Sister of Rogues

by Cynthia Breeding

Patience had never been one of Fiona’s virtues, and it seemed like the hours dragged on until Erin appeared with her supper. To her surprise, a bowl of stew accompanied the bread and cheese.

  Luck—could the leprechauns have returned?—was with her, for now she could have the soup and take the rest with her. Ada had gone down the hall to unlock another door, leaving Fiona alone with Erin for a moment.

  “Thank ye,” she said as Erin put the tray on the small table. “I was nae sure I would be brought a meal this eve.”

  Erin’s gaze skittered to the door and then she bent down to whisper, “Don’t eat the stew. ’Tis tainted.”

  “Tainted?”

  Erin nodded, keeping her voice low. “Ada did it to make ye all sick.”

  Fiona wasn’t surprised. She’d seen the surly look on the matron’s face when Kier had told her no one was to be punished. The woman didn’t dare defy Kier’s orders openly, but putting something into the stew was easy enough to do and the cook would probably be blamed.

  “Thank ye,” she said again, “’Tis a shame the woman hates us so much.”

  “She hates ye the most,” Erin said after glancing at the door again. “Ye must be careful not to anger her more.”

  “I ken.” Fiona hesitated. She didn’t want to get the maid into trouble. Then she took a deep breath. “Do ye think your aunt would help me?”

  Erin looked startled. “My aunt?”

  “Yes, the one who—”

  “Enough talking in here!” Ada appeared in the doorway and motioned for Erin to go. Then she turned back to Fiona. “I will be back for the dish in five minutes. It had better be empty or ye will have no more evening meals.”

  Fiona nodded. “It smells verra good.”

  “Be sure ye clean the bowl then.”

  As soon as the woman left, Fiona emptied the contents into the chamber pot and hoped either Erin or Brena had been able to warn Lona and Dulcee about the stew. The incident only strengthened her resolve to escape as soon as possible. By the time Ada returned, Fiona was lying on her bed, a hand on her stomach, and groaning softly. Ada left with a self-satisfied smirk.

  Waiting until she could no longer hear the matron’s heavy footsteps, Fiona rose and pulled her tattered gown from the armoire. She changed quickly, tore a piece off her chemise to wrap the food, her club and coins, and then pushed the chest away from the wall. Lighting her candle from the oil lamp on the wall, Fiona glanced around. The book Kier lent her was on the small table. There was nothing else of value in the room.

  She squared her shoulders and stepped into the passageway. With luck, she would not be coming back.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Even though this was the third time Fiona had stepped into the passageway, the cool, slimy walls and stale odor still assaulted her senses. The light from this candle was brighter though, and she didn’t discern any rodents in her pathway.

  Reaching the point where her foot had dangled in space, she could see now the reason for the emptiness. A steep, stone staircase spiraled both up toward the third floor and down to the first. She had to lean over to touch what she assumed was the outside wall, and then carefully move onto a step so narrow she had to angle sideways. It reminded her of the steps leading to the cellar in the ruins of Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness, except that stairwell was considerably shorter.

  The thought of seeing Scotland and its sparkling silvery-blue lochs made her eyes tear, and she blinked rapidly. This was not the time to think about home. The last thing she needed right now was for her vision to blur.

  In the inky dark stillness beyond the arc of her candle’s light, it felt like an hour had passed by the time she reached the ground floor, although she supposed it was only a matter of minutes. Fiona raised her candle to better see where she was and then gasped as stone walls closed in on her. Forcing herself to take a long, slow breath, she realized it only felt that way since she was in a small enclosure less than two meters wide and perhaps three meters long but extending upwards to the other floors. As her senses assimilated to the space, so did her mind. The stairwell she’d just descended was between the outer wall of the castle and the inner rooms.

  Fiona moved toward the wooden door at end of the enclosure. She was probably at one of the towers and, if her sense of direction was not completely turned around, it would be at the northwestern corner. The tower that was supposedly haunted by Kier’s mother. Fiona smiled. Maybe a faerie lived inside the tower instead. Or perhaps some friendly leprechauns. She reached for the lever.

