"No." A troubled thought shadowed Edith's soft
features. "The gentleman asked to see you alone for a few
minutes. He said he had news regarding your future.
"I'm thinking--that is, I'm hoping--he might be a lawyer
sent from London with word of a lost entailment. Perhaps a
little forgotten keepsake from your dear mother to act as
a dowry. I only wish I had something more to give you
myself, but it's all long since bespoke."
Rhiannon took Edith's hands. "You've already given me more
than I can ever repay."
Flustered, Edith twitched Rhiannon's jacket shoulders into
alignment. "Go on, now! I'll be here waiting when you come
out." She opened the door and pushed Rhiannon inside.
A man sprawled in Squire Fraiser's favorite chair, one
foot stretched out before him, the other bent at the knee,
his fingers laced over his flat stomach. He gazed out the
window, his face averted. All she could see of his head
was a carelessly pulled back tail of coal black hair tied
with a limp ribbon.
He wore a coat of deep burgundy velvet, a white linen
shirt beneath it. Brussels lace fell gracefully over the
first knuckles of his long, lean fingers, and more lace
cascaded beneath his chin. His breeches were tight and
made of tawny doeskin. His dark leather boots climbed past
his knees and were folded in cuffs over his muscular
thighs. The tip of his sword, sheathed in a leather
scabbard and hanging from his belt, touched the floor
beside him.
He would have been exquisite had he not been so
disheveled. The burgundy coat was dusty and the faded
linen shirt went wide of being pristine. The lace of one
sleeve, delicate as gossamer, was ripped and soiled. His
boots werestained and scarred and the scabbard containing
his sword was likewise ill-used.
He did not look like any lawyer Rhiannon's imagination
would have conjured.
A bit of pique flavored Rhiannon's curiosity. A gentleman--
particularly a London gentleman--visiting the Fraiser's
home should have stopped at The Ploughman's Inn to repair
the damage travel had caused. But then, honesty goaded her
generous mouth into a smile; a lady receiving a gentleman
should have paused to repair the damage a hunt had caused.
He turned his head carefully, as if he were concerned to
startle her and she thus knew that he'd been allowing her
time to assess him. He looked tired, worn too thin and
used too roughly. His eyes were jetty dark, the brows
above slanting like black wings, but the skin beneath them
looked bruised. He sported an old-fashioned clipped beard
amidst the shadows of lean, unshaven cheeks, and his skin
was very pale and very fine and somehow fragile.
Fleeting emotion, subtle and reserved, flickered over his
aquiline features.
"Rhiannon Russell, I presume?" His voice was baritone and
suave. He didn't bother to rise and his pose remained
preternaturally still, like a cat at a mouse hole,
watchful but not hungry--not yet.
"Yes." She became unaccountably aware of the hair
streaming down her back, the sweat and grime from her
leather gloves embedded beneath her short nails, and the
mud splattering her bottle green skirt.
He rose. He was tallish and slender and his shoulders were
very straight and broad. His mouth was kind but his eyes
were not. His throat looked strong. The torn lace ending
his shirtsleeves tangled in the carved gold setting of a
great blue stone ring on his little finger. He flicked it
away.
Even without the cachet of being a Londoner, the ladies of
Fair Badden would have found him attractive, Rhiannon
thought. Since he was from that great fabled city, they'd
find him irresistible. Indeed, she herself could have
found much to recommend in his black and white good
looks . . . if she hadn't already succumbed to a golden-
haired youth.
"You're not English."
"I am. A quarter," she said. "On my father's side."
"I wouldn't have guessed." Having spoken, he fell silent,
studying her further.
She struggled to remember the lessons in courtesy Edith
had instilled but none of them applied to meeting strange,
elegantly shabby young men alone in her foster father's
library.
"I'm afraid you have the advantage of me, sir," she
finally ventured.
"Could I only be so fortunate as to claim as much with all
my acquaintances," he said and then, "but didn't Mrs.
Fraiser inform you of my name?"
"No," Rhiannon said. "Mrs. Fraiser has no head for names,
unless they're the names of unscrupulous tradesmen. She
only said that you'd come from London to see me and that
you had news regarding my future."
"I am Ash Merrick." He sketched an elegant bow, his
watchfulness becoming pronounced now, as if his name
should mean something to her, and when he saw that it did
not, he went on. "The name Merrick is not familiar to you?"
She cast about cautiously in her mind and found nothing
there to trigger a memory. "No," she said. "Should it?"
His mouth stretched into a wide grin. It was a beautiful
smile, easy and charming, but it never quite reached his
eyes. "Perhaps," he said, "since it's the name of your
guardian."