Laurel McKee

by Countess of Scandal

  “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 vines 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 is a penknife.”

  Eliza glanced down at the blade in her hand, half surprised she still held it. It was a puny thing, and he could surely wrest it from her in an instant.

  “I merely came to return this,” he said, holding out the fan she lost at the assembly. “That is all. See, I’ll just put it down right here…”

  He made a move to place the fan on her desk—the desk where the notes for her newest “seditious” pamphlets were piled. He could not see those! Eliza dropped the paper knife as she dove for the fan, snatching it from his hand as she landed hard atop the desk, sitting on those incriminating papers.

  “Very well,” she said breathlessly, trying to cross her legs as if she hadn’t a care in the world. “You have fulfilled your errand.”

  He gave her a coaxing smile. “Aren’t you even going to thank me?”

  “Thank you.”

  She studied him carefully in the firelight, the sudden glow in his eyes, the warming of his smile. He looked more like the old Will now, and she didn’t want to think about that at all. Why would he not just go?

  “Oh, Eliza,” he said softly, as if speaking to a skittish horse. “Can we not sit down and talk, just for a moment? For old times’ sake?”

  Suddenly weary of acting, of her armor, she pushed back those papers before stalking over to the brocade chairs grouped by the fireplace. The flames flickered weakly against the cold night outside.

  She wrapped her dressing gown closer, not looking directly at him but at the orange simmer of the fire. Yet she was achingly aware of him as he sat down across from her, resting his elbows on his knees as he leaned toward her.

  “Well?” she said again. “Why are you really here?”

  His smile dropped. “I came because you would not listen to me at the assembly rooms,” he said, his voice low and solemn. “You were quite right, of course. A crowded party is not the place to speak of such things.”

  Eliza curled her fingers over the arm of her chair, grasping so tightly the gilded wood bit into her palm, pressing her wedding ring deep into her finger. “What sort of things?” she said dismissively. “Here in Dublin, we don’t have the social delicacy of London. I hear people discussing such things as birching their servants, starving out tenants’ children when they don’t make the rent, nailing up the doors of Catholic chapels—right in the middle of fine banquets.”

  Will slumped back in his chair, shaking his head in exasperation. His dark gold hair, streaked almost white in places by the tropical sun, gleamed in the firelight. It all made her ache with sadness for what could have been—for what could never be.

  “Eliza, you are more stubborn than ever,” he said. “But I fear your stubbornness can’t save you from what is coming. You play a dangerous game, and people know about it.”

  She grasped the chair’s arm even tighter. “So you are a Castle spy.”

  “I am a spy for no man!” he scoffed.

  “Then what ‘people’ do you speak of? What do you think is coming that I must be protected from?”

  “Eliza, please, don’t play games. Not with me. You and your friends the Fitzgeralds may enjoy playing at revolution. Maybe you both think your family and position will protect you. But nothing can protect you, or anyone, if Ireland explodes.”

  “I do not play games, Will.” She stood up, unable to sit still any longer, and leaned against the carved fireplace mantel. She stared down into the dying fire, but what she saw was her beloved country in flames, the green fields scorched. Herself, her family and friends, Will—all of them consumed.

  She feared it, yes. How could she not? She lived and breathed for Ireland, for what it meant and what it could be. She worked so hard for change and for justice. She had to keep believing, no matter what Will said.

  “Then you should secure your house better, Lady Mount Clare,” he said, coming to stand beside her. He stood very close to her, the warmth of his body, the clean scent of him, and the memories of his touch reaching out to wrap around her senses like an alluring caress.

  She closed her eyes against it, but it just made the longing worse. She had been alone for so long—for always, it seemed. She had missed Will for so long, and now he was here, so close she could reach out and touch him.

  But they were different people now, and she had to remember that. Forgetting could be fatal.

  “Anyone could climb up that ivy, just as I did,” he went on, leaning closer. His sleeve brushed her arm, and she opened her eyes to stare at him. He did not look at her, though; he studied her mantel and the objects clustered there. A Sevres clock flanked by a shepherd and shepherdess, a pastel portrait of her and her sisters, and a pile of books.

  He ran his fingertips over the leather bindings. “But they might not be after your jewels, either.”

  “What would they be after, then?” she whispered.

  “Your papers and letters, Lady Mount Clare. Fugitives. Seditious books.”

  Eliza frowned, thinking of Mr. O’Connor in the cellar. “They will find nothing of the sort.”

  “Are you quite sure of that?” He plucked a slim volume from the stack of books, turning it over in his hand. “Priestley’s An Essay on the First Principles of Government, and the Nature of Political, Civil, and Religious Liberty. Interesting reading indeed for a countess. Where did you get it?”

  She snatched it away from him. “Perhaps you think I should confine myself to romantic novels, like Anna.”

  “Not at all. You were never the novel-reading sort, were you, Eliza?” He reached out to trace the line of a dark curl that lay against
her neck, twining it around his finger to gently tug her closer. “It was what I always liked about you.”

  She stared up at him warily, poised to break away. “What was that?”

