Page 34 of The Passionate One (McClairen’s Isle #1)

Carr watched his daughter. She stood at the end of the servants’ hall facing a small group of men—dirty, mud-coated peasants. He’d come upon them quite by accident. Usually he gave up the redoubtable pleasures of the servants’ quarters altogether but this afternoon he’d needed to talk to his wine steward.

The men fidgeted, eyes downcast, faces sullen with the universal expression of the yeoman. Fia’s face, as always, remained composed, as unrevealing as a sphinx. She said something and with much bobbing of heads the men disappeared, shuffling backward through the servants’ door.

Fia turned and saw him, hesitated a second. Something bright flickered in her black eyes and then she sailed gracefully toward him. For a second she looked just like Janet. He shivered.

“What did those men want?” Carr asked her when she’d reached his side.

“They’ve found a body about fifteen miles west,” she said calmly, “on the mainland.”

“In the mountains?”

“Yes.”

“So?” Carr asked. “What of it?”

“It’s apparently a nobleman. The clothes, or what are left of them, are fine and there was an expensive wig.”

There must be more to the story. “Yes?”

“He looks to have been savaged by a wolf.”

“Impossible.” Carr snorted, his interest in the tale fast fading. “There haven’t been any wolves in Scotland for over a hundred years.”

“As you say.”

He began to turn, intent on finding the wine steward, but something about her complacence made him uncomfortable. She’d ever been cool, like a beautiful ice princess. Now she was hard as ice as well. And no longer cool, but cold. That type of coldness that burns. “Who was the man, did they say?”

“Edward St. John.” Her eyes stayed on his face, soft and intent as a cat’s mesmerizing gaze. “You look upset. Did you know him? Ah, yes. I recall. He was here last year, was he not? He lost a great deal of money to you. Losing money to you must surely be the way to your heart, for upon my faith, Father, you are pale with the news.”

“Was he alone?” Carr demanded.

“Quite alone.”

The bloody, bloody bungler. Carr had all but handed the Russell bitch to him. He deserved to die.

Now he would have to make another plan before Russell arrived, find some other puppet whose strings he could pull …

“I wonder why he was traveling alone in those mountains?” Fia smiled.

She was toying with him! The realization struck him like a slap across the face. The audacious chit! How dare she? Anger clotted his cheeks with high color. His mouth compressed. He wheeled and began stalking away from her.

“Oh, Father?”

He looked around. She stood exactly where he’d left her. Her hands were clasped lightly before her.

“What?”

“I forgot to mention earlier but a messenger came for you last night.”

He scowled. “What is it, Fia?”

“ ’Twas a message from a Mr. Ian Russell.” She tilted her head. “I don’t recall knowing anyone named Ian Russell. And I have quite a memory for names.”

Russell. No! He wasn’t suppose to arrive until late summer!

Carr’s heart leapt to his throat. A thick, dull pain lanced through his side. His throat constricted and his fingertips tingled. The blood surged and boiled to his face.

“What?” he demanded in a choked voice. It was hard to breathe. His hands felt dulled, numbed. “What about Ian Russell?”

“Odd message,” Fia said slowly.

“Damn it, Fia,” he gasped, “what … did … it … say?”

“Oh, only something about the political climate not being favorable for sailing and that he must delay his trip indefinitely. Isn’t that odd?”

Carr closed his eyes. Relief washed through him, but the cost of his momentary panic was high. The vise around his chest eased only slowly, the feeling returning to his fingertips in increments. When he finally opened his eyes, Fia was gone.

Le Havre France July 1760

It was a nice inn, relatively new, and very nearly clean, particularly the private room in which the dark young man had carefully ensconced the pretty young woman. The innkeeper’s wife, an earthy practical woman had winked at the handsome fellow when he’d demanded the room have a lock and he the only key, and remarked that a fine stud had no need of a tethered mare.

He’d laughed, returning a sally in coarse Parisian patois. Surprising because the gentleman looked a good measure better than his gutter speech declared him. And certainly the little mademoiselle looked patrician with her red glinting hair and wide hazel eyes and her blushes …

Ah well, he was certainly handsome enough to lure a decent girl of good family and she was certainly beautiful enough for him to risk that patrician family’s wrath. And the way they watched each other … ! The innkeeper’s wife smiled and shook her head. It had been many a year since something so small as a look passing between a man and a woman had had the power to awaken her imagination. But these two!

Still smiling, she banged on the door to the private room, balancing a tray in the other hand. It contained the meal the man had ordered. The door opened and the beautiful woman stepped back, motioning toward the table. She did not speak. In fact, the innkeeper’s wife had yet to hear the girl utter a word. She shrugged. Perhaps she was a mute and perhaps that was why she settled for a coarse-spoken beau. No matter how powerfully built or how passionately he watched her, a girl like this … she should be in a castle. Unless something was wrong with her.

Ah, well. It was no concern of hers. They’d paid in coin. She set the tray down and, after bobbing a little curtsey, left.

