The men had not moved and Phillip scoured them with his glare. “Go then! Tuck tails and run! I’ll find him without you!”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Hie on!” Ash shouted. The great, yellow bitch darted about the cold campfire with increasing agitation, her hackles rising and foam spattering the huge muzzle sweeping the ground. At the edge of the clearing she suddenly lifted her head and shot into the brush, angling back the way they’d come. Ash hesitated. There would be no reason for Watt to take Rhiannon back toward Wanton’s Blush. Nothing lay between here and there but rough wilderness.
He bent over in his saddle, studying the ground. The majority of hoof prints clearly led south and to the west, yet Stella’s attitude had been nearly frantic, as though the scent had been thick in her nose. She’d not led him wrong yet.
Ash spurred his horse, plunging down the rocky slide of land after the hound.
The beast had been misplayed, he thought watching her. She was no gazehound, but a scent hound. She’d taken the lead from the beginning, quartering in sharp angles ahead of him, her nose to the earth, following a trail only she could discern. It was almost enough to make Ash believe in a benevolent deity, one who’d sent Stella to him as guide, for without her he would never have been able to pick up Rhiannon’s trail in this unmarked wasteland.
But the hound had been crippled and the day had worn perilously hard on her injured leg. Except for sporadic bursts of speed, she lagged now, loping on three legs.
With increasing regularity Ash had circled the failing dog in ever widening rings, stopping often to rise in the stirrups and call Rhiannon’s name. Each minute now portended a coming crisis, a fatal meeting between Rhiannon and Carr’s assassin.
Around noon Rhiannon reached a high pasture. She sat down and pulled off her half boot. She tore another strip of silk from her underskirt and replaced the bandage covering the open blister on her ankle. A shiver racked her body and she shrugged out of her damp jacket, hoping that the weak sun would warm her.
She shouldn’t be stopping at all, but she was beyond tired—wet and still cold from her night out on the mountain. Twice now she’d thought she’d heard the sound of pursuit. Once she’d glimpsed a lone rider on the lower slopes of the mountain. But that had been early and she’d kept to the steep upper slopes since then, eschewing the easier footing below.
All of her years as mistress of the hunt stood her in good stead. She knew the tricks of backtracking, the importance of moving with the wind through the densest brush and of staying away from the open places. Each time she utilized these lessons, she swore she would never again chase down an animal for sport. She understood too well now what it was to be the prey.
She forced her swollen foot back into the half boot and stood, looking cautiously down the long, empty pasture. The storm had blown over at dawn, leaving only a thin fog that the sun had quickly burned away. Before her the field grasses bowed low, fanned by a chastising breeze.
It would be criminally easy to spot a dark-clad figure moving across that flat green expanse but the alternative of climbing through the steep banks flanking the narrow valley would cost her hours. Hours Phillip would put to good use. He had the advantage. He knew where she was going and he must know she dared not spend another night exposed to the elements on the open mountains. Her only hope lay in reaching McClairen’s Isle before he found her.
Once more she looked around, peering intently at the edges of the pasture, straining her ears to hear any sound of pursuit. She crouched down and hobbled into the sea of grass.
Stella’s heart was more able than her body. She limped now with painful determination, no longer capable of loping. She held her head up, nostrils quivering but moving on a direct if painfully slow course, as if pulled by an invisible string. Driven by a sense of foreboding, Ash left her behind. He cantered in the direction she traveled, soon far outdistancing her.
Whatever path Rhiannon had taken had obviously been the most torturous route possible. Several times Ash had to dismount and lead his horse up a shale-slick incline or around a series of jagged outcrops.
The sun was high overhead when he entered a narrow valley a half-mile long. He pulled his mount to halt, scanning the rocky walls embracing the glen. He saw nothing. He carefully surveyed the swaying grasses before him. Again, nothing. His heart thudded dully.
Stella could easily have switched directions and even now closed in on Rhiannon while he floundered about in an ocean of grass. He’d lost not only Rhiannon but also the hound that had been leading him to her.
