The Passionate One

by Connie Brockway

  Gunna said nothing more, simply finished fastening the waistband and then pinning the embroidered stomacher in place. Finished, she stepped back and eyed Rhiannon critically. “Be careful, miss,” she said. “I dislike the thought of ye bein’ out there alone.”

  “But I won’t be,” Rhiannon replied, her thoughts returning to Ash in his window, vigilantly watching over her.

  Rhiannon swung open the old gate and picked her way cautiously along the narrow path that followed the cliffs. She’d gone some distance before she came upon a rocky outcrop jutting over the sea. Heedless of Fia’s borrowed dress and her thin shoes she scrambled atop and stood up.

  The wind blew heavily here, lashing her loosened hair across her cheeks and throat and whipping the heavy skirts back up and over her petticoats. Far below, the sea crashed against the jagged teeth edging the island’s shore, the subsequent fine mist shimmering in the air below. Above this, a phalanx of pure white gulls had caught the updraft from the sea and hovered, suspended just beyond her reach.

  Rhiannon closed her eyes and lifted her arms, letting the gusty wind buffet her body, pretending she too might fly. A sense of homecoming enveloped her. She’d done this before! She’d stood on some high point overlooking this same sea, spread her arms, and imagined she was flying.

  She shivered, but not with the near panic with which she’d looked out at the sea on her arrival here. She shivered with emotion. She’d once loved the sea. She’d forgotten—

  “Step back.”

  Her eyes flew open at the sound of his voice and she started to spin about but her shoe heel caught in the shale and she began to slip— Strong hands snatched her up, pulled her back tightly against a hard chest.

  “Dear God, what were you thinking?” Ash’s voice, warm and low, swept over her ear, his lips tangling in the loose hair at her temple.

  The hands gripping her upper arms did not release her. Between her shoulder blades she could feel his heart pound against her back, the muscle of his thighs press against her rump.

  And, God help her, God forgive her, that’s all that was needed to bring a wave of longing rushing over her with such devastating power that she nearly turned in his embrace and wrapped her arms about him.

  What was she that she longed to lay beneath this man? Mad or craven or as dissolute as the women whom Fia watched pant after him?

  “You mustn’t!” he grated out. His voice vibrated with anger. “You can’t. God, not here. Not anywhere!”

  She started at his unexpected words, tried to break free but his grip held fast, bruising her upper arms.

  Abruptly she realized what he was saying. Dear Lord, he thought she’d been about to fling herself into the sea when in fact she’d been lusting after him!

  A burble of hilarity escaped her and he shook her violently.

  “Damn you! Damn you, if you think to escape me by such foul means.”

  She twisted but still he would not let her go, instead wheeling her violently and catching hold of her again. He grasped her chin, forcing her head up, forcing her to meet his eyes. His lips curled back over his teeth in a feral expression. “I will tie you to my bed and force food and drink down your throat and keep you there for all eternity before I will let you harm yourself.”

  He meant it. The violence he held in check scared her, and he’d never scared her before. Every vestige of the man who’d arrived in Fair Badden was gone, leaving this stranger with his burning eyes and punishing grip.

  “I was not going to throw myself off,” she said, and swallowed. “I swear it.”

  The fury stayed in his eyes a full minute as his gaze raked her face, searching her countenance. Slowly the fingers digging into her skin relaxed, the tautness about his mouth eased and with it her fear.

  Anger took its place. He thought her so pitiful that she would kill herself rather than live here? That she was so undone by his betrayal that life no longer held any meaning for her?

  God help her, she might be unable to banish the memory of his haunted, passion-filled eyes from her thoughts, or forget the soft touch of his hand caressing her, but she still owned her pride. She was still Rhiannon Russell.

  “Nothing, nothing, you or your family could ever do to me could make me take my own life,” she said in a voice quivering with ill-suppressed emotion.

  He watched her intently.

  “I watched my father bayoneted to death rather than give away the whereabouts of his men. I saw my uncle shot in the head still defiant even though he lay helpless on a frost-covered moor. I share their blood. How dare you think I’d kill myself over the likes of you?” she spat out.

