Ash had searched the countryside without finding a trace of the robber. And the reason for that was simple: He’d found none because the bounder had fled. There was no malevolent assassin lurking about waiting for the opportunity to kill a penniless girl.
Ash sneered. Either the two accidents had been just that, unconnected misfortunes, or someone in Fair Badden wanted Rhiannon dead. And who would that be, and why?
He was the worst kind of fool, one who needed to romanticize simple lust. He’d spent most of the week trying to get drunk enough to lose his erection. It hadn’t worked.
He closed his eyes, willing the liquor in his blood to erase the taste of her soft mouth, the fragrance of her dark hair … Six more days. Then she’d belong to that big, congenial boy.
Ash’s hands clenched at his side, as he forced one last smile around his teeth. He had to get out of here. He had to get out of this damnable place, these terrifyingly defenseless lambs. The wolf should slink back to the black forests and leave the sheep wholly innocent of what had, for some short weeks, moved undiscovered amongst them.
He could leave now. There was no real reason for him to stay. He pushed himself away from the door. He would leave now.
Except that someone had thrown that knife. At her heart. He knew it.
He twisted, pounding his fist against the door. The stiletto had impaled the paneling at chest level. It stood at right angles to the wall. Someone had hurled it with deadly speed and precision.
He cursed roundly and viciously, but in the end it didn’t affect his decision. He’d stay until she was another man’s concern, another man’s responsibility.
Another man’s.
Chapter Twelve
Edith Fraiser sat on the bench outside the kitchen door, the gay ribbons that would adorn Rhiannon’s May Day dress spilling over her skirts. She peered at the horizon. Dark weather was coming. Not today or this night, thank the Lord, which was Beltaine Night. No one enjoyed a soggy Beltaine. But perhaps tomorrow—which would be a shame as a soggy May Day was almost as sad.
She wiped her damp forehead, wondering if it really was as unseasonably warm as she thought or if her own frets and stews only made it seem so. She glanced at Rhiannon who, with Stella in attendance, was busily plaiting wild anemones into a maypole garland.
Two more days, Edith thought, returning to her task. It would be all right, after all. Two more days and the wench would be safely wed.
For a bitter moment there at Lady Harquist’s ball Edith had thought for sure that the dark Londoner was simply going to pick Rhiannon up and carry her off like some rogue medieval knight come looting. The man certainly looked the part with his black good looks and the tension vibrating in his lean figure.
But nothing like that had happened. Not only hadn’t he carried Rhiannon off, he’d paid scant attention to her for the rest of the night, and the days and nights that followed.
Perhaps she was simply getting fanciful in her old age. What with the strain of praying Squire Watts didn’t change his mind and withdraw his consent to the marriage and hoping Phillip remained resolved to wed, was it any wonder if she was a wee bit overprotective?
But now she could relax. Tonight all Fair Badden would turn out for the Beltaine Eve festivities and Rhiannon would be under the watchful eye of not only herself but the entire community. Then tomorrow was May Day with its innocent—and blessedly sunlit—pleasures and the afternoon hunt Squire Watt had arranged as a special wedding present to the bride, the last hunt of the season. Rhiannon would never miss a hunt.
And then … Edith clipped off a length of bright red ribbon and pleated it into a fat rosette to affix to Rhiannon’s skirts. The next day Phillip and Rhiannon would wed.
She sighed gustily, drawing a glance from Rhiannon. She smiled fondly at the girl. True to her sweet nature Rhiannon returned the smile twofold. Edith bent her head over her sewing, nodding happily.
Aye, she could relax.
* * *
It was Beltaine Eve, and Fair Badden’s marketplace overflowed with revelry. Stalls and carts, piled with toys, confections, and trinkets lit by rush torches and lanterns, cluttered the cobbled square. In the center of the square the traditional Beltaine fire was being erected. Flowing around the unlit fire and hapless staggering of goods, all manner of people milled and jostled, trading smiles with egalitarian abandon.
