The Passionate One (7 page)

“Never fear, Miss
Chapham,” Phillip said. “I can promise you Rhiannon won’t be eligible next
year. Or next month, for that matter.”

The way he looked
not at her, but at the group of their friends, as though he spoke for their
benefit more than hers, made Rhiannon uncomfortable.

“What say we get
married earlier, Rhiannon, and give these other beauties a chance at the
crown?” he asked, smiling.

The chattered
gaiety faded in awed interest. The proposed marriage of Phillip Watt to
Rhiannon Russell was the most extraordinary—and in some people’s eyes the most
foolhardy—piece of romance within Fair Badden’s memory. Phillip’s father,
because he was enormously rich—and some said enormously dotty—had not only
agreed to the wedding, but had settled enough money on his son so that Phillip
could take the bride he desired and not the one he needed. And that woman was
Rhiannon who, though pretty and darling, had no name, no family, and no dowry.

She could not help
but leap at the chance to legalize her union early, before Phillip or his
father came to their senses. They all looked at her, awaiting her flattered and
hasty acceptance.

“No,” Rhiannon
said.

“No?” Phillip
echoed.

Several jaws grew
slack. Few people had ever heard Rhiannon utter that syllable, and never so
flatly.

She fidgeted, her
twisting fingers betraying an unease her cheerful voice did not. “I... I
willingly if shamefully concede my greed. If there’s any chance I should be
fortunate enough to be May Queen again, I’ll snatch it.”

“But you’d be queen
of my heart,” Phillip said. “Is that not kingdom enough?”

Pretty words. A
lovely sentiment. But Phillip’s back was still to her and he had opened his
arms in the direction of their friends, appealing to them, not her. Several
nodded in agreement. If he had just looked at
her
when he said it...

Ash Merrick was looking at her.

Of all those
present, he was the only one. He watched her intently.

Her heartbeat
hastened. His regard was more than a summation of her physical self. He gauged
her, weighing her reaction, studying her as if all his conscious thought were
centered on her. She had never been the focus of such acute concentration. Not
even Phillip’s.

Phillip glanced
over his shoulder at her, awaiting her reply. She should say yes. She should be
grateful. She
was
grateful. Phillip could have chosen a gentlewoman,
an heiress, perhaps even better, but he had chosen her. He represented
everything she had ever needed. She would wed Phillip and be safe and happy in
Fair Badden for the rest of her life.

But not yet. Not so
soon.

“I have admitted my
greed,” she said, forcing a bright smile to her lips. “I cannot help it that I
want both crowns.”

Phillip blinked.
Indeed, the entire party seemed nonplussed.

“If that can please
you, Phillip?” she added faintly, suddenly despairingly aware of what she’d
risked with her ill-advised teasing. For that was all it was... teasing. Of
course she would marry Phillip. Tomorrow if he insisted. But deep within, a
half-drowned Scottish-tinged voice begged different.

Phillip’s face grew
ruddy.

“Ach, you great
oaf!” Edith suddenly barked into the quiet room, stomping forward to cuff
Phillip smartly on the ear. He yelped and jumped back from her onslaught.

“Have you no finer
feelings? No dab of sentimentality?” Edith demanded. “Can you no see the gel
wants her wee bit of courting and the trimmings of a fine and well-planned
ceremony to mark the occasion of her wedding? None of your harum-scarum
elopements for my Rhiannon. You’ll wed her fit and proper. Not hieing off like
some stable hand with his milkmaid, you great...
man
!”

The storm clouds
lifted from Phillip’s handsome face as comprehension took its place. “Is that
it, Rhiannon?” he asked, his fond gaze just the smallest bit patronizing.

Edith caught
Rhiannon’s eye, clearly warning her.

“Aye,” Rhiannon
said. “That’s it.”

“Well, then, you’ll
have the grandest wedding Fair Badden has ever seen!” With the pronouncement
the men and women surrounded Phillip, clapping him on the back and calling
loudly for drink to toast his magnanimity.