  “I beg your forgiveness,” he said through stiff lips. “I should have known better.”

  “Yes.” She raked him with her scorn. “Take your hands from me! They’re filthy. I’m not one of your fascinated jades panting to discover if your embrace is as feral as your looks!”

  His chin drew back sharply. He dropped his hands as if she’d scalded him and he tore his gaze from her, as though he found the sight of her painful. He looked down at the crashing sea, breathing heavily through his nostrils.

  She regarded him angrily. The unkempt tangle of the black hair falling down his lean cheeks and beard-darkened jaw was dull and lank. Mauve stains marked his eyes, and an old bruise colored one brow.

  She was about to look away when she discerned the faintest tremor in his hands hanging loose at his sides. She looked back up at his averted profile, studying it closer.

  She saw now that his pallor hadn’t been unhealthily white, the blood had literally drained from his face. She knew this because the hue was slowly returning. His lips were still chalky and the manner in which he held himself suggested a sudden overpowering enervation, not anger. My God, she realized with a sense of discovery, of wonder—he’d been afraid. Not merely afraid. Terrified. For her sake.

  Confusion churned her emotions into an unrecognizable brew. She wanted to touch him, to smooth the fine lines from his forehead and the corners of his eyes. She wanted to shout at him and rail against what he’d done to her—to them.

  She did neither. She drew back and had begun to move past him when she saw the long length of material on the rock behind him, a plaid woven in rich heather, gold, and emerald greens. She frowned and picked it up, turning to regard him askance, and found he was already watching her.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  A corner of his mouth turned up in mockery. “Gunna said you’d come out without a cloak. I’ll not have you dead by any means, Rhiannon. Not by your hand or nature’s ministrations. That’s the McClairen plaid.”

  She stared down at it. He confounded her. She did not know what to expect from him next.

  “Why?” she breathed.

  “Gunna said as you’d been asking after your family. Your family’s history and my mother’s were interwoven.” His voice was flat. “Take it. But don’t let Carr see it. Any token of the McClairens enrages him.”

  With so few words he gave her a piece of her history, a piece of her past. Emotion clotted her throat. He could not know how important this was to her, how much it meant, and yet she could not rid herself of the notion that he did know. She carefully draped the tartan around her like a precious relic.

  “Thank you.” She touched his arm in a spontaneous gesture of gratitude. His lips curled derisively.

  “Don’t thank me. It’s not but an old rag. And don’t come out here again.” His gaze shifted down toward the boulders at the cliffs base. A little tick jumped in his cheek. “It isn’t safe.”

  Before she could reply, he brushed passed her and strode away. He did not look back.

  Ash heard Carr speaking in the hall just outside the door. Quickly he shrugged out of his jacket and pulled his shirt free of his breeches. He flung himself into one of the gothic chairs that stood beside Carr’s desk.

  He would never have dared entered his father’s office at all had he not noticed Carr leaving the gaming table in the
adjoining room via the hall. The office door had remained unlocked.

  Rifling through Carr’s desk had been a risky venture, but since Ash’s arrival it had been his first opportunity to discover the reason behind Carr’s interest in Rhiannon Russell.

  Now, when Carr opened the door, he would find Ash sprawled in one of his prize imports, his leg draped over the arm, his head lolling forward on his chest, his arm hanging bonelessly by his side, and his hand brushing the neck of a half-emptied wine bottle. The cool draft of an opening door filtered over Ash’s hands. He strained his ears and heard the candles lighting the orderly surface of Carr’s desk sputter irritably.

  Ash opened his eyes to slits, taking the chance that it would be a few seconds before Carr’s eyes could adjust to the dim light. Carr’s gaze darted about the room, falling on the position of the few papers on his desk, the surface of the drawers, and flicking, for just one telling instant, over the mantelpiece.

  So, that was where Carr kept his treasures. The rigidity in his father’s body eased, he turned his attention to Ash.

  “What are you doing in here, Merrick?” Carr asked, his voice pitched low, testing.

  Ash sighed deeply.

  “Merrick!”

  “Humph?” Ash grunted. “Say, what? Did I win then?”

