The Passionate One (21 page)

Wildly, she twisted
in Ash’s hold, fighting him. “No!”

“For the love of
God, man,” Phillip pleaded. “Can’t you see she’s frantic? Let us go back to
Fraiser’s. Discuss this. Whatever you and Rhiannon have done—”

“What we have
done?” Ash laughed harshly. “I have
had
her, Watt! I’ve taken her
maidenhead. Don’t you understand? She’s no longer a virgin bride. You won’t
marry her now. No one would expect you to.”

Rhiannon hissed
with fury at Ash’s betrayal. He’d promised! And he’d not only lied, but was
deliberately provoking Phillip, taunting him.

Savagely she
wrenched around in Ash’s arms, scoring his wrists with her nails. He did not
even counter her frantic clawing. There was nothing malleable or soft in him.

“If you are trying
to assuage your guilt over abducting her, it’s not that easy, Merrick.”
Phillip’s face was pale, white lines bracketing his nostrils, his jaw
trembling. “We can still marry. Other brides have not been virgins. Leave her
here, Merrick. I assure you, no one will call off the wedding.”

“You leave me no
choice but to take her,” Rhiannon thought she heard Ash say under his breath.
His horse danced sideways.

“You cannot simply
steal her like this,” Phillip said.

She felt more than
saw the curl of Ash’s lip as he turned his horse away and set his heels to its
sides.

“Oh, but I can.”

Chapter Seventeen

Late that afternoon
in an unnamed hamlet thirty miles west of Fair Badden, a single horse rode into
the yard of the local blacksmith. It carried a dark man riding behind a tousled
young woman. The smithy abandoned his bellows, wiping his own hands on his
leather apron. He did not like the looks of this pair.

First off, they
were quality. Dusty quality, sweat-stained and travel-worn quality, but quality
nonetheless. But, it weren’t that they were quality alone that set a nerve
twitching beneath the smithy’s eye. It were that they were quality on the run,
and running hard from the looks of them and their barrel-chested, lathered
horse.

The girl looked
exhausted. The man, a hard and tensile-looking creature, took no note of his
companion’s condition. He dismounted, leaving the girl sagging in the saddle.

The smithy, a fond
father with daughters of his own, moved forward until he saw the sparkle of
fury in the girl’s bright eyes. A lovers’ spat, perhaps, thought the smithy.
Perhaps his interference would not be appreciated. Though if his lover had
looked at him like the girl glared at the man’s back, he’d have looked
elsewhere for his sport no matter what the lure of reddish hair and a full
bosom.

A glance at the
watchful way the dark man waited—limbs balanced just so—added its counsel
urging the smithy to mind his own business. A nasty-looking customer, the
stranger.

“I need a horse.”
The man pointed at the roan mare fenced in the yard beside the smithy.

His speech marked
him a city man, as did his tight breeches and the pearl blade handle protruding
from the folded edge of his boots.

“And a saddle, too.
Not a lady’s saddle. I’ll pay in coin,” he said and named a sum far exceeding
the worth of either horse or leather, and the smithy, what with all those
beloved daughters, abandoned chivalry in the interest of practicality.
Daughters liked dresses.

The smithy caught
the mare and tied her at the fence before fetching an old saddle from its peg.

“May I get down?”
he heard the lass ask. From the stilted sound of her voice and the blood rising
in her cheeks, the smithy guessed she disliked making the request.

The man studied her
a minute. She lifted her chin defiantly. Proud lass. Foolish lass. The man’s
mouth tightened but he went to her and without word or warning plucked her from
her perch.

“No.” Her single
word was denial—repudiation and calm, frigid command. “Don’t touch me.”

The man’s narrow
face dulled with color but he did not set her down. He swung about, the lass in
his arms as stiff as a paste doll.

“You’ll go round
back there,” he said to her. “And you’ll come back before the mare’s done being
saddled.”

He set her down,
stepping back before she could push him away. She yanked up her heavy skirts
and paced off behind the smithy, her hem swishing angrily.

“Yore wife?” the
smithy asked, pricked again by the unwelcome call of gallantry.

“Don’t think of
interfering, friend,” the man advised. “It will only get you hurt.”

The smithy could
fair believe that but still if the lass needed him...

The young woman
reappeared a minute later and watched while the smithy finished cinching the
girth strap. Nothing was revealed on that pretty face. It was as blank as a
churchyard angel’s. As soon as the saddle was on, the man tied a lead rope to
the mare’s bridle and called to the young beauty.

For the first time,
something other than anger showed on her face. Her eyes shimmered with telling
moisture. The man called out again. She bit down on her lip, approaching the
mare at a foot-dragging pace.

Once more he swept
her up into his arms. Once more she went rigid, a shudder passing through her
slight frame. And then, as if against her will, she flung her arms full around
the man’s neck. With a soft whimper, she pushed her face against his throat.
Tears ran down her smooth cheeks. She clung to him like moss to a rock, her
body—before so rigid and denying—now malleable and entreating.

The man froze, a
slight check no longer than a heartbeat, before disentangling the girl’s arms
from his throat and lifting her into the saddle. He turned his back on her at
once.

All the fight
seeped from her posture; a lost and bewildered expression appeared on her face.
And when she looked at the man, something bled from her eyes that the smithy
recognized from long ago and that mostly from dreams, and troubled dreams at
that.

How could the man
rebuff this woman?

Then the dark
stranger strode past the smithy to mount his own steed. His face was averted
from the lady and the smithy saw him close his eyes, clenching them tight, and
the smithy knew that the cost of his seeming callousness was immense.

They traveled north
throughout the evening. Ash stopped once at a farm and bought some bread and
cheese from the timid woman who answered the door.