True to its ancient traditions, the May Day celebrations stripped each resident of Fair Badden of office and status. Manor-bred mingled freely with baseborn. Peasant and aristocrat alike had dressed in simple country garb sewn over with bright ribbons. Bells tinkled, dogs yapped, and the pennants snapped from atop the four corners of the open-sided pavilion set at the square’s far end.
Under this tent’s billowing canopy stood a huge plank table, its surface sticky with spilled ale, honey cake crumbs, and cheese rinds. Beneath the table a young gazehound bitch scavenged tidbits.
Rhiannon Russell, Queen of the May, drunk as a lord and teetering like an unfledged owlet, dug her bare and dirty toes into Stella’s silky fur. Beside her was her lady-in-waiting who—for reasons Rhiannon could no longer fathom but which she distinctly remembered having been hysterical about some hours earlier—was a brown cow named Molly. The lady-in-waiting stretched out her neck and tried to snatch the royal tiara off the royal brow. With a frown, Rhiannon rapped the cheeky wench across her broad brown nose, the movement upsetting the balance of her clover blossom crown.
“King” Phillip, slumped on the oak keg throne next to hers, roused himself enough to grab hold of Rhiannon’s crown and jerk it from Molly’s mouth. Having successfully attended to his consortly duties, he lapsed once again into his former vapid, grinning state.
Rhiannon studied him with soggy affection. Good ole King Phil. Steady, handsome, dependable, undemanding, sweet King Phil. She smiled at him. He didn’t notice.
She slouched back, feeling magnanimous and sentimental and overheated. Around her the “court” buzzed and murmured, drank and sang. She knew them all. Every one. This was her home. These people were her family. No matter what ghosts called to her spirit from their graves—and what man called to her other far more earthy parts—here she was loved and respected and safe.
An unsteady hand reached over Rhiannon’s shoulder and slopped May wine into her goblet. Her royal goblet.
“To the good people of Good Badden. Fair Badden. Not so Badden,” she declared. Gripping the cheap pewter cup with both hands, she tossed the contents down her throat in one long, noisy gulp.
“Long live Queen Rhiannon!” the crowd yelled.
“And her king. Don’t forget the king.” Phillip announced, a spark of consciousness brightening his eyes.
Not that they needed brightening. Phillip had truly bright blue eyes. Very beautiful. Really nice. And she was lucky—no, Rhiannon thought earnestly, she was privileged to be the woman who got to marry them … him. She reached over to refill her goblet.
Phillip smiled vaguely at her, as if he couldn’t quite place her in his memory but knew she had some status nonetheless. “Pretty Rhiannon. Pretty Queen,” he muttered fondly. “Favorite of everyone. Fellows all envy me.”
Abruptly, he linked a giant paw around the back of her neck. Toppled from her throne by Phillip’s enthusiasm, she flung her arms around his neck to keep from landing on her bum. The room exploded with hoots of approval as his mouth came down on hers in a loud, wet smack.
He kept kissing her. Demandingly, forcefully, and oddly passionlessly, and Rhiannon, woozy and complacent, allowed it. Finally he released her.
“You’ll make a good Queen won’t you, m’dear?” he asked.
He patted her cheek awkwardly, his expression begging for reassurance. His sudden insecurity caused acute and lethal guilt to eat its way through Rhiannon’s agreeable alcoholic haze. Unable to meet his anxious gaze, she glanced away and so caught sight of a dark, masculine figure disappearing abruptly into the darkness beyond the pavilion’s lights.
It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Ash.
“We’ll live here and be hap—content. I’ll be a good husband,” Phillip was saying. “You couldn’t do better.”
He was right. She was marrying far above her station, better than anyone could ever have expected. And she would be … content. Then why was she still staring at the place where the dark figure had disappeared?
She glanced at Phillip but he had already slouched back on his throne, his eyelids falling over his gorgeous blue eyes. A second later he was snoring. She slipped from his lap, regarding him ashamedly. Every time Ash Merrick was near, she forgot her soon-to-be groom.
Drat Ash Merrick and his flashing smile and his cautious eyes. Drat his hard body and his soft mouth. Drat a man who made the very word “content” seem a laughable, pallid notion. Drat him for taking that wagered kiss. Drat him for stopping at that.