Rhiannon glanced at the steaming plate of stewed chicken and returned to the chair she’d pulled up beside the window. She knew the innkeeper’s wife wondered at her lack of speech but she hadn’t the “advantage” of Ash’s years in a French gaol to teach her the nuances of an accent. She smiled tenderly, as always impressed that Ash could recall any part of his years in prison and find value in it.

Outside in the little seaport town the late summer sun was finally giving up the sky and sinking into the horizon. Ash should be back by now. He’d left yesterday at daybreak, making her promise not to open the door to anyone save the innkeeper and swearing he would return with Raine by nightfall the following day.

She’d begged to go with him but he’d refused. Rightfully so, she suspected. She could only be a burden to him on his covert mission to ransom his brother. England and France were at war and her speech marked her nationality quite clearly. If she was caught, well, even though born Scot, Rhiannon now owned an English surname—Merrick.

Rhiannon Merrick. Nearly a month had passed since they’d stood with Edith Fraiser and John Fortnum just north of the Scottish border and declared themselves husband and wife. Edith had cried. Rhiannon had never been so happy. She was still happy, deliciously so. Each day revealed more of the depth of honor and integrity the man she’d wed owned; each day proved the depth of his love for her. It was there in the care he took with her, in the passion and tenderness with which they made love, and in the worry that he could not quite hide. They had nothing. Except Raine’s ransom.

Then, a week ago, he’d offered even that to her. It was, he said gravely, a fair princely sum. With it they could live wherever they wanted, anywhere in the world. His eyes had been still, his face composed, the offer utterly sincere—but she knew him now. She saw the haunted shadow behind the tender smile.

She knew then that he’d do anything for her, be anything she asked him to be—but all she wanted him to be was Ash Merrick. And Ash Merrick had vowed to ransom his brother. So here they were.

The sound of a carriage clattering on the cobblestones outside the window drew Rhiannon’s attention. She pushed open the window and hung her head out. The carriage pulled to a halt before the inn’s front entrance and the driver clambered from his seat. Before he could descend and pop open the door, it swung open and a lean dark figure leapt unaided to the ground. Rhiannon held her breath waiting for a second figure to emerge.

The driver went to the solitary man’s side and held up his lantern; the swinging garish light swept over Ash’s face as he counted out coin into the driver’s outstretched palm. His expression was bemused, taut, his brows dipping low over his eyes. He glanced up and saw her. A wave of pure pleasure lit his whole dark countenance. He swung away from the driver, heading for the entrance, and Rhiannon slammed the window, hastening into the hall.

A moment later he strode down the narrow corridor toward her. She stretched out her arms and flew to meet him. His strong arms caught her up in his embrace, his head bent, and his mouth closed greedily on hers. She scraped her fingers through his hair, held his beloved face between her palms, and returned his kiss.

He pushed the door behind her open, still kissing her, and carried her into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. Finally he raised his head.

“Raine?” she said, unable to keep from lifting her hand and stroking his cheek.

Slowly he set her down. He shook his head. “I don’t know, Rhiannon. I don’t know.”

She gazed at him questioningly.

“I went first to the prison to speak to the head gaoler. I wanted to make specific arrangements as to the time of Raine’s release before I visited” —his lips curled back in a sneer—“the politician who was to accept Raine’s ransom.”

“Yes?”

“I went to the prison. I spoke to the head gaoler. Rhiannon, Raine is not there.”

“What do you mean, not there?” Rhiannon asked, a dull sense of horror growing within. “Dead? Oh, Ash, did he die?”

“No!” Ash shook his head violently. “Not dead. Of that I am certain. I even ‘interviewed’ a few of the guards late last night at a local tavern they frequent in order to make certain.”

“Then where is he?”

“I don’t know. No one seems to know. He simply seems to have disappeared. If there were someone else who might have ransomed him I would suspect the French already released him.”

“Your father?”

“Carr?” Ash’s glance was incredulous but then, seeing her anxiety, his gaze softened. “No, Rhiannon. I forget your soft heart. But no. Not Carr. There is no one.”

“Then he escaped,” Rhiannon said.

“To where?” Ash asked.

Rhiannon touched his cheek gently. “He wouldn’t go to Wanton’s Blush, would he?”

“Not unless he’d a very good reason.”

“Then perhaps he’s just … looking for his life,” she suggested softly.

He scowled and then sighed and finally moved his hand over her temples, brushing back the soft tendrils with infinite tenderness. “What a wise creature you are, Rhiannon Merrick. How much I love you.”

She turned her face into his open palm and pressed a kiss against its center. “What are we to do now?”

He stared at her and then suddenly smiled, his expression far lighter than she’d ever seen it, free of shadows, obligation, or the past, filled only with love and anticipation.

He reached beneath his cloak and withdrew a long, heavy belt of double stitched leather. He held it up.

“My dear, it seems we’re suddenly quite rich—indeed, heirs to a fair princely sum.”

She stared at the money belt in bemusement. Though all that money meant little to her, she knew his inability to assure she would have a comfortable future had troubled Ash greatly, so she smiled, too. “But what do we do with it?” she asked.

“Why, my beloved, we find our happy ending.”