,” he gently said. “Please, Roxie, haven’t we fought enough?”

His words, soft as velvet, seemed to insinuate themselves into her outrage and smooth away the worst of her ire. But uncertain still, her feelings disastrously in flux, she wasn’t sure she could deal with all the complexities of loving Robbie Carre. “I need an apology at least. Or maybe a shipful.”

“I’d gladly lay ten thousand apologies at your feet. Or a million, if you’ll smile for me again.”

His pride and arrogance tightly curbed, he stood before her, barefoot, half-undressed, tall, and powerful, his hands bloodied for her, his apology laid at her feet.

“I don’t know,” she said on the faintest breaths, overcome by his earnestness and her own desires, by an enticing happiness that always overcame her in his presence. “I don’t know if I love you as you love me—or more.”

“No, not more,” he quietly answered. “It’s impossible.”

To be loved so much was like putting flame to the tinder of her impressionable, flaring passions, and she smiled, an open, warm smile.