Lady of Seduction (36 page)

She suddenly felt a touch on her hand and turned to see Anna. Her sister’s face was very pale, but she looked
calm. “Caro, we need to go now,” she said. “I’ve had a message.”

Caroline nodded and followed Anna from the room. The staircase and foyer were deserted now, as everyone had run to look out
the windows. Their passage was quick, and they were soon safe in the quiet of their own carriage.

Only once they were rushing through the streets did Caroline say, “What sort of message?”

Anna drew in a deep breath, and her lip trembled. Caroline suddenly saw that her sister was not quite as calm as she pretended.
She was holding herself under iron control.

She took a tiny folded paper from her beaded reticule and handed it to Caroline. “Conlan has been brought to Henrietta Street.
It seems he is wounded.”

C
aroline hurried behind Anna as she dashed up the stairs of the Henrietta Street house. There were four men in the foyer, hard-faced
men in dusty coats and muddy boots with daggers in their hands, but Anna didn’t even look at them. The house’s vast halls
and rooms were silent and dim—most of the servants had gone home to their families for the evening. But from above, Caroline
could hear the echoes of a hoarse shout and a child’s thin cry quickly hushed by the nanny. Anna lifted her skirts above her
ankles and ran even faster.

She threw open the door to Conlan’s chamber, and over her shoulder, Caroline saw her brother-in-law sitting in a chair by
the fireplace. Despite the warm summer night, a fire blazed there. A young, bespectacled man leaned over a case filled with
bottles and ominous-looking metal instruments.

“It’s just a scratch, man; don’t fuss like an old woman,” Conlan shouted. Just like his cousin when wounded.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re not at death’s door after all, husband,” Anna said. “I was terrified when I got your
message. I was sure I would be a widow before I even arrived home.” She ran over to kiss her husband. “You must cease doing
this to me, Conlan.”

Conlan slid his arm around her waist and drew her against him to kiss her back. “I told this fool not to alarm you,
cailleach.
”

“Well, I’m very glad he did. I need to know what’s happening. Now, let me see this
scratch
of yours.”

As she knelt beside the chair to examine the bleeding cut along her husband’s ribs, Conlan’s gaze met Caroline’s over Anna’s
head. “I see you arrived home safely, Caroline.”

“No thanks to that cousin of yours,” Anna muttered. She reached for a nearby basin of water and a sponge and carefully dabbed
at the wound. “Your family is terribly reckless. I ought to lock all of you in the cellar.”

“And the Blacknalls aren’t reckless at all, I suppose,” Conlan scoffed. “By the way, Caro, this young man is Dr. Linden. He’s
useful sometimes and a dashed nuisance at others. But he’s usually discreet, if you should ever need him.”

“I really ought to bleed you, Your Grace,” the doctor said.

“The last thing I need is to lose more blood, man,” Conlan said. “Bandage it up; that’s all it needs. I need to get back out
there.”

“You certainly will not,” Anna said sternly. “What happened to you?”

Conlan gave a fierce frown, but Anna merely scowled back. “They rose too soon, of course, even after we warned them. They
had some grandiose plan to block the artery roads and overwhelm all the power centers of the
city—the Castle, the army barracks, Kilmainham Gaol. It’s been obvious all along that they don’t have the support needed to
succeed. Not enough men, not enough arms, and no way to distribute the ones they have, and the government ready for them.
But their blood is up. Old anger over the flogging and killing of their comrades won’t be contained any longer. Emmet is losing
control.”

“How did you get hurt?” Caroline asked. She sat down on the edge of the nearest chair and balled her fists in her lap. It
was hard to sit still and listen, to not fly into a panic and dash around like a bedlamite.

“One of my men heard a rumor that Lord Kilwarden, chief justice of the King’s Bench, was dragged from his carriage and piked
on his way to the Castle. The troops are pouring out from the Royal Barracks, loyalists hammering on the Castle gates to be
let in for shelter. Panic is overtaking this whole place.” Conlan let out a shout as Anna prodded at the wound.

“It needs stitches,” she said. “You’re going to have another scar, I fear. And you’re fortunate that is
all
it is, if you went running into a fight, Conlan McTeer. You’ve been telling them for weeks to hold off. It shouldn’t be your
battle now. You have to think of your people at Adair, of the children.”

“I think of them all the time, and of you,” Conlan said. “If those bloody fools want to fight, they’ll fight no matter what.
But we heard there were troops headed for the south quay, where a large rebel armory is hidden. We had to warn them.”

“He ran into a skirmish on Thomas Street,” Dr. Linden said as he rummaged in his case for a needle and thread. “One of his
men brought him back here after a dagger caught him in the ribs and then sent for me.”

“I’m glad someone showed some sense tonight,” Anna said. “Where are the men now?”

“On the south side of the city with Grant.”

“Grant!” Caroline cried. “He is out there in the battle?”

“He said someone had to continue on and warn them to move the arms out,” Conlan said. “He was to make his way back here after.”

“How long ago was that?” Caroline demanded. Grant was out there in all that violence and chaos. Maybe he was hurt—maybe even
worse. She was overcome with a frantic fear, and she couldn’t sit still. She jumped up to pace the room, stopping only to
peer out the window. Henrietta Street was quiet enough, all the large houses dark and silent. But in the distance she saw
the glare of bonfires and heard the crackle of gunpowder and shouts, like holiday fireworks.