  “What are you doing in here?” Carr again demanded.

  Ash peered woozily up at his sire as if he could not quite remember the name that went with the face. He pushed himself up a ways in the chair, grimacing, and looked around the room. “Ain’t this the privy?”

  “What?” Carr thundered.

  Ash let an expression of confusion become dawning comprehension and finally drunken hilarity.

  “Damme, sir,” he sobbed through his laughter, “I am sorry. Bit foxed, you know. Had to leave the fellows midgame. Methinks I thought this chair was the privy! Sat on a few in London, don’t you know.” He leaned over and examined the baroque carved legs of the chair. “I swear I’ve never seen a more likely candidate.”

  Carr’s face turned ruddy with rage. “You swine! I had that chair shipped here from a Moroccan seraglio! If you’ve soiled it I’ll—”

  He grabbed Ash’s arm, hauling him to his feet. Ash made himself hang loose in his father’s vicious grip. He grinned foolishly. “Nah. Think I fell asleep first.”

  With a sound of disgust Carr shoved Ash away. Ash fell back heavily in the chair. The suspicion evaporated from Carr’s face, leaving it blank as a reptile’s.

  And why should he be suspicious? Ash asked himself. He’d spent nearly two weeks convincing Carr he’d plumbed new depths of depravity—would take any bet, do anything to earn the sum needed for Raine’s release. A glimpse in any mirror revealed a gray complexion and eyes red-rimmed with lack of sleep. Where other men scented their bodies with perfumes and powders, Ash anointed himself with stale beer and sweat.

  “You’re filthy with drink again, Merrick,” Carr said. “Though I appreciate your efforts. I’ve acquired quite a tidy sum betting on just how many bottles you’ll upend before passing out each evening.”

  “Care to split the winnings?” Ash asked cheekily. “No? Didn’t think so.” He fidgeted in his seat. “For a chair that ain’t a privy chair, this is deuced uncomfortable.”

  “It’s invaluable.”

  “Doubt that,” Ash replied flatly. “I’d wager you can set a very exact price on it.” He wrapped his arm over the back of the chair and hung his weight from it. “New, isn’t it? Lots of new geegaws in the family manse—not our family manse, I realize, but who’s to know?”

  “I’m remodeling,” Carr said coolly. “You never did understand what I was trying to do here. How could you?”

  He wandered behind Ash’s seat, his fingers caressing the back of the chair. “I need beauty like you need drink, Merrick. Life is a simple process of animal adaptation but Art is a controlled mutation that only a connoisseur is qualified to direct …”

  Ash had heard the speech before. Once launched into his discourse, little would stem Carr’s flow of words. Ash kept his gaze fixed on Carr’s face but allowed his thoughts to uncoil along their own path.

  He’d had little time to rifle through Carr’s desk. He’d scanned through his ledger discovering in the neatly penned columns two things: First, the refurbishment of Wanton’s Blush was costing Carr far more money than he owned. Second, a large sum of unidentified origins was deposited quarterly in Carr’s accounts.

  As for the letters, Carr’s communiqués had proven uninteresting if often sordid. Pleas for extension on debts outnumbered anglings for invitations to Wanton’s Blush. Interspersed amongst these were detailed plans for plaster ceilings and marble friezes; bids and specifications from architects, artisans, and garden designers; payment demands from marble cutters and weavers.

  Only one note had caught Ash’s attention, a terse missive from one of his father’s many victim-cum-debtors, none other than Lord Tunbridge. Of the pierced hand. After begging for a few more months in which to make good his debt, Tunbridge had closed his note: “I shall do all that I can to convince His Majesty that you are indeed reformed. This may take time and whilst I am engaged on your behalf, I adjure you to be in all matters circumspect.”

  Unfortunately, before Ash had had time to look for other letters carrying Tunbridge’s seal, he’d heard Carr.

  “—Donne might take her off my hands.”

  Ash’s head snapped up before he could control the movement. His father’s gaze was waiting. Carr smiled obliquely.

  Ash swiped up the bottle of wine and took a long draught to mask his reaction. “Take who? Fia?”