  And then she heard a scraping noise.

  Drawing her hand back, Fiona held her breath. The scraping noise came again, as though chairs were being dragged across the floor. The fae didn’t make that kind of noise, which meant someone human was inside a tower that was supposedly off-limits.

  “Ye were wantin’ to see me before the meeting?” an unfamiliar voice with a decidedly Irish lilt asked.

  “I wanted to share some information I received.”

  Fiona’s heart beat faster. She would recognize Kier’s voice anywhere. What in the world was he doing in the tower room?

  “Kildare’s men want to raise the United Irish banner again.”

  The other man whistled. “Ye know Daniel will not approve.”

  “I told the messenger that, Finn. He was not pleased.”

  “Will he be attendin’ our meeting tonight then?”

  “Yes, I thought it might be good if he heard from more of Dublin’s men that O’Connell wants to negotiate for Irish seats in Parliament. The only way we can do that is if England understands all of Ireland’s counties are protesting rent rates and export taxes without wanting to incite another rebellion.”

  “Aye. We lost too many men when Wolfe Tone tried that.”

  “So we are in accord then.”

  “We are. I will make certain the messenger understands I speak for my cousin.”

  Chairs scraped again. Fiona pressed her ear closer to the door as the voices faded. They must be moving toward the entrance to the side hall.

  “I would bring up one other thing,” Kier said.

  “What would that be?”

  “My guest, Mrs. MacLeod—”

  “Aye. Your wee hellcat. What has she done now?”

  Fiona frowned. Hellcat? Is that how Kier saw her? She felt her frown fade. What did that Finn person mean by Kier’s hellcat?

  “She is not my hellcat. Mrs. MacLeod did give me her account of how she came to be here. I wanted your opinion.”

  As Kier recounted to his friend what she had said regarding Walter Avery, she began to realize how strange and utterly fantastic the story sounded. Everything she’d told him ran counter to everything that had been in the reports. If she hadn’t known every bit of it was true, she would have thought herself to be a lunatic as well. She held her breath again when he stopped speaking.

  “Well?” Kier asked.

  “The woman is either totally mad…” there was a pause, “…or she speaks the truth of it.”

  “Damn it, Finn. You are no help.”

  “Well, ye did say ye tried to contact the brothers.”

  “Maybe the letters did not get through.”

  There was silence again. Finally, Finn spoke. “Since I’ve not met the lady, I cannot tell ye what to do. ’Tis obvious though, that ye want to believe her. Why don’t ye have a word with the warden and see what ye can find out about Walter Avery?”

  There was another pause and then something that sounded like a bark of laughter and a slap on the back. “Why did I not think of that?” Kier asked.

  “Probably because ye have not been thinking straight since the lass arrived,” Finn answered, “besotted as ye are.”

  “I am not besotted.”

  “Aye, ye are,” Finn replied and then both the voices and footsteps faded away.

 
Fiona stood rooted to the spot for several minutes, giving the men time to leave while her befuddled brain tried to assemble reasonable thought.

  Kier wanted to believe her.

  He was besotted with her?

  He was not besotted with her.

  He’d said so.

  Why did his friend think differently?

  Fiona rubbed her forehead with her free hand. She would drive herself truly barmy if she kept this up. She put her ear to the door. Nothing but silence. Slowly, she turned the brass lever, praying the hinges wouldn’t squeak too loudly.

  But they did. Fiona held her breath again, wondering if the men were still in the hall and would return. When she heard no other sounds, she opened the door farther. The hinges shrieked again. She’d probably found the cause of Lona’s ghost or at least the servants’ accounts of a haunted tower. And those footsteps Fiona had heard coming from inside the walls? It all fell into place now. Kier had been using the hidden passageway to meet this Finn person in secret. And it sounded like their plans might be dangerous as well.

