“We’ll be leaving soon,” Mariah said, desperate to escape, if only by a few meager feet. “I’ve brought more food—”
Ash shook his head and gazed at the open folly door behind Sinjin.
“He must dress first,” Sinjin said. He glanced at Mariah, who couldn’t have agreed with him more thoroughly. She retrieved the new shirt, waistcoat, jacket, fresh stockings and shoes she had brought, and laid them over the chair.
“If you are to pass for a gentleman,” Sinjin said stiffly, “you must begin by looking the part. One scarcely goes about wearing only trousers…and unpressed trousers, at that.”
Ash looked fully capable of raising a clenched fist and introducing it to Sinjin’s face, but he controlled himself. “Will we leave this place if I put those on?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mariah said. “So long as you promise to stay with us.”
“The shirt,” Ash said.
No one could have mistaken it for anything but a command. Both pleased and annoyed, Mariah fetched the shirt. With easy grace, Ash put it on, leaving the top two buttons undone, then brushed past a startled Sinjin and picked up the stockings.
Mariah had already noted that he’d discarded the previous pair, which lay in a heap in the back of his cell; Ash’s expression revealed his distaste, but he sat on the chair and pulled them over his feet.
Sinjin watched without speaking as Ash put on the shoes, tested them and finally stood up.
“They do not feel good,” Ash said. “Why do gentlemen wear them?”
If Sinjin could have goggled, he would have done so then. “We aren’t savages, Ash,” he said.
Ash cocked his head. “What are savages?”
“The very opposite of gentlemen.”
“Then the savages are the ones who put me here.”
“‘The ones’?” Mariah said, wedging herself between the two men. “You mean Donnington and the keeper?”
Ash stared directly into her eyes. “I don’t know,” he said.
She couldn’t prevent the shiver that ran the full length of her spine. One thing hadn’t changed, and that was her response to him. If anything, it had only grown stronger.
Sinjin’s words came back to her. I’m beginning to wonder if your desire to help isn’t some sort of obsession.
“The jacket,” she said hastily, lifting it from the back of the chair. Ash gave it the same cold, forbidding glare he’d bestowed on the shoes and then held out his arms. As she helped him put it on, Mariah’s fingers brushed over his biceps, his shoulders, the top of his chest where the collar gaped. She closed her eyes and swallowed.
Remember what you’re doing. He’s still your charge, your responsibility. Nothing more and nothing less.
She stepped back as Ash straightened the jacket. He shrugged several times, adjusted the sleeves, frowned over the snugness of the arms.
“You must button your shirt,” Sinjin said. “It isn’t proper to display yourself in front of a lady.”
“It is not polite,” Ash said, emphasizing the second syllable.
“I see you have learned something,” Sinjin said. “Have you a brush, Mariah?”
Discovering that her arms still had enough strength to function, Mariah produced the brush and shaving gear she’d brought on her second visit.
“A brush,” she said, presenting it to Ash. “Do you know how to use it?”
He took it from her hand, examined it, set the bristles to his silver mane and pushed his forelock away from his temples. It did no good. The hair slid back across his forehead, impossible to hold in place.
“He’ll require some macassar,” Sinjin said.
“That doesn’t seem necessary just yet,” Mariah said, dreading the thought of weighing down Ash’s beautiful hair with scented oil. She took the brush from Ash and examined his jaw. “No beard at all,” she said.
“Peculiar,” Sinjin said. He stroked his own modest moustache. “I doubt he’d submit to a shave, in any case.”
Ash cast him a dismissive glance. “I have no need to remove hair from my face.”
“Then I shall take the shaving kit back to the house,” Mariah said. “Now you should eat.”
Every movement elegance itself, Ash accepted the fruit and bread Mariah gave him.
“That’s all he takes?” Sinjin asked. He addressed Ash. “You must have better than that if you’re to put on weight, cousin. You—”
He broke off as he realized what he’d just said. Strangely, given his usual alertness, Ash didn’t seem to notice the slip.
He doesn’t know what a cousin is, Mariah thought. So many words he didn’t understand. It was an enigma that he could speak so well and yet remain so ignorant.
If he grew up in America, why does he speak with an English accent? Did he learn it from his mother? Is she still alive?
Questions that hardly mattered in the face of so many others that were far more urgent. She waited while Ash finished his meal and handed him a napkin. She showed him what to do by dabbing at her own mouth with a second napkin, and he followed her example.
“Well,” Sinjin said, “a very promising start.” He nodded to Ash. “It would be best if you remained here for another day,” he said, “so that we can prepare your new place for you.”
Ash, who was perhaps only an inch taller than Sinjin, loomed over him. “I will go now,” he said.
“For God’s sake, man. This is Donnington’s estate, and if he had something do with…with—” he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Until we know exactly who you are, we can’t risk your parading about the grounds.”
“He’s right, Ash,” Mariah said. “We have found a safe place where you can stay until these issues are resolved, and we can have it made ready tomorrow. I promise that you will have everything you need.”
Ash stared into her eyes. “I will not have freedom.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
FREEDOM.
Mariah looked away. Of course. Freedom was the one thing Ash wanted above all else. The freedom to know who he was. The freedom to go where he chose, when he chose.
