The Passionate One (5 page)

“Ah... good.”

“I’m afraid it will
leave a scar, however,” she added apologetically.

His expression grew
bewildered. “Scar?”

“Yes.”

“Nonsense. One
won’t even notice it,” he dismissed the mark roughly.

It was gracious of
him to reassure her—if that’s what those grudging words had been an attempt
at—but she really wasn’t sensitive about her looks.

She knew her assets
well enough and a two-inch line traversing her cheek hadn’t devalued their
worth. Phillip certainly didn’t seem to find her any less attractive...
Phillip.

With a start she
realized they had not yet finished discussing the reason for Ash Merrick’s
presence here.

“I appreciate your
kindness, Mr. Merrick,” she said, moving away from the magnetism surrounding
him and taking a chair, “but you needn’t worry about me. I am perfectly fine.
I’ve been fine for over ten years and while I am...” she searched for some
gentle way to reveal to him that his long journey had been unnecessary “… I am
very warmed by your father’s offer, I must refuse it. And your escort to his
home.”

“Offer?”

“Yes,” she nodded,
“of his guardianship. You see, I already have a wonderful family who have seen
that all my needs have not only been met but are surpassed.”

“I don’t think you
should view this as an offer, Miss Russell.”

“No?”

“My father is
determined you’ll come live with him.”

He simply didn’t
understand. His expression was cold, aloof, giving her a glimpse of the hard
implacable will driving him. With a frisson of trepidation, she tried another
smile. He couldn’t very well kidnap her from her home.

“I hate to
disappoint the gentleman,” she said, “but as I’ve tried to explain, there’s no
need for him to assume his guardianship of me. Indeed, I would much oppose it.
Mistress Fraiser, with whom I’ve lived these many years, is but recently a
widow and I could not repay her loving care by abandoning her now.”

“I assure you, my
father will provide any accoutrements of wealth and privilege you should
require,” Ash Merrick said, his gaze on the ring adorning her hand.

“My affection for
Mistress Fraiser is honest, sir,” she snapped with uncharacteristic ire, stung
by his inference that she wanted to stay here simply to keep herself well
clothed. “My support of her is heartfelt. And I would not have you suggest
otherwise!”

She took a deep
breath, unnerved as much because he’d provoked her so easily as by his
offensive suggestion.

“Perhaps Mistress
Fraiser can ill afford the luxury of your heartfelt support,” he suggested,
looking pointedly at her pearl ring.

The notion of Edith
Fraiser selling off the family silver to buy her a second-rate piece of
frippery restored Rhiannon’s usual good humor. This time her laugh was warm and
spontaneous. “This ring and a piece of amber are all I have from my mother,
sir, and its value is almost solely sentimental. I pray you only look about
you. I assure you I am not causing Mistress Fraiser any financial hardship.”

He made a cursory
inspection of the room, tallying the fine furnishings, the ornate plaster
mantel—Mistress Fraiser’s pride and joy—the satin covered settees and silver
mirror.

Then his gaze
returned, once more, to her.

It flowed down her
body and slowly, incrementally, roved back up her person, settling on the
brocaded lapels of her hunting jacket. Her pulse quickened beneath that lazy
regard, and her hand instinctively fluttered to her throat.

His gaze drifted up
to meet hers, the dark centers of his eyes glowing like a hot cauldron of pitch.

“As good as
anything you’ll see in London, I’ll wager,” she said inanely, fingering the
silk embroidered plaquets.

“Indeed.” His voice
was deep, heavy and smooth.

“It’s French.”

His mouth quirked.
“I thought Scottish.”

Her laughter was
nervous. “Oh, no. You’ll not find many Scottish fingers working over a piece
like this.”

“It
would
seem to require a more sophisticated hand,” he agreed suavely.

“Yes.” She nodded,
knowing full well he was twitting her but unsure how. She smiled uncertainly.
His lids narrowed, the thicket of lash hiding the brilliance of his eyes.

