Countess of Scandal

by Laurel McKee

  "I am sure there is, but not by us." Dublin had been one nonstop gala for weeks. Useful for gathering information, but wearying, indeed. "Old widows like myself need their rest."

  Anna pouted but climbed into their carriage meekly enough. That was all to the good, as Eliza knew she could not face another quarrel. She felt exhausted and drained from her encounter with Will

  Eliza leaned her head back on the velvet squabs, closing her eyes as she listened to the clatter of the wheels bearing her back to the Henrietta Street house. Will knew something, something vital. Or he was very close to it Would he ruin everything? Now, when they were so very close to their goal?

  Yet, even as she longed for Will to be gone again, to go back to the islands and cease making everything so very complicated, she remembered the feel of his touch. His breath against her skin. And how she didn't really want him to let her go...

  Complicated, indeed.

  "My heavens, but William Denton has grown mightily handsome," Anna said, interrupting the whirl of Eliza's thoughts.

  She opened her eyes to find her sister gazing pensively out the window, her hood thrown back-from her pale curls. "I remember he was quite good-looking when I was a child" Anna continued, "but nothing like now. And he seems to admire you as much as ever."

  "We were childhood friends, perhaps," Eliza said. "But that was a very long time ago. I would scarcely say he admires me."

  "Oh? Then why were you on the terrace with him for so long?" Anna smiled teasingly. "Reminiscing, were you?"

  The carriage jolted to a halt, saving Eliza from answering. Anna hopped down and hurried into the house, while Eliza slowly followed. By the time Eliza reached the foyer, her sister was already skipping up the grand staircase. A footman stepped forward to take her cloak, Anna's already draped over his arm. He gave Eliza a lit taper.

  Eliza followed her sister up the stairs and turned at the top as if to go on to her bedchamber. And, indeed, she did long for nothing so much as the haven of her own bed, a warm fire, a soothing tisane concocted by her maid, Mary, and the oblivion of dreams. But she had one more thing to do before she retired.

  Instead of going to her chamber, she turned and went back down via the narrow servants' stairs. Aside from Mary, who waited in Eliza's room, and the footman, everyone was already retired. The back stairs were echoingly silent, lit only by her flickering taper, which cast deep shadows on the walls. Eliza hurried ever downward, holding up her skirts with her free hand to still their rustle.

  Once, she had not enjoyed this vast house on its fashionable street, had thought it too large and unwieldy and cold. But after it became her own, her inheritance from her husband, she found great use for it, indeed

  At the kitchen, she went down yet more stairs, into the chilly wine cellar below the butler's pantry. She paid no mind to the dusty rows of bottles, hurrying past them until she found what she sought—a door half hidden in the corner, tucked behind stacks of barrels.

  She knocked on it, two short raps, a pause, then three more. For a moment, she heard nothing, and her heart pounded with apprehension. The house seemed peaceful and secure, but what if something had happened in her absence?

  What if Will Denton really did know?

  At last, she heard the metallic scrape of the lock, and the heavy door swung open. A man stood there, outlined by the glow from the lamps set amid the jumbled books and papers on a table. He wore a loose banyan coat over his shirt and breeches, his brown hair tumbled as if from sleep. But his smile was full of relief.

  "Mr. O'Connor," Eliza said. She slipped into the room, closing the door behind her. 'Tm sorry to interrupt your rest I know you need it after such a long journey."

  "Not at all, Lady Mount Clare," he answered. "I've been waiting for what feels like ages! Tell me, what news from the outside? What is happening?"

  Eliza sighed. How could she tell him, poor man, that she bore no good tidings as of yet? That Major Denton and his regiment had come to Ireland.

  Chapter 2

  Blast all women! Will pounded his fist on the cold, unyielding stone of the balustrade, frustration and anger and unwelcome lust all tangled up inside of him.

  Blast Elizabeth Blacknall above all.

  He braced his hands on the balustrade, closing his eyes against the force of his emotions. Emotions were useless; they only got in the way when there was a job to be done. Just as women with flashing dark eyes and deep secrets were a fatal distraction.