And it was the one thing she could not give him.
“It will come,” she said, and touched his arm.
It was a grave error. Even through his sleeve, she felt his heat, his vitality, that ineffable quality of power and assurance that made him seem so much more than merely human. And he responded to her touch, his gaze striking hers with all the force of a freight train hitting a flimsy wooden railing.
“Mariah?”
She started at Sinjin’s voice and withdrew her hand. “I think we should take Ash away from here tonight,” she said firmly.
Sinjin looked askance at Ash, deep lines etched between his brows. “I still think—”
“The longer he’s in the folly, the greater the chance that someone will stumble across him.”
“But if whoever put him here finds him gone…”
“We shall find the means to deal with that situation when it arises.” She turned toward Ash without quite meeting his eyes. “Are you ready, Ash?”
Once again she felt herself being scrutinized, weighed, judged, as if by a monarch rather than a man who had so recently been a half-naked prisoner.
“Yes,” he said.
“And you will stay where we take you, even when I must leave you?”
His mouth tightened, but he offered no objection. With Sinjin’s help, Mariah gathered up all the bags, scraps of food and other necessities they’d brought to the folly, and carried them outside. She waited by the door for Ash to follow.
Step by hesitant step he walked through the inner door into the anteroom. His nostrils flared as if he had caught the scent of the flowers growing near the folly steps, heavy with perfume in the still night air. His face was lost in a kind of wonder, a gratitude that twisted her heart. So a convict must look when he was finally released from long incarceration, or a madman who had regained his sanity after years of black, hopeless suffering.
Agai
nst her better judgment, she reached again for Ash’s hand. His palm was warm and dry. He closed his fingers over hers, and she felt in that instant that she, not the world beyond the folly walls, was his only desire.
“We shouldn’t waste any time,” Sinjin said. “I’ll fetch Shaitan.”
Deaf to Sinjin’s words, Ash descended the folly steps, paused, and looked across the mere to the stand of ash and willow beyond. He seemed about to sprout wings and fly across the water, swooping, rising higher and higher until his shape blotted the stars from view.
Searching, Mariah thought. He’s searching for something he doesn’t see.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He smiled. The expression was dazzling, entrancing, and she realized she had never seen him smile before. It was a gift Mariah thought she could never tire of, no matter how many times he might offer it to her.
“Merry.”
Her nickname had never caused her such consternation as it did then, purred by the man standing so quietly beside her. The word had an intimate feel, rolling off his tongue with a slight trill that suggested some exotic clime.
“Why does Ware call you that?” he asked, his black eyes obsidian gems that stole all the moon’s light for themselves alone.
“It’s a…it’s called a nickname,” she stammered. “A shorter version of one’s own name, used as a term of…a term of endearment.”
“Endearment.”
“It’s a feeling. Like friendship. Like love.”
“Love?”
She realized that she’d made a very foolish mistake. “I see Sinjin returning. We should—”
“Love is what the girl felt for the bear-man.”
She was touched, despite herself, by his reference to the fairy tale she’d read to him that second night, the story of the girl and the bear who had become a prince.
In spite of her slip, she had been given the opportunity to end any misunderstandings before they could begin. “There are many kinds of love, Ash. Friendship is one. Another is that between a mother or father and a child, or brothers and sisters.”
“Ware loves you.”
“He is…like a brother, Ash. He feels affection for me.”
That cock of the head, a sliding of silver hair over his dark brows. “Am I to be your brother?”
Her skin felt too tightly stretched across her face. “If that is what you wish.”
She prayed that he was finished with his questions, but he was not done with her yet. “What does it mean?” he asked.
“What…does what mean?”
“Merry.”
She seized the lifeline. “To be merry means to be happy. To enjoy life.”
“Are you happy?”
“Of course I’m…” She met his gaze with every effort. “It isn’t a question one generally asks another unless they are very close.”
“But we are close.”
Close indeed. Close enough that he could have pulled her into his arms without reaching out more than a few inches.
She nearly stumbled as she tried to put a safer degree of space between them. Ash lifted his hand but spared her his touch.
“You don’t laugh,” he said.
“Should I be laughing?” she asked stupidly.
“Does not one laugh when one is happy?”
Once she had laughed. She and Mama, so freely, so easily. They’d laughed—laughed too much, some said—and played together as if nothing could ever harm them.
Then the voices started, and Mama began to go away.
“Merry!”
Sinjin spoke, and the spell was broken as he led his horse to a halt beside them.
“You ride, Mariah,” Sinjin said. “Ash and I can—”
Shaitan lifted his great black head and snorted, his ears pricked toward Ash. Like one walking in a dream, Ash approached the stallion with his hand outstretched.
“Take care,” Sinjin said. “He’s been known to bite strangers.”
But Ash didn’t stop. He cupped Shaitan’s muzzle in his palm and leaned close, nearly brushing the stallion’s face with his own.
“He only bites savages,” he said.
“Oh?” Sinjin said. “Did he tell you so?”
“Why do you make him wear this?” Ash asked, fingering Shaitan’s bridle.
