Page 6 of The Passionate One (McClairen’s Isle #1)

“—if both men died, who paid the wager?” Rhiannon heard Margaret Atherton ask as, combed, clad, and freshly doused in rose water, she slipped unseen into the drawing room.

“The earl’s widow paid,” Ash Merrick said, “claiming it was worth the price just to see her husband finally complete a ride.”

Scandalized laughter broke out amongst the group of Rhiannon’s friends clustered at the far end of the room. Phillip; pretty, silly Susan Chapham; ripe Margaret Atherton; and steady, sensitive John Fortnum … every head was turned toward Ash like seedlings toward light. Even Edward St. John, the Marquis of Snowden’s grandnephew—whose already generous conceit had been further puffed up by several seasons in London—hovered near.

“Ah! Here she is. Our Diana,” John Fortnum cried upon spying her.

“My Diana.” Phillip Watt broke from the group and came toward her, his face alight with possessive pride. Taller than any man in the room by half a head, brawny and robust and golden-haired, he was extraordinarily handsome. He caught her around the waist and lifted her above his shoulders, spinning until she gasped with laughter.

“Phillip!” she begged. “What will Mr. Merrick think of us? I doubt London ladies let their beaus toss them about like this.”

“But I’m more than a beau, I’m a fiancé,” Phillip said, smiling triumphantly. His blue eyes sparkled with proprietorship. “Mr. Merrick knows this is not London and if he thinks less of us for our country ways, then he’s the worse for it, ain’t he?”

“But Mr. Merrick does not think the worse of you,” Ash said. “I think Mr. Watt is an exceptionally lucky young man.”

“Well, whatever Mr. Watt and Mr. Merrick think,” Edith Fraiser said, glowering from the doorway, “Mrs. Fraiser thinks it a right improper way to act and reminds Mr. Watt that she can still wield a switch with the best of them. If a man acts the bumptious lout, ’tis a lout’s penalty he’ll suffer!”

“Say not so!” Phillip enjoined, setting Rhiannon on her feet and striding through the room toward the door. There he gripped Edith about her ample waist and hefted her up and over his head. “ ’Tis jealousy that speaks, ma’am, and with no cause. Only your refusal to accept my hand forces me to make do with this chit.”

The belligerent expression evaporated from Edith’s square face and her cheeks grew scarlet as she batted at Phillip’s head, huffing insincere castigation. “Let me down, you young rogue! Let me down, I say. You best save these demonstrations of your manly vigor for your wedding night!”

The others broke into cheers and Phillip, grinning hugely, lowered Edith to the ground and swept a low bow before her. “I heed your sage advice, ma’am. Pray consider my … vigor duly hoarded,” he said, his gaze fast on Rhiannon.

It was too warm a jest. Rhiannon’s skin heated as knowing winks turned in her direction.

“What say you to that, Rhiannon?” Edward, ever the instigator, demanded.

“I? I know nothing of men.”

Hoots met this demure evasion and Rhiannon, smiling with an uncharacteristic impishness, stilled her audience with a wave of her hand, aware of Ash Merrick’s gaze resting on her with dutiful patience. She suddenly wanted to prick that indolent lack of expectation from his face, prove her wit was as sharp as any London lady’s.

“But of beasts I know much,” she continued, “and it is my observation that what a squirrel so dutifully hoards in anticipation of his winter bed, ends all too often nothing but … rotten nuts.”

Laughter erupted in the room. Even Edith, after a gasped “Rhiannon!” broke into loud guffaws. And Ash Merrick’s eyes, which Rhiannon had been watching, widened with gratifying surprise before he, too, joined in the laughter.

Only Phillip did not fully appreciate her wit. She was seldom forward, never ribald, and the look in Phillip’s eye suggested he’d fostered a kitten and just discovered it was a fox. For an instant his handsome face soured before his innate good nature reasserted itself.

“Mr. Merrick!” Phillip called to their guest. “In London what would a man do with so saucy and bold a wench?”

“It depends—” Ash answered consideringly, coming toward Rhiannon. Once at her side he put his hand on his hip in the attitude of a connoisseur looking over offered goods. Her friends, alert to the fun, moved in, encircling them.

Slowly, he began walking around Rhiannon. She notched her chin up at an angle, her pert attitude delivering him a challenge she found herself incapable of explaining.

“Depends on what?” She refused to turn like some cornered hind. She did not need to. She could feel the heat of his regard as intensely as if he touched her.

“On many things.” His voice was as smooth as French brandy warmed over a candle, intimate and close. His breath—surely it was stirring the hairs on the nape of her neck? Surely his lips hovered inches from her skin? He couldn’t under Phillip’s eye— He shouldn’t—

She spun around. He raised his brows questioningly … from a good five feet away. Their gazes met and locked. Gray. Clear. Soft as an April fog, cool as a November sea. Impossible to look at anything besides those dark-thicketed eyes, to look deeper into their depths and find … Weariness. Such awful weariness behind the calm, pleasant facade—

“For instance?” Phillip prompted.

Ash’s gaze broke from hers, severed like a spider’s strand by a razor’s blade. “For instance,” he said, “where in London ‘the wench’ is. There are different customs for different countries,” he said.

