The Passionate One (34 page)

His gaze devoured
the sight of all the ivory skin he uncovered, remarked the dark stain left by
his dirty hands as they traveled up the long lines of her lovely milk white
thighs. She’d been clean.

He laughed softly
and laughed again when he saw her face go still with apprehension.

Cleanliness.
He’d never been clean. He’d no experience with anything unpolluted.
Until her. She was fresh and sweet and innocent. In spite of her nightmares. In
spite of being stained by the blood of battle.
In spite of him.

The scent of her
filled his nostrils. The cool polished feel of her hair slipped in silky waves
over his forearm. Why should he not have her when she’d wrung from him the one
thing he’d always had—the knowledge of who he was.

He dipped, bending
at the knees. She could not resist. Her body was imprisoned between his and the
wall. He rocked forward against the hidden delta he’d exposed. Erotic pleasure
surged through his limbs, pooling in his groin. He couldn’t stop, would not
stop, he would take her, use her, pitch and flux and drown in the sin of
ravishing her. He
wanted
to overpower her, force her to pliancy,
punish her for making him—

Through the
thundering of his heartbeat he felt a faint vibration, a shiver no stronger
than the pulse racing in her throat. She was sobbing.

Not the sweet sob
of abandonment he’d heard on that warm, cursed Beltaine Eve. Not the sound of
newly discovered passion, of pure desire. It was not a pleasured sob like the
one she’d offered to the night sky when she’d so artlessly, so ravishingly
given herself to him. It was a pitiful gasp for a breath he would not allow.

Dear God, let me
rape her, he prayed. Let me be done with her. With a thick sound, he wrenched
his mouth from hers.

Rhiannon breathed.

She opened her eyes
and found Ash’s thick-lashed eyes inches away, fierce and alien. Had she once
thought them cold? Impossible. Molten lead and green wood smoke, heat and ash,
nothing cold here. Nothing recognizable.

His hand about her
throat tightened fractionally as if he read in her pleading expression
something he would not endure. Anchored only by her hands braced on his
shoulders, her hips jammed to the wall by his, she stared at him. For a long
second their gazes locked. Fury roiled just beyond expression in Ash’s battered
face. She took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Let me go,” she
commanded him.

The edges of his
nails dug deeper into her throat.

“Why should I?” he
sneered.

She wanted to
whimper, to claw at the hand on her throat. It would be futile. She’d seen
Ash’s expression on the faces of the soldiers who’d bayoneted her cousins. The
redcoats had been ordered to commit acts that none of them would have willingly
done in the normal course of their lives. But because it was war, because Cumberland said to, they’d obeyed, burned crofts, shot men like wild dogs, bayoneted boys.

They couldn’t stop.
Their brutalized minds wouldn’t let them. They wouldn’t stop for even an
instant and consider that the Highlanders were people. And
nothing
must remind them elsewise. When her youngest cousin had shed a tear, a soldier
shot him, furious that the boy had reminded the redcoat that he was murdering a
child.

She saw in Ash’s
embattled countenance that same frantic need to kill an overburdened conscience
with one heinous, unforgivable act. To finally take that last step over the
line and free-fall into an abyss of moral blackness, a place where choices and
options no longer tortured him.

And yet, in spite
of all she knew of him, she did not think he had been brought to that place.
She locked her hand about his strong supple wrist, praying she was right.

“Because,” she said
very clearly, very firmly, “you are hurting me. You are frightening me.”

He stared at her a
second as if he could not comprehend her words. Slowly the fingers around her
throat loosened. He released the skirts he held crumpled at her hip. He did not
say a word, only stepped back, a single step, just enough for her to move away.

Swallowing, keeping
her gaze fixed on his, she slipped sideways, skirting the room’s edge. He
watched her stonily, mutely, his hands loose at his sides, his eyes bleak and
exhausted and terrifying. Fumbling behind her she found the door latch and
twisted it, pushing the door open. Only then did she dare turn her back and
leave.

