Lady of Seduction (27 page)

It was so glorious. She glimpsed Grant over the dancers’ heads as someone spun her around in the air. He was laughing, too,
his face alight with joy as he danced with an old lady in a lace cap.

It seemed he needed fun as well. Had she
ever
seen him laugh? It made him look so young, so carefree. It made his scars seem to vanish, and he looked like the lighthearted
man he might have become if life was less bitter.

Caroline laughed in sheer joy as she spun to the next partner. She had to make sure Grant danced more before they parted.
And she had to dance, too, dance and dance until she fell down from it.

She twirled back into his arms at last, and he lifted her high to spin her around. The room turned hazy like a whirling kaleidoscope,
all shards of color and ever-shifting patterns.

Grant slid her down to her feet along his body, and she pressed close to him in the crowd. He dipped her low and kissed her
lips as they came up. She could feel his laughter in the kiss, and it was achingly sweet.

Suddenly their perfect moment was shattered by the sound of breaking glass. Someone shouted, and one of the barmaids screamed.

Caroline was pushed against Grant as the crowd shifted and stumbled. More glass broke, and everyone was running, though no
one knew where to go. People tripped and fell, and shoved each other as they tried to get out of the way of they knew not
what. The merriment turned to chaos in an instant.

“What’s happening?” Caroline cried. Grant lifted her in his arms and held on to her as he elbowed his way through the crowd.
“Can you see anything?”

Grant grimly shook his head. They reached the edge of the room to find that one man held another pinned to the bar. His beefy
hands were wrapped around the man’s neck as he banged his head on the wood. Shattered glass lay in glistening shards on the
floor, and the maid was still screaming as the landlord battered the attacker’s head ineffectually with a towel.

“That’s enough!” the landlord shouted. “Break it up now, lads! Who’s going to pay for all this?”

The man strangling the other held on as his victim kicked at him. His bald head was bright red.

“You sent for them, you bastard!” he yelled. “I know ’twas you, you brought the redcoats down on us. We barely got away without
them knowing it was us.”

“Redcoats?” Caroline gasped. “The army is here?”

The man on the bar managed to push back his attacker
and twist his head away. “It weren’t me! No one sent for ’em. They’re just marching this way on their way someplace else.”

“Then how did they know? It had to have been you!” He lunged for the man again, with the landlord and the maid struggling
to drag them apart.

The rest of the crowd seemed to have been a powder keg just waiting for one spark to go off. The energy of the dance turned
to a fight, a chance to settle some old scores. Furniture crashed to the floor and splintered amid the shattered pottery.

Crying children were ushered hastily out the door, and Caroline wished she could go with them. But the door was far across
the room, and her path was blocked by a tangle of shrieking, kicking, punching humanity. Someone pushed past her and sent
her twirling to the floor. She fell into a puddle of spilled beer and felt something sharp slice painfully into her leg.

“Ow!” she cried. She drew her skirt away and saw a shard of glass lodged in her calf, her stocking torn. She pulled it out,
and blood rushed forward in a thin red stream.

Grant grabbed the man who had pushed her and shoved him roughly away, with a punch to his face for good measure. He knelt
by Caroline, and for once his cool, expressionless mask was gone. He looked furious and violent—and scared for her. He gently
touched her leg and leaned down to examine it.

“Are you badly hurt?” he demanded.

“No, I…” Suddenly over his shoulder Caroline saw the man rise up again—with a chair held over his head, about to bring it
down on Grant.

“Grant, watch out!” she screamed. She rolled away, pulling
Grant with her, and they escaped injury just in time. The chair crashed to the floor in a jagged, splintered heap.

The man was much larger than Grant, but Grant was lean and fit. And, Caroline remembered from Dublin, surprisingly good at
brawling. He let out a great roar and tackled the man, sending them both crashing to the floor. Grant landed blow after blow
while managing to dodge away from the other man’s flailing fists. Until one lucky punch to the head sent Grant reeling back.

Caroline scrambled to her feet. She scarcely noticed the throbbing pain in her leg in the wild whirl of excitement. She scooped
up a broken chair leg and tried to bash the man over the head. But he kept lurching away from her, and she couldn’t get a
clear blow in without danger of braining Grant instead.

Someone pushed her hard from behind, and she whirled around to strike out with her new weapon. It was the attacker from the
bar, with his victim nowhere to be seen. She landed a fortunate strike with her chair leg, and he fell to the floor.

Only for a moment though. He stumbled to his feet with rage on his beet-red face.

“For fuck’s sake, Caro, run!” Grant shouted. He had his own opponent on the floor with his knee in the man’s back and a lock
on his head. “Get out of here now!”

She didn’t need to be urged twice. Still clutching the chair leg, she dashed toward the door, dodging around the combatants.
The battle seemed to be waning as everyone grew tired. People were slumped against the walls, but a few fought furiously on.

At the door, she glanced back. Grant’s attacker lay on the floor alone, holding his head and groaning. She didn’t
see Grant anywhere. Surely he would follow her soon. She ducked out the door and into the night.

The street was surprisingly quiet. A few people reeled down the walkway, but most of the houses and shops were dark and silent.
It was as if everyone was hiding out. Even the moon hid behind a bank of clouds. The fresh breeze felt good on her warm face,
but the pain in her leg washed back over her once she was relatively safe.

She sat down on a wooden barrel outside one of the closed shops and drew up her hem to examine the wound. The cut didn’t look
particularly deep, but it still bled. She kicked off her slipper and removed the ruined stocking to tie it around the cut
as a makeshift bandage.