And Rhiannon
smiled, and demurred, and accepted the ladies congratulations on wresting a
feast from her bridegroom and the gentleman’s appreciative sallies about
knowing her own worth, and she lowered her eyes in embarrassment and did not
look at Ash Merrick again. Because she knew he’d sensed her lie.

Chapter Six

Ash lay on his
stomach beneath the bud-spangled limbs of an ancient elm. A fair breeze flirted
with his cheek. Bees, woken to industry by spring’s beckoning warmth, murmured
in the clover. Beneath him a bed of fresh-sprung grass cushioned his abused
body.

The months of
drunkenness and debauchery had taken their toll. That atop two years chained to
a French ship’s galley as a “political prisoner.”

The thought still
provoked his bitter amusement. He’d never had the least interest in politics
and neither had Raine.

He and his brother
had stumbled into the trap the McClairens had set for his father in retaliation
for his betrayal of them. The clansmen hadn’t quite known what to do with
Carr’s evil progeny. Being McClairens and thus relentlessly faithful they
couldn’t quite bring themselves to murder Janet McClairen’s sons. Though, Ash
thought with a twist of his lips, they’d come damn near three years before when
they’d beaten Raine to a bloody pulp for supposedly raping a nun.

Ash’s eyes
narrowed. It still made no sense that they’d spared Raine after they’d captured
him the second time. Though right at this minute Ash wasn’t sure Raine would be
grateful, because the McClairens, thinking to break Carr’s back financially if
not literally, had sold his sons to the French. They, in turn, had demanded a
ransom from Carr.

A ransom that
hadn’t been forthcoming. Until Carr had capriciously decided to pay for Ash’s
release—but not Raine’s. Carr’s decision to leave Raine to rot still bit into
Ash’s heart like saltpeter in an ever-gaping wound. It, as much as anything
else, compelled him beyond endurance and exhaustion to find the means to secure
his brother’s freedom.

Little wonder his
health was depleted and near breaking. But though he was exhausted unto death,
sleep was hard coming.

Even though he’d
been in Fair Badden a week, he still felt as alien as if he’d been shipwrecked
on Africa’s dark coast... and just as wary. Fair Badden was simply too good to
be real, particularly with what he knew of the world.

Yet at night he
slept on a feather mattress with the sound of crickets clicking beneath his
open window like the nervous worrying of papal beads in a novitiate’s hand.
Each morning he was greeted with smiles and pleasantries. Each day he drank
sweet water from a deep, clear well and ate fresh bread, smoked meats, and
farmhouse cheeses.

Each day Rhiannon
Russell and Edith Fraiser divided homely duties between them: preparing confits
and honey; distilling clover into a fresh, pungent wine; stitching sun-bleached
clothing; and tending the rows of herbs outside the kitchen door.

He watched all this
domestic harmony skeptically, looking for some sign of dissent. He did not find
any. Though sometimes Rhiannon Russell would catch his eye and the tranquil
submissiveness that seemed the hallmark of her character would be betrayed by a
roguish gleam or a conspiratorial flash of a smile when one of his more subtle
sallies blew far over the head of the worthy Mrs. Fraiser.

He wished Rhiannon
didn’t smile like that and that her eyes didn’t gleam like that because,
against all likelihood, Ash Merrick was charmed. And that surprised and alarmed
him.

She was
interesting. Lovely. And natural. And he’d had a surfeit of artifice.

More, she accepted
him.
As decent. As a gentleman. And no one here was wise enough or discerning enough
to warn her differently.

Why should they?
They were of the same opinion: the ambitious and self-satisfied Edward St.
John; homely and sincere John Fortnum; all the eager lads who clamored for a
story that they might taste secondhand London’s dangerous habits. Even that
great gold monolith Phillip Watt.

Restlessly, Ash
rolled his tense neck, the movement releasing the grass’s fresh perfume, a
scent at variance with the darkening of his thoughts. Watt was heavy-handed and
complacent and his status as fiancé had fired his ardor. Several times Ash saw
the boy attempt to sweep the unwitting Rhiannon to some secluded enclave for a
spot of slap and tickle. Or perhaps not so unwitting, Ash thought with a small
smile.