  Fiona stepped into the room. To her surprise, it was empty save for a rickety table and the two chairs she’d heard scraping. She set her candle on the floor and glanced around. A narrow window slit looked out into the courtyard. Not far from it was an oaken door that probably led to the side hall. She moved toward it and then stopped, shocked.

  The door was bolted from the inside.

  Her blood chilled and she whipped around. The room was empty. She’d heard voices inside this room. Kier’s voice and a stranger’s. She could not have imagined that. Lord, was she really losing her mind? Maybe she was so desperate to think Kier wanted to believe her that she’d conjured the conversation?

  Fiona shook her head to clear it. Certainly, she would not have fantasized a conversation about Irish rebellion.

  Which meant there had to be another way out.

  She looked at the staircase leading to the second floor of the tower. If this castle was as old as Scottish ones, and she was pretty sure it was, there would be no windows on the second or third floors, only arrow slits for defense. So there had to be another way out or there truly were ghosts lingering about.

  Maybe Lona’s ghosts were real. But why would they sound like Kier?

  Fiona looked carefully around the room. Unless there was an opening in one of the stone walls she couldn’t see, there were no other doors, except maybe… She walked over to the rough-hewn paneling beneath the staircase. Old castles had hidey holes for the women to hide in case of sieges and raids.

  Running her fingers over the uneven planks, she finally felt what she’d been searching for…a small lever behind a rough edge of panel. Pressing it down, the wall suddenly became a small door that opened inward. Bending down, she scrambled through, expecting to find a crawl space. To her surprise, not only was there enough room to stand, but the alcove was big enough for a small desk, chair and cot.

  She spotted the door in the outer wall instantly, since there was no reason for it to be hidden inside a secret room—a postern door, much like the small, nearly undetectable gates in the back walls of Scottish castles, allowing the occupants a means of escape. A heavy bar stood alongside the frame to the thick oak door, more evidence that this tower was meant to be a small fortress.

  A large, iron key hung on a hook beside the door as well. Fiona frowned, thinking. Kier would have needed it to lock the door from the outside unless the man, Finn, that he’d been talking to had a key as well. And if he did, then he was a man Kier trusted totally. Fiona remembered seeing two men in black appear out of the shadows one evening shortly after she’d arrived. Had those men been Kier and Finn?

  Recalling the conversation she’d just heard, they were trying to lead a rebellion for Irish independence. She wished she could tell them it was futile to try. Fiona may have yawned her way through her history lessons, but she hadn’t missed the conversations of her fierce uncles who still wanted to be rid of English fetters.

  But, of course, she couldn’t say anything. She would be gone.

  Fiona took the key, inserted it into the lock, and pushed the door open. She wasn’t particularly surprised to confront a hedgerow as she stepped out. Postern doors were often hidden behind shrubbery of sorts. She was free. Inhaling the crisp night air with its slight scent of brine from the river, Fiona looked up at the stars sparkling like diamonds against a black-sapphire sky.

  Black-sapphire like Kier’s eyes. She hesitated. Kier wanted to believe in her. He planned to talk to the warden to find out who Walter Avery really was. If the man’s story was not credible, would Kier finally help her leave?

  Fiona looked down the narrow, darkened street, realizing she didn’t know which way to go to find the Sisters of Charity. She’d spent enough time in London—and listened to enough of Jamie’s orders never to venture out alone—to realize danger lurked for a woman, and she just had her small club. If only she knew which direction to take. Fiona looked down at the key she was still holding. If she put it back and retraced her steps to her room, no one would know she’d been here. Now that she knew the way to escape, perhaps she should wait and give Kier a chance to speak to the warden. Waiting would also allow her time to visit the library and look at the maps again, or find out from Erin where the convent was. For once in her life, she should be practical.

  With a sigh, Fiona stepped back inside, relocked the door and exited the tower room into the passageway. She was doing the right thing. The sensible thing. The safe thing. Patience really was a virtue.

