The Passionate One (31 page)

Rhiannon
would
not
let it happen again. And yet... God help her. “Why are you so sure he
wasn’t simply dallying with me?”

Gunna looked at her
in patent disgust. “That’s easy enough,” she said. “Ash Merrick hates his
father. He would never use a woman for mere sport if for no other reason than
that his father would.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The crowd gathering
in the great hall for the midday entertainment vibrated with excitement.
Titters of excited laughter rose from behind the agitated flutter of fans. The
novelty of rising early these past few days still fascinated this jaded group.
Besides, when the spectacle ended, nothing prevented them from returning to
their beds, which they often did.

Thomas Donne stood
near the bottom of the marble staircase and glanced up to where a flash of
bronze satin on the landing high above had caught his eye.

So the Scottish
fledgling had escaped her gilt cage, he thought. Perhaps when Carr’s guests
moved to the stable yard, she would descend, but not until then. She was as
leery of human contact as a kestrel. Donne could not fault her. She was out of
place in this cesspool.

After a second’s
hesitation, Donne stationed himself at the foot of the stairs and waited, vexed
by his unlikely concern.

Rhiannon Russell
touched his heart, and Thomas Donne thought he’d long since mastered every bit
of that organ. But her wild, fragile beauty and that loose, easy stride of hers
recalled other girls with auburn hair and free-moving grace. Even all those
English manners some matron had imposed on her could not mask her direct gaze
or canny nature.

He’d forgotten how
differently the Scottish raise their lassies. There was no falseness in
Rhiannon. One got the notion that she saw every deceit a man perpetuated on
others... and on himself. It was a compelling sensation and an unsettling one.
He knew better than to rhapsodize over the past.

But in Rhiannon
Russell he saw the best of Scotland. He looked at her and recalled brae heirs
and valiant sons, killed or imprisoned or sent off to rot in England’s penal colonies. Aye, looking at Rhiannon Russell was a bittersweet endeavor but
one he could not deny himself.

A week ago he’d
discovered that she woke early and moved about the castle freely while the rest
of Carr’s guests slept. Since he seldom found peace in slumber and even less
here at Wanton’s Blush, he’d made it a habit to seek her company.

She didn’t seem to
mind. Over the course of those short hours he’d discovered Rhiannon had other
traits besides beauty and honesty. Each day she seemed to gain more of a
singular strength, the sort of strength that comes from abandoning oneself to
fate, of moving past fear. It was a characteristic with which he was well
acquainted. He and Rhiannon Russell had much in common.

He leaned back
against the newel and scanned the thinning company. Beneath their piled wigs,
their faces were slack with witless hunger and numb desire. If he had a jot of
red blood in his veins, he would take Rhiannon out of here this very night. No
one would miss her until dawn. During the evenings she kept to herself and Carr
never asked after her... Carr. Aye. That was the danger and the enigma.

Donne was not the
only one who thought so. Several times, when the revelries had wound to a
temporary end, Ash Merrick had sobered up and sought Donne out. Ash belabored
Donne on every point he’d discovered about the Russell family and Rhiannon’s
hypothetical brother. Despite his penchant for debauchery—and just lately his
wholehearted pursuit of it—Merrick still owned a subtle intelligence.

The reminder killed
Donne’s urge to chivalry. No one would notice if he took Rhiannon Russell—no
one except Ash Merrick. A ruthless sort of gentleman, one a wise man would not
lightly cross.

And Thomas Donne
was a most wise man.

“Do you still pine
for your bucolic home?” Fia looked over Rhiannon’s shoulder and met her
reflected gaze in the mirror.

“Yes,” Rhiannon
replied. “I miss Fair Badden very much.”

Fia’s heavy eyelids
sank over her dark eyes. “Well, darling, you don’t seem to be wasting away from
the effects. You’re in blooming good looks.”

Rhiannon finished
twisting her hair into a knot atop her head and pushed herself away from the
dressing table. “Thank you. I think.”

