Page 30 of The Passionate One (McClairen’s Isle #1)

The stable was warm, the dawn was cooled by sheets of rain, and young Andy Payne was as hot and cocky as only a sixteen-year-old male newly initiated into the world of carnal pleasure can be. His darlin’, Cathy? Carly? had left earlier and he’d dozed a bit—this tupping business was most strenuous play—but now he felt quite up to a cup of milk and a bit of beef.

Whistling happily, Andy clambered down the ladder from the hayloft, leaving the stables and heading for the kitchen building. The smell of baking bread was just beginning to ride the gusting east wind. He followed it down the path between the alehouse and the icehouse, and in doing so ran smack dab into a human mountain.

Andy staggered back, staring up into a once handsome visage now ravaged by sleeplessness and pain.

“Mr. Watt!” Andy cried.

Phillip clamped his hand over the boy’s mouth, hushing him in a low urgent voice before half dragging him into some scrub larch fifty feet away. A half-dozen men materialized from the brush and encircled Andy. Their faces were grim, their clothes hard worn, their boots scuffed with travel.

Andy counted three he knew besides Phillip Watt: John Fortnum, Ben Hobson, and Edward St. John. The other two men were vaguely familiar but the glint of excitement in their eyes he knew all too well from his years working his Dad’s tavern. Troublemakers, this lot. Up to no good. He’d stake the guinea in his pocket on it.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Watt?” Andy asked, though he suspected he already knew, and that knowledge lodged in the pit of his stomach and made it ache. “Where’d you come from?”

“We’ve been here three days, boy,” Phillip said tightly, “waiting for the chance to get word to Rhiannon. Thank God you’ve come along.”

“But all you’d have had to do is write her a letter and send it by courier. Or give it to her yourself,” Andy said in bafflement. “She walks out on the cliffs each morning. They aren’t keeping her prisoner, you know.”

“Ha!” Phillip’s laughter was bitter, and bitterness from this man, whom Andy had always known as a jovial, fine chap, was as odd as summer snow. “She’s watched day and night. I’ve seen her guards. We all have.” He looked around at the others; they nodded in curt concurrence.

“Is … is she all right?” Phillip asked gruffly.

“Miss Russell?” Andy asked. “Aye. She maybe lost some weight but she’s not being mistreated. I think she’s mayhap lonely.”

Phillip’s lip curled back in a sneer. “What? Even with Merrick—”

He bit off whatever he’d been about to say and grabbed Andy’s hand. He thrust a single folded and sealed piece of paper into it. “Take this to her. Give it into her hand and hers alone.”

The look on Phillip’s face sent Andy stumbling back. The others watched approvingly.

“Aye, sir.” Andy gulped audibly. “Aye. Right away, sir.”

He knuckled his forehead and backed away, scooting clear of the larch, apprehension chasing him. Apprehension not only for himself, but for Phillip Watt, who looked as changed as a man can be, and even more apprehension for Rhiannon Russell. Andy hadn’t liked the look in Phillip’s eye when he’d asked after her.

Andy peered back over his shoulders. The men from Fair Badden had vanished and— For the second time that morning Andy ran directly into the tall broad figure of a man. Strong hands steadied him and a smooth Scottish voice spoke from the darkness, “Now, then, lad. Why don’t you be tellin’ me about your friends out yonder?”

Donne saw Rhiannon walking swiftly toward the conservatory, a cape over her arm and a huge, lanky yellow hound pacing beside her.

“You’re not thinkin’ of going out today, Miss Russell?” Donne called after her.

She looked round in surprise and smiled doubtfully as he approached. This morning she wore her beauty full open, a lush highland rose radiant with youth and promise. He only wished his heart allowed room for something so fresh and honest. Alas, it was too full with the need for revenge.

“Well, yes … I was,” Rhiannon said.

“You’ll be blown from the cliffs, Miss Russell. But if go you must, allow me to accompany you.”

“That is most kind of you, Lord Donne,” Rhiannon said, “but I confess today I would most enjoy my own company.”

“But I insist,” Donne said. He moved close to her and looked down at her shining cap of unpowdered hair. “I have a note for you from a friend of yours.”

“A friend?” she repeated.

“Aye. A friend from Fair Badden.” He offered her his arm, and after that first startled hesitation, she placed her hand upon his forearm. “Not another word, Miss Russell. Carr was quite right to term Wanton’s Blush his kingdom and he the king. A despotic king. He rules through many means, intimidation and blackmail being but two. Whenever you speak, whatever you say, I advise you to be oblique.”

“Lord Donne, pray remember that Lord Carr is my guardian,” she said uncomfortably, her eyes searching his face.

Yes, he thought, during her short stay at Wanton’s Blush she’d learned to be wary, to trust no one. Pray God she wouldn’t have to stay and learn harder lessons still.

“So he is,” Donne said smoothly. They’d reached the conservatory doors. He took her cape from her arm, spread it wide, and settled it gently on her shoulders. Once more he offered her his arm. “Shall we walk?”

She nodded and he drew her outside. The rain fell in fits and starts, stripping the petals from the flowers. The small ornamental trees in the formal gardens danced with each gust, the creak of their branches underscoring the rushing sound of wind.

He drew her close to him, angling himself to protect her as best he could. He led her out onto the terrace and from there down the stairs, ducking beneath the arch that gave entry to the kitchen gardens and from there the sea.

At the Seagate he finally stopped and positioned himself so that he acted as a barrier. He handed her the letter. She stepped back, half turning for privacy, and broke the seal. She read and as she read her fine, gold-buffed skin paled, the color bled from her lips, and her hands shook.

“I would go to him, Miss Russell,” he said.

