Countess of Scandal (17 page)

Then he slid the velvet cloth back from her legs, parting her thighs wider as his finger slid inside of her.

Eliza closed her eyes, every sense focused on that one delicious spot, on his touch. He gently parted her wet,
petal-like folds, and she felt the slide of his tongue, tasting her very essence. Teasing her.

"Will!" she cried, clasping his hair to push him away—or to pull him closer.

It seemed even more intimate than their sex had been, his mouth on her, tasting, savoring, giving such wondrous pleasure she could hardly bear it She had never let anyone do that before, and now she knew why—it bound them together in trust. It was overwhelming.

Her head arched against the cushions of the chair as her release swept over her, wave upon wave of pure, hot pleasure.

He kissed the soft skin of her inner thigh, the sensitive little spot just behind her knee. His hand slid down her leg to her foot, until he could press its arch to his bare chest, staring up at her in a silence that thundered louder than any words.

He pressed his lips to her ankle before letting her go, collapsing back to the floor with his arm over his face. Eliza sank down beside him, drawing him against her as he rested his head on her shoulder. She listened to the rush of his breath, the beat of his heart. He was
alive;
they were alive, and together. It was perfection.

But when she closed her eyes, feeling his hot skin under her touch, she saw blood. Rivers of it, drowning them both in its suffocating tides.

Chapter 11

The foyer of the Henrietta Street house had surely never seen such chaos, Eliza thought Trunks and bandboxes were stacked high, an impenetrable mountain range traversed by hurrying servants striving to carry them all out the door. Outside in the street waited the baggage cart and the carriage to take Anna back to Killinan.

Eliza tried to keep herself busy counting the trunks, tried not to think of how big and echoing the house would be when her sister was gone. She would be alone then, with her fears and hopes and worries. With thoughts of
Anna came clattering down the stairs, tying the ribbons of her cloak over her wool traveling dress. She held a packet of books in the crook of her arm, and her maid followed with the locked box containing Mama's precious tiara.

"Do you have everything, sister?" Eliza asked. "All your new purchases?"

Anna laughed, gesturing to the heaps of trunks. "If I forgot anything, I doubt I shall miss it for days! It will take
a fortnight to unpack. But I have Mama's and Caro's gifts in this case here; that's the important thing."

Eliza kissed her cheek, holding her close. Anna hugged her back, and Eliza remembered Will's words. Innocents would suffer. But not her sisters, never that Eliza would . protect them with her own life if need be.

"I have loved having you here with me, Anna," she said. . "Even when I was a nuisance at the gaming tables?"

"Even then."

"Well, I have loved being here. We see too little of you at home, sister, and we miss you."

"That will change soon. I promise." Eliza kissed Anna once more and .let her go. "Remember what I said—take care of Mama and Caro."

"I will, always. But what of you, Eliza?"

"I will take care of myself."

"I know you will,
but y
ou don't have to. Come back to Killinan with me, please "

Eliza laughed. "There would be no room for me, with all these
trunks!
I will come in a few weeks, when the Season is over."

Anna's pale blue eyes narrowed. "Because you love the social whirl so very much?" she said doubtfully.

"Something like that."

"Of course." Anna smoothed on her gloves and straightened her hat "Say good-bye to Will Denton for me. It was lovely to see him again." And then she was gone.

Eliza stood at the window, watching until Anna turned the corner and mere was only the usual morning bustle on the street Then she went back upstairs to her chamber, locking the door securely behind her before going to her
desk. There was much work to be done here, indeed, but not on the "social whirl."

She had a task to finish before she could beat any kind of retreat to Killinan.

Anna leaned back on the carriage seat, gazing out the window as the miles bounced by. The grand, wide, pale streets of Dublin had given way to the sooty outskirts and then to open countryside.

Rolling hills, yellow-green under the gray winter sky, seemed to flow on forever, broken up by low black stone walls snaking their way up the slopes. Stands of silvery-pale ash trees and ornate iron gates hinted of homes hidden somewhere beyond those never-ending fields.

Despite the cold, a few hardy cows grazed, almost the only signs of life for miles. She saw no people at all.

It made her think of Dublin late at night, the streets empty and windows darkened. The sounds of patrols in the distance and the echo of that hateful "Croppies Lie Down" song. The fear had been palpable, an acrid odor on the air.

And all her dancing, champagne drinking, and card-playing had not been enough to erase the foreboding, to keep away the rumors of unrest, murder, rape.

She turned to the book lying open on her lap, a Gothic romance of haunted castles and a dark, tormented man, the innocent maiden caught under his terrible spell. How she loved such tales! Loved their images of an enchanted world full of danger and romance. They often kept her awake at night, turning their pages in a feverish haste and then lying awake in the dark imagining all sorts of terrors. Those tales
did not seem so wondrous now, with true dangers lurking around every corner.

She shut the book with a snap, tucking it away in her valise. If such dangers came, how would she react? With tears and shrieks and swooning, like those fictional maidens? With courage and fortitude like Eliza?

She feared it would be the former.

Suddenly, the carriage felt so small, so confining, the tufted leather walls closing around her. She lowered the window and called out, "Can we stop for a moment, John? I wish to walk a bit"

Her maid, Rose, peered nervously outside. "Oh, my lady, 'tis perishing cold outside! And no one is about at all."

'It's only for a moment, Rose. I need some fresh air. You can stay here, if you like."

One of the footmen helped her to alight, and she hurried along the edge of the road, back in the direction they came. The wind
was
cold against her face, shocking her out of her nebulous forebodings.