Where the devil was the man? Rhiannon glared at the crowd about her. He was a guest in her foster mother’s home. He’d been invited to take part in the festivities. He should be here.
“I’m Queen, aren’t I?” she demanded of her heifer-in-waiting. In answer, Molly once more plucked the crown from her head. Rhiannon let her have it. “What good’s a crown if the wearer doesn’t rule?” she asked loudly.
The crowd looked up at her outburst, primed for play. If their queen had a game in mind, they were all for it.
“If I’m Queen, I should be able to make laws, shouldn’t I?”
“Aye!” A chorus of voices agreed. “Aye, you’re Queen! What law is it you’re wanting to make?”
“I want … I want every one of my loyal subjects to bend his knee before me, er, us, and swear his fealty.”
The crowd, amused and rowdy, traded glances and shrugged. “We already done that.”
“No, you haven’t,” Rhiannon corrected them. “Not all of you.”
“Who ain’t performed the proper respects?”
“The Londoner. Ash Merrick,” she announced darkly.
“Why, that’s right,” John Fortnum said in the amazed tones of discovery. “He hasn’t been round most of the day. The maggoty knave didn’t even attend the coronation!”
“Well, we’ll set that to rights,” announced a burly “knight,” “won’t we, lads?”
At this, those still capable of action streamed from the pavilion, dispersing into the crowds outside. Fired by alcohol, they swept through the market, calling and clamoring for “the foreigner, Merrick.”
As the hunt progressed, those who had no part in it began shouting for the King and Queen of the May to come to the Beltaine fire and leap across it. It was a custom as old as Beltaine itself, a pledge sealing a couple’s matrimonial fate. The call gathered force until it could no longer be gainsaid. The revelers entered the pavilion, snatched Rhiannon and Phillip from their thrones, and carried them out into the night to the fire’s side.
At the same time, the hunters finally met with success. They found Merrick at The Ploughman, wiping the froth of ale from his upper lip.
“Merrick!”
Gleefully they encircled him. He turned tiredly.
“St. John,” he said. “I’m not in the mood, boy.”
St. John’s eyes widened in mock despair. “He says he’s not in the mood,” he told his fellows. He looked back into Merrick’s eyes. “Too bad, old fellow.”
“What’s this all about?”
“You’re wanted at court, Merrick. A royal decree.”
“Oh?” Merrick turned his back on them, motioning the ale seller to draw him another tankard. “What for? Does His Majesty need instruction in seduction? I’m afraid I have no advice to offer.”
He took a deep draught of ale before placing the tankard with telling precision back on the counter. “From what I saw, he looked like he was doing fine. The royal wench was warming his lap and her royal mouth was encouraging his ardor. It all looked most promising. But then, I’ve never enjoyed spectator sports. Mind you, don’t let that stop you, lads.”
They jeered and winked at his insolence. Then, before he could resist, they’d surrounded him and tied his arms behind his back. With much laughter they shoved and cajoled and half-carried him back to the May Queen.
They found her standing before the bonfire, weaving slightly. At her feet sat Phillip, sunk in drunken fascination with the recently ignited fire.
“Queen Rhiannon!” they called out and, wresting Merrick from their midst, shoved him before her and stood back, well-pleased with themselves.
She stared at him in surprise, having forgotten she’d sent these men to return with him. His hair tumbled over his brow; his expression was unreadable.
“Here he is,” St. John declared.
Ash tilted his head to the side, regarding her intently. Dear Lord, why had she drunk so much of that clover wine?
She steeled herself. It was too late to fret over how much she’d imbibed. Besides, she felt daring, and why shouldn’t she? He’d befriended her and then abandoned her. He had dallied with her and then ignored her. Why, he had caused her to betray a husband she did not yet have!
And the memory of his kiss played havoc with her body.
“Well, Your Majesty?” St. John said, his brows climbing. “You wanted him. Here he is. Now what?”
She swayed slightly, the taste of wine thick on her tongue, the crackle and pop of the green-wood fire masking the buzz in her ears.
“Your Majesty?” John Fortnum’s voice. Reminding her of her role. She was Queen.
