The Passionate One (9 page)

Incredibly it
sounded as if the carriage carrying Rhiannon and Mrs. Fraiser had been
specifically targeted. Ash frowned.

He sighed gustily,
as though the ways of evil men were beyond the ken of his civilized
understanding, and rose from the table. Casually he collected his jacket and
depleted purse. But as he took his leave of the others, he was already
composing a letter to Thomas Donne.

Scottish
expatriate, enormously wealthy, suave and perennially bored, Donne had little
allegiance to anyone or anything. But he did have a supreme desire to find ways
to fritter away the hours. He just might consider the challenge of finding out
what he could about a Highland orphan interesting enough to accept.

The afternoon sun
glanced off the whitewashed wall of the Fraiser’s manor, warming the garden. On
the grassy path separating vegetables from herbs, Rhiannon sat rolling Stella’s
silky ear between her fingers.

The young bitch
yawned hugely, displaying large white fangs and a long, curling pink tongue.
Then, grumbling, she stretched her great gangly body across Rhiannon’s lap,
moaned in contentment, and fell asleep once more. Rhiannon smiled. So fierce a
bloodline this hound had, yet so tamed by simple kindness.

Like Ash Merrick.

For a moment,
earlier that day, when she’d struggled beneath him, she’d been truly afraid.
Yet when she’d called to him and touched his face he’d shivered,
shivered.
She wondered when last he’d been touched without violence or threat of pain.

Which was absurd.
He was a London gentleman and a very handsome one at that. Many women must have
explored the texture of his glossy black hair and caressed his lean,
beard-shadowed cheeks. Yet, where had those scars on his wrists come from? How
to account for them?

Disconcerted by her
thoughts, Rhiannon fondled Stella’s other ear. The truth was she was drawn to
Ash Merrick. She should be ashamed. It smacked of disloyalty. Yet... well, what
if she was?

What harm could it
do? She was not so stupid as to confuse fascination for some more permanent
emotion. She was simply intrigued by the discrepancies she saw in him: the glib
tongue and watchful eyes; the shabby raiment and aristocratic manner; the
fine-boned hands with the battered wrists and callused palms. What woman
wouldn’t be interested? That didn’t mean she would be anything less than a
faithful and attentive wife. When the time came.

As Phillip would be
a husband. When the time came.

She knew Phillip
had occasional assignations with some of the village women. That they might not
have ended wasn’t surprising. Phillip was gloriously handsome and genial and
generous and—

“Rhiannon! Ah,
there you are. Good.” Edith Fraiser came bustling around the corner of the
house, her cap fluttering in the breeze. She stopped by Rhiannon and glanced
around.

“He’s not here,”
Rhiannon said.

“Good,” Edith
replied, nodding. And then, eyeing Rhiannon suspiciously,
“
Who’s
not here?”

Rhiannon blinked in
feigned innocence. “Who do you
think
is not here?”

Edith blustered.
“Phillip Watt, of course. Who did you think I meant?”

“Phillip, of
course,” Rhiannon replied and then ruined the virtuous response by laughing at
Edith’s doubtful expression. “Dear, dear, Mrs. Fraiser, your concerns are
groundless—whatever they may be.”

“You know me too
well, Rhiannon Russell,” Edith declared, spreading her skirts and dropping down
beside Rhiannon like a roosting hen. She looked at Stella still snoozing
contentedly. “Spoil that hound, you do. ’Tisn’t natural. It’s a beast, not a
baby.” A sly smile overtook the disgruntled expression on her face. “Soon
enough you’ll have your own babes and yon hound will be back in the kennels
where she belongs.”

“Never,” declared
Rhiannon. “I’m faithful, I am. Something you might recall,” she added gently,
“when misgivings send you flying from the house without your shawl.”

“Humph,” Edith
said. “I see the way you circle Mr. Merrick. Like a shy colt spying an offered
apple, wary but sure that the extended hand holds something sweet. Take a
lesson from that colt, Rhiannon. More often than not the hand that holds out
the apple is hiding the one what holds the noose.”

