The Passionate One (40 page)

Once more she
looked around, peering intently at the edges of the pasture, straining her ears
to hear any sound of pursuit. She crouched down and hobbled into the sea of
grass.

Stella’s heart was
more able than her body. She limped now with painful determination, no longer
capable of loping. She held her head up, nostrils quivering but moving on a
direct if painfully slow course, as if pulled by an invisible string. Driven by
a sense of foreboding, Ash left her behind. He cantered in the direction she
traveled, soon far outdistancing her.

Whatever path
Rhiannon had taken had obviously been the most torturous route possible.
Several times Ash had to dismount and lead his horse up a shale-slick incline
or around a series of jagged outcrops.

The sun was high
overhead when he entered a narrow valley a half-mile long. He pulled his mount
to halt, scanning the rocky walls embracing the glen. He saw nothing. He
carefully surveyed the swaying grasses before him. Again, nothing. His heart
thudded dully.

Stella could easily
have switched directions and even now closed in on Rhiannon while he floundered
about in an ocean of grass. He’d lost not only Rhiannon but also the hound that
had been leading him to her.

He stood in his
stirrups and cupped his hands and called out, “Rhiannon!”

He would not give
up. She was somewhere. Perhaps not here, but near. He could bloody
feel
her.

“Rhiannon!”

He waited, his body
stiff with tension, every nerve stretched. He would find her. He would search
the entire damn country if need be, but he would find her. His voice rose,
filled the valley, echoed off the stony mountain walls. “Rhiannon!”

Far away, near the
end of the glen a slender figure rose from the spring green grasses, a wood
sylph called by a mortal’s implacable summons. The sun blazed off her rich,
dark mane.

“Rhiannon!” He
spurred his horse forward and galloped like a madman across the field. He’d
almost reached her. Joy animated her wholly beautiful face—vanished, became
terror.

She stared past
him, shouted words made unintelligible by the rushing wind. He leaned forward,
only one thought driving him now; he had to reach—

A blow like thunder
caught his side, throwing him from the saddle. He hit the ground hard, his
momentum catapulting him sideways and tumbling him yards before he settled.
Blackness swam in manic circles around the edges of his vision. A woman was
shouting.
Rhiannon.

He slew about and
caught back an agonized cry as a sharp, lacerating pain drove through him. He
peered down, trying desperately to focus. His right arm was trapped at an
awkward angle beneath his body, and a dark, warm stain was seeping through his
shirt. He didn’t have time for this.

He shoved his good
arm into the ground, pushing up on his knees. The world spun madly. Arms swept
around him, the scent of pine tar and sweat and
her.
He clenched his
teeth, fighting the enveloping void.

“My God!” he heard
her say. “Dear God, Phillip, what have you done? Help me!”

Watt. Of course.
How well he’d courted that man’s hatred...

Rhiannon eased Ash
down to her lap, cradling his head, sheltering him as well as she could. He
gritted his teeth at the movement. Tears sprang to her eyes that she was
hurting him more than he’d already been hurt.

A shadow fell over
his face and she looked around, crouching lower over Ash’s body. Phillip Watt
stood above them, the pistol still smoking in his hand. His face was white, his
eyes startled and empty, like a dreamer who’d been awakened too abruptly from a
nightmare.

“Is he dead?” His
voice was numb with disbelief.

“Dead?” She spat
the word. “If he were dead, Phillip, then either you or I would be, too, for
surely I would lose my life in trying to see that you lost yours!”

The low, intense
venom in her voice took him aback. The hand holding the pistol dropped to his
side. He lurched forward a single step. “I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. God
help me, there’s so much blood—”

“Get your horse,”
she commanded. “We need to find help for him.”

“Yes,” Phillip mumbled.

Ash stirred in
Rhiannon’s arms. She returned her attention to him, hovering over him in a
protective attitude, her eyes searching his white countenance. With shaking
hands, she brushed the long black hair from his temples. “Quiet, my own, my
heart. Easy. Be still, my love.”