  He knew Carr was not speaking of Fia but of Rhiannon. She plagued his dreams and subverted his reason. Even whilst sunk in the deepest of carouses, he found himself reliving the moment when Carr had told her that Ash had been paid to bring her to Wanton’s Blush. He saw again the frail promise of her trust shatter and become bitter cynicism; and when he was not drunk, he could not escape the contempt in her voice, telling him he was filthy and feral.

  But most haunting of all was that moment on the cliffs when pitiful gratitude for his mother’s torn tartan had overcome her natural, her so well-justified, revulsion and she’d whispered thank you and touched his arm. He still felt that touch as distinctly as if his flesh had been branded.

  Like a fever that would not break, she lived in him, destroying his resolve and making mock of his intentions. He should be focused on winning enough money to ransom his brother. But he was in here, looking for clues as to why Carr had sent him to fetch her.

  “Not Fia. My new ward.”

  “Donne has offered for Rhiannon Russell?” Ash mumbled, holding his wine bottle up and eyeing the three fingers of liquor disconsolately.

  “Not yet,” Carr answered. “But he dogs the girl’s footsteps, or so I’m told. Weren’t you?”

  No, he wasn’t and he should have been told. He’d paid well for information about Rhiannon Russell and he’d received detailed reports for his coin: what hour she woke, what gown she wore, what book she read. But not that Donne courted her. Ash shrugged noncommittally.

  “Why do you want to get rid of Rhiannon Russell?” Ash asked as if just struck by the thought. “You just gave me a fat purse for bringing her here. Don’t make sense.”

  “One can’t be too forward-looking,” Carr pronounced silkily. “I’m simply ascertaining my options.”

  “You’ve never so much as written the first word in a letter without already having planned the last line,” Ash said. “So what I’m asking myself, is what you planned when you sent me for Rhiannon Russell?”

  Carr’s gaze met his. “Busy thinking, Merrick? Why is that?”

  But Ash had found a dint in Carr’s skin. He knew Carr’s tactics; he would not be diverted by his questions. “What do you want with Rhiannon Russell?” He pressed the slight advantage.

  Carr casually took a seat, settling and smoothing the satin cloth of his breeches before answering.
“I really didn’t know where she was until now,” he explained in bored tones. “A man mentioned her name and said she lived in his village. I recognized it and asked him about her. It became clear she was the girl my valet had turned away from my London town house years ago.”

  Ash laughed nastily. “Don’t try to tell me your conscience had been pricking you over her loss.”

  “Of course not,” Carr said with a flash of annoyance. “I was told she was comely. I knew she was the last of a once wealthy family. I assumed that as such she would be heir to whatever trinkets and coin they had managed to hold. I gambled ’twas so.”

  “So simple?” Ash took another swig of wine. “Fascinating. Pray continue.”

  “The rest is, in hindsight, sloppy. But in my own defense remember I felt compelled by some urgency. Hoping to prevent some provincial boy from securing her inheritance by marrying the chit, I sent you for her. And, Merrick”—he looked up from the rings bedecking his pale hands—“had circumstances been different and Miss Russell an heiress, in fact, I would have been extremely upset had you returned with the news that she’d wed.”

  But Ash was more interested in how much Carr had divulged. Too much. Carr never explained anything to anyone. How much was lies and how much simple misdirection?

  “Alas,” said Carr, “the girl doesn’t own a thing. She’s utterly a pauper. As I’m sure you know.”

  “Yes.” Ash wiped the wine from his mouth with his sleeve. “Who did you say told you she was in Fair Badden?”

  “I didn’t. But since you ask, it was some blond Goliath named Watt. He came here with his fellow rurals in order to taste society.” Carr smiled serenely. “They were quite surprised at the cost.”

  Watt? Ash remembered St. John saying he’d met Carr but no one had ever mentioned Watt being here. Certainly not Watt. Why the oversight?

  “My turn,” Carr said. “I find your interest in this girl inexplicable.”

  Ash was ready. “Not so inexplicable,” he said. “I need money. I thought she had some. Put some effort into makin’ meself pleasant, you know. Hate to see it go to waste.”