Rhiannon laughed.
“You are wise and knowing, but your imagination is running wild. I assure you
Mr. Merrick has no desire to trap me with a noose or anything else.”

Edith shook her
head. “Can a girl raised in my house be so green? Must be so, for from the look
in your eye I see you believe your own words. It’s not that I don’t understand
the temptation of him. He’s a fair way with him and he’s rare pretty, too—when
he’s dusted off.” She smoothed her skirts and released a gusty sigh. “I know
you think I’m only a simple country woman and so I am—”

“No!” Rhiannon
burst out. “I trust your judgment above all others. I look to you for
guidance.”

Edith straightened,
smiling smugly. “Then be guided here, Rhiannon. Stay away from Mr. Merrick.
He’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Isn’t
that perhaps a bit strong? He’s affable and gentle and courteous and perhaps a
bit more polished than we are accustomed—”

“Are you
arguing
with me?” Edith stared at Rhiannon openmouthed. She could not have been more
surprised if the dog had spoken. Rhiannon never contradicted her. It was not
like her to dig in her heels—except in matters of hunting and Stella.

Rhiannon’s smooth
brow puckered and her gaze fell in equal parts abashment and militancy.
“Mayhap,” she murmured, fiercely concentrating on plucking a burr from Stella’s
coat. “Forgive me.”

Edith scowled. She
knew what she saw and she saw a man whose gaze went dark and hot whenever it
encountered the form of her darlin’ Rhiannon. More worrisome still, whenever
that same man was about, she saw a young woman not given to blushing turn the
color of a red sunset.

But after hearing
that tone from sweet, biddable Rhiannon, she knew that to pursue the
conversation further was folly. She might be used to Rhiannon’s amenable ways,
but she’d also raised a strong-willed son. She recognized the obstinate set to
Rhiannon’s lips. It was only surprising that the willfulness most youngsters
experienced in adolescence had in Rhiannon’s case been so long delayed.

“I have a list here
of the things that need doing,” she said in a neutral voice. “It’s going to be
rare busy here about. There’s the young people coming here tomorrow afternoon,
and Lady Harquist insists we attend her annual ball.” Edith sighed in
exasperation.

Lady Harquist’s
husband had been made a baronet for his patriotism during the last Jacobite
uprising. He’d never actually fought in any battle, but he’d supplied the local
weavers with the free wool that was necessary to make uniforms for His
Majesty’s men.

Lady Harquist—nee
Betty Lund—took her new position seriously. Thus each spring Fair Badden
society enjoyed its one and only ball. It was no accident that Lady Harquist
had set the date for her gala just before May Day.

She wished to
contrast the rough-and-rowdy country entertainment with her own sophisticated
party. Fortunately, Lady Harquist never realized she alone thought that in a
contest between May Day and her ball, her ball prevailed.

“Who’ll all be
there?”

Edith glanced up at
the innocent tones. “Everyone. Including Mr. Merrick, if that’s what you’re
asking.”

“Not at all!”
Rhiannon’s eyes widened. “You must try to overcome these prejudices.”

“Hm.” Edith studied
the girl before turning her attention back to her list. “Then there’s all the
arrangements to be made for the wedding itself. Your dress isn’t even half done
and—”

“Oh!”

At the sound of
dismay Edith’s head shot up. Rhiannon scooted back and Stella’s head landed on
the ground with an audible thump. The dog cast an aggrieved look around and
promptly went back to sleep.

“Hadn’t we best
make plans for the May Day first?” Rhiannon asked anxiously. “I mean, the
wedding isn’t until after—”

“The day after May
Day.”

“Yes. Well. Still
after.
There’s still much to do for Beltaine night. You promised we’d bring clover
wine and we haven’t even bottled it yet.”

“There’s enough to
drink on Beltaine night without our adding to the general insobriety,” Edith
said virtuously.

“Mayhaps, madame.”
Rhiannon smiled and Edith felt her virtuous mien slip in answer to the girl’s
wheedling ways. “But would you condemn our neighbors to the aching heads and
roiling bellies you know they’ll suffer if they’ve only The Ploughman’s vile
bran ale with which to celebrate the eve of May Day?”

