“Since the crown gave me Wanton’s Blush—I do so enjoy that name—until its future is decided,” Carr continued, “I shall make it tolerable. I daresay I shan’t be here long. This evening’s affair is important, a first step in my return to London. Know this, dear wife, I will use, I have used, whatever means necessary to see that I am restored to my rightful place in society.”
Once she’d loved him and it was more toward that memory than the living man that she stretched out her hand. “You used to care for me, Carr,” she murmured. “You had so much promise, such intellect and address, but it’s been wasted!”
Carr’s face rippled with violent anger. He grabbed her arm and dragged her upright. “It’s late. You’ll not wear that plaid.”
She twisted. The sudden motion jerked awake the little one. Her plaid scarf ripped with a sharp sound. Fia cried out.
“I am the Earl of Carr. I have waited ten years for this night, ten years to begin my return to that strata to which I was born, which is my right. You will not do anything, anything, to jeopardize that.”
He was flushed, furious. So, too, was she. She’d buried the truth from herself for nearly two years but she could do so no longer. The McClairen plaid hung in pieces from his fist, a fitting emblem of her clan’s fate—shredded by Carr’s implacable greed and ambition.
“Carr,” her voice vibrated with her demand, “the truth. Did you sell my family to the English? Did you? Tell me!”
“Tell you what?” he hissed. “That superior men oft reach their goals by climbing atop the corpses of their enemies? Of course. Don’t be naive.”
“Men? Or you?” Lady Carr asked, in a low harsh voice though she knew the answer. She’d always known. “Did you betray them?”
“Get you to your rooms and get dressed, madame!”
“I won’t,” she said. “I loved you once, but no more. I won’t betray my clan by living with their deceiver. If pride is the only legacy I leave my children, so be it.”
“You may regret your words, madame.” Carr flung down the scarf and snatched Fia from her, thrusting the little squirming girl at Ash. “Take her away. Take the other boy with you!”
“But—”
“By God, you will do as I say!” Carr’s face grew mottled beneath the rice powder.
Janet’s heart pounded with her body’s intuitive terror. But her mind could not feel the fear, would not feel it. For too long she’d buried what she’d known, held her loyalty to her husband above the loyalty she owed her clan. No more. She would leave, take the children, go to her laird—
Raine had begun to cry silently. The tears on his cheeks caught the glint from the torches on the terrace high above.
“Please!” Ash pleaded. “Mother—”
She bent quickly, retrieved the scarf, and wrapped it about Fia’s shoulders. “It’s all right, Ash. Take Fia up.” Her gaze found Raine, his fists balled, his chin thrust out. “Take your brother, too. Promise me you’ll keep Raine safe, Ash. Please.”
“I will,” Ash’s tears were flowing now. “I promise—”
Carr’s palm jolted into the boy’s back, sending him stumbling up the shell path. Ash caught Raine’s hand and dragged him forward.
Carr turned toward Janet.
* * *
The cream of London’s society had traveled Scotland’s newly laid roads to see what the Earl of Carr had made of his unlikely acquisition. Now, as the party began, they descended from their rooms shedding powder and bon mots as they observed and judged the magnificence designed solely to impress them.
Within an hour the party was acknowledged to be a smashing success. Carr’s guests were impressed, they were titillated, but best, they were amused. And Carr, even more gorgeous than he’d been a decade ago, held court.
Several there had known him in his last days as fashion’s most disreputable and prideful leader. They’d whispered as his assets had been sold off and they’d stared at the packs of creditors waiting daily at the door of his town house. They’d nodded sagely when he’d finally fled the city rather than risk debtor’s prison. They’d never expected to hear from him again.
But here he was, glowing with pleasure. He traded sallies, lavished compliments, and directed a league of servants to see that every desire was met, every courtesy extended, every convenience offered. He did so fine a job of hosting, in fact, that it was some time before anyone noted his wife’s absence.
Finally an elderly roué mentioned this to Carr. Carr dispatched a servant to fetch his wife. The footman returned a short time later with the information that Lady Carr was nowhere to be found.
