Page 32 of The Passionate One (McClairen’s Isle #1)

Rhiannon sat huddled against one of the boulders ringing the small clearing. She drew her knees up, folded her arms, and waited. The men from Fair Badden were sleeping.

As she watched, a curl of smoke floated up from the smoldering campfire like a phantom fleur de lis and dissolved into the black night. No moon or stars shown in the ebony sky. It was a good night for prey animals to be afoot. A good night to walk away.

Phillip had not bothered to set a guard. He’d assumed that a woman alone would never dare flee into this desolate wilderness. He’d been mistaken. She was a daughter of these unforgiving mountains. Whatever they threatened her with could be no more painful than that which Phillip had already done to her: taken her from Ash.

Rhiannon waited another fifteen minutes before gathering her damp skirts and creeping forward. Nearby—too near to chance saddling—the tethered horses nickered softly. Silently, she rifled through the belongings scattered about and found a skein of water. She slipped its leather thong across her shoulders, anger thrumming through her.

Her entire life had been a series of fear-inspired flights: the escape from the Highlands, her abduction from Fair Badden, and now Phillip’s “rescue.” She’d been taken from her home and then from her adopted home and now from Ash, always for the same reason: so she would be safe. And in the process she’d left behind those people and things she loved.

No more.

She would stay in the Highlands and if by staying she was destroyed, then she would be destroyed fighting for what she wanted, not fleeing what she feared. True, Ash Merrick was dangerous and passionate and complicated. Perhaps he would even be the death of her. But she loved him, with all her heart she loved him, and she would fight to stay at his side.

At the edge of the campsite, she lifted her hem and sprinted into the woods, her eyes riveted on the east. And Ash.

There was not much to pack, but then there never had been. A shirt, an extra pair of breeches, woolen socks. Ash thrust them into a leather satchel atop the belt stuffed with the money for Raine’s ransom.

He still had his promise. He must hold on to that. It was all he had now. All he’d ever had, really, except for those brief incandescent hours before she’d left.

He understood. He did not fault her choice. Whatever magic they’d wrought as lovers had dissolved with Watt’s note and sanity’s return. She’d weighed Ash’s poverty—not merely a paucity of coin—against all Watt had and represented. Watt had won. How could it be different? What could Ash offer her that could compare with friends, family, security, and home?

He’d thought of going after her—but it was a brief madness, the desperate last measures of an injured heart. He wanted her happiness too much to delude himself any longer. He couldn’t pretend Phillip wanted her dead. That wretched giant would never harm Rhiannon.

Ash’s gaze strayed to the adjoining room and the bed that still held their fragrance, the unique perfume of their lovemaking.

He’d made love with Rhiannon. He allowed the words to sweep over him with all their sweet, shattering power. He’d loved Rhiannon.

He braced his arms atop the satchel, his head falling forward. He’d loved Rhiannon and he’d never told her. In a life rife with misadventure and iniquity he knew that was the one act for which he would never forgive himself.

He threw his head up, inhaling through clenched teeth. It was as well for her that he’d never told her. It would have only added to her confusion. She loved Fair Badden. She cared for Phillip. If she would never again know such passion—he stopped, forcing himself to bitter honesty—if he never again knew that passion, many lived without it.

If this emptiness held at its core a hurt that threatened any second to erupt and consume him, he would survive that, too. It need only take time to heal. Say, a few eternities.

Yet, he thought, he would not have traded a second in her arms, a single word, not one of her smiles in order to extinguish all his anguish. Whatever pain it cost him was well worth the remembrance of her.

He released a long, shuddering breath and forced himself to buckle the satchel’s straps. France waited.

He threw the pack over his shoulder and without looking back, walked away from the room, along the empty corridors, past the silent servants’ furtive glances, down the filth-littered staircase, and out into the bleak morning light. He headed across the moss-slick cobbles toward the stables.

A dog’s plaintive yip echoed through the yard. Dully, he looked about. A big yellow hound had been tied to the rail. Though the rope bit into her muscular throat she strained against her bounds. A prime case of Wanton’s Blush tenderness, he thought bitterly, and went to the beast, bending down and unknotting the choking noose.

“Best leave,” he muttered. “Take your chances in the mountains. Wanton’s Blush is no place for man or beast.”

The dog tucked tail and loped off, it’s stiff hind leg in no manner impeding its speed. Ash stared after it. “Stella?”

The hound stopped at the stable yard entrance and looked back.

“Stella,” Ash spoke quietly. “Come.”

The hound turned its great head in the direction of the mountains, black nostrils quivering.

“Come.”

Reluctantly, the dog returned to him. It was Stella. A tiny fire seeped through Ash’s numb heart. Rhiannon would never have left Stella at Wanton’s Blush. Whatever she’d intended when she’d gone to meet Phillip, she’d planned on returning. She had not willingly left here. Joy mingled inexorably with anxiety. He needed to find her. He started for the stables at a trot.

“Ash!”

He looked back. Fia was hastening across the courtyard, her cape whipping in the swirling wind. “Wait!” she called again.

He paused, anxious to be off, but he waited until she’d reached his side.

“You’re leaving,” she said.

“Yes.” He was eager to go, but Fia obviously wanted a few words, and he knew that even if Rhiannon was an unwilling companion, she was in no danger from Watt.

“You were not going to bid father a fond adieu?” Her smile was bright and mocking. “Or your little sister?”

His own raw vulnerability identified the subtle disappointment in Fia’s young voice. He regarded her sadly. Whatever Fia was, she had been made that way through no offices of her own. “Fia, do you want to leave here?”