“Countries?” Susan Chapham asked.

“Yes,” Ash answered. “London isn’t simply one great heap. It’s an entire world with a myriad of tiny countries existing side by side, each barely aware of the other. Covent Garden and Seven Dials, Spitalfields and Whitechapel. In London’s vast acres these are principalities ruled by kings and princes without so much as a last name.”

“And would Rhiannon be a princess there?” Susan Chapham asked, and dissolved into giggles.

“I’d think she’d be a princess anywhere,” Ash said with calculated charm.

“Well, then she best not go to London since it would mean a coming down in the world,” John Fortnum stated.

“How’d you figure that?” Phillip asked.

“In three weeks’ time, she’ll be queen of Fair Badden,” John offered.

“Queen?” Ash Merrick asked as the others laughed.

“Queen of the May,” Susan explained, her tone resigned. “Three years running now. ’Tisn’t fair.”

“True enough,” Edith cut in. “I don’t see an end to it until the girl is wed and ineligible. Only virgins can rule on May Day, you know.”

“No,” Ash said. “I didn’t.”

“Never fear, Miss Chapham,” Phillip said. “I can promise you Rhiannon won’t be eligible next year. Or next month, for that matter.”

The way he looked not at her, but at the group of their friends, as though he spoke for their benefit more than hers, made Rhiannon uncomfortable.

“What say we get married earlier, Rhiannon, and give these other beauties a chance at the crown?” he asked, smiling.

The chattered gaiety faded in awed interest. The proposed marriage of Phillip Watt to Rhiannon Russell was the most extraordinary—and in some people’s eyes the most foolhardy—piece of romance within Fair Badden’s memory. Phillip’s father, because he was enormously rich—and some said enormously dotty—had not only agreed to the wedding, but had settled enough money on his son so that Phillip could take the bride he desired and not the one he needed. And that woman was Rhiannon who, though pretty and darling, had no name, no family, and no dowry.

She could not help but leap at the chance to legalize her union early, before Phillip or his father came to their senses. They all looked at her, awaiting her flattered and hasty acceptance.

“No,” Rhiannon said.

“No?” Phillip echoed.

Several jaws grew slack. Few people had ever heard Rhiannon utter that syllable, and never so flatly.

She fidgeted, her twisting fingers betraying an unease her cheerful voice did not. “I … I willingly if shamefully concede my greed. If there’s any chance I should be fortunate enough to be May Queen again, I’ll snatch it.”

“But you’d be queen of my heart,” Phillip said. “Is that not kingdom enough?”

Pretty words. A lovely sentiment. But Phillip’s back was still to her and he had opened his arms in the direction of their friends, appealing to them, not her. Several nodded in agreement. If he had just looked at her when he said it …

Ash Merrick was looking at her.

Of all those present, he was the only one. He watched her intently.

Her heartbeat hastened. His regard was more than a summation of her physical self. He gauged her, weighing her reaction, studying her as if all his conscious thought were centered on her. She had never been the focus of such acute concentration. Not even Phillip’s.

Phillip glanced over his shoulder at her, awaiting her reply. She should say yes. She should be grateful. She was grateful. Phillip could have chosen a gentlewoman, an heiress, perhaps even better, but he had chosen her. He represented everything she had ever needed. She would wed Phillip and be safe and happy in Fair Badden for the rest of her life.

But not yet. Not so soon.

“I have admitted my greed,” she said, forcing a bright smile to her lips. “I cannot help it that I want both crowns.”

Phillip blinked. Indeed, the entire party seemed nonplussed.

“If that can please you, Phillip?” she added faintly, suddenly despairingly aware of what she’d risked with her ill-advised teasing. For that was all it was … teasing. Of course she would marry Phillip. Tomorrow if he insisted. But deep within, a half-drowned Scottish-tinged voice begged different.

Phillip’s face grew ruddy.

“Ach, you great oaf!” Edith suddenly barked into the quiet room, stomping forward to cuff Phillip smartly on the ear. He yelped and jumped back from her onslaught.

“Have you no finer feelings? No dab of sentimentality?” Edith demanded. “Can you no see the gel wants her wee bit of courting and the trimmings of a fine and well-planned ceremony to mark the occasion of her wedding? None of your harum-scarum elopements for my Rhiannon. You’ll wed her fit and proper. Not hieing off like some stable hand with his milkmaid, you great … man!”

The storm clouds lifted from Phillip’s handsome face as comprehension took its place. “Is that it, Rhiannon?” he asked, his fond gaze just the smallest bit patronizing.

Edith caught Rhiannon’s eye, clearly warning her.

“Aye,” Rhiannon said. “That’s it.”

“Well, then, you’ll have the grandest wedding Fair Badden has ever seen!” With the pronouncement the men and women surrounded Phillip, clapping him on the back and calling loudly for drink to toast his magnanimity.

And Rhiannon smiled, and demurred, and accepted the ladies congratulations on wresting a feast from her bridegroom and the gentleman’s appreciative sallies about knowing her own worth, and she lowered her eyes in embarrassment and did not look at Ash Merrick again. Because she knew he’d sensed her lie.