Countess of Scandal (6 page)

"Oh, do get up!" she cried, her head still spinning. She hurried to the window, parting the curtains to stare at the street below, to see what the crash was. It looked like a confrontation in the middle of the quiet neighborhood, two soldiers and a roughly clad man whose cart had crashed, spilling out a pile of dried-up potatoes.

"Perhaps you should go down and see to your duty," she said. "Help out your comrades in confronting a man with purloined potatoes. As long as no one sees you leaving here, that is..."

Eliza heard the rustle of wool as he rose to his feet, straightening his clothes. She felt him move to stand just behind her, close but not touching as he stared down at the street He still smelled of clean soap, leather, and that faint citrus cologne, but it was blended with salty sweat and her own rose perfume.

And that seemed even more intimate, more frightening, than the overwhelming passion of their kiss.

"Your reputation is safe, Lady Mount Clare," he murmured close to her ear. "No one knows I'm here."

Her reputation? Eliza laughed. What reputation would that be? "I hardly care what those clucking Castle hens have to say," she said.

"I'm sure you do not" Will rested his chin on her shoulder, his breath stirring her rumpled curls. "But what of people like Emmett and Fitzgerald? What would they say if a British officer was seen leaving your bedroom? Would you be drummed out of the United Irish, Lady Democratical?"

Eliza tore herself away from him, from the allure of his touch, and sat down heavily at her dressing table. "So you did break in here to spy on me. To try to find information I do not have."

Will scooped up his black coat angrily pulling it on. "I am not a fool, Eliza, no matter how forgetful your pretty bosom makes me for a moment I know you are over your head with these plots. But I have no interest in playing spy, not for Dublin Castle or anyone else."

"Is that so, Major Denton?" she said. She picked up her silver-backed brush only to drop it again. "Then why are you here? Why has your regiment been so hastily summoned back to Ireland, if not to harass innocent citizens like your comrades in Belfast do?"

Will laughed humorlessly. "As if I would tell you. I have no desire to see my words passed around in some United Irish dispatch."

"I am no spy, either!"

"Eliza, I don't care what you are.. I only care what you were, what we once were to each other" He let out an exasperated groan, and suddenly Eliza felt his hands grasping her waist, spinning her around on the bench so fast she could not protest or pull away. His arms went around her waist, holding her still.

"You would not listen to me at the assembly rooms," he said. "So I had to'come here."

'To warn me," she whispered.

"Yes, to warn you. I don't want to see your neck in the noose when Lord Lieutenant Camden and his generals unleash their forces"

Did he think she had not thought of that? That doubts and rears did not wake her in the middle of the night? She was only human. But... "Some things are too important to abandon."

"Exactly." He took her hand in his, raising it to his lips for a lingering kiss. Over their joined hands, his gaze met hers. "That is why I am here."

Eliza opened her mouth, but she could not reply. She didn't know what to say. Will let go of her hand, striding toward the window. She watched; stunned, as he opened
the casement and leaped up lightly to the sill as if he were a jungle cat

"You can't go that way again," she said hoarsely.

He smiled back at her. "Are you offering to escort me out the front door, Lady Democratical? I doubt that's a good idea, even as that little altercation seems to be ended," he said. He gestured toward the now-deserted street, and then he vanished.

She ran to the window, leaning out to stare as he lithely climbed down the tangled vines until he could leap to the roof of her portico and swing to the street. The light had turned pearl gray now, and a cold wind swept down the street like an angry ghost The cart and the men were gone, a minor skirmish in a bigger war.

Will tugged his cap down over his bright hair and gave her a jaunty salute. "We will meet again soon, my lady, I promise. Try not to miss me too desperately."

Despite herself, Eliza wanted to laugh as he ran off, disappearing into the shadows. Perhaps, deep down inside, there
was
a spark of her old Will. The one who always made her laugh, teased her out of her seriousness. The one who made the dark world brighter. And she feared it was that spark that could be her undoing.

She shut the window, locking it securely and pulling the curtains tightly against the growing light Then she turned back to her silent room, her gaze alighting on the secret drawer of her dressing table. The one where the United Irish badge hid, its green ribbons glowing.

"I am new-strung," she whispered, "and shall be heard."

That was when she realized the papers on her desk were gone.

Will made his stealthy way through the deserted Dublin streets. It was eerily silent; even the hardiest of merrymakers had gone home, leaving the elegant lanes empty. The sharp whistle of cold winter wind was the only sound. That, and the sound of his own blood in his ears.

He felt tautly alert, as just before a battle, that moment when every sense was heightened, the very air crystalline and sharp around him. The instant when the world grew still—just before it exploded.

It was a battle about to be joined by a formidable foe, indeed—Eliza Blacknall.

Will shook his head, kicking out at a broken bottle with his scuffed boot. He wasn't entirely sure what he had expected when he broke into her bedchamber, climbing up the ivy to slither in the window and hide under her very bed. Such poor security for the house of a rumored United Irish partisan.

Perhaps he thought that once they were alone he could finally make her listen to reason. To his warnings. Make her see the danger and folly of the path she had chosen. But
he
proved to be the fool, for once he was near Eliza, he forgot all but her. His Eliza—the girl who had taught him the ecstasy and pain of love.

Was he now in danger of remembering those old lessons all over again? He feared he was. The old clumsy, youthful, wild passion between them was still there, sharpened and honed by the years and ready to catch fire again.

Yet, he had to face a conflagration of a far different sort now—the fires of rebellion and war. They threatened to
consume Ireland, the country he loved, and Eliza with it. Worse, it seemed she fed those flames herself.

If he did not stop her, he would lose her again—forever this time. He would not let that happen. Even if he had to fight her every step of the way.