He stood in his stirrups and cupped his hands and called out, “Rhiannon!”
He would not give up. She was somewhere. Perhaps not here, but near. He could bloody feel her.
“Rhiannon!”
He waited, his body stiff with tension, every nerve stretched. He would find her. He would search the entire damn country if need be, but he would find her. His voice rose, filled the valley, echoed off the stony mountain walls. “Rhiannon!”
Far away, near the end of the glen a slender figure rose from the spring green grasses, a wood sylph called by a mortal’s implacable summons. The sun blazed off her rich, dark mane.
“Rhiannon!” He spurred his horse forward and galloped like a madman across the field. He’d almost reached her. Joy animated her wholly beautiful face—vanished, became terror.
She stared past him, shouted words made unintelligible by the rushing wind. He leaned forward, only one thought driving him now; he had to reach—
A blow like thunder caught his side, throwing him from the saddle. He hit the ground hard, his momentum catapulting him sideways and tumbling him yards before he settled. Blackness swam in manic circles around the edges of his vision. A woman was shouting. Rhiannon.
He slew about and caught back an agonized cry as a sharp, lacerating pain drove through him. He peered down, trying desperately to focus. His right arm was trapped at an awkward angle beneath his body, and a dark, warm stain was seeping through his shirt. He didn’t have time for this.
He shoved his good arm into the ground, pushing up on his knees. The world spun madly. Arms swept around him, the scent of pine tar and sweat and her. He clenched his teeth, fighting the enveloping void.
“My God!” he heard her say. “Dear God, Phillip, what have you done? Help me!”
Watt. Of course. How well he’d courted that man’s hatred …
Rhiannon eased Ash down to her lap, cradling his head, sheltering him as well as she could. He gritted his teeth at the movement. Tears sprang to her eyes that she was hurting him more than he’d already been hurt.
A shadow fell over his face and she looked around, crouching lower over Ash’s body. Phillip Watt stood above them, the pistol still smoking in his hand. His face was white, his eyes startled and empty, like a dreamer who’d been awakened too abruptly from a nightmare.
“Is he dead?” His voice was numb with disbelief.
“Dead?” She spat the word. “If he were dead, Phillip, then either you or I would be, too, for surely I would lose my life in trying to see that you lost yours!”
The low, intense venom in her voice took him aback. The hand holding the pistol dropped to his side. He lurched forward a single step. “I didn’t know. I didn’t realize. God help me, there’s so much blood—”
“Get your horse,” she commanded. “We need to find help for him.”
“Yes,” Phillip mumbled.
Ash stirred in Rhiannon’s arms. She returned her attention to him, hovering over him in a protective attitude, her eyes searching his white countenance. With shaking hands, she brushed the long black hair from his temples. “Quiet, my own, my heart. Easy. Be still, my love.”
“Well, what are you waiting for Phillip? Kill the bastard.”
At the sound of that smooth voice, Rhiannon’s head snapped up. Edward St. John sat his horse a few yards behind Phillip. One fist rested on his hip; the other held a primed pistol.
Phillip spun aro
und, like a child being called by too many voices, his expression confused and miserable.
“Kill him,” St. John urged calmly. Rhiannon tensed, her arms tightening around Ash.
“I … I can’t!” Phillip burst out.
“Of course you can,” St. John said. “He really is a devil, you know. Or if not the devil, the son of one. At least a devil with cards. I can testify to that with some authority. Carr quite, quite has me in his debt. Indeed, in my short two weeks at that hellish Eden called Wanton’s Blush I lost every bit of money I owned. Plus quite a bit I did not own. In fact, I lost my entire inheritance.”
A flash of deep, burning hatred revealed itself in the trembling of St. John’s smiling lips. “You aren’t going to shoot the bastard, are you, Phillip?”