Carr went in search of her, his handsome face wearing the smallest degree of irritation. She was not in the gaming room. She was not in the ballroom. Neither was she in the Great Hall nor in any of the small antechambers.
The house was warm, Carr explained offhandedly. The crush, the excitement, the noise—she was, after all, unused to society. She might have gone to take some night air in the garden overlooking the sea. His companions volunteered to accompany him on his search.
The gardens were lovely. Paper lanterns had been strung along the perimeters and little candles flickered in the colored glass balls lining the footpaths. At the far end they found a gossamer scarf by an open gate.
Carr retrieved it with a dutiful husbandly cluck. His wife, it seemed, had an affinity for the sea. With a rueful shrug he turned back toward the castle saying that whatever his personal inclination, etiquette made clear that a party cannot have two absentee hosts.
Tipsy and amused and not at all averse to having a role in the little domestic drama, his companions pledged to find the errant lady. They lurched through the gate, laughing and calling her name, leaving Carr behind.
An hour later they burst through the terrace doors. Wigs askew, clothing in disrepair, they trembled on the edge of the dance floor, flushed and sobered and appalled.
The din of conversation faded. Slowly, every head turned toward them and then, instinctively, toward their host. Those closest to Carr stepped away, leaving him alone within a circle. Handsome head high, face taut with ill-suppressed emotion, he demanded an explanation.
“There’s been an accident,” one of the disheveled band exclaimed. “Lady Carr. She’s fallen from the cliffs.”
“Where is she?” Carr’s body trembled. “Is she … alive? God, man, answer me!”
The man sobbed, shaking his head. “We saw her body on the rocks below. We tried to get down to her but it was no use. The sea took her.”
Chapter One
Whitechapel London
March 1760
Lord Tunbridge was cheating.
In the dank, smoky back regions of Rose Tavern, the young bucks’ festive mood had long dissipated. First their purses, then their jewelry, and finally their inheritances had bled into Tunbridge’s hands. They sprawled in the malodorous abandonment only four days of fevered carousal can imbue, staring at visions of paternal rage, or worse, debtor’s prison. There was nothing left for them to do now but wait for an end to their purgatory.
Because, though they knew Tunbridge was cheating—no one had so devilish luck—no one could say how. Certainly no one would dare make complaint to Tunbridge, an acknowledged duelist with an accredited five deaths to his record.
Only two men remained playing, Lord Tunbridge and Ash Merrick. A slack-mouthed wench snuggled on Tunbridge’s lap, her soft pink flesh glistening with the oppressive heat in the room, while outside a blustery, cold day reminded those abroad that winter had only recently ended.
Tunbridge ignored the doxie, his slim fingers straying like albino snakes amidst the piles of guineas and stacks of silver. It was not so great a heap as those that had already been won at that table, but it was a substantial sum, enough to recoup a decent portion of even the worst losses.
Tunbridge’s cold gaze fixed on his opponent. Thus far Merrick had fared better than his companions. It was rumored he had arrived in London months ago, after a tw
o-year stay as a guest in Louis XV’s prisons, and had since seemingly fixed on making up for lost time.
London’s rakehell cubs had taken him up immediately, as one would a new toy. And a prime entertaining toy he was. No man was wittier, no company more obliging, no guide in the ways of dissolution more knowledgeable. And no one was less bound by society’s rules and had less care for society’s opinions than Ash Merrick. But that was only to be expected.
Lord Carr was his father, after all, a man who’d been exiled to the Highlands rather than face his creditors and then been forced to stay in exile losing three rich Highland wives in short succession.
If Merrick was notorious, his father was infamous and the titillation of following so nefarious a leader had proven irresistible to the bored elite.
But if they adulated Merrick, it was a tainted adulation, well tempered with contempt. He was a no one. Prison fodder. His own sire would not underwrite him, and his mother had been a known Jacobite bitch. He lived by his wits on the fringes of society, and therefore, while being amongst them, he was patently not one of them.
More provoking, he did not want to be. And he did not care to hide that from them.
He allowed them to follow him; indeed, he encouraged them, holding wide the doors to a nether world of pleasure. Then he stood aside. Often he profited from a night spent gaming but they did not take exception, as his profit was never great enough to cause speculation. Besides, he earned their money in other ways, they reasoned, by showing them a London they’d never known existed.