  Her brothers would be proud of her maturity.

  Staying behind had absolutely nothing to do with wanting to see Kier one more time or kissing him.

  Absolutely not.

  “I have mixed feelings about this,” Kier told Finley as they were returning from the meeting later that night. They’d stopped by the streetlamp across from the castle to finish the conversation

  His friend gave him a quick look. “I am thinking ye don’t mean the cause?”

  “Not the cause,” Kier said. “Ireland deserves her Parliament back. It will be a long road with all the bickering going on, but Daniel has the right of it. Gaining Catholic seats in the English Parliament is the first step. This time, freedom must be won with pen and quill and voice, not the sword.”

  “And ye are thinkin’ Kildare’s men will not wait? ’Tis blood they want?”

  “Not just Kildare. The scent of blood is in the air,” Kier replied. “The older ones remember the Battle of the Diamond and the trouncing they took.”

  “’Twas twenty years ago,” Finley said. “It does no good to dwell on it.”

  Kier smiled a little. “I am not the one you need to tell. Even if his mind is not clear, King George still remains opposed to emancipation.”

  “Aye, the reference to his madness was made often enough tonight.” Finley arched a brow as he looked at Kier. “Some of the men think ye are an expert on understanding madness, given those ye house.”

  “I wish the subject had not come up,” Kier answered, “especially since it seemed to distract Fontaine and his partner.”

  “Aye, it did, although I suspect Algernon’s interest was of a more lecherous intent than Fontaine’s.”

  Kier found himself clenching both fists at the remark. The young Frenchman had made several references to having the women available, more than willing for bed sport because they were witless. He’d had a hard time restraining himself from ruining the good looks the man sported, especially when Algernon mentioned he’d heard rumors on the street that the Scottish woman was quite comely and then winked slyly. Luckily for Algernon, Fontaine had intervened with several questions about the welfare of the women and how they were being treated.

  “Ye will bloody your knuckles if ye hit that lamppost ye are glaring at.”

  “You are right.” Kier forced himself to relax his
fists. “I resent that my guests are the talk of the clubs though.” He turned to walk across the street, still angry. “I do not like people making fun of those women. They cannot help what they are—or are not.”

  “Ye are meaning your hellcat, I suspect,” Finley said as he accompanied Kier to the back entrance to unlock it for him. “I think the sooner ye speak to the warden, the better ye will be.” He held up a hand before Kier could retort. “I will be seeing ye in a day or two after I talk to Daniel.”

  Kier nodded and went inside. Removing the other key from its hook to lock the door behind him, he stilled and sniffed.

  Fiona’s scent—the very faint smell of lavender soap he’d had Erin give her—lingered in the air.

  Kier shook his head. Impossible. There was no way Fiona could have found the tower room. He spent so much time thinking about her that he was imagining things.

  Still, he stopped inside the passageway near her room. All was dark, the armoire firmly in place. Listening, he could hear Fiona moving about. Satisfied, Kier continued on to his chamber on the third floor.

  And then, so faintly he wasn’t sure it was real, came the sound of light, musical laughter once more.

  “I do not want to remind you again to keep a damn civil tongue inside your head.” Wesley glared at his bastard son, thinking it might be good just to have the whelp’s tongue cut out so the idiot would not be able to speak at all. “You angered O’Reilly.”

  Nicholas tossed his jacket on a chair in the flat and turned to appraise Wesley with cool eyes. “That was the intent.”

  “What? Are you totally stupid?”

  “Not at all.”

  Wesley reached for the bottle of brandy on the counter and then threw it against the stone hearth when he saw the bottle was empty. “Explain yourself.”

  Nicholas paid no attention to his father’s fit of temper. “Surely you know it is always a good idea to assess your enemy’s weaknesses? After all…” he gave Wesley a cold smile, “…you are a war hero, are you not?”

  Wesley ignored the sarcasm he heard in Nicholas’s voice. “Damn right.”