“Maybe they
shouldn’t drink so much.” Edith sniffed and colored, conscious that she might
have on one or two Beltaine nights imbibed a bit more than was seemly herself,
but unwilling to admit it to Rhiannon.

“Ach, now, dear.”
Rhiannon reached over and tickled Edith under the chin, her smile
conspiratorial. “ ’Tis once a year we in Fair Badden have an excuse to play at
being varlets and laggards and buffoons. The rest of the year we’re too sober
by half. What’s a celebration without your good clover wine?”

The girl was right.
Edith herself didn’t want to get, er,
festive
on The Ploughman’s
rotgut ale, and intend to get festive she did.

“All right,
Rhiannon,” she capitulated with a grumble. “We’ll bring the clover wine but if
there were less celebrating on Beltaine night mayhap we mightn’t have so many
baptisms nine months hence.”

It was true,
particularly amongst Fair Badden’s younger, farming population. The old custom
of young people pairing up and going off into the dark woods on Beltaine night
to collect hawthorn blossoms often ended with the courting couple having an
incentive to move past courting to the altar. Often that incentive was a babe.

“I wouldn’t know about
that,” Rhiannon said. “I’ve been Virgin Queen of the Virgin May three years
running now.”

“You just make sure
you
keep
running this Beltaine night, girl,” Edith said severely. “At
least until after your wedding.”

Chapter Eight

“Hide and seek?”
Susan Chapham echoed Margaret Atherton’s suggestion. “In the yew maze?”

She glanced around
as she said it, an unnecessary precaution as Edith Fraiser had shepherded their
parents into the drawing room where innumerable games of whist, coupled with
matching glasses of port, would keep them busy all afternoon. “Dare we?”

The young men,
reluctant to be caught instigating such naughty sport, remained mum but their
smiles related their accord with the proposed entertainment. Only Ash Merrick
remained uninvolved, his gaze distracted, his expression polite but bored. More
than anyone Rhiannon had ever met, he provoked the mischievousness in her. She
simply could not let him dismiss her and her friends.

“Why not?” Rhiannon
therefore asked. “ ’Twill be good practice for Beltaine. Mayhap we ladies will
discover some hidey hole to keep ourselves safe from roaming males that night.”

“And how do you
propose to conduct the game?” Ash Merrick asked. He unfolded his whipcord
length from where he’d been idly leaning against the maypole the villagers had
erected that morning.

His time in Fair
Badden had bestowed a tawny hue to his pale skin and since he so adamantly
denounced wearing any wig, his hair, freshly washed, glistened like polished
ebony.

“Everyone hides and
one person tries to find them all?” Susan suggested.

“Sounds confounded
tiring to me,” St. John said, yawning behind his gloved hand.

“Have you a better
suggestion?” one of the other young ladies asked.

“I do,” Phillip
declared. “The ladies hide and the last one to be found wins.”

“But that isn’t
fair,” Margaret said plaintively. “Rhiannon will be the last woman found. It’s
her yew maze, after all.”

“Besides,” John
Fortnum said in his gruff, forthright way, “seems to me that since the men do
all the work, the men ought to reap some sort of reward.”

An inspired smile
appeared on Phillip’s face. “How about this? The gentleman who finds the last
lady hidden in the maze shall be rewarded with”—he looked around—“a kiss.”

The ladies
tittered. The men grinned knowingly. And Ash Merrick leaned toward Margaret
Atherton, saying something in a voice that did not carry. Something for her
ears alone.

“Aye. A kiss it
shall be!” Rhiannon declared.

“But Phillip knows
this maze nearly as well as Rhiannon,” Susan complained. “He’ll be sure to win...”
And then, as realization struck her, “Ohh!”

Phillip’s golden
brows rose in feigned innocence. “I am sure Rhiannon knows hiding places I’ve
yet to discover.”

He was so sure of
himself, thought Rhiannon, and the same quality that had driven her to support
the game, the same thing that spurred her to race breakneck speeds when putting
her horse to a hurdle, was pricked awake by his certainty.