Page 28 of The Passionate One (McClairen’s Isle #1)

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.

“I got in an hour ago,” Andy said, his gaze still wandering around the room. “Mr. Merrick saw me straight off, right there in the kitchen while he made sure me and Stella had something in our bellies.”

Stella promptly flopped down and rolled to her back, her great dinner plate-sized paws waggling in the air in an attempt to elicit a belly scratch.

“He doesn’t look so good, Mr. Merrick don’t. And his eyes look a great bit of empty. And— Oh I am thick-headed!”

With a tch of self-disgust, Andy fumbled in his pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper. He handed it to her. “He sent this to you, miss.” He grinned at Stella. “And don’t you worry, you great sweet-eyed tart, I gots something for you, too.”

Once more Andy shoved a hand in his pocket, this time pulling out a beefs knucklebone. He tossed it to Stella and her jaws closed on it in midair. “Got that from one of the scullery maids,” he explained. “Nice girl. Accommodating, if you know what I mean.”

A considering expression stole over Andy’s young face. He slapped his thighs suddenly. “Well then, I … I, ah, I best be off. I … I left something in the scullery. I’ll stop back afore I leave for Fair Badden to see if you’ve anything you’d like me to take to Mrs. Fraiser.”

He plunked his abused cap back on his head and, with a cheeky nod, opened the door. He looked up and down the deserted hall. “Not much for morning activities round here, are they?”

He disappeared, closing the door behind him.

With trembling hands, Rhiannon unfolded the paper. The words were few, the handwriting angular and harsh, without any softening or embellishments—much like Ash himself. She blinked away the sudden moisture in her eyes and read:

Forgive me and accept this dog by way of my apology. Please. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Please. Merrick

But he’d sent for Stella long before the scene in that dimly lit room, before they’d even reached Wanton’s Blush. He’d done what he could to see that Stella’s wounds were treated and then he’d arranged to have her brought here, so that Rhiannon might not be alone. Because Ash understood what it was to be alone, without allies or confidants.

Or love.

But he’d tasted that emotion in Fair Badden. She was sure of it. He simply hadn’t experience enough to recognize it.

He may not be the charming bon vivant who’d first captivated her in Fair Badden. But neither was he an unfeeling monster who’d seduced her only to discard her. He was a hard man in desperate need of tenderness, roughly used by fate and father, seeking a moment’s respite from constant strife.

The realization burned through her heart like a dry field afire, illuminating the darkest corners, the cautious frightened places she’d tended and hidden in for over ten years. The safe places.

But Ash Merrick was not safe, and loving Ash Merrick would never be safe— She stopped, her hand stilled in Stella’s thick, smooth coat.

Loving Ash Merrick.

She rose smoothly, strongly, sure of herself and her destination. At last.

Ash slouched forward over the writing desk in the corner of his room, staring at a column of numbers he’d written from memory. If he remembered correctly the numbers from Carr’s ledger went back seven or eight years. They had no notations associated with them, only dates.

But what, if anything, had they to do with Rhiannon Russell? He sighed heavily, rubbing his palms over his beard-roughened cheeks. By now that lad would have delivered that useless hound to her. They’d be rolling about her bedroom floor in an ecstatic reunion. The thought brought a smile to his harsh countenance and he kept the image there, in his mind’s eye, for a minute, savoring the pure sweetness of it before straightening and raking his hair back from his forehead.

He’d more important things to consider. He’d overheard Fia telling Gunna that King George, not content merely to exile Carr to the Highlands for his habit of losing wives, had gone one further, promising to extract retribution if yet another of England’s daughters succumbed while in his care.

That must have been what Tunbridge’s letter had alluded to—Carr’s obsession with his “place” in society. Tunbridge must have been sent to pave the way toward some sort of reconciliation between the king and Carr.

And there was more. Last night Ash had managed to corner Carr’s man of business in a bout of intense drinking, a small triumph in itself since Carr had hired for that post a man of nearly pathological discretion.

Ash had spent hours weaving lurid and grossly exaggerated tales about his days in Paris. Under the influence of drink and bonhomie, the wizened little man had finally begun to nod sympathetically. Bit by bit he’d disclosed his secrets. After relating the expense of running the castle, the little fellow had placed his finger alongside his nose and let one rheumy eye close in a careful wink.

“Carr has income near enough to make it all work,” he’d whispered. “Information is always worth gold to some. Plus there’s the gaming. Certain gentlemen, and I’m sure you can figure out at least one of them, since Lord Carr says you speared his hand, pay His Lordship for the privilege of being invited to his tables. Then there’s bonds and banknotes and that property overseas …”

Then, as if suddenly aware of just how much he’d divulged, the little man had clapped a hand over his mouth, risen unsteadily to his feet, and fled.

Overseas property? The Americas? Australia?

Ash rose from behind the desk and walked to the window. Ever since Rhiannon’s arrival Carr had grown daily more tense. But in the past few days his irritability had given way to a certain expectancy. It boded ill for someone and that person mustn’t be Rhiannon.

Lost in contemplation, Ash was only vaguely aware of the door opening behind him. Assuming it was a servant bringing a pot of strong black coffee, Ash gestured toward the desk without turning. “Put it there, please, and don’t bother to stay and tidy up. I’ll be gone from here soon enough.”

He stared out at the sea. The dim, hushed predawn light soothed his burning eyes. It was like Fair Badden’s pure sweet dawns. He would have liked to have gone for a walk this morning as he had so many mornings there. He would have liked to have stridden through the dew-shimmered grass with that fool hound Stella gamboling behind him and Rhiannon at his side.

With an exhausted sigh, he rested his forearm on the window above his head and leaned wearily into it. No such pastoral pleasures for him. He had an image to maintain, a reputation at stake.

“No. No sunlit vagaries for me,” he murmured to himself. “Not when an entire night beckons me with the promise of untold amusements.”

“Ash Merrick, you’re a liar.”

He wheeled around. She stood in a soft wash of paling light, a cloud of silky lace pooling about her bared feet, her shoulders rising from the froth of her night garment like an alabaster Venus rising from the waves.

He swallowed. It was all he could do. He was too tired and she was too beautiful and he’d tried, God knows he’d tried, to keep her safe from Watt and Carr and most especially himself.

But he hadn’t any reserves left; he’d been wrung out of his last drop of self-restraint and he’d never owned any good intentions anyway. He’d wanted her, lusted after her, desired her, and needed her and she was here, in his bedchamber with cloudy dawn molding itself to her skin and a haze of soft slumber muzzying her soft, rich mouth.

But he tried. He still tried.

“If you take another step into this room,” he advised her, “I will not let you leave until I’ve had you on your back.”

She took a step into the room.