Fia found Gunna
lugging a heavy-looking pail down a corridor. The old woman puffed as she
staggered under the weight. With a quick glance around, Fia hastened forward.
The startled old woman dropped the bucket the few inches she held it above the
floor and snatched her veil before her face. Seeing it was Fia, she relaxed.

“What are you
doing?” Fia hissed. “If Carr sees you downstairs, you know he’ll dismiss you.”

“Ach! He’d naught
do so,” Gunna snickered. “He couldna replace me and well he knows it. Dinna
worry, darlin’, I’m just heading in there.” She jerked her head toward a
half-ajar door. “I must bandage up the lad is all.”

Fia glanced at the
door. “Ash is in there?”

“Aye, most likely
unconscious. But, hold lassie. If he ain’t, I’d no be entering that particular
lion’s den just now. He’s like in as black a mood as Lucifer in sunlight.”

“Why?”

Gunna shrugged as
Fia latched her fingers around the bucket’s handle and lifted it. “I dunno.
Perhaps he’s in no mood to have his lover become his stepmother.”

Fia stopped. The
water in the bucket sloshed, soaking the bottom of her skirts. She barely
noticed. “His lover?”

“Aye,” Gunna said,
tching
gently and bending down to dab at Fia’s jonquil-colored skirts.

Fia watched her in
surprise. Gunna seldom gossiped and did not encourage it in Fia.

She shouldn’t ask
Gunna more. But Carr had taught her the import of knowing about everything that
affected one’s life.

“What?” Gunna said,
reading Fia’s wide eyes. “Did you think that all Mr. Ash’s drinking and
carousing was for the hilarity of it? I had it from the lassie herself that Mr.
Ash and she were lovers. Only once, ’tis true, but I’m thinkin’ Mr. Ash would
like to make it twice. Mayhaps even more.” She winked at Fia.

“But,” Gunna went
on, “Carr must have other ideas. Why else would he send Mr. Ash to bring the
lassie here if not to marry her himself? No matter
what
the lassie
herself believes.” Gunna chortled and picked up the bucket. “It’s no wonder Mr.
Ash is in so foul a temper, is it?”

“But Carr
didn’t
bring her here to marry her,” Fia murmured, following Gunna’s bent form down
the hall. “He can’t.”

Rhiannon and Ash were
lovers? Yet Carr had commanded Ash to bring her here and Ash had done so. Why?
And if Carr had wanted Rhiannon here badly enough to send Ash for her, why was
he now pacing the floor and muttering about finding someone to take Rhiannon
Russell away?

“Why can’t he marry
Miss Rhiannon?” Gunna asked casually, stopping outside the door.

“Because,” Fia
answered distractedly, still trying to sort through what she’d learned, “the
Prime Minister gave an edict to Carr years ago, after the death of Lady
Beatrice. He said that if one more of Carr’s wives died, no matter what the
cause, Carr would answer to the king and he would answer with his life. Upon
hearing this, Carr swore he would never marry again—no matter what the
inducement.”

The old woman
frowned and pushed the door to the darkened room open farther. A hiss of pain
from the darkness just inside greeted them.

Gunna turned to
Fia. “Best you be gone now, dear. Afore yore father comes seeking you and finds
you here, with him.”

Before she could
reply Gunna slipped into the room leaving Fia to hasten back the way she’d
come, her thoughts in a whirl.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

His arms were
strong and sheltering, his body a rock-hard instrument of pleasure. Rhiannon
moaned softly and Ash lifted her with big, warm hands on either hip, sliding
deep within—

A sudden wild
clattering brought Rhiannon upright in her bed. She looked wildly about but
there was no lover, phantom or otherwise, beside her. With a little moan of
distress, she sank forward, bracing her forehead against her upraised knees and
rocking back and forth.

Two days now since
Ash had so nearly raped her and yet it was not her escape from so heinous an
act that occupied her thoughts. No. She remembered instead the blue-black welts
marring his beautiful body, and his pain-filled eyes. Even when she managed to
push him from her waking thoughts, he found other ways to come to her, at
night, in her dreams, as the lover with whom she’d shared such passion on
Beltaine night.