  He opened his eyes, staring down at the street below. Yet, he did not see the few passing carriages, didn't hear the music and laughter from the bright ballroom behind him. He could see only Eliza.

  She had been a pretty girl. Now she was a beautiful woman, far beyond any vision of her he had cherished over the years. Oh, she was not beautiful like the society misses his mother kept pressing him to wed. Not soft and pale and sweet, with blond ringlets and pink cheeks. Eliza was dark, with glossy hair and those eyes—those eyes so black and unreadable, hiding and promising so much. She was as slim as a reed in her fine gown, almost delicate-seeming, yet he well remembered how she could ride and run faster and farther than anyone.

  That spirit that drew him to her, even as he knew well he should stay away, still burned within her. That daring and quickness, and that independence. Marriage had not doused her flame. But did she use all that spirit now for treason?

  "Damn it, Eliza," he muttered. "Why will you not listen to me?" She had never listened to him when they were young, never wanted to hear his reasons for going into the army. Not so much had changed over the years after all.

  He frowned, thinking back to those long-ago days. Eliza had been enthralled by the idea of "Ireland" back then, had avidly read books on Celtic history and culture, even corresponded with members of the Dublin Society. Now he heard tell she belonged to the Society herself, read the Hibernian Journal and received a most strange assortment of visitors at her grand Henrietta Street house. Radicals, artists, Catholics. Rebels?

  So much had changed in Dublin since he left. He felt it everywhere he went, in the very air he breathed. People stared at his uniform in either barely concealed distaste or in awe, as if he was a savior. A protector from the howling masses. Everywhere there was an atmosphere of hectic gaiety, a sense that a conflagration was about to burst out and burn them all to ashes.

  Broadsheets and green streamers were torn down from walls only to appear again. Bodies were fished from the river. Terrified landowners barricaded themselves in their houses. Rumors raced of French invasions and innocents killed in their beds.

  His home, whose cool green fields he had dreamed of on sun-blasted tropical days, teetered on the edge of blood-soaked oblivion. Could Eliza really be part of it?

  He feared she very well could. Eliza was a girl no longer. She was a widow, a rich one, who was free to indulge her passions. One of those passions could be that idea of Ireland. She had never done things halfheartedly; she always threw herself fully into any cause she chose, no matter how misguided and dangerous.

  His time in the city was short. His regiment had been sent to Ireland to quell any unrest, and soon they would be sent to Kildare and then to points north, where there were already rumors of fighting. He had to make Eliza listen, to make her see the foolishness of any rebellious path she might be on. He had left her all those years ago and had not tried hard enough to persuade her to see that he did right in joining the army.

  But, by Jove, she would listen now! For the sake of that old friendship, her family, her own life, he had to persuade her. No matter what it took.

  Resolute, he turned back toward the assembly rooms. As he strode to the half-open doors, a ray of candlelight fell on a shimmering object discarded on the stone floor. It was a fen, its carved ivory sticks spread open to reveal delicate lilac silk.

  The exact color of Eliza's gown. Will knelt down to scoop it up, balancing the delicate bauble on his sun-roughened hand. A faint whiff of Eliza's rosewater perfume drifted from the fol
ds.

  Well, well. Surely she would soon be missing such a pretty trifle. It would be only polite to return it Eliza shut the cellar door behind her, listening for the grate of the lock turning before she made her way back up the stairs. She was exhausted after the party and her long talk with Mr. O'Connor. Her steps felt leaden in their satin slippers as she hurried up to her own chamber; her gown surely weighed a hundred pounds now. And she still had letters to write before she could at last crawl into bed and pray for sleep!

  Yet, Eliza well knew it was not just the dancing, and the letters that preyed on her mind. It was not even the man hidden in her cellar. No, it was quite another man altogether. Will Denton.

  She pressed her. hand to her whirling, aching head. She had thought never to see him again, and to find him suddenly there before her was... dizzying.

  The years away, long years across the sea in foreign lands, had obviously honed and hardened him. He was even more handsome than in her cherished memories, with a whipcord strength barely hidden by his dashing red coat. But the kindness she remembered in his blue-green eyes, that warm light of understanding and laughter, was quite gone. He stared at her with a hard determination to discover all her secrets. As if he knew what she was doing and would put a stop to it, however he could.