He hadn’t looked
the least reproachful when she’d snapped at him a moment before. There was not
one person in Fair Badden who would not have looked shocked at having heard the
sharp edge of Rhiannon Russell’s tongue. There was not one person in Fair
Badden who had ever heard it. She’d always been mindful of her debt of
gratitude, careful never to give offense.

“I agree, Miss
Russell, you’ve been well tended.”

“Yes,” she said. In
a few minutes he would walk out of this room and ride away back to London. She didn’t want him to go. Not yet.

“But being well
tended isn’t the only issue,” he went on. “However tardy in his assumption of
the role, my father
is
your legal guardian. He wants you at Wanton’s
Blush.”

Wanton’s Blush? She
remembered that name. Her aunt had lived there. She froze. “In the Highlands?”

“Yes. Last time I
was there, I believe it was in the Highlands. On McClairen’s Isle.”

The place name
ambushed her from out of the past. Her heart leapt to her throat. Fear
confounded her ability to breathe and she stared at him, stricken. He didn’t
even realize he was uttering what to her was a threat.

“And that,” he
stated, “is where you’ll go and where you’ll stay, until you marry or die or my
father tires of this unprecedented whim to foster you.”

“Marry?” Relief
rushed over her. She would be able to thwart Lord Carr’s demand. And if the
smallest bit of regret tempered her relief, well, she’d already admitted to
herself that Ash Merrick was fascinating. “Then we’ve no problem.”

“Did we have a
problem? I hadn’t realized.” He held out his hand, inviting her solution to the
problem they didn’t have.

“Yes, sir,” she
said. “I mean no, sir. We don’t. Because, you see, in three weeks I’m to wed
Phillip Watt.”

Ash Merrick’s hand froze in the act of reaching for her. Seconds clicked by as unreadable
emotions flickered in rapid succession over his handsome, weary face. Then he
threw back his head and laughed.

Chapter Four

The gentleman from London was laughing.

Edith Fraiser
straightened from where she’d had her ear pressed fast against the door. She
hadn’t been able to discern much of what they’d been speaking about, but she
could all too easily discern the timbre of that laughter. It wasn’t
nice
laughter.

She pushed the door
open and waded into the room amidst the rustle of her heavily draped skirts.

“My felicitations,
Miss Russell,” the dark young man was saying.

“Thank you,”
Rhiannon replied. Her glance at Edith was grateful and slightly bemused but
free from any alarm.

Edith bustled
forward. “Ah, Mr.... Mr.—”

“Merrick, ma’am.
Ash Merrick.” He executed a very nice bow. Edith beamed.

She was an
uncomplicated and amicable soul, reluctant to judge others unkindly, staunchly
believing the best of her fellow man. If Rhiannon hadn’t taken umbrage at the
man’s laughter, then as far as she was concerned, no umbrage need be taken.

“Of course you are.
And whom was it you said you represent, Mr. Merrick?”

“He isn’t a lawyer,
ma’am.” Rhiannon came to Edith’s side, hooking her arm companionably in hers.

“No?” Edith asked,
unable to keep the disappointment from her voice. She’d had such hopes. “Then
there is no diamond brooch? Not even a wee entitlement?”

Color flooded
Rhiannon’s tanned cheeks. “No, ma’am.”

“Brooch?” Ash Merrick questioned.

Edith turned to
Rhiannon for an explanation. “Well, if he hasn’t brought you a brooch and he’s
no lawyer, who is he?”

“
He
is Lord Carr’s son, ma’am,” Ash Merrick said.

Edith swung around
at the silky pronouncement, abashed by her momentary lapse of manners. She
could easily enough identify the source of steel in his tone; it came from
being spoken of as if he weren’t present. But where the amusement came from,
she could not guess.

“And who is Lord
Carr?” Edith asked. London gentleman or no, this young man had something about
him that made her uneasy, something more than sophistication.

“Lord Carr is Miss
Russell’s legal guardian,” he replied. “I’ve come at his request to fetch her.”

“What?” Edith
gasped. Recollection brought with it a surge of passionate outrage.
“
Merrick,
you say?”