“Why is that, do
you suppose?” Fia asked silkily. “Do you suppose you were not as happy at Fair
Badden as you claim? Or perhaps your heart was never as fully engaged as you
thought?”

The little witch,
Rhiannon thought with a sharp glance at the girl. Her expression softened when
she saw that her glare had disconcerted the girl. That was the trouble with
Fia; innocence and jaded knowledge inexorably twined together to form her
character.

Most of the time
Rhiannon couldn’t decide whether Fia’s questions were deliberately provocative
and biting or astoundingly innocent and honest. And perhaps she was angered
with Fia because Fia was in some small way right.

“I do not doubt,
Miss Fia, that I loved well Mrs. Fraiser. Every day I think of her and miss her
very much and hope that she does not grieve for me or worry.” Fia was watching
her fiercely, her brows puckered uncharacteristically in concentration.

“But, perhaps,”
Rhiannon went on, “Fair Badden does not hold the place in my heart I thought it
did. Perhaps no place is anything more than what memory and experience make
it.”

The girl held
Rhiannon’s gaze for one long moment before Fia nodded shortly. “You should
write a letter to your Mrs. Fraiser.”

“I can do that?”
Rhiannon asked in surprise.

“Of course,” Fia
said coolly. “This isn’t Bedlam, Miss Russell, it’s a castle. We do have
servants for that sort of thing. Write her a letter—she can read? Good, and
I’ll have it delivered.”

Nonplussed by Fia’s
detached magnanimity, Rhiannon rose to her feet and smiled tentatively. “Thank
you... I will. Your kindness—”

“You really should
let Gunna fit you with a wig. With your eye color a pale silver would be astonishing.”
Rhiannon quelled the impulse to smile. Fia was as disconcerted by having made
the offer as Rhiannon had been on hearing it and she was seeking to cover her
awkwardness. The least Rhiannon could do was to help her out.

“I dislike wigs,”
Rhiannon said. “Nits.”

“I don’t have
lice!” Fia cried.

Rhiannon raised her
brows. “Of course not.”

Fia frowned. “We’d
best be going. Have you finished? No powder, either? No beauty mark?”

“No.” Rhiannon
swept past the girl and through the door, smiling when she heard the trip of
Fia’s feet hastening to catch up. She was a tiny thing.

“Carr won’t like
your dress,” Fia warned breathlessly on making Rhiannon’s side. She eyed
Rhiannon’s gown as they began descending the stairs. “Too
jeune fille
.”

Rhiannon was
unconcerned with Carr’s sartorial approval. Ash Merrick and Fia’s curiosity
about her family in Fair Badden occupied her thoughts. “You have another
brother, do you not?”

“Yes. Raine. He’s a
few years younger than Ash. Big, rough-looking fellow.”

“I don’t believe I’ve
met him.”

“Well, darling, you
wouldn’t lest you’d been loitering about French prison yards,” Fia said
complacently.

Rhiannon halted.
“Prison?”

Fia sighed and
stopped also. “Yes. I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew. Ash was
imprisoned, too. Until Carr ransomed him almost a year ago.”

Prison
bracelets.
The scars he wore were from manacles.
“What— But why—”

Fia
tched
gently. “Carr does not tolerate stuttering.”

“Why were your
brothers imprisoned in France?”

Fia shrugged with
elegant unconcern. “My mother was Scottish, you know. She was quite the little
Jacobite loyalist, I’m told. She sought to involve Carr in her dramas. Carr
played along with her.”

Did it not occur to
the girl that she was Scottish, too? Rhiannon wondered.

“Her relatives
eventually proved valuable during the rebellion of forty-five. Carr furnished
the Duke of Cumberland with information he’d acquired through them. In return,
Wanton’s Blush was given to Carr.”

Rhiannon barely
heard the last part.
Cumberland
.
The Butcher of Culloden. The
floor dipped beneath her feet. She looked up, light-headed, and found Fia’s
lovely gaze fastened on her in puzzlement.

“Go on,” Rhiannon
said faintly.