Her eyes snapped up.

“I intercepted the messenger your fiancé sent, a boy named Payne. I convinced him I had only your best interest at heart. He was scared. The young should never be burdened with such responsibility,” he murmured, his gaze distant. He gave himself a little shake and looked toward her. She was watching him closely. “He told me about it. About Phillip Watt, and Merrick kidnapping you.”

“You don’t understand.”

He shook his head gravely. “I do. Ash Merrick is a ruthless man. I know him. I understand him and in some ways,” he admitted with a wry smile, “I even admire him. And because I understand him, because we are in some ways but different sides of the same coin, I tell you this, Miss Russell. There’s no room in his heart for anything so fragile as affection or so nebulous as honor.

“There is nothing for you on McClairen’s Isle but pain, Miss Russell. If you stay you will end up being a pawn. Carr already has an interest in you, which is frightening enough. Add to that Merrick’s interest and you have a very unprepossessing future. Did you know that Merrick specifically asked me to discover how your death could benefit someone?”

Her head snapped up at this, her gaze unreadable but intent.

“Yes,” Donne said gravely, unwilling to hurt her but knowing he could not spare her, “Merrick, too, is trying to determine your worth in this mad chess game being played.”

“Thank you for your concern, Lord Donne.” She sounded breathless. “It is much appreciated.”

The fear he’d hoped to engender was nowhere to be seen in her lovely, composed face. Only a deep sorrow and, oddly, something like peace. Frustrated Donne tried again. “You don’t understand. This isn’t simply a rather nasty family. It’s evil.

“Carr killed his first wife and then killed the next two. No one says it, especially those dependent on him for their gambling. Who would dare? But in London everyone knows it, accepts it as fact—including the king.

“Carr is not living here because the air suits him, Rhiannon. He’s here because he’s been exiled here. The king will not have him in London and what’s more, the king has promised to separate his head from his shoulders should any other heiresses die under his care.

“That’s what your guardian is, Miss Russell! He left his sons to rot in God knows what form of hell rather than spend his precious money to ransom them.

“And Merrick is his son. The same blood runs thick in his veins, believe me. I’ve seen him skewer a man’s hand for cheating and you saw him fighting—”

“He had to,” Rhiannon broke in. Her eyes had grown cold and her face frozen. “He has to do what he does in order to free his brother.”

“His brother raped a nun! He is as bad as his sire. They all are.” Donne shouted, infuriated by her inconceivable faith in Merrick, her abysmal na?veté. “Fia is nothing but Carr’s whore, groomed to fetch the largest marriage settlement possible!”

“Lord Donne,” Rhiannon said, the mist beading on her lashes and coating her lips in salty spray, “I … I am so sorry.”

“I don’t want your condolences. I want your promise that you will go to Watt. That you will leave this cursed place.” He grabbed her upper arms, unable to keep himself from shaking her. “I am trying to help you, Miss Russell!”

She lifted her chin, her gaze scouring his face, a slow dawning inspiration turning her expression first to amazement and then to consternation. “Yes,” she swallowed. “I promise. I will go to him.”

He released her and she turned, the wind catching her cape and sending it billowing out behind her as she retraced her path, leaving him behind in the heightening wind.

* * *

Fia heard the receding crunch of Donne’s boots on the gravel path. He was leaving.

Her knees buckled and she slid down the outside of the garden wall, her sodden cloak pooling around her on the muddy grass. She closed her eyes.

Murder. Whore. Mad.

That small child who still dwelt, hidden and secret beneath Fia’s sumptuous, worldly exterior whimpered. She wished she’d not come here. She wished she could forget what she’d heard.

She’d come down the stairs and seen Donne approach Rhiannon and speak. Whatever he’d said had arrested Rhiannon and with every appearance of consternation, she’d allowed him to lead her off.

Mindful of Carr’s instruction to gather whatever information one could, she’d slipped along the outside of the kitchen garden wall until she’d heard them speaking.

It had not been hard. Donne’s voice had risen above the rush of heightening wind. She’d heard every word.

She wished she had a knife like Ash’s. When Rhiannon had left Donne she would have met him at the terrace bottom and pierced his black, lying heart. But she didn’t have a knife and Donne was large and strong and harder than any man she knew, harder even than Ash.

She had thought Thomas Donne was perfect: polished, hard, yet with a core of something immutably … compassionate. She rolled her head against the hard, gray stone, sobbing on laughter. Compassionate.

She’d fallen in love with him two years ago, the first day she’d seen him, when he’d come to Wanton’s Blush with friends and stayed a weekend. Since then she had loved him with all the intensity of her passionate young heart, doing whatever she could think of to attract his notice, to secure his regard.

It had been hard. Every day she’d had to fight to overcome the shyness that drowned her whenever she was in his presence. Too often she’d succumbed to the insecurities that made her flee a room he’d entered rather than risk making a fool of herself in his presence.

She’d adopted every artifice and embellishment that instructors and governesses, artists and dressmakers, perfumers and wig makers could provide. For him. And he hated her. Hated them all.

Because—she bit her lip until it bled—because, or so he said, her father had murdered her mother. And Ash was evil and manipulative, and Raine had raped a nun, and she? A little keening sound rose from deep in her chest. She was a whore. Carr was her procurer.

For the first time in years, tears sprang to her eyes. They spilled from her lids and streamed down her face mingling with the pouring rain. More and more of them, a torrent of them, all the tears she’d never shed and all the ones she would never allow again. And when she had spent them all, when she was exhausted and soaked with rain and shivering with nausea and cold, she planted her fists wrist-deep in the muddy ground and pushed herself upright and made herself walk through the storm back to Wanton’s Blush.

To her father’s office.