Even now, even against Tunbridge, he’d only lost a few hundred pounds. Merrick rarely lost, so those capable of wakefulness, and thus malice, watched his imminent downfall with petty satisfaction. Except that is, for Thomas Donne, an obscenely wealthy, mysterious, and cursedly suave Scotsman—and some said Merrick’s friend. Donne’s lean countenance conveyed a wicked, subtle amusement.
Merrick, his lawn shirt open at his throat, his dark hair falling loose from its queue, sans wig, sans jacket, sans reputation, smiled obliquely and fingered the pearl-handled stiletto with which he’d been prying open nuts. His dark eyes, raised to catch Tunbridge’s considering gaze, were vague and unfocused. Drunk. Tunbridge began shuffling the cards.
“Merrick,” Tunbridge drawled, “I’m afraid there’s no catching me this day. Another night is come and my taste for this sport wanes as my taste for another grows.” The maid on his lap giggled. “What say we call quit?”
“Surely not yet,” Merrick answered in wounded surprise. “You would not deny me the chance to retake what you’ve won?” The slight pause before he uttered the last word was less than a hesitation of breath. No one could say more and yet Tunbridge’s face reddened beneath its sweat-streaked powder.
“Well, then, since there’s just us two, what say to a game of piquet?” Tunbridge asked.
“Delightful,” Merrick murmured, his attention fixed on raising the tankard of ale to his lips. Tunbridge cut the cards and Merrick did likewise, sighing resignedly when Tunbridge’s king trumped his knave.
“Poor luck,” Tunbridge said. “Doubtless you’ll fare—”
The door leading to the public rooms swung open and a youth, dressed in the fashion of a courier, entered. He stood blinking in the smoky room, vapor rising from his wet cape. Spying Merrick, he picked a path over the outstretched legs of slumped bodies to Merrick’s side and bent low to whisper his message.
For an instant Merrick’s indolent gaze sharpened and the flesh seemed to cleave tighter to the well-shaped bones of his face. He held out his hand. With a furtive glance in either direction, the courier laid an envelope in it.
“I’ve your leave to interrupt play?” Merrick asked.
Tunbridge dealt the last of the five cards and shrugged. “By all means.”
“My thanks.” Merrick slid the stiletto’s tip beneath the seal and flicked off the embossed wax. He opened the note and scanned the contents before crumpling it.
With a peculiar violence at odds with his gentle expression, he tossed it unerringly into the open fire. “It seems my services are needed. I must away.”
“Ah well.” Tunbridge commiserated with a small smile.
“But nothing is so pressing I need leave before the end of this game,” Merrick added courteously.
Tunbridge’s hands, hovering over the pile of coins, froze and for a second something in the atmosphere alerted even the least sentient to something potentially dangerous occurring in the room. Then Tunbridge’s teeth flashed white in the dim light and he gathered his hand. “But of course.”
He studied it awhile, allowing a small expression of satisfaction to play upon his lips before calmly discarding. Merrick shouted for the innkeeper to bring more drink and then, with only a glance at his hand, flung down eight cards.
So it went.
Each hand played slowly. Whatever Merrick had read in that letter seemed to combine with four days of relative abstinence to give him a powerful thirst. Aided by his fellows, encouraged by the constant refilling of his cup, he drank steadily and deeply. Between hands he peeled roasted chestnuts with his knife, muttering disconsolately as Tunbridge’s point total grew steadily toward the hundred needed to end the game and take the ante.
With each hand, with each drink Merrick downed, Tunbridge grew more expansive and more contemptuous. His barbed goads grew sharper and his predatory smile flickered like guttering candlelight over his sallow countenance.
Finally, Tunbridge stood only eleven points from the win. He dealt. Merrick did not pay any great attention, being too busy draining the dregs of his ale into his mouth. Tunbridge’s mouth pleated with satisfaction. He reached out to gather his cards.
And Merrick, with a speed belied by his clouded eyes, struck savagely, instantly, skewering Tunbridge’s hand flat against the tabletop with the pearl-handled stiletto.