Dully, Phillip shook his head. With a disappointed sigh, St. John reached down with his free hand and withdrew another pistol from his belt. “I thought not. You really are Milquetoast under all that manly bluster, aren’t you, Phillip? No matter. I would have had to kill you anyway. I was simply hoping you might accomplish at least one decisive act before your death. It was to be my gift to you. For old time’s sake, don’t you know.”
“But why?” Phillip asked.
“Because you’re a witness,” Ash said. Rhiannon looked down at him. His gaze went past her, fixing on St. John with cold enmity. “A witness to Rhiannon’s murder.”
“True.” St. John laughed and Phillip lurched forward a step. St. John jerked the pistol barrel around, aiming it directly at Phillip’s chest. Phillip checked.
“Now, now, Phillip.” St. John suddenly grinned. “Really, this has worked out so much better than I’d hoped. I shall kill the girl and then you, Phillip. When I send Fortnum and the others—oh, yes, our companions are still staggering about these godforsaken mountains somewhere—they shall find this little tragedy. Merrick, you will do me the favor of dying shortly? That’s an awful lot of blood you’re spilling.”
Ash’s hands groped feebly down his side and over his hip. His fingers grew red with his blood.
“Yes,” Ash murmured. “I think I can promise you my cooperation.”
Ash’s gaze met Rhiannon’s and she realized what he was seeking. She sobbed, doubling forward over him, her hands aiding his search. “Leave him alone!”
“Good!” St. John said, ignoring Rhiannon’s rocking figure. “Because you simply must die. I’d shoot you myself but I haven’t got an extra bullet. But perhaps I should keep you company whilst you expire.”
“You’re too kind,” Ash said weakly.
“Not at all. Of course, I could just—move things along a bit.” His eyes were flat and cold.
“I don’t understand,” Phillip said.
“The cornerstone of your character, Phillip.” St. John shook his head, his gun still trained on Phillip. “Allow me to explain. With my help our sad friends shall piece together an entire unsavory tableau: A rapist—Merrick—shoots his rival—you. When his slut, having finally come to her senses, objects, he shoots her, too. Phillip, you get to be a hero. Because before you die you manage to get off the shot that ultimately kills Merrick. All very tragic, what?”
“But why?” Phillip asked again.
St. John’s smile disappeared. “Carr promised to forgive my debt if I did this thing for him.”
“Carr will never forgive your debt,” Ash laughed weakly.
“We shall see—or rather, I shall see.” St. John aimed the pistol at Rhiannon’s back.
“Nothing personal, my dear,” St. John muttered, “but as I said, Carr is a devil and the devil must have his due—”
The stiletto flashed from behind Rhiannon’s concealing skirts. Hurled by a master hand, it flew straight, but the eyes guiding it were clouded and so rather than St. John’s heart it pierced his shoulder, shattering the bone. One pistol dropped from his nerveless fingers; the other discharged into the ground and fell from his hand as he clutched for the knife buried in his shoulder.
“Bedamn!” St. John gasped.
Phillip leapt forward but St. John was too quick. He groped for his reins with his good hand and caught them up. Digging his spurs into the mare’s flanks, he sawed back on the bit. The horse reared, her hooves flailing out, striking at Phillip. Then she shot forward and tore across the field.
Phillip watched St. John flee, torn by the need to pursue him and his debt to the man who was attempting to rise from Rhiannon’s arms.
“No.” She wrapped her arms around Ash and held on grimly. He closed his eyes and sank once more in her embrace, finally allowing the beckoning darkness to take him. “Go, Phillip,” Rhiannon said to him. “Find the others. Now!”
There was nothing for it. Catching his horse’s reins Phillip swung into the saddle. He knew what honor demanded. He rode for help.
At the far end of the glen, a scent filled Stella’s nostrils. Not her scent. That was nearer now, but still some distance. Her scent was a promise.
This scent was a threat.
She knew it well. Her hackles rose in response, and a growl rumbled from deep in her powerful chest. It was the one who’d tied her so she could not move and twisted her leg until it hadn’t worked and then twisted it more until she’d howled.
