Read Online Susan Johnson by Outlaw (Carre) - Free Book Online Page A

here?” He was pawing through the stack of prints on his desk. “I think you’ll find all your suggestions appropriately incorporated. Elizabeth has already given them her approval,” he finished, looking up with a grin.
    Momentarily startled at the obvious informality between his architect and hostage houseguest, Johnnie’s gaze quickly regauged their proximity. And his next reflection, decidedly possessive in nature, questioned the exact measure of that friendship with a jaundiced glance. “Really,” he said, “in that case you must show me them.” And he strode into the room with the grudging resentment of a guardian protecting his personal property.
    Ignorant to Johnnie’s misjudged suspicions as he surveyed the array of new designs, Elizabeth and Munro jointly annotated the redesigned drawings. “Actually, Elizabeth helped draw these cross sections,” Munro noted when they came to the detail drawings.
    “He let me handle the unimportant details,” Elizabeth interjected with a grin.
    “Never say the foundation is unimportant,” Munro gallantly protested.
    “Well, just boring then,” she cheerfully pointed out. “You did all the beautiful relief arabesques—and most wonderfully, I might add.” The smile that passed between Elizabeth and Munro was duly noted by the Laird of Ravensby.
    “Although tomorrow,” Elizabeth went on, “you
must
let me try my hand on the cartouche.”
    And Johnnie was shocked to see her stick her tongue out at Munro as a child would at play.
    “Or will you pout?” Munro teased.
    “I most certainly will.”
    “In that case I have no choice.”
    “How insightful. You see,” she playfully said, turning to Johnnie in her good spirits as though he were a part of their banter, “how accommodating he is?”
    “Indeed.” And the single quiet word wiped the smile from her face, so sharp its query.
    “Acquit me, Ravensby,” she snapped, “from the multitude of your sins.” She’d changed completely in that flashing second from a lighthearted maid to an imperious female, her expression one of disdain.
    “Johnnie, you’re out of bounds,” Munro said quickly. “Apologize.”
    They were friends, the two men, cousins raised in the same household, but Johnnie’s eyes when they swiveled to Munro held no friendship. “As Laird,” the chief Lord in Roxburgh said to his cousin, “I have no bounds.”
    “She’s not like your other women, Johnnie.” Unintimidated, often in disagreement with Johnnie over the years, Munro pugnaciously repeated, “Apologize to Lady Graham.”
    “And if I don’t?” While he’d been uncommonly circumspect in his desires, when he’d been denying himself like a chaste knight, Elizabeth Graham and his cousin had been enjoying a flirtation.
    “That’s enough!” Elizabeth sharply exclaimed, rising from her chair, the anger in her voice distinct. “You’re mistaken, Lord Graden, in your presumptions. Although with your reputation it’s understandable. Kindly excuse me from this unsavory discussion. Hotchane would have had you both thrown into the river to cool off.”
    “He could have tried,” Johnnie darkly muttered, still heated from an unrecognizable jealousy.
    “Hotchane survived seventy-eight years, my Lord, because he enforced his will with his Redesdale army.”
    “But he’s dead now, my Lady,” Johnnie murmured. “And the Redesdale army is across the border.”
    “Are you threatening me?”
    “Of course not.” His voice had further hushed.
    “Kindly recall I’m a hostage. There are certain rules.”
    “And kindly recall
I
make the rules here.”
    She paused for the space of a heartbeat. “I see.” Drawing a small breath, she sarcastically went on, “In that case I no doubt require your permission to leave.”
    “Leave?” The tone of his voice required more definition from her.
    “This room.”
    He hesitated just long enough for discourtesy, an implied lesson on the extent of his power in the Borders.
    He nodded