  Treason is a deadly game to play, she remembered him saying.

  Once, she had fancied she could love him. Now he was one more obstacle to overcome. Perhaps the most formidable obstacle of all. If only she could overcome her own lust for him, too!

  Eliza paused outside Anna's room, where all was silent. Her sister had a propensity to stay up all hours reading novels, but hopefully all the dancing and card-playing tonight had worn her out at last Eliza sighed and continued down the corridor to her own chamber. She did love Anna, but she would be glad to send her back to their mother's care after Christmas. Truly, Eliza was only one woman— she could either write revolutionary pamphlets or watch after a willful teenaged girl. Not, it seemed, both.

  "Did you have a good evening, my lady?" her maid, Mary said as Eliza entered her own room at last

  "Yes, thank you, Mary," she answered. "The assembly rooms are so lively at this time of year." She breathed in deeply with relief as Mary unfastened her heavy jewels and the elaborate gown. Those fashionable trappings always felt like a mask, a confining disguise. Surely she could think more clearly when they were gone and she was just herself. Not the scandalous countess Dublin whispered about

  "I have to admit I will be very glad indeed when the holiday festivities are done with," Eliza said. Her silks divested, she wrapped herself in her dressing gown and sat down before the mirror as Mary brushed out her coiffure. "I am too old for Dublin parties, Mary."

  "Oh, come now, my lady! You're not a bit old. Now, Lady Dunmore, she's three hundred if she's a day, I vow!"

  "Don't be cheeky, Mary," Eliza said, but she still laughed. Lady Dunmore was quite venerable. She even had an ear trumpet.

  "But she still gets about in that Bath chair of hers, does old Lady Dunmore," Mary went on. "They say her son is quite terrified of her."

  "Hmm, and him all of two hundred years old, too," Eliza said. Then a thought struck. Mary, and all the servants, so often seemed to know so much. Eliza heard more gossip from Mary than she did over any aristocratic tea table, and it made her doubly cautious with her own words and her correspondence. "Mary, had you heard that the younger son of Viscount Moreton was back from the West Indies?"

  "Major Denton, you mean? Oh yes, my lady. He's taken rooms on Castleton Street, and my cousin is a footman in that part of town." Mary sighed as she plied her brush. "He's ever so handsome, is Major Denton."

  "Indeed. I saw him at the assembly."

  "Did you, my lady? How lucky! Did you dance with him?"

  Eliza laughed. "I'm also too old for dancing, I fear. Is his whole regiment in Dublin?"

  "So I've heard, but they're soon to go north, more is the pity." Mary's eyes grew wide in the mirror. "When they leave, will the city be unprotected, my lady?"

  "Certainly not We are quite safe, with or without Major Denton's regiment" She smiled at Mary. "It will be a shame to lose such a handsome face, though. He could brighten this dull town considerably, I think."

  Mary giggled. "That he could, my lady."

  "But perhaps we will soon be gone ourselves. I've been thinking of going back to Kildare for the winter. And before you ask, Mary, I'm sure traveling will be just as safe as staying in town." There—let Will think she heard his warning and was decamping.

  "Yes, my lady" Mary said uncertainly.

  Eliza was silent for a moment as Mary finished her hair. "You will tell me if you hear anything else of interest about the handsome major?"

  "Of course, my lady." Mary grinned, and Eliza could tell she thought her employer was thinking of taking a lover at last. Well, better that than the truth. "I left a tisane for you on the bedside table, Is there anything else you need, my lady?"

  "No, thank you, Mary. That will be all tonight"

  Mary curtsied and left the room, and Eliza was alone at last Alone but for her thoughts, and they were always far too much company.

  She studied herself in the mirror. With her hair down over her shoulders, brushed free of their elaborate curls and divested of jewels and combs, she looked so young. Young... and frightened?

  Never! This was not a time for fear, this was a time for action. All her hard work would soon come to fruition. She could not waver, not when liberty and justice were at last within sight

  It was Will making her feel this way. But she couldn't wouldn't, let him.