Rhiannon did not
speak. After forging that outrageous tale about someone deliberately maiming
Stella and trying to kill her, Ash had made no attempt to speak, either.

For her part, she
had no words to say to this... devil. He’d taken them in with his polished
manners and ready laughter, his easy smile and amiable charm. They’d fed him,
and sheltered him, allowing him time to regain his strength, unaware they’d
harbored a predator in their midst.

Bitterly, she
wondered what he wanted now. She’d already given him what men value most.
Perhaps, the acrid thought occurred to her, he’d never considered allowing her
to marry Phillip. Perhaps he’d merely taken the opportunity for a profitable
holiday, all along planning on taking her to this Lord Carr. Perhaps her
infatuation had merely been an agreeable happenstance.

Clearly, he no
longer wanted her as his lover. He touched her, yes, but only to assert his strength
and her comparative weakness, to show her, she was sure, how easily he could
have of her whatever he wished. To frighten her.

He succeeded.

With no reins to
clutch, her fingers had grown numb from gripping the rolled edge of the saddle.
Her back ached with each step the mare took but she would not ask for mercy.
Her thoughts swirled between a dream and waking state.

She had no idea how
long he intended to ride. The moon had long since risen above the rutted
country road. Its pale light smothered the landscape in a ghostly cowl.
Crickets chimed from the grass, and an occasional night-dwelling predator
rustled in the ditches, yellow eyes glowing flat and incurious. She’d seen
their like before.

Images and
sensations flicked through her mind. Memories were like wolves waiting for the
door to open to come ravening in, and each mile forced the door open, inch by
painful inch.

The sharp line of
moonlight cresting the mountain. Muted voices whispering from the hiding hole
in the clansman’s croft. The staccato of hoofbeats. Scarlet coats made black by
the night, suddenly illumined by torch fire. Discovery. Panic. Shouts...

No!

Her head snapped
upright, her stomach roiling, the taste of bile thick on her tongue. Dizzy and
disoriented she stared about her.

They were rounding
a curve. Ahead, an inn squatted beside a crossroads. Bright light poured from
small windows, and a curl of smoke stood pale against the indigo sky. Ash
halted, waiting until she was alongside him to speak.

“We’ll stop there
for the night,” he said. “You won’t say anything or do anything to cause a...
situation.”

“Why won’t I?” she
muttered, head aching dully.

“Because it
wouldn’t do you any good,” he replied. “I have papers naming me your guardian
in my father’s stead. No commoner is going to challenge the Earl of Carr’s will
or, by extension, mine. And if you should bedevil some half-drunk farmer into
thinking himself Galahad to your damsel in distress, remember, his wounds would
be your doing.”

“No. Please.”

No, please!
Come out! The smoke...

“You wouldn’t want
more guilt on your tender conscience, would you, Rhiannon?”

She shivered.

“I would think that
particular cup is full.”

“Bastard.”

“Unfortunately
quite legitimate.” He yanked on the lead rope.

At the inn, he
dismounted and came to her side, lifting his arms. Weakly, she slapped his
hands away. He stepped back and watched her pull her feet free of the stirrups
and slide to the ground. Her legs, numbed from so long in the saddle, buckled.

He reached her as
she collapsed, lifting her. “Don’t be a fool. Hurting yourself isn’t going to
make me return you to Fair Badden.”

“What will?” she
asked weakly.

“Nothing.” He
clipped out a command to care for their horses to the tired boy who
materialized beside them. Then he kicked open the inn’s door and ducked beneath
the low lintel.

A gristle-cheeked
innkeeper blinked at their sudden appearance.

“I need a room,”
Ash said. “And the lady needs a basin of fresh water, towels. We’ll eat now,
while you prepare it.”

Rhiannon squinted
around the room, praying she would recognize someone of authority, someone who
could stop this madman. There was no one. A pair of rough-looking travelers
eyed her interestedly until their gazes fell on Ash.

“See them scars on
his wrists? Manacles,” she heard one mutter to the other. “Seen ’em before.
Tattoo of the prisons.”

Manacles?
Prison?

“Now,” Ash barked
at the innkeeper.

“Yes, sir!” The man
pattered off behind a door.

With a predatory
smile at the two travelers, Ash moved to the fire. He set her down on a stool
and dragged a small table in front of her, settling himself on a chair across
from her, effectively penning her into the corner.

Heedless of him,
she leaned her head against the wall. Her eyelids drifted shut until a rich,
earthy aroma filled her nostrils. She opened her eyes. Two steaming bowls sat
on the table beside a half loaf of dark bread and a bottle of wine. Her stomach
rumbled loudly as she tried to focus her vision. A sickeningly familiar
sensation of near-starvation swept over her with all its eviscerating power.
Saliva drenched the interior of her mouth.

“For God’s sake,”
she heard Ash say, “eat.”

Shamelessly she
lifted the wooden bowl and slurped down the thick, viscous liquid in great
gulps. She was starving. Ravenous. Her hands shook as she tore into the stale
bread and rammed a piece atop the mouthful of mutton stew.

She was breathing
too fast, eating too fast, and the wine she sloshed into her mouth to chase
down each mouthful of bread stifled the air from her throat.

Memory became
present.

Time turned inside
out.

Hunger.
Excruciating hunger. She hadn’t eaten in days. Nothing but berries and water.
They hadn’t dared poach a rabbit or build a fire. The redcoats would see.

Fear and flight.
Hounded and hunted on roads, on foot, at night. The mocking moon made crossing
the fields near suicidal. They skulked in the ditches, as the soldiers drove
the roads, hunting down clansmen, all those men who’d answered the McClairen’s
call. The smell of gunpowder. The smell of blood. Men screaming. The mountains
looming.
The Highlands.

She stared
wild-eyed at the cold-eyed stranger sitting opposite her. He was taking her
back there.