He had come to the embankment along the Liffey, and he stopped to stare down into the night-black waters. They looked thick and inky, lit only by the reflected gleam of a few faded stars. Boats were moored there, more than usual at that time of year, waiting to carry the frightened populace to safety in England.

If only he could just kidnap Eliza and toss her in the hold of one of those vessels! Send her to safety whether she would have it or not But he knew that would never work. She would swim all the way back across the Irish Sea if she had to.

Thus, he needed a new strategy. A new battle plan.

He took the paper from his coat pocket, the scrap he had snatched off Eliza's desk while her back was turned. It seemed to be a scribble, but for a mere scribble it was dangerous, indeed—a page labeled for the
Northern Star,
the United Irish newspaper printed secretly somewhere in Belfast and passed around the country.

...
call for an equal and just distribution of the benefits of our country,
this particular article said.
An equal and full representation of all Ireland's people and an end to absentee landlords who care nothing for our traditions and our populacd
It was accompanied by a pencil cartoon of a fat landlord grinding tenants under his boot

And the article was signed
By A Lady.

Will crumpled the scrap in his fist, tossing it into the river. There were many ladies in Ireland who thought to
aid the United Irish and their allies, the Defenders, by hosting salons where sedition was the conversation of the day. By controlling gossip and rumor and by passing messages. But those words seemed to have one specific lady's stamp. And if he realized that, so would others.

"Oh, Eliza," he muttered. "My dear girl. What must I do to stop you once and for all?"

Chapter 4

You're very quiet today, Eliza," Anna said, spreading marmalade on her breakfast toast

Eliza gave her a weak smile. How could she tell her sister she had not slept at all last night, because first she hid a fugitive in the cellar, and then she kissed her childhood love until she collapsed with foolish lust? Just remembering it made her feel faintly uneasy as she watched Anna attack her meal with gusto.

"I'm a bit tired, I confess," Eliza said. She reached for the teapot, hoping the Indian brew would soothe her stomach. "Perhaps that is because
someone
kept me at the assembly rooms all hours "

"Oh, pooh!" Anna protested, licking a drop of sticky marmalade from her finger. "We left before the party even started"

"It was after two in the morning!"

"You sound like Mama. What is the use of living in Dublin if one can't fully enjoy its delicious diversions? One might as well be buried at Killinan, a fate you seem determined to consign me to."

Eliza sipped at her tea, remembering how frantic and frightened everyone seemed of late. How uncertainty hung in the air like the sword of Damocles. "You will be safer there."

Anna frowned, her pretty face suddenly solemn. "Is something
really
going to happen here, Eliza? Just like they say?"

"Like who says?"

"Just. . . everyone. Lord Morely was telling me last night that there's a plot to burn the city and all the great houses nearby. That we'll all be murdered in our beds."

"Morely is a great fool, and he must have been a drunk one to tell such tales to impressionable young ladies."

"Impressionable,
stupid
young women who read too many horrid novels, you mean?" Anna said in a strained voice.

"My dear, you are certainly not stupid," Eliza protested. And, indeed, her sister was not But she
was
sensitive and romantic. "Far from it It just seems that everyone has forgotten any rules of civility of late, and reactionaries like Morely are the worst."

"He was foxed, to be sure," Anna said. "Everyone was last night, I think. Yet I don't remember you being so mightily concerned with civility, Eliza."

"What do you mean?" Eliza asked stiffly, pouring out more tea.

"Back home at Killinan, before you married Mount Clare, you used to ride hell-for-leather all over the county. Traipsing through mud, drinking ale in tenants' cottages— Mama was in despair over you."

Eliza had to laugh. "Poor Mama! She did try so hard with me, disgrace that I was."

"And you became a countess!"

"I became a countess," Eliza murmured. She stirred idly at her tea, remembering those lovely days of running free, listening to tales of old gods and goddesses and great Irish heroes by crofters' peat fires.

Kissing Will Denton in the woods.

"Well," said Anna, "I don't think we should stay trapped in here, no matter if rebels are waiting to pike us in the streets. The sun is out for once, and we need fresh air. Shall we walk on St. Stephen's Green? Maybe do a bit of shopping?"

Eliza bit her lip. It
did
sound tempting, a breath of air to clear her head after last night But she had work to do, a pamphlet she had promised to finish writing. She had to start it all over again now, thanks to her carelessness with Will "I am not sure that is such a good idea, Anna. There is so much to do...."

"Oh, come now!" Anna cried, jumping up from her chair to run around the table and grab Eliza's hand. "Whatever there is to do can wait. The sun will certainly not last, and if I must go back to Killinan, I want to enjoy every moment in town. Besides, I promised Mama I would bring her the newest music from London."

Eliza laughed. "Oh, very well. A morning walk, and work this afternoon."

"And dancing tonight!"

An hour later, Eliza found herself dressed in a woolen walking gown and her warmest fur-lined cloak, strolling with her sister along Grafton Street toward St. Stephen's Green. She had long ago learned that going against Anna was futile, and in truth, she relished the exercise. City life
was making her soft; she doubted she could ride hell-for-leather or walk all over the countryside now.

SL Stephen's Green was the favorite site in Dublin for strolling and riding or for just being seen, and the rare winter sunshine had lured everyone out As Eliza and Anna turned through the gates into the park, they saw they were not alone. The graveled pathways were crowded with chattering, laughing groups and their barking lapdogs.

Yet, even here there was some measure of peace, Eliza thought, linking arms with her sister as they strolled along. The watery pale light gleamed on the elegant buildings lining the square, making the gray stones shimmer. Frost still overlay the grass, but there seemed the promise of warmth in the breeze. The promise of new beginnings.