His odor rushed toward her on a warm, driving wind. She lifted her head and saw a man on the horse coming toward her, oblique and at an angle. Her stamina had failed her hours ago and she had no vigor left on which to draw. She was a kennel dog, a lady’s coddled companion. But hatred is a power in itself and of that she had plenty.
Deep within Stella’s heart a feral beast still reigned, its ferocity held hostage by kindness, its savageness imprisoned by love.
The scent that filled her nostrils set it free.
If anyone had been watching, they would have seen the mounted man reach the glen’s far end and look back over his shoulder. They would have witnessed his relief as he realized he was not being pursued and so stemmed his mount’s headlong dash to a slower gait. They would have seen him smile with malicious triumph as he entered the forest.
And if they had watched a bit longer they would have seen a long, muscular form racing with all the speed of vengeance through the winnowing grass and vanishing in the same spot.
Ash felt tears falling on his cheeks and lips. Woozily, he opened his eyes. The afternoon sun swam in golden pools above him, blinding him, and he turned his head away. Stella’s huge head swam into focus, her tongue lolling clownishly. Good beast, Ash thought vaguely, she’d found them.
“Ash?” He peered up at the shadowed face above him. Worry and grief marked her voice. She turned her head slightly. The sun caught and caressed her features, limning her cheek and throat with light and tipping her eyelashes in gold. Her hazel eyes glinted with green fire. She was beautiful and courageous and everything to him. Everything.
He’d almost lost her and he hadn’t told her he loved her and he had to correct that. She had to know.
“Rhiannon.”
“Hush,” she murmured. “The others will be here soon. You’ll be fine. I’ve washed the wound and stopped the bleeding. It really—you have to be fine.”
“So pretty. I never … said.” He raised his hand and brushed the tears from her cheeks. She would weep silently, he thought. She’d done so as a child when she’d first come to Fair Badden. He remembered, a story told mostly by her omissions. “I need … to tell you.”
She smiled down at him, her trembling lips soft and musing. “I know,” she whispered, her fingers caressing his jaw.
He rested quietly a minute, savoring her soft caresses, the fragrance of spring grass and sun-heated skin, his gaze roving her features with calm deliberation until a thought occurred to him. “Where were you going?” he asked. “Where were you heading when I found you?”
A look of exquisite tenderness came over her face. “To you, Ash.”
Once more he nodded, commanding himself to be content with that answer. But he was a passionate man and he was starved for
an answering passion, her passion, her heart, her love, starved for words he could not ever remember hearing, and so, though he knew he was being greedy and taking shameless advantage of her tender heart, he did not hesitate before asking, “Why?”
This time her smile was fuller, richer, more certain, hearing in his commanding tone a promise of a future that had only hours ago seemed an uncertain thing.
She thought of all the years ahead in which she would tell him she loved him and all the ways in which she would demonstrate it. And because for the first time in her life she felt sure of another’s love, of owning it purely and wholly, she could afford to be the slightest bit roguish. And so she gave him back his answer with the same words he’d used when he’d first told her he loved her.
“For my heart’s sake, beloved. For my heart’s sake.”
Epilogue
Carr watched his daughter. She stood at the end of the servants’ hall facing a small group of men—dirty, mud-coated peasants. He’d come upon them quite by accident. Usually he gave up the redoubtable pleasures of the servants’ quarters altogether but this afternoon he’d needed to talk to his wine steward.
The men fidgeted, eyes downcast, faces sullen with the universal expression of the yeoman. Fia’s face, as always, remained composed, as unrevealing as a sphinx. She said something and with much bobbing of heads the men disappeared, shuffling backward through the servants’ door.
Fia turned and saw him, hesitated a second. Something bright flickered in her black eyes and then she sailed gracefully toward him. For a second she looked just like Janet. He shivered.
“What did those men want?” Carr asked her when she’d reached his side.
“They’ve found a body about fifteen miles west,” she said calmly, “on the mainland.”
The Passionate One Page 28