“Well, what are you
waiting for Phillip? Kill the bastard.”

At the sound of
that smooth voice, Rhiannon’s head snapped up. Edward St. John sat his horse a
few yards behind Phillip. One fist rested on his hip; the other held a primed
pistol.

Phillip spun
around, like a child being called by too many voices, his expression confused
and miserable.

“Kill him,” St. John urged calmly. Rhiannon tensed, her arms tightening around Ash.

“I... I can’t!”
Phillip burst out.

“Of course you can,”
St. John said. “He really is a devil, you know. Or if not the devil, the son
of one. At least a devil with cards. I can testify to that with some authority.
Carr quite, quite has me in his debt. Indeed, in my short two weeks at that
hellish Eden called Wanton’s Blush I lost every bit of money I owned. Plus
quite a bit I did not own. In fact, I lost my entire inheritance.”

A flash of deep,
burning hatred revealed itself in the trembling of St. John’s smiling lips.
“You aren’t going to shoot the bastard, are you, Phillip?”

Dully, Phillip
shook his head. With a disappointed sigh, St. John reached down with his free
hand and withdrew another pistol from his belt. “I thought not. You really are
Milquetoast under all that manly bluster, aren’t you, Phillip? No matter. I
would have had to kill you anyway. I was simply hoping you might accomplish at
least one decisive act before your death. It was to be my gift to you. For old
time’s sake, don’t you know.”

“But why?” Phillip
asked.

“Because you’re a
witness,” Ash said. Rhiannon looked down at him. His gaze went past her, fixing
on St. John with cold enmity. “A witness to Rhiannon’s murder.”

“True.” St. John laughed and Phillip lurched forward a step. St. John jerked the pistol barrel
around, aiming it directly at Phillip’s chest. Phillip checked.

“Now, now,
Phillip.” St. John suddenly grinned. “Really, this has worked out so much
better than I’d hoped. I shall kill the girl and then you, Phillip. When I send
Fortnum and the others—oh, yes, our companions are still staggering about these
godforsaken mountains somewhere—they shall find this little tragedy. Merrick, you
will
do me the favor of dying shortly? That’s an awful lot of blood
you’re spilling.”

Ash’s hands groped
feebly down his side and over his hip. His fingers grew red with his blood.

“Yes,” Ash
murmured. “I think I can promise you my cooperation.”

Ash’s gaze met
Rhiannon’s and she realized what he was seeking. She sobbed, doubling forward
over him, her hands aiding his search. “Leave him alone!”

“Good!” St. John said, ignoring Rhiannon’s rocking figure. “Because you simply must die. I’d shoot
you myself but I haven’t got an extra bullet. But perhaps I should keep you
company whilst you expire.”

“You’re too kind,”
Ash said weakly.

“Not at all. Of
course, I could just—move things along a bit.” His eyes were flat and cold.

“I don’t
understand,” Phillip said.

“The cornerstone of
your character, Phillip.” St. John shook his head, his gun still trained on
Phillip. “Allow me to explain. With my help our sad friends shall piece
together an entire unsavory tableau: A rapist—Merrick—shoots his rival—you.
When his slut, having finally come to her senses, objects, he shoots her, too.
Phillip, you get to be a hero. Because before you die you manage to get off the
shot that ultimately kills Merrick. All very tragic, what?”

“But why?” Phillip
asked again.

St. John’s
smile disappeared. “Carr promised to forgive my debt if I did this
thing for him.”

“Carr will never
forgive your debt,” Ash laughed weakly.

“We shall see—or
rather,
I
shall see.” St. John aimed the pistol at Rhiannon’s back.

“Nothing personal,
my dear,” St. John muttered, “but as I said, Carr is a devil and the devil must
have his due—”

The stiletto
flashed from behind Rhiannon’s concealing skirts. Hurled by a master hand, it
flew straight, but the eyes guiding it were clouded and so rather than St. John’s heart it pierced his shoulder, shattering the bone. One pistol dropped from his
nerveless fingers; the other discharged into the ground and fell from his hand
as he clutched for the knife buried in his shoulder.