Rhiannon took her
hand. “Ma’am, don’t overset yourself—”

“Merrick!” Edith
squawked, stomping forward and brought up short by Rhiannon’s hold on her.
“
Now
I remember where I know that name.
’Tis the name of that fellow who wouldn’t take Rhiannon in when she fled Cumberland’s men. Legal guardian, indeed. A coldhearted villain, sir!”

“Please, ma’am,”
Rhiannon pleaded. “Everything will be all—”

Edith spun around
and hauled Rhiannon into a tight embrace, pulling the girl’s face down against
her soft plump neck, glaring at Ash Merrick above her hair. Poor, sweet
motherless lass.

“A scoundrel, the
man is!”

Rhiannon mumbled
unintelligibly against her neck.

“An unfeeling
knave, a—”

“I quite agree,”
Ash Merrick interrupted calmly.

Edith gaped at him,
her arms loosening just enough so that Rhiannon’s head popped up. She gasped
for breath.

“Unfortunately his
suitability as a guardian is not at issue,” Merrick said. “Miss Russell’s
future is. Though, I must admit, it appears she’s rather circumvented my
father’s intentions.”

Edith eyed him
warily. “Come again, sir?”

“Miss Russell tells
me she’s to be wed.”

“Aye, she is.”
Edith’s strong jaw thrust out combatively. If this fellow tried to stand in the
way of true love’s sweet course, he’d have to go through her to do it. “In
three weeks time, right after May Day. She and Phillip Watt but I don’t...”
Realization dawned on her like a lightning strike. “Oh...” she crooned on a low
exhalation. “I see. Aye.”

“Yes,” Rhiannon
soothed. “It’s all right, ma’am.”

“That does put the
mud in Carr’s barrels, don’t it?” Edith said to the gentleman. His expression
had more than a touch of the complacent conspirator in it. “I mean, you can’t
drag a girl out of her marriage bed, can you?”

His answering smile
was ambiguous. “Don’t be too fond of that thought.”

“Sir?”

“Of course he
won’t,” he said pleasantly. “It would attract too much attention. No, my pater
will just have to abandon his plans—whatever they might have been.”

Edith released
Rhiannon. The threat to her foster daughter having appeared and been vanquished
all in the space of a few minutes, she allowed herself to feel magnanimous
toward Carr’s son. “You’d honor us, sir, if you’d stay for the nuptials. You
bein’ Rhiannon’s
legal
guardian’s spokesman and all, it would be
fitting you be here in his stead to witness her marriage.”

“Witness?” Ash
queried. “Now there’s one role I’ve yet to try.”

“Oh do, sir.”

Edith looked around
at Rhiannon’s unexpected support. The sunlight streaking in through the west
windows set the lassie’s mane aglow with highlights. Her cheeks were flushed
with pleasure and the green in her hazel eyes sparkled like emeralds.

Looking at her,
Edith thought she spied the vestiges of her bold Highland blood. She ignored
the perception as unfair. Rhiannon had always been a dear, unassuming girl. The
gleam in her eye didn’t mean a thing except that she was courteous as well.

But what did the
gleam in Ash Merrick’s dark eyes mean?

Enough, thought
Edith. She’d never been a fanciful sort and she wasn’t about to become one now.
What would a cosmopolitan gentleman find interesting in a simple country
lass—even one as pretty as Rhiannon Russell? To hear their neighbor Lady
Harquist tell it, pretty women stood ten deep in London’s fashionable salons.

“We’ve room
aplenty, Mr. Merrick,” Edith said, determined to be hospitable. “Please stay.”

Ash Merrick’s smile caught her unawares. Lord, a man with a smile like that was a danger pure
and simple, but the offer had already been made and she couldn’t go back on it
now.

“You are too good,
madame. I accept your kind invitation. I’d be honored to join your prenuptial
celebrations and stay to see Miss Russell safely wed.”

An odd choice of
words but Edith attributed it to London fashion. “Good!” She clasped Rhiannon’s
shoulder and spun her about. “You go have the maids fix up the master’s
chamber, Rhiannon.”