The Passionate One by Connie Brockway

pairing up and going off into the dark woods on Beltaine night
to collect hawthorn blossoms often ended with the courting couple having an
incentive to move past courting to the altar. Often that incentive was a babe.
    “I wouldn’t know about
that,” Rhiannon said. “I’ve been Virgin Queen of the Virgin May three years
running now.”
    “You just make sure
you
keep
running this Beltaine night, girl,” Edith said severely. “At
least until after your wedding.”
     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    “Hide and seek?”
Susan Chapham echoed Margaret Atherton’s suggestion. “In the yew maze?”
    She glanced around
as she said it, an unnecessary precaution as Edith Fraiser had shepherded their
parents into the drawing room where innumerable games of whist, coupled with
matching glasses of port, would keep them busy all afternoon. “Dare we?”
    The young men,
reluctant to be caught instigating such naughty sport, remained mum but their
smiles related their accord with the proposed entertainment. Only Ash Merrick
remained uninvolved, his gaze distracted, his expression polite but bored. More
than anyone Rhiannon had ever met, he provoked the mischievousness in her. She
simply could not let him dismiss her and her friends.
    “Why not?” Rhiannon
therefore asked. “ ’Twill be good practice for Beltaine. Mayhap we ladies will
discover some hidey hole to keep ourselves safe from roaming males that night.”
    “And how do you
propose to conduct the game?” Ash Merrick asked. He unfolded his whipcord
length from where he’d been idly leaning against the maypole the villagers had
erected that morning.
    His time in Fair
Badden had bestowed a tawny hue to his pale skin and since he so adamantly
denounced wearing any wig, his hair, freshly washed, glistened like polished
ebony.
    “Everyone hides and
one person tries to find them all?” Susan suggested.
    “Sounds confounded
tiring to me,” St. John said, yawning behind his gloved hand.
    “Have you a better
suggestion?” one of the other young ladies asked.
    “I do,” Phillip
declared. “The ladies hide and the last one to be found wins.”
    “But that isn’t
fair,” Margaret said plaintively. “Rhiannon will be the last woman found. It’s
her yew maze, after all.”
    “Besides,” John
Fortnum said in his gruff, forthright way, “seems to me that since the men do
all the work, the men ought to reap some sort of reward.”
    An inspired smile
appeared on Phillip’s face. “How about this? The gentleman who finds the last
lady hidden in the maze shall be rewarded with”—he looked around—“a kiss.”
    The ladies
tittered. The men grinned knowingly. And Ash Merrick leaned toward Margaret
Atherton, saying something in a voice that did not carry. Something for her
ears alone.
    “Aye. A kiss it
shall be!” Rhiannon declared.
    “But Phillip knows
this maze nearly as well as Rhiannon,” Susan complained. “He’ll be sure to win...”
And then, as realization struck her, “Ohh!”
    Phillip’s golden
brows rose in feigned innocence. “I am sure Rhiannon knows hiding places I’ve
yet to discover.”
    He was so sure of
himself, thought Rhiannon, and the same quality that had driven her to support
the game, the same thing that spurred her to race breakneck speeds when putting
her horse to a hurdle, was pricked awake by his certainty.
    She did indeed know
a place or two Phillip had never discovered. Besides, Margaret knew the maze
nearly as well as she, and from the manner in which she cast sidelong glances
at Ash Merrick, she might well prove to be the last lady discovered... if Ash
was the seeker.
    Sure enough,
Margaret lent her support to the proposal. “All right. I’m game.”
    “Indeed?” One of
Ash’s black brows climbed consideringly, a lazy sexual quality in his regard.
    Margaret tittered
unconscionably and Rhiannon felt her cheeks grow warm. She chided herself
viciously. Why shouldn’t he flirt with Margaret? He was unattached—as