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.
Chapter Six
Ash lay on his
stomach beneath the bud-spangled limbs of an ancient elm. A fair breeze flirted
with his cheek. Bees, woken to industry by spring’s beckoning warmth, murmured
in the clover. Beneath him a bed of fresh-sprung grass cushioned his abused
body.
The months of
drunkenness and debauchery had taken their toll. That atop two years chained to
a French ship’s galley as a “political prisoner.”
The thought still
provoked his bitter amusement. He’d never had the least interest in politics
and neither had Raine.
He and his brother
had stumbled into the trap the McClairens had set for his father in retaliation
for his betrayal of them. The clansmen hadn’t quite known what to do with
Carr’s evil progeny. Being McClairens and thus relentlessly faithful they
couldn’t quite bring themselves to murder Janet McClairen’s sons. Though, Ash
thought with a twist of his lips, they’d come damn near three years before when
they’d beaten Raine to a bloody pulp for supposedly raping a nun.
Ash’s eyes
narrowed. It still made no sense that they’d spared Raine after they’d captured
him the second time. Though right at this minute Ash wasn’t sure Raine would be
grateful, because the McClairens, thinking to break Carr’s back financially if
not literally, had sold his sons to the French. They, in turn, had demanded a
ransom from Carr.
A ransom that
hadn’t been forthcoming. Until Carr had capriciously decided to pay for Ash’s
release—but not Raine’s. Carr’s decision to leave Raine to rot still bit into
Ash’s heart like saltpeter in an ever-gaping wound. It, as much as anything
else, compelled him beyond endurance and exhaustion to find the means to secure
his brother’s freedom.
Little wonder his
health was depleted and near breaking. But though he was exhausted unto death,
sleep was hard coming.
Even though he’d
been in Fair Badden a week, he still felt as alien as if he’d been shipwrecked
on Africa’s dark coast... and just as wary. Fair Badden was simply too good to
be real, particularly with what he knew of the world.
Yet at night he
slept on a feather mattress with the sound of crickets clicking beneath his
open window like the nervous worrying of papal beads in a novitiate’s hand.
Each morning he was greeted with smiles and pleasantries. Each day he drank
sweet water from a deep, clear well and ate fresh bread, smoked meats, and
farmhouse cheeses.
Each day Rhiannon
Russell and Edith Fraiser divided homely duties between them: preparing confits
and honey; distilling clover into a fresh, pungent wine; stitching sun-bleached
clothing; and tending the rows of herbs outside the kitchen door.
He watched all this
domestic harmony skeptically, looking for some sign of dissent. He did not find
any. Though sometimes Rhiannon Russell would catch his eye and the tranquil
submissiveness that seemed the hallmark of her character would be
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.
Chapter Six
Ash lay on his
stomach beneath the bud-spangled limbs of an ancient elm. A fair breeze flirted
with his cheek. Bees, woken to industry by spring’s beckoning warmth, murmured
in the clover. Beneath him a bed of fresh-sprung grass cushioned his abused
body.
The months of
drunkenness and debauchery had taken their toll. That atop two years chained to
a French ship’s galley as a “political prisoner.”
The thought still
provoked his bitter amusement. He’d never had the least interest in politics
and neither had Raine.
He and his brother
had stumbled into the trap the McClairens had set for his father in retaliation
for his betrayal of them. The clansmen hadn’t quite known what to do with
Carr’s evil progeny. Being McClairens and thus relentlessly faithful they
couldn’t quite bring themselves to murder Janet McClairen’s sons. Though, Ash
thought with a twist of his lips, they’d come damn near three years before when
they’d beaten Raine to a bloody pulp for supposedly raping a nun.
Ash’s eyes
narrowed. It still made no sense that they’d spared Raine after they’d captured
him the second time. Though right at this minute Ash wasn’t sure Raine would be
grateful, because the McClairens, thinking to break Carr’s back financially if
not literally, had sold his sons to the French. They, in turn, had demanded a
ransom from Carr.
A ransom that
hadn’t been forthcoming. Until Carr had capriciously decided to pay for Ash’s
release—but not Raine’s. Carr’s decision to leave Raine to rot still bit into
Ash’s heart like saltpeter in an ever-gaping wound. It, as much as anything
else, compelled him beyond endurance and exhaustion to find the means to secure
his brother’s freedom.
Little wonder his
health was depleted and near breaking. But though he was exhausted unto death,
sleep was hard coming.
Even though he’d
been in Fair Badden a week, he still felt as alien as if he’d been shipwrecked
on Africa’s dark coast... and just as wary. Fair Badden was simply too good to
be real, particularly with what he knew of the world.
Yet at night he
slept on a feather mattress with the sound of crickets clicking beneath his
open window like the nervous worrying of papal beads in a novitiate’s hand.
Each morning he was greeted with smiles and pleasantries. Each day he drank
sweet water from a deep, clear well and ate fresh bread, smoked meats, and
farmhouse cheeses.
Each day Rhiannon
Russell and Edith Fraiser divided homely duties between them: preparing confits
and honey; distilling clover into a fresh, pungent wine; stitching sun-bleached
clothing; and tending the rows of herbs outside the kitchen door.
He watched all this
domestic harmony skeptically, looking for some sign of dissent. He did not find
any. Though sometimes Rhiannon Russell would catch his eye and the tranquil
submissiveness that seemed the hallmark of her character would be
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