Perhaps Mama was right, she thought Perhaps novels were a danger, and she should read more history and philosophy. like Caroline, who never seemed to worry about anything in her calm, scholarly serenity.

Anna dashed along a pathway leading away from the road, through a stile in a rough stone wall The path twined up a wooded hillside, and from its flat summit she would be able to see for miles.

She took off her hat, letting the wind ruffle her blond hair. There were endless fields, endless expanses of pale green dotted with those dark cows and a few whitewashed
cottages. The solid gray hulk of a great house loomed in the distance. It all seemed so quiet, so still, like a painting.

Anna shielded her eyes from the milky light, gazi
n
g farther down the road that eventually led to Killinan. At the crossroads was what appeared to be a scaffold, with the dreaded wooden triangle used for flogging suspected United Irishmen. Blessedly, it was empty today, but she still shivered at the sight of it

"And what do you do here, miss?" a man's deep voice suddenly said, almost making her jump out of her skin.

She spun around to find him standing behind her, just at the edge of the hill's crest A horse pawed the ground at the foot of the hill, but she had been too preoccupied with the scenery and her own worries to even notice his approach. If the rebellion and civil war
did
come, she would certainly be completely useless.

Anna sucked in a deep breath, steadying herself as she studied the man before her. And what a man he was, like a character in one of her novels—the mysterious, dangerous antihero lurking in a storm-swept castle. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and well muscled under his brown wool riding coat and doeskin breeches. Black hair fell in unruly waves over his brow, his craggy face shadowed by a growth of dark whiskers. Green eyes, so pale they seemed almost silver, burned as they glared at her.

What right did
he
have to glare at
her?
He was the one who crept up on her. Anna stiffened her shoulders, glaring right back. Perhaps if she acted like she was not afraid, she could forget that cold pit of terror in her stomach at the sight of him.

"I was traveling through and wanted a breath of air," she said, with far more bravado than she felt Her pride would
not let her do what she really wanted—to run back down the hill and throw herself into the carriage, far away from those angry green eyes.

"Well, you are breathing the air on
my
property," he said. His voice was deep and rough but touched with the lilt of an Irish accent

"I
saw no sign or locked gate," she said. "And even if it is your property, as you say, I am doing no harm."

"You shouldn't be wandering around the countryside on your own, girl," he said. "'Tis foolish in these days. You never know what villains may be lurking in wait"

If there were any villains lurking, it was surely him, Anna thought with a shiver. He seemed so perfect in the part that he might have been cast from the Crow Street Theater! Dark, powerful, brooding...

And handsome, too, she saw in surprise as the wind tossed his hair back from his face. Not conventionally handsome, as her sister's golden Will was, but compelling nonetheless. A dark Donn, the Celtic lord of death.

He was quite right—she should not be wandering about alone. Not with men around who made her feel like this. She was terrified, excited, exhilarated, all at once.

"Who are you, sir?" she said, trying for something of her mother's unshakeable dignity. Lady Killinan's haughtiness always kept the world at bay.

Obviously, it did not work, for he smiled at her in a sudden flash of infuriating amusement. She saw he was not just handsome—he was gorgeous. Alluring, enticing, masculine, in a way all her yapping, puppyish Dublin suitors could not even approach.

Anna struggled to hold on to that flimsy, false dignity, even as she could not quite breathe.

"Who am I?" he said lazily, taking a slow, loose-limbed step toward her. 'That's hardly important, miss. The question is, who are you? And why haven't I seen you before?"

"I... I hardly think we have any mutual friends, sir," she managed to say. Confused, she turned to run down the hill, away from this strange man and the spell he seemed to cast around her.

But he was a magic being, for he was beside her in a silent flash of movement, grasping her wrist in his hard, ungloved hand. It did not hurt; indeed, he seemed to exert no effort at all, yet she could not escape him. His heat and power surrounded her, burning away the winter day. Anna shuddered.

"I am quite certain we don't move in the same circles, colleen," he muttered, reaching out with his other hand to touch the fine fur edging of her cloak. "I know no English princesses."

"I'm not English!" Anna protested, thinking of Eliza's oft-repeated admonition—the Blacknalls were
Irish
and had been for generations.

"You speak like an Englishwoman," he said, his touch sliding up the soft fur. His gaze followed, his eyes as dark as fine emeralds now. "Are you on your way to Castletown, mayhap? For one of the Conollys' grand parties?"

Anna suddenly wrenched away, unable to bear his nearness another minute. She feared she would faint, like one of those ninny heroines in her novels. "It is none of your business who I am, sir, or where I am going!" she said, running back down the hill. Running away from him and her unladylike feelings.

But his laughter followed her, full of mocking amusement "You would do well to heed my words, colleen," he called after her. "Go home and bar your doors."

She did not slow down until she threw herself back into the carriage. "Drive on!" she shouted. "Quickly."

Rose stared at her with wide eyes. 'Ts something amiss, my lady?"

Anna shook her head, trying to catch her breath. "I am just eager to get home." She craned her neck to stare out the window, but the road behind them was empty.

Had the whole scene been nothing but her overly vivid imagination, then?

"Do you know whose land this is, Rose?" she asked, gesturing to the fields and woods outside.

"I think it is the Duke of Adair's land, my lady."

"Adair?" That name seemed familiar. Anna searched her memory of county gossip. Then she remembered—the reclusive Irish Duke of Adair, the last of an ancient line, had been in a dispute with his Protestant cousin over the estate. But that had been years ago. "I thought he lost the estate."

"He got it back, my lady. Though who knows how long that will last, these days. You need to stay away from men like that They're terribly dangerous."