A light tapping on
her door brought her head up. The sun had just crested the sea, unraveling
strands of rosy light across her bedroom carpet. It was early, far too early
for even the servants to be about. Another soft rap preceded a sound of wild
scrabbling.

“Miss Russell?” A
young male voice queried desperately. It was vaguely familiar. “Please, Miss
Russell! Answer soon! I can’t keep her still!”

Rhiannon swung her
legs off the bed and slipped to the floor. Donning a dressing gown, she crossed
the room and opened the door.

A huge yellow
monster erupted from the floor, launching itself directly at Rhiannon, dragging
the thick linked chains that leashed it clean out of its handler’s hands. The
creature hit Rhiannon square in the chest, knocking her flat to her back.

Like a lion over
its prey, the huge animal stood over her, curled lips exposing huge ivory
canines.

“Stella!” Rhiannon
cried.

The grinning
gazehound dropped its enormous head and swiped Rhiannon’s entire face with a
tongue the size of a small hand cloth.

“Oh, Stella!”
Rhiannon wrapped her arms around the hound’s thick neck and hugged.

In the doorway the
young man shuffled uncomfortably, drawing Rhiannon’s attention. She recognized
him as Andrew Payne from The Ploughman in Fair Badden.

“However did she
get here? Did Mrs. Fraiser send her?” Rhiannon asked.

“Nah, Miss
Russell,” the young man said. “It was Mr. Merrick. Some weeks back Mr. Watt
hurtles up to the front of the inn driving a wagon hitched to a windbroke
horse, as furious as ever I’ve seen a man. He’s shouting about how Mr. Merrick
has taken off with you and swearing he’ll find Merrick and kill him and get you
back. He’s in such a lather that me father calls some fellows from the public
room to see that Watt doesn’t hurts himself. Off they hauls him, leaving me to
the wagon.”

The sound of
rattling dishes drew Rhiannon’s attention. Still on the floor with her arms
linked around Stella’s neck, she motioned the boy inside. “Come, Andy. Now tell
me the rest.”

Andrew entered,
snatching his hat from his head, twisting the woven wool between his hands.
“Well, I sees Stella here.” He nodded at the beast. She wagged her tail in
delighted recognition of her name. “She’s covered in blood and breathing weak
and her hind leg is crooked.”

Rhiannon ran her
hands over the dog and sure enough, found a thickened lump on her hind leg.

“I always liked
her, useless though she be,” the boy admitted gruffly, “so I takes her back to
Mrs. Fraiser with the rest of the story.”

“How did Mrs.
Fraiser take it?” Rhiannon asked softly.

The boy shuffled
uncomfortably, his gaze skittering away. “She shed some tears, miss, but she
sees Stella and she sets right out to patching her up and setting her leg. A
few days later, Mr. Merrick’s letter arrives and that gave her some comfort.”

“What letter?”
Rhiannon asked.

“A letter
and
a purse. The letter says how he would not take you without good cause and asks
Mrs. Fraiser to fix up Stella.”

“What did she do?
Was she sad?” Rhiannon asked anxiously.

“Ach,” Andy said.
“She’s a touch melancholy but greatly eased. She says as any man that takes
time out of an abduction to write a letter askin’ that a no-good bitch be
patched and brought across the entire country just to keep a lady company must
have a powerful care for the lady.

“And then, well,
you know Mrs. Fraiser. She says what’s done is done and that ye’ll do fine.
You’re a survivor.”

“What do you mean,
brought across the country?”

“The money,” Andy
explained patiently. “Mr. Merrick sent it so someone could bring Stella to
McClairen’s Isle. I volunteered and glad I am of it. Never seen nuthin’ like
this place.”

He grinned widely,
staring around the sumptuous bedchamber and letting out a long, low whistle.
Rhiannon stared at him unseeing.
Ash
had caused Stella to be tended
and brought here? Ash, the blackhearted deceiver, her would-be rapist? But
also, the man who’d brought her an old tartan so she might have something of
her family’s history. Dear Lord.