Sinjin rolled his eyes at Mariah. “Hasn’t he seen a horse before?”
Even if she’d had an answer, she wouldn’t have had time to give it. Ash had begun to move in the direction of the mere, and Shaitan was following him like a loyal hound.
With a snort of disgust, Sinjin caught him, took the reins and helped Mariah to mount. Once she had set an easy pace, Ash walked ahead, his long gait carrying him with a kind of rhythmic fluidity superior to even Sinjin’s natural grace. After briefly matching Ash’s stride, Sinjin fell back to walk beside Shaitan.
“He seems to know what he wants well enough,” he remarked to Mariah. “Are you sure you’ll be able to control him?”
Thank God he hadn’t noticed anything amiss with her during her conversation with Ash. “I have no wish to control him,” she said.
“Someone must.”
“If you try, Sinjin, he will rebel.”
“Because he sees me as a rival.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. He has had a great deal to absorb in the past three days.”
“So have you.”
“If you still harbor the mistaken notion that I regard Ash as anything but a mistreated human being in need of assistance—”
“We shall see how much assistance he accepts.”
The ominous tone of his voice warned Mariah that Sinjin was by no means satisfied. They both knew what might happen if Ash failed to cooperate. The shock to anyone who saw him would be considerable, and the consequences could break open a hornets’ nest of trouble.
Mariah gave Shaitan a little tap with her heels and hurried to catch up with Ash. Following Sinjin’s directions, she steered him around the mere, through the wood and over several low hills.
In spite of her extensive exploration of the grounds during her periods of enforced isolation, Mariah couldn’t remember venturing into this more distant area, where a sizable wood of birch, willow, poplar and elm clumped around a meandering stream in a dense canopy. A few hundred yards on, beneath a pair of ash trees, stood the cottage.
The hovel—for hovel it was—might at one time have belonged to a groundskeeper charged with looking after the southern boundary of Donbridge, but there were obvious indications that it had been abandoned long before Ash’s keeper had taken up residence. The badly overgrown pathway through the uncut grass suggested that no one had attempted to keep up the environs. The walls sagged, and the thatched roof threatened to collapse in on itself. Rusted scythes, rakes and shovels lay scattered about the yard, acting as forbidding barriers to a closer approach.
Yet there were signs of recent occupation. Sinjin, moving ahead, swung the door open, and Mariah caught a glimpse of furniture inside.
Ash went no farther. “He was here,” he said.
No need to ask who “he” was. “He’s not here now,” she said. “And no one will find you in this place.”
She dismounted, took his arm and led him closer to the cottage. It was like pulling a load of bricks. When at last she reached the door, she was breathing heavily and perspiring beneath her bodice.
“No one has been here since I left this morning,” Sinjin said, poking his head out the door. “I should warn you that it is only slightly more pleasant than Ash’s cell.”
He wasn’t exaggerating. The place stank of stale sweat, old cooking and unwashed cutlery. The single bed was unmade, the sheets stained, and what furniture graced the hovel was crooked or broken.
Well might Ash’s keeper have fled; there was little evidence that he’d been paid enough even for his own needs. Ash might have been left to starve to death, had she not found him. If she could have put her hands on the blackguard now…
“There is
n’t much to see,” Sinjin said, prodding at the pile of ashes in the filthy fireplace. “Nothing of any use to us.”
She nodded and looked back toward the door, where Ash hovered on the threshold.
“Come in, Ash,” Mariah said, holding out her hand.
He didn’t take it, but he entered the cottage. Something almost ugly crossed his face, a ferocity that suggested he would like nothing better than to smash everything in the room. No gentleman there, only the wild man. The savage.
“It’s all right,” Mariah murmured. “We won’t let it stay this way. If need be, I’ll carry new furniture here myself.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Sinjin said, straightening from the hearth. “If you really trust her, ask your maid to clean the place. I’ll see to the rest.”
A great burden lifted from Mariah’s shoulders. “Thank you, Sinjin. I shall owe you a great deal after this.”
Ash moved so silently that Mariah was completely unprepared when he stepped between them. “I will not stay here,” he said.
“Enough of this nonsense,” Sinjin said, glaring at Ash. “Mariah is willing to risk a great deal for your sake. The least you can do is be grateful.”
Bad blood boiled between the two men, but there was no room for Mariah to separate them. “Nothing will be gained by this,” she snapped. “Ash, you agreed to do as I asked. Are you prepared to break that promise?”
Ash lowered his head and stared at her from beneath his level brows. “I will not break it.”
It was a victory, though Mariah doubted that Sinjin would regard it as such. Neither of them had any choice but to take Ash at his word.
And what if he should simply disappear?
“Perhaps I should stay,” she said slowly.
“I shan’t permit it,” Sinjin said. “It isn’t proper.”
“Just because he’s no longer in a cage?”
“Do you desire to play into my mother’s hands, Mariah? Your reputation is at stake. Do you want to provide fodder for her suspicions?”
“Reputation?” Ash repeated.
The prospect of explaining that delicate subject was daunting at best. “It’s nearing dawn,” Mariah said. “We’ve no more time. Sinjin, will you wait outside for a moment?”
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