“After Culloden,
those of my mother’s relatives still living discovered Carr’s true allegiance.”

His treachery,
thought Rhiannon.

“They plotted to
ambush and kill him. Only they caught my brothers instead.” Fia’s slight,
childish shoulders lifted in a dismissive shrug. “Their captors didn’t know
what to do with them. For probably the only time in their lives my brothers had
cause to bless their Scottish blood.

“For valueless as
my mother had been to her relatives, they were a loyal lot. They disliked the
thought of killing her sons. So, they handed them over to their French allies
to be used as hostages, thinking they would break Carr’s back financially.
Within days of their capture Ash and Raine were in a French gaol. The
conspirators were, by the way, soon after rounded up and dispatched.”

“Why is Raine still
in prison?” Rhiannon asked in bewilderment. “Your clothes, the jewels, the
food, this place... surely Carr can afford to ransom him?”

“He didn’t try.”
Fia’s elegant chin rose. “To give in to such demands would only encourage
further tactics of that sort. He explained it to me.”

Dear God, Rhiannon
thought numbly, what manner of wasps’ nest was this? A father who would not
ransom his own sons long after the hostilities that had resulted in their
captivity had ended? A cold, emotionless girl who supported such monstrous
disloyalty?

“But Ash is free,”
Rhiannon said.

“Yes...” Fia’s brow
lined in perplexity. “Carr ransomed Ash. I must own, he never explained that to
me...” She glanced at Rhiannon and her brow once more smoothed. “Not that it
matters. I’m sure Carr had excellent reasons. It’s imperative that one see each
situation for what it is without allowing sentiment to cloud one’s judgment.”

“Is that what
paternal affection is, a clouding sentiment?”

“You don’t
understand.”

“Don’t you miss
your brother?”

Color simmered
beneath the smooth powdered surface covering Fia’s face. “I don’t know him. I
don’t know either of them. Carr said they had been too much under the influence
of my mother as children and it has irrevocably marked them. He says they are
unfit companions for me. Besides, Ash and Raine have never demonstrated any
concern for me.” A sliver of bitterness disturbed her usually suave voice.

“But still, they
are your brothers,” Rhiannon insisted. “Don’t you wonder how Raine is? If he
suffers? If he hopes for release and is doubly tormented in captivity by
knowing his father refuses to pay for his freedom... perhaps even his life?”

“I don’t wonder at
all. What could such conjecture possibly accomplish?” Fia slowed her steps, as
though she wished to draw away.
“
You
are too emotional. An unfortunate characteristic Carr says is endemic in the
Highland Scot.

“Besides, Ash will
see that Raine is eventually freed. He’s obsessed with the idea. Why do you
think he agreed to waste all that time fetching you?”

Rhiannon could not
answer. Her thoughts spun in a chaotic whirl.

“Money. To be used
for Raine’s ransom,” Fia said in disgust.

Rhiannon stared at
her unseeingly. “Are you sure?”

Fia lifted her
shoulders indifferently. “I conjecture. What else is he spending his money on?
Certainly not clothes!” She sniffed.

“Miss Russell!” A
deep, masculine burr drew Rhiannon’s stricken gaze from Fia’s inimical one.

Thomas Donne strode
up the stairs two at a time, his hard face softening at the sight of Rhiannon.
Beside her Fia’s expression grew guarded.

The girl drew back
on Donne’s approach, as though she could not bear for him to see her with her
eyes bright and her skin flushed. Donne did not spare her a glance.

“You’re not going
to the fight, are you, Miss Russell?” he said to Rhiannon.

“I’m afraid I don’t
know what you mean,” Rhiannon mumbled, the implications of what Fia had told
her wheeling through her mind. “Lord Carr insisted that I attend some sort of
entertainment. He said nothing about a fight. Not a cockfight? Or bear baiting.
I can’t abide either.”

Donne glanced sharply
at Fia. “No, Miss Russell. This is men fighting, bare-knuckled street savagery.
Nothing a lady should witness.”