  Eliza opened her top dressing table drawer, feeling along the edge with her fingertips until she could pop free the false back. There, tucked behind lacy handkerchiefs and silk gaiters was a small, round badge bound in green ribbon. On it was embroidered an Irish harp and the words

  I AM NEW STRUNG AND SHALL BE HEARD.

  She traced the motto carefully, the image that always gave her courage. Tonight though, it kept blurring, overlaid with the picture of Will Denton's sky-blue eyes.

  There was a rustling behind her, so soft as to be almost inaudible. Yet, Eliza had been on edge for weeks, months, and all her senses went on high alert at the noise. She shoved the badge back into the drawer, sliding it closed. She grasped the handle of a sharp penknife, holding it up as she whirled around.

  She gasped aloud in disbelief at the image that greeted her. Will Denton sat on the floor, where he had emerged from under her bed. His red coat was gone, replaced by a rough black wool jacket and a knitted cap over his golden hair.

  Eliza was certain she must be dreaming. Her obsessive thoughts had surely conjured him up out of nothing! He couldn't be here in her bedchamber.

  But the bite of the knife handle against her palm was all too real. As was the smile he gave her as he swung lightly to his feet It was a wide, almost piratical grin, just like the ones he used to flash when they carried off some youthful mischief.

  But they were not so young now. And mischief could surely be deadly.

  "So, Eliza my dear," he said. "You think me handsome?"

  Chapter 3

  Eliza, leaned back against the drawer, staring at Will in half-comprehending shock.

  He took a step closer, and she waved the knife about "How did you get in here?" she demanded, cursing that quiver in her voice. This was no time to let her fear show, to be vulnerable. Once, Will had known her all too well. The glint in his blue-green eyes said he surely could again.

  He held out his hands as if in surrender, but Eliza knew better than to be fooled. He had been nearly eight years in the British Army now; surely he had been taught to never surrender.

  "Nothing easier, I fear, Eliza," he said affably. "You should have more care with your house. Such a fine dwelling is a tempting target for villains."

  "So I see. What did you do, then, bribe my servants?"

  "I didn't have to go to such trouble. I climbed the ivy v
ines that cling to those columns outside your portico. You've neglected them too long, and they're prodigiously thick. Any thief could have made off with your jewels and plate by now." He gestured toward her grandmother's diamonds in the open case on her dressing table.

  Despite herself, Eliza felt a grudging admiration thinking of Will climbing those vines. Thinking of the powerful shift of his muscles under that rough wool. His years in the hot islands had obviously not weakened him, as they did some men.

  "I have had too many things to think of to remember to cut back the vines," she said.

  "So I've heard:'

  "What? Are you a Castle spy now, too, Major Denton? In the pay of Lord Camden?"

  "Don't be ridiculous, Eliza."

  "Am I being ridiculous? I hear tell that spies and informants are everywhere in Dublin these days. That we should not trust our servants or our own families."

  "You can trust me."

  "Can I?" She studied him carefully, his elegant, handsome face outlined by the flickering candlelight. He looked hardened, darkened by that island sun, by whatever he had seen there. Or by whatever he had come here to do.

  His regiment, the Thirteenth, had a reputation for ruthless adherence to duty and fierce loyalty to the Crown. That was certainly why they were here in Ireland now—to stamp out the fires of dissent by whatever means necessary.

  Was the old Will under there somewhere? Was her laughing, lighthearted friend hidden beneath the uniform?

  She wanted to drop the knife, to run into his arms and hold him so tightly he could never escape her again. To feel his lips on hers again and meet him as a woman now and not a foolish girl.

  But even as tears pricked at her eyes, she knew she could not He was her enemy now, and she would not sacrifice her work, the freedom of a whole country, for lust

  "We cannot trust anyone these days," she said, thinking of the brittle, frantic fear that overhung all of Dublin like a smoky pall. "Why have you come here, Will?"

  "I don't think I can speak rationally with a knife pointed at me," he answered. "Even if it if a penknife."