But this was no holiday. This was all too real. Captain Williams had said the regiments were being called out from the outlying
barracks to make their way to the south edges of the city. They would be there at any moment—and Grant was right in their
path.

“He’s been gone for a few hours,” Conlan said. “He should be back by now—unless he got caught in another skirmish.”

Caroline pounded her fist on the windowsill. “I have to go find him now.”

“Caro, no!” Anna cried.

Caroline looked over her shoulder at her sister and tried to smile. “Oh, Anna. If Conlan needed saving, wouldn’t you go after
him? Despite the danger?”

“Certainly I would,” Anna said immediately. “Oh, Caro. He
is
your Conlan.”

“I don’t know what nonsense you two are talking,” Conlan shouted. “But no one is going anywhere.”

Anna laid her hand gently on his arm. “I just don’t think we can stop her, darling, no matter how much we try.”

He looked into his wife’s eyes for a long, silent moment, as if wordless thoughts passed between them. Then he nodded, and
held out a tightly folded note to Caroline. “I need someone to trust to deliver this message. I know I can trust you.”

“Those men in the foyer are yours, aren’t they, Conlan?” Caroline said, taking the note and tucking it in her sleeve. “One
of them can come with me to show me the way. We can follow the back streets and alleys and try to avoid the fighting. I’ll
need some breeches to change into, and any weapons you might have handy.”

She hurried out of the room, Conlan’s shouts ringing after her. Caroline had one thought, one focus alone—to find Grant and
bring him back safely. That was the only thing that mattered.

The wide streets and squares of the south side were eerily silent as Caroline and her guard hurried through them. The summer
night was warm and lit by bright stars, which made it even stranger. Dublin was a sociable, raucous place, and usually on
such a fine evening open carriages would be dashing past, their inhabitants calling greetings to each other as they made their
way from party to party.

But the silence didn’t last. As they crossed over into the Thomas Street area, Caroline heard shouts and gunshots. The noise
grew louder and louder as they headed
southward. People ran by them, not slowing down in their great haste to be away.

Caroline swam against the panicked stream, toward danger rather than away. Grant was out there somewhere, and she would never
turn back until she found him.

The streets grew narrower and darker, crisscrossed by alleys and lined with old brick warehouses and ramshackle offices. They
were moving closer to the river, and the smells of rotting fish and burning wood grew thicker and more pungent, as did the
crowd.

A large man in a rough wool coat ran past and knocked Caroline against the wall. She stumbled and nearly fell, and Conlan’s
guard caught her arm. He pulled her into a doorway just as another group surged past with torches and blunderbusses.

“They must have opened up the arms store on Thomas Street,” he said. “You should go back now, my lady.”

Caroline peeked around the edge of the doorway to see that the sky near the river was tinged red-orange, and the smell of
smoke was even thicker. She shivered as she thought of the warehouse that once burned around them, the heat and the fear of
it all. She had never wanted to experience such a terrible thing again. But she had to move ahead. There was no choice.

Her need to find Grant was stronger than any fear.

She shook her head. “Just a little farther.”

They ducked out of the doorway’s meager shelter and hurried on their way. The streets were littered with pikes, their tall
wooden handles splintered, some of the steel tips stained with crusted blood. Caroline leaped over them and kept running.

They crossed over one of the bridges spanning the Liffey
River. On this side of the river, the chaos was even greater. Mobs of people hurried one way then the other, as if no one
knew where to go or what to do. Barricades were being built across roadways out of heaps of old crates, broken furniture,
stones, and bricks. One alley was blocked by a toppled cart, its horse dead in its traces. Bonfires burned close beyond the
barricades, their flames dancing higher and higher toward the sky. Windows broke with a metallic tinkle that somehow seemed
even more frightening than the gunfire.

From the city walls came the hollow boom of cannons.

Caroline kept her head down and kept going. Conlan had said Grant would be found at Thomas Street, which was not far away
now. Yet the few short streets might as well be miles.

“We can go around this way and find a back road that might be quieter,” the guard said.

He led her behind a large, empty building, its boarded windows staring out blankly at the war-torn night. A thick roof beam
lay across one narrow alley entrance. Caroline started to step onto it, but the guard grabbed her arm.

“No, my lady!” he cried. “It’s filled with explosives to hold off the soldiers if they come this way.” He carefully lifted
Caroline over the beam, and they made their way to the end of the alley.

It opened onto Thomas Street, usually a place of taverns and cheap shops, a favorite of the dock workers. There was one small,
obscure book dealer there Caroline liked to visit from time to time. It had been quieter of late thanks to the roving press
gangs, but tonight the street was utterly desolate. The lanterns were broken out, leaving complete darkness in their wake.
More pikes were tossed haphazardly into the gutter.

A paper blew against Caroline’s foot, and she bent to pick it up. It was torn and stained, the printing hasty and smudged,
but she could see it was a proclamation calling for “a free and independent republic in Ireland.” It was signed by Robert
Emmet.

She stuffed the paper in her pocket and went on to the end of the dark street. There they turned in the direction where Conlan
said Grant would be.
If
he had not been caught in the battle.

The old warehouse serving as an armory had its doors thrown wide open. A small group of men ran out with guns in their hands,
so Caroline knew someone was still inside. Waiting for the army that was on its way.