That was part of
her charm, after all, the flash of amused knowledge that leapt to her greening
eyes when she blithely upset one of Phillip’s amorous plans. She might be
innocent but she was not gullible.

Neither was Edith
Fraiser, the canny old cat. She’d certainly manipulated him adroitly enough.

She’d spent the
week watching Ash. Every time he looked at Rhiannon, the old dame was looking
at him. A few days ago, after sending Rhiannon on some errand, Edith had
cornered him. Smiling and bobbing her head she explained that she was old and
stiff and not nearly the duenna she need be. Therefore, she declared with impeccable
reason, in Carr’s stead Ash must be Rhiannon’s chaperon.

The notion was so
bizarre that he’d been blindsided into acquiescing. Since then he’d spent hours
padding after the courting couple to see that Rhiannon’s chastity remained
intact.

In fact, that was
what he was ostensibly doing now—chaperoning the happy couple. His orders were
clear: Under no circumstances were Rhiannon and her swain to enter the yew
maze, where “untoward” things might occur. He’d accepted with outward
amiability but had taken himself off as soon as Phillip had steered Rhiannon
through the maze’s entrance.

For while he might
enjoy letting down his guard and having these people assume him noble and
gentlemanly, he wasn’t quite ready to rap Watt’s knuckles if they chanced too
close to Rhiannon’s breast. Because if he witnessed that, he would imagine his
own hands brushing her velvety skin.

He imagined far too
much regarding Rhiannon Russell.

He imagined her as
he’d first seen her, flushed and pretty and awash with pleasure. Only in his
mind her pleasure was sexual and the heat rising from her throat brought there
by his touch.
His
hands had loosened her hair and
his
mouth
had brought the full color to her lips. And
his
palm had molded to the
sweet swells and lush line...

God, what was he
thinking? He frowned, casting about for an explanation for this... fancy. He
would not give it any weightier title.

The answer was
simple: He hadn’t had a woman in years. Upon his return to England he hadn’t dared offend his newfound London “friends” by lifting their sisters’ or wives’
skirts. He wouldn’t spend any of his hard-earned money on an expensive whore,
or his health on a cheap one.

Of course he wanted
the girl. He wasn’t so used up, he thought angrily, that he wouldn’t appreciate
swiving a fresh, vivacious chit. He stirred uneasily.

Damn her for
thinking him a tame and friendly sort. It irritated and fascinated him. How
dare she think him better than he was? The only thing he’d ever been loyal to
was his brother, and even that loyalty was blemished, for he could
not
quite bring himself to wrest Rhiannon from Fair Badden and deliver her to Carr
and accept the money Carr offered for the job. Not even for Raine. Not knowing
that once at Wanton’s Blush she would in all likelihood die. All Carr’s brides
died.

Even closed, Ash’s
eyes narrowed in concentration. He’d assumed his father had sent him here to
fetch another rich bride but Rhiannon had nothing. Less than nothing. Yet why
would his father have sent him here otherwise?

Carr only concerned
himself with that which brought him money or influence. He’d even let his
youngest son rot in a French prison rather than pay his ransom.

Raine’s ransom.

Ash’s mouth
flattened. It was the carrot Carr always dangled before him. How many times had
his father cajoled and manipulated him with the promise of Raine’s ransom? How
many times had that promise been “postponed”?

If only Ash could
earn enough money on his own. But each pigeon Ash plucked at the gaming table,
each program he undertook to earn the fantastic sum the French demanded for
Raine’s life, brought him only marginally nearer that goal. As much as Ash
hated his father, Carr alone had the wherewithal to purchase Raine’s freedom.

But then, Ash
thought bitterly, why should he? Carr had found a faithful puppet in Ash, one
he could make dance with the tiniest jiggle of the strings. But when Ash had
arrived here and discovered that his father’s plans had been trumped by a
country boy and his doting father... When he’d seen Rhiannon...