“Be you Merrick of London?” she asked.
Ash eyed her guardedly.
“Answer her and it’ll go well with you,” John Fortnum promised kindly. “She’s a most munificent ruler. Perhaps she’ll knight you.”
Merrick smiled, his face turned away from her and toward the crowd. “Fortnum, if your tender treatment of me is a sample of her munificence I’ll have to refuse any further samples. I may not survive a knighthood.”
The men and women laughed in appreciation. Rhiannon scowled.
She did not want him charming them; he charmed too easily by half. She would not allow him to turn this into a marketplace for his charisma.
“You’ll have no offers from me gracious or otherwise,” she declared loudly. She held out her hand and motioned for the wine bottle a lass near her held. With a grin the girl handed it to her.
Eyes locked on Merrick, she moved toward him, her hips swaying slowly, provocatively, her lids heavy with wine and the yearning he’d incited and would never satisfy.
She halted within arm’s reach, close enough that he could not help but see her. Only his eyes moved, rising slowly to meet hers from under dense, black lashes.
“Lord, but you are exquisite.” The words seemed torn from his lips, a spoken thought not flattery.
She tipped her head back and drank deeply from the bottle. False courage, she knew, but any courage was welcome when a woman was faced with Ash Merrick’s dark and passionate eyes.
“What do you want of me? Whatever I own is at your disposal.” One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked grin. His gaze held hers. “Whatever skills I possess are yours to command.”
“Not enough,” she breathed, stepping closer, vaguely conscious that she skirted too near the fire, both figuratively and literally.
“Really?” His tone was mead infused, intoxicating and low and sweet, pitched for her ears alone. “What queen could ask more of her subject? And what would that be?”
She hesitated, craven and coward that she was, afraid to tell him the truth.
“Only say it and I will give it to you.”
She tore her gaze away from his, raised the bottle to her lips, and took another draught of bravado, an increment away from declaring what she did indeed want of this man. But then she would lose all that she’d spent years in attaining. She took another drink. It burned going down.
“Yes?” he prompted, a tense note hidden in his gentle cajolery.
“Your regard,” she burst out
and then, “your note. Your attention.”
Fearful of how revealing her words were, she straightened, forced a laugh between her stiff lips. She lifted her goblet to those watching. “A Queen’s due from her vassals.”
“Here! Here!” the crowd responded.
“But I’m not your subject, madame,” Merrick reminded her gently. “I’m a foreigner, a sojourner, an alien. I’m not one of them.” His eyes flickered over the crowd. “But then, neither are you, are you … Your Majesty?”
She froze. With so few words he named her an outsider, an imposter, an orphan. Abruptly the focus of her concern shifted. A trembling of fear began in her heart and lungs, filling her chest.
She fought the sensation. She did belong here. She’d done everything, become everything anyone could want. She’d lost her accent, even her memories. All of it done so that she could stay. She had purchased her right to be here and she had paid for it with the coin of her heritage.
Beneath her feet the earth seemed to rise like the arching back of a cat. Ash was watching her.
“Sir.” Her voice sounded faint, distant. “You are in my kingdom. You will demonstrate your fealty.”
“I’ve had enough games, Rhiannon.”
His voice was pitched so only she could hear him, and yet she lost the meaning of his words, it so unnerved her to hear her Christian name for the first time from his lips.
She tried to focus but the earth was dipping dangerously and the fire was stretching toward her. He was too close. He was always too close—or too far. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Phillip stirring.
“Rhiannon? Why’s Merrick got his hands tied up?” Phillip lumbered to his feet. Oh, God. She’d forgotten him again. She closed her eyes and immediately felt the effects of Edith’s clover wine. “Rhiannon? Merrick?”
Her husband. Her lover. Safety. Danger. Home. Refuge. Outsider. Her eyelids fluttered. She swayed.
“What are you doing to Merrick?” Phillip shouted in a bewildered voice.
She heard a crash behind her, from Phillip’s direction. The crowd erupted in a cacophony of alarm. She started to wheel around but the movement sent her spinning madly, the world darkening.
The Passionate One Page 10