His words took her aback. Her smooth face softened with astonishment. She searched his face warily, as if suspecting a trick. “No, no … I can’t.” The words tumbled out. “Where would I go? What would I do?” She lifted her chin. “Why would I want to leave, anyway?”

“I can’t take you with me now,” Ash said, reading the distrust in her gaze. “Not now. But if you wish, I will come back for you, Fia.”

She opened her lips to frame some stinging reply but her mouth snapped shut without uttering it.

“Think on it, Fia. I’ll write. I promise.”

He called the dog to his side and had started past Fia, when she caught at his sleeve. “Where are you going?”

“Rhiannon,” he said shortly.

Her brow puckered. “She’s gone?”

“Yes.”

“But she can’t. She mustn’t.” Fia’s silky voice had roughened with such fear that Ash halted in the act of uncurling her fingers from his sleeve.

“What is it you know, Fia?” Ash asked. She hesitated. “Fia!”

“I think Rhiannon is in danger from Carr. I read his letters last night, all of—”

“What did you find, Fia?” Ash cut in.

“Her brother, Ian Russell, he’s alive. He lives on one of the French-owned islands by the Americas.”

“Still alive?” Ash’s tension eased. “Then Rhiannon is not an heiress. She should be safe. Unless Carr has hired someone to kill her brother.”

He threw the consideration out without thought and was shocked when he saw Fia blanch. Dear God, he thought in astonishment, she had not known what Carr was capable of and was only now discovering it.

“Yes,” she said in a distant, hushed voice. “I don’t think … Russell has been sending Carr money for Rhiannon’s support and a substantial dower. Over the last ten years Russell has sent Carr thousands of pounds. Money Rhiannon never saw.”

The quarterly entry in Carr’s ledger. The overseas property Carr’s little man of business had mentioned. Of course.

“There’s more,” Fia went on, lifting her face and speaking calmly now, too calmly. “I found a letter from this Ian Russell. Though he’s a Jacobite fugitive, he grows homesick. Ash, he’s coming here for one day, to see Rhiannon and then return to his island. I think Carr plans to have him arrested or … or killed.”

One day. Realization swept over Ash in a cold, tidal wave of fear.

“No, Fia,” he said. “Carr would never allow his association with a known Jacobite to become public or Russell to testify; it would end any hope Carr has of returning to society, if not forfeit his own life. And Carr can’t take the chance that a hired assassin might fail. Russell is an unknown quantity, an adult, a battle-tested man who may well arrive with his own complement of companions.”

He turned from Fia and began moving away, but Fia caught his arm again. “Why do you look like that?” she demanded. “What does he plan?”

He jerked his arm from her hold. “He plans to kill Rhiannon.” He threw the words over his shoulder as he broke into a trot, his thoughts racing. That is why Carr had sent him to Fair Badden. Ash had been sent not to retrieve Rhiannon, but Rhiannon’s corpse.

Ash ran faster, the king’s edict ringing in his head: “No flower of England must die while under Carr’s care.” Carr had made sure that Rhiannon wasn’t under his care, that she was miles away, that she had, in fact, never even met Lord Carr. Why, Ash himself would provide witness to that fact.

He burst through the stable doors and raced to his horse’s stall, snatching it open and entering. Carr had planned it so perfectly. Ash would return with the body. Carr would strip the rings from Rhiannon’s cold fingers and give them to Ian Russell, who would be too overwhelmed by grief to ask questions, and soon after gone forever, never realizing that not a penny of his money had reached Rhiannon. Should Russell find out otherwise, there was no telling what retribution he would seek, what he would do.

Hands flying Ash bridled and saddled his horse and leapt into the saddle, grabbing for the reins. No wonder Carr had been so stricken when he’d arrived at Wanton’s Blush with Rhiannon. It was the one place on earth Carr could not allow her to die.

But now she’d left, and Carr’s agent, whoever he’d hired or blackmailed into killing her, could finish the job.

Ash dug his heels into his horse’s sides, flaying, it with his hand and calling out loudly as the steed launched itself from the stable doors.

He had to get to Rhiannon before the assassin did.

“Where the bloody hell has she gone?” Phillip roared. His voice sent the starlings shrieking from the pine branches.

“Back to her lover,” St. John sneered, crawling to his feet.

“I’ll get her back,” Phillip declared. His fury was a living thing. Merrick had taken her not once, but twice now. This last time Merrick might not have dragged her off, but she hadn’t left here of her own volition. She’d become Merrick’s doxy, chained to him by carnal desire.

“Nay, Phillip,” John Fortnum said gravely. “Nay. The lass doesn’t want to be rescued. It’s clear to see.”

Phillip swung on him, his hands balling into fists at his side. “She doesn’t know what’s good for her. She’s fascinated, under his spell. I’ll break the hold he has on her when I break his filthy neck.”

The others gained their feet and traded cautious glances.

“I didn’t come here to commit murder,” Ben Hobson finally said.

“Is it murder to rid the world of a devil?” Phillip demanded. “He taints whatever he touches and destroys what he seduces. He deserves nothing less than death!”

“No, Phillip,” Fortnum pleaded. “Think what you’re saying. He’s a man, Phillip, like any other man. No demon.”

Phillip ignored him, ignored them all, stalking past the shuffling, muttering men and slinging his saddle over his mount. He laced the cinch straps and tightened the girth, the air hot in his lungs as he put on the bridle. Finished, he swung into the saddle, yanking back on the reins and spinning the horse around.

The men had not moved and Phillip scoured them with his glare. “Go then! Tuck tails and run! I’ll find him without you!”