The Passionate One (28 page)

Rhiannon stood up
and let Gunna slip the bodice about her and fasten the ties. “What was he like?
I don’t remember much of him.”

“Yer father?” Gunna
asked. “I thought ye dinna
want
to remember.
Any
of it.
That’s what ye told me the morning after ye come here and that’s more than a
week gone by.”

“I won’t be
remembering,” Rhiannon whispered. “I dinna... I mean I do not think I ever knew
him enough to remember him.”

Faintly now, every
now and again, she could hear a trace of her mother’s soft rolling burr in her
own voice. It disconcerted her. She belonged in Fair Badden, not here. Yet
slowly, day by day, she felt her former self slipping away and a new creature
emerging to take her place, a bold creature with a Highland accent and, if Fia
Merrick were to be trusted—which she was not—a direct, impervious expression.

“Oh, then that’s
different,” Gunna said mockingly, holding out her hand to support Rhiannon as
she stepped into the pooled circle of wool on the floor.

“Gunna, please,”
Rhiannon said as the old woman drew the skirts up and over stiff petticoats,
since Rhiannon eschewed hoops.

The old woman
sighed heavily. “He was an honorable man and a loyal one, Miss Russell. When
the McClairen called, yer dad came forthwith and brought with him such men as
he could muster.”

“But what was he
like?” Rhiannon urged.

“I dinna know him.”
Gunna shook her head.

It was no more than
she’d expected. Where would an old serving woman become intimate with a minor Highland chieftain?

“Is there anyone
here, anyone at Wanton’s Blush who might remember him or my mother or brother?
Anyone who could tell me some stories?”

Gunna shook her
head. “This wasn’t Russell land, dear. ’Twas McClairen.”

Rhiannon caught
Gunna’s hand. “But my family was loyal to the McClairen. Perhaps there is a
McClairen hereabouts who might have known my family?”

Gunna hesitated.

“Gunna? Please. I
thought when I came here that I would be haunted by the souls of those murdered
in the reprisals. But if there are ghosts here, they’re a timid lot and must be
lured from hiding to tell their tales.”

“The McClairens are
an outlawed breed, miss,” Gunna said, gently pulling her hand free of
Rhiannon’s light clasp.

“I just want to
hear the stories, Gunna.” When had this become so important to her? “The
stories my mother never had the chance to tell me.”

Gunna stared at her
a second then cleared her throat. “Will ye be walking with Mr. Donne this
morning?”

Rhiannon’s gaze
fell in disappointment. Apparently Gunna had decided she was not to be trusted.
She would have sworn that the old woman knew a McClairen or two. Well, the only
way to win her trust was not to force her confidences.

“No,” she said.
“Not today.”

Thomas Donne had
made it his habit to meet her after an early breakfast and escort her on her
turn about the back garden. He was handsome, urbane, and his attentions were
warm with consideration. But today she wouldn’t be satisfied with a walk in the
seaside gardens. Today she wanted to follow the path she’d spied from the far
gate, a thin line that skirted the cliff tops.

Gunna said nothing
more, simply finished fastening the waistband and then pinning the embroidered
stomacher in place. Finished, she stepped back and eyed Rhiannon critically.
“Be careful, miss,” she said. “I dislike the thought of ye bein’ out there
alone.”

“But I won’t be,”
Rhiannon replied, her thoughts returning to Ash in his window, vigilantly
watching over her.

Rhiannon swung open
the old gate and picked her way cautiously along the narrow path that followed
the cliffs. She’d gone some distance before she came upon a rocky outcrop
jutting over the sea. Heedless of Fia’s borrowed dress and her thin shoes she
scrambled atop and stood up.

The wind blew
heavily here, lashing her loosened hair across her cheeks and throat and
whipping the heavy skirts back up and over her petticoats. Far below, the sea
crashed against the jagged teeth edging the island’s shore, the subsequent fine
mist shimmering in the air below. Above this, a phalanx of pure white gulls had
caught the updraft from the sea and hovered, suspended just beyond her reach.

Rhiannon closed her
eyes and lifted her arms, letting the gusty wind buffet her body, pretending
she too might fly. A sense of homecoming enveloped her. She’d done this before!
She’d stood on some high point overlooking this same sea, spread her arms, and
imagined she was flying.

She shivered, but
not with the near panic with which she’d looked out at the sea on her arrival
here. She shivered with emotion. She’d once loved the sea. She’d forgotten—

“Step back.”

Her eyes flew open
at the sound of his voice and she started to spin about but her shoe heel
caught in the shale and she began to slip— Strong hands snatched her up, pulled
her back tightly against a hard chest.

“Dear God, what
were you thinking?” Ash’s voice, warm and low, swept over her ear, his lips
tangling in the loose hair at her temple.

The hands gripping
her upper arms did not release her. Between her shoulder blades she could feel
his heart pound against her back, the muscle of his thighs press against her
rump.

And, God help her,
God forgive her, that’s all that was needed to bring a wave of longing rushing
over her with such devastating power that she nearly turned in his embrace and
wrapped her arms about him.

What was she that
she longed to lay beneath this man? Mad or craven or as dissolute as the women
whom Fia watched pant after him?

“You mustn’t!” he
grated out. His voice vibrated with anger. “You can’t. God,
not here.
Not anywhere!”

She started at his
unexpected words, tried to break free but his grip held fast, bruising her
upper arms.

Abruptly she
realized what he was saying. Dear Lord, he thought she’d been about to fling
herself into the sea when in fact she’d been lusting after him!

A burble of
hilarity escaped her and he shook her violently.

“Damn you!
Damn
you,
if you think to escape me by such foul means.”