There were still shouts and crashes echoing from the inn, though not as loud now. Caroline wondered where Grant was. Surely
he should be here now? Had he gotten into another fight? She thought of how he grappled with that man, as fierce as any street
brawler in
The Liberties of Dublin.
She nearly laughed to think what people would say about the elegant, sophisticated Sir Grant Dunmore in such a state. But
she had seen him fight that way before with Conlan on the steps of the Parliament building before the Union vote.

He
was
fierce, and crafty, too. How else would he have survived in his strange world all these years? Yet she still worried about
him now. Where could he be?

She stood up to go back in the inn to find him, but then she heard a low moan. It was so soft that at first she thought she
imagined it, until she heard it again.

She made her way along the street, searching the darkened doorways until she found the noise’s source. It was the man she
had seen being strangled at the bar. He sat
leaning against the door, holding his head in his hands. Even in the shadows, she could see his clothes were torn and stained
with blood.

“Are you all right?” she said gently. “Can I help you?”

The man jumped at the sound of her voice, as if she had shouted at him menacingly. His hands fell away, and she saw he was
terribly young, probably only about sixteen. Too young to have been the cause of such a battle.

But she had seen so many people just as young whose lives were torn apart by the Rebellion—herself included. She was only
fifteen when the family had to flee from Killinan. And there would be more of the same if there was another uprising, which
seemed likely if the army was on the march again. Even this place, which she had thought so peaceful and cozy, wasn’t immune
to trouble.

“It’s quite all right,” she said as he shrank back against the door. “I won’t hurt you. Please, let me help if I can.”

“I have to get home,” he said. He tried to sound defiant, but his voice was shaking.

“So do I,” she murmured. But home felt so far away. “But you should bind up that cut on your brow first.”

He slowly nodded, and Caroline knelt beside him in the doorway. She turned her back to remove her other stocking, the only
bandage she had, and used it to dab at the wound. The man sat very still and tense under her care.

“You caused quite a riot in there,” she said.

“It weren’t me, miss,” he muttered. “Tom started it.”

“Was Tom the man who had you pinned to the bar?”

“You saw that, miss?”

“Yes, I saw that. Right before someone knocked me down.”

Guilt spasmed across his face. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault. Not entirely, anyway.” Caroline stopped the flow of blood and bound the stocking around his head as a bandage.
Not very dignified, but it would have to do. “What was Tom angry about?”

“He’s my brother.”

“Your brother?” Caroline cried. She was suddenly very glad she had only sisters.

“He thought I told the English about—about what I found. That I sent them this way and that’s why they were on the march toward
Kilmarin. I never would!”

What exactly had he found? Caroline felt a little tremor of fear, all too familiar now. It seemed matters were progressing
at a very rapid pace. They were even reaching this corner of the country. “I’ve seen no redcoats.”

“Tom saw them at Kilmarin, which is only a few miles down the road. He said they were asking questions and are sure to come
this way. But it weren’t me that told them! You have to believe me, miss. Even if I’d known what Tom and his friends were
up to all this time, I never would have told.”

“I believe you,” she said reassuringly. But she feared it was not
her
belief he needed. And what were Tom and his friends “up to”?

She heard a noise on the street, and she peeked beyond the doorway to see more people tumbling out of the inn. The landlord
shouted after them. They ran off in the opposite direction of Caroline’s hiding place, with a group of scantily clad women
of the night laughing after them from their street corner. But she knew more people would come this way soon enough, including
Tom.

“Can you walk now?” she said. “Do you think you can make it home? The sooner you can get there the better, I think.” If he
could just avoid his brother.

“I can walk, miss.” With her help, he stood and slowly made his way back to the street. His bandage stood out stark white
in the night.

“Will you be all right, miss?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I just need to find my—my husband. We were separated in the confusion.”

“Thank you so much, miss. You’ve been an angel. Be careful on your journey.” And then he stumbled away down the street.

Caroline leaned back against the wall, suddenly exhausted.
An angel—
that was what their tenants at Killinan used to call her mother, who would nurse them and help them whenever she could, never
losing her cool, calm ways. Caroline wasn’t like that. Dabbing at a little blood wasn’t the work of an angel, and she feared
the boy was in far more trouble than she could help. They all were.

Her leg ached, so she sat back down in the doorway. That was where Grant found her a few minutes later.

“Caro, there you are,” he said as he knelt beside her. “I was so worried.”

“So was I.” She gently took his face between her hands and examined him closely. He looked battered but hardly broken. She
kissed his brow. “Your handsomeness is quite ruined, I fear.”

He laughed. “That happened a long time ago. Come along, let’s get you back to our room so we can see to your leg properly.”

“Is the fight over then?”

“All but the landlord’s fury that his grand party was ruined.” Grant scooped her up in his arms and carried her back toward
the inn. She rested her head on his shoulder, deeply grateful for his strength. “He declares nothing like
this has ever happened in such a respectable town before, and he doesn’t know what’s gotten into people.”

“I think I might know,” Caroline whispered.

Grant looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

“I happened to meet with that poor boy who was beaten on the bar,” she said. “But I can’t tell you what he said until we are
quite alone…”

G
rant paced the length of their small room and back again. “You are quite sure that’s what he said? The redcoats are at Kilmarin
and headed this way?”

Caroline nodded. She sat perched on the edge of the bed, her skirt drawn up to uncover the cut on her leg. The sight of it
filled him with fury all over again—fury with the man who pushed her, and even greater fury at himself. He had dragged her
into this.