Tunbridge howled. The sound exploded in the thick, closed room, startling the sotted company to wakefulness. He clutched at the handle that stood quivering in the meat of his hand, swearing viciously.
Merrick rose, no hint of drunkenness in the graceful movement and swept the coins from the tabletop into his purse. Only then did he take hold the handle of the stiletto. For a moment his gaze locked with Tunbridge’s.
“If there is no card beneath your palm, Lord Tunbridge, I must most sincerely apologize.” With a savage jerk he freed the sharp knife from its fleshy bed. Instinctively, irresistibly, Tunbridge snatched his bleeding hand to his chest.
With a low laugh, Merrick swung around, pushed his way through the men lurching to their feet, and strode from the room. On the table behind him lay the bloodied ace of hearts.
Chapter Two
The Northwest Borders
April 1760
The day was glorious, spiced with the distant hint of sea marsh, the sky scoured clear blue and the forest minty green with new leaves. From beneath its canopy rode a group of young hunters and huntresses, brilliant in their velvet habits and flush with exertion.
At their lead rode a young woman with tanned, rosy cheeks and dark mahogany red hair lying damp upon her brow. A feather coiling jauntily from her hat teased the corner of her smile. Others were more seasoned riders than she, but few could match the pace Rhiannon Russell set.
Mounted at midmorning and having ridden without bothering to break for nourishment, they’d been unsuccessful this day, thwarted by the dry, crisp air and an old March hare who’d first led the hounds then lost them, streaking from a bramble thicket while the dogs milled wild-eyed in the overscented underbrush.
At the stables, the party dismounted as the kennel master collected the pack of lean-flanked quivering hounds. Yelping plaintively, Rhiannon’s yellow gazehound, Stella, limped from the edge of the wood. With a laugh Rhiannon turned her horse and went to accompany the hound’s limping progress. Stella was the last gift she was to have from her stepfather, and therefore doubly treasured.
“It’s a worthless bitch,” the kenne
l master said coming up the drive to meet her. “My granny has better eyesight.” Her companions had by this time dismounted and were heading toward the manor where Edith Fraiser had promised their repast would be waiting.
“Aye,” Rhiannon agreed, because she was a most agreeable girl. “Mayhap. But she’s young yet and may prove herself worthy. Please? Take care of her?”
With a heavy sigh the kennel master agreed, for who could resist hazel eyes and the sweet request of one of Fair Badden’s prettiest lassies? Rhiannon grinned her gratitude and dismounted, hurrying up the front steps after her friends.
At the door a young maid met her. “An English gentleman—a London English gentleman—” the girl said, “come to see you, miss.” Her face was bright with awe, her voice hushed with the same.
Seldom did English gentlemen come to their small hamlet. More seldom still did London gentlemen make the trip to this rural outpost, for pretty though it undoubtedly was, it had nothing more to recommend itself than the prospect of its ownership, a prospect that never transpired as the land had been long held by others.
“I doubt he’s come to see me, Marthe. I’m sure it’s Mistress Fraiser he wants,” Rhiannon said, unimpressed and uninterested, looking about expectantly for one tall, robust figure—Phillip, Squire Watt’s youngest son.
“No, miss,” Marthe insisted, recalling Rhiannon’s wandering attention. “He come to see you. Not Mrs. … Ain’t that right, Mrs. Fraiser?”
A stout, apple-cheeked woman with iron gray hair bustled down the hall toward them, adjusting the lace handkerchief tucked into her square décolletage.
“ ’Tis true, Rhiannon.” Edith’s round face was fashioned for complacence, not surprise. The line lifting her brow betrayed her amazement.
“But why?” Rhiannon asked.
“I do not know,” Edith muttered and held out her hands.
Obediently, Rhiannon peeled off her yellow leather gloves, tucked them into her belt, and laid her hands in the older woman’s. Mistress Fraiser turned them over and tched gently. “Dirty nails.” She looked Rhiannon over with ill-concealed resignation. “Unkempt hair. Dusty habit. Well, it can’t be helped. He’s been waiting three hours already and it would be rude to have him wait longer.”
The Passionate One Page 2