She twisted but
still he would not let her go, instead wheeling her violently and catching hold
of her again. He grasped her chin, forcing her head up, forcing her to meet his
eyes. His lips curled back over his teeth in a feral expression. “I will tie
you to my bed and force food and drink down your throat and keep you there for
all eternity before I will let you harm yourself.”

He meant it. The
violence he held in check scared her, and he’d never scared her before. Every
vestige of the man who’d arrived in Fair Badden was gone, leaving this stranger
with his burning eyes and punishing grip.

“I was not going to
throw myself off,” she said, and swallowed. “I swear it.”

The fury stayed in
his eyes a full minute as his gaze raked her face, searching her countenance.
Slowly the fingers digging into her skin relaxed, the tautness about his mouth
eased and with it her fear.

Anger took its
place. He thought her so pitiful that she would kill herself rather than live
here? That she was so undone by his betrayal that life no longer held any
meaning for her?

God help her, she
might be unable to banish the memory of his haunted, passion-filled eyes from
her thoughts, or forget the soft touch of his hand caressing her, but she still
owned her pride. She was still Rhiannon Russell.

“Nothing,
nothing,
you or your family could ever do to me could make me take my own life,” she
said in a voice quivering with ill-suppressed emotion.

He watched her
intently.

“I watched my
father bayoneted to death rather than give away the whereabouts of his men. I
saw my uncle shot in the head still defiant even though he lay helpless on a
frost-covered moor. I share their blood. How dare you think I’d kill myself
over the likes of you?” she spat out.

“I beg your
forgiveness,” he said through stiff lips. “I should have known better.”

“Yes.” She raked
him with her scorn. “Take your hands from me! They’re filthy. I’m not one of
your fascinated jades panting to discover if your embrace is as feral as your
looks!”

His chin drew back
sharply. He dropped his hands as if she’d scalded him and he tore his gaze from
her, as though he found the sight of her painful. He looked down at the
crashing sea, breathing heavily through his nostrils.

She regarded him
angrily. The unkempt tangle of the black hair falling down his lean cheeks and
beard-darkened jaw was dull and lank. Mauve stains marked his eyes, and an old
bruise colored one brow.

She was about to
look away when she discerned the faintest tremor in his hands hanging loose at
his sides. She looked back up at his averted profile, studying it closer.

She saw now that
his pallor hadn’t been unhealthily white, the blood had literally drained from
his face. She knew this because the hue was slowly returning. His lips were
still chalky and the manner in which he held himself suggested a sudden
overpowering enervation, not anger. My God, she realized with a sense of
discovery, of wonder—he’d been afraid. Not merely afraid. Terrified. For her
sake.

Confusion churned
her emotions into an unrecognizable brew. She wanted to touch him, to smooth
the fine lines from his forehead and the corners of his eyes. She wanted to
shout at him and rail against what he’d done to her—to them.

She did neither.
She drew back and had begun to move past him when she saw the long length of
material on the rock behind him, a plaid woven in rich heather, gold, and
emerald greens. She frowned and picked it up, turning to regard him askance,
and found he was already watching her.

“What is this?” she
asked.

A corner of his
mouth turned up in mockery. “Gunna said you’d come out without a cloak. I’ll
not have you dead by any means, Rhiannon. Not by your hand or nature’s
ministrations. That’s the McClairen plaid.”

She stared down at
it. He confounded her. She did not know what to expect from him next.

“Why?” she
breathed.

“Gunna said as
you’d been asking after your family. Your family’s history and my mother’s were
interwoven.” His voice was flat. “Take it. But don’t let Carr see it. Any token
of the McClairens enrages him.”

With so few words
he gave her a piece of her history, a piece of her past. Emotion clotted her
throat. He could not know how important this was to her, how much it meant, and
yet she could not rid herself of the notion that he
did
know. She
carefully draped the tartan around her like a precious relic.

“Thank you.” She
touched his arm in a spontaneous gesture of gratitude. His lips curled
derisively.

“Don’t thank me.
It’s not but an old rag. And don’t come out here again.” His gaze shifted down
toward the boulders at the cliffs base. A little tick jumped in his cheek. “It
isn’t safe.”

Before she could
reply, he brushed passed her and strode away. He did not look back.

Ash heard Carr
speaking in the hall just outside the door. Quickly he shrugged out of his
jacket and pulled his shirt free of his breeches. He flung himself into one of
the gothic chairs that stood beside Carr’s desk.

He would never have
dared entered his father’s office at all had he not noticed Carr leaving the
gaming table in the adjoining room via the hall. The office door had remained
unlocked.

Rifling through
Carr’s desk had been a risky venture, but since Ash’s arrival it had been his
first opportunity to discover the reason behind Carr’s interest in Rhiannon
Russell.

Now, when Carr
opened the door, he would find Ash sprawled in one of his prize imports, his
leg draped over the arm, his head lolling forward on his chest, his arm hanging
bonelessly by his side, and his hand brushing the neck of a half-emptied wine
bottle. The cool draft of an opening door filtered over Ash’s hands. He
strained his ears and heard the candles lighting the orderly surface of Carr’s
desk sputter irritably.

Ash opened his eyes
to slits, taking the chance that it would be a few seconds before Carr’s eyes
could adjust to the dim light. Carr’s gaze darted about the room, falling on
the position of the few papers on his desk, the surface of the drawers, and
flicking, for just one telling instant, over the mantelpiece.

So, that was where
Carr kept his treasures. The rigidity in his father’s body eased, he turned his
attention to Ash.

“What are you doing
in here, Merrick?” Carr asked, his voice pitched low, testing.

Ash sighed deeply.

“Merrick!”

“Humph?” Ash
grunted. “Say, what? Did I win then?”

“What are you doing
in here?” Carr again demanded.