“Bedamn!” St. John gasped.

Phillip leapt
forward but St. John was too quick. He groped for his reins with his good hand
and caught them up. Digging his spurs into the mare’s flanks, he sawed back on
the bit. The horse reared, her hooves flailing out, striking at Phillip. Then
she shot forward and tore across the field.

Phillip watched St. John flee, torn by the need to pursue him and his debt to the man who was attempting
to rise from Rhiannon’s arms.

“No.” She wrapped
her arms around Ash and held on grimly. He closed his eyes and sank once more
in her embrace, finally allowing the beckoning darkness to take him. “Go,
Phillip,” Rhiannon said to him. “Find the others. Now!”

There was nothing
for it. Catching his horse’s reins Phillip swung into the saddle. He knew what
honor demanded. He rode for help.

At the far end of
the glen, a scent filled Stella’s nostrils. Not
her
scent. That was
nearer now, but still some distance. Her scent was a promise.

This scent was a
threat.

She knew it well.
Her hackles rose in response, and a growl rumbled from deep in her powerful
chest. It was the one who’d tied her so she could not move and twisted her leg
until it hadn’t worked and then twisted it more until she’d howled.

His odor rushed
toward her on a warm, driving wind. She lifted her head and saw a man on the
horse coming toward her, oblique and at an angle. Her stamina had failed her
hours ago and she had no vigor left on which to draw. She was a kennel dog, a
lady’s coddled companion. But hatred is a power in itself and of that she had
plenty.

Deep within
Stella’s heart a feral beast still reigned, its ferocity held hostage by
kindness, its savageness imprisoned by love.

The scent that
filled her nostrils set it free.

If anyone had been
watching, they would have seen the mounted man reach the glen’s far end and
look back over his shoulder. They would have witnessed his relief as he
realized he was not being pursued and so stemmed his mount’s headlong dash to a
slower gait. They would have seen him smile with malicious triumph as he
entered the forest.

And if they had
watched a bit longer they would have seen a long, muscular form racing with all
the speed of vengeance through the winnowing grass and vanishing in the same spot.

Ash felt tears
falling on his cheeks and lips. Woozily, he opened his eyes. The afternoon sun
swam in golden pools above him, blinding him, and he turned his head away.
Stella’s huge head swam into focus, her tongue lolling clownishly. Good beast,
Ash thought vaguely, she’d found them.

“Ash?” He peered up
at the shadowed face above him. Worry and grief marked her voice. She turned
her head slightly. The sun caught and caressed her features, limning her cheek
and throat with light and tipping her eyelashes in gold. Her hazel eyes glinted
with green fire. She was beautiful and courageous and everything to him.
Everything.

He’d almost lost
her and he hadn’t told her he loved her and he had to correct that. She had to
know.

“Rhiannon.”

“Hush,” she
murmured. “The others will be here soon. You’ll be fine. I’ve washed the wound
and stopped the bleeding. It really—you
have
to be fine.”

“So pretty. I never...
said.” He raised his hand and brushed the tears from her cheeks. She
would
weep silently, he thought. She’d done so as a child when she’d first come to
Fair Badden. He remembered, a story told mostly by her omissions. “I need... to
tell you.”

She smiled down at
him, her trembling lips soft and musing. “I know,” she whispered, her fingers
caressing his jaw.

He rested quietly a
minute, savoring her soft caresses, the fragrance of spring grass and
sun-heated skin, his gaze roving her features with calm deliberation until a
thought occurred to him. “Where were you going?” he asked. “Where were you
heading when I found you?”

A look of exquisite
tenderness came over her face. “To you, Ash.”

Once more he
nodded, commanding himself to be content with that answer. But he was a
passionate man and he was starved for an answering passion, her passion, her
heart, her love, starved for words he could not ever remember hearing, and so,
though he knew he was being greedy and taking shameless advantage of her tender
heart, he did not hesitate before asking, “Why?”