  “Your intelligence. Your independence. That wondrous, fiery spirit. You believed in things, really believed in them to the core of your heart. I had never known anyone like that.” His fist closed on her curl, holding it fast, holding her trapped against him. “I don’t think that has changed, countess or not.”

  “It hasn’t changed,” Eliza said, staring up at him. His eyes were so dark in the encroaching night; she could not read them at all. “I do not abandon what I care about.”

  “And do you still care about me? Just a little?”

  God help her, but she did. This handsome, hard-faced stranger, all entangled with her memories of her sweet Will. Here, now, when he did not wear his hated red uniform, she could almost forget what lay just outside their firelit circle.

  But maybe, just maybe, the two could be separate worlds, just for a moment. They could be Eliza and Will, not Lady Mount Clare and Major Denton.

  She reached up and caught his hand in hers. His skin was rough, but it could not disguise the elegance of his long fingers. She kissed them, one after the other, before pressing them to her heartbeat.

  His gaze grew hooded and intent as he stared down at her. She just smiled at him.

  “I don’t really know you, Will,” she said. “Not really, not anymore. Too much has happened. And yet… yes, there is some connection still, I confess. Do you feel it, too?”

  Surely he could. Her heart was pounding, a thunder beat in her ears loud enough to drown out all else. To drown out any fears or misgivings, as long as they touched each other.

  “Yes,” he said hoarsely.

  Eliza held her breath as his fingers traced that heartbeat, the swell of her breast through the thin silk dressing gown. The soft fabric rubbed against her nipple, a delicious friction as he circled it with his fingertip.

  His other hand grasped her waist, drawing her up against him until there was not even a breath between them. Their bodies were pressed together, hard angles against soft curves, fitting perfectly as if they were made to be just so. She felt the hard, heavy press of his erection against her belly, and it made her dizzy. As if she were falling, falling into him, where she would vanish completely.

  His lips covered hers, open, hungry, and Eliza clutched at his shoulders to keep from falling.

  His tongue touched hers, and she tasted wine, mint—and that sweetness that was only Will, like the darkest, richest, rarest chocolate. Oh yes, she remembered the taste of him well. But their younger selves had never kissed like this. There was nothing tentative, careful, or artful about their kiss. It was frantic, hungry, and passionate, full of the dreams of years, of adult need, of fear and darkness and the force of life itself.

  Through the hot, humid blur, Eliza shoved his coat back from his shoulders, letting it fall to the floor as she reached for the fastenings of his shirt. In her haste, she tangled the lacings, breaking them, but at last she could reach between the linen edges and touch him.

  His skin was hot, like heated satin over iron-hard muscles, roughened by a crisp sprinkling of hair. She touched the arc of his ribs, the line of his lean waist, greedy for more of him.

  She traced the flat disc of his nipple, feeling it pucker under her caress.

  “Eliza,” he groaned against her mouth. His lips trailed to her cheek, her jaw, the sensitive little hollow just below her ear. His tongue swirled there, his breath hot against her, and she shivered.

  “Will,” she protested, shaken to the core by the force of her desire. She had never felt like this before, had never been so close to losing all her hard-won control. She half pushed him away, but he would have no mercy on her. His open mouth kissed the curve of her shoulder, and he eased away her dressing gown, the neckline of her thin chemise, until her breasts were bare to him.

  “Eliza,” he breathed. “So beautiful. I dreamed of this, so many nights in the islands.” Lightly, enticingly, he traced the curve of her breast, the soft skin, moving closer and closer to her aching, erect nipple, but never quite touching. Never quite giving her what she wanted.

  “You dreamed of this?” she said, laughing shakily. “With all the dark beauties there?”

  “No one has ever been more beautiful than you, Eliza Blacknall,” he said, just before his mouth closed over her nipple at last.

  She cried out from the pleasure of it, the hot rush of desire flowing through her. She collapsed to the floor, but he caught her, falling with her as they kissed, again and again. A wild tangle of clothes, arms, lips…

  A crash sounded from outside the window, a loud, metallic clang followed by a burst of drunken laughter. It was like a sudden blast of cold rain, a storm dousing the flames of passion.

  Eliza pulled away from Will, covering her face with her hands. She trembled as if in a winter wind, her mind whirling. She felt like such a great fool. All her hard work, her years of caution! Gone in a moment, because she turned back into an infatuated fifteen-year-old at the sight of Will Denton’s handsome face.

  But he was not her Will anymore, not really. That young man who had once made her feel so alive, so bursting with joy, was gone. This man before her was a veritable stranger. An English stranger, in a red coat.

  Eliza’s hands slid from her eyes, and she stared at him, still amazed at her wild folly. But then, perhaps it was not so amazing after all. He was a handsome man, with his golden hair and golden skin, with his lean, hard body. And she had been alone for a long time.

  He stared back at her, his eyes midnight blue, his lips parted as he caught his breath. His unlaced shirt hung from his shoulders, with his skin gilded in the firelight, like some ancient pagan idol.

  Yes, her feelings were natural. It was only lust—desire and memory, all tangled up in the strain of all the endless, tense waiting. But she had to be careful—very careful—from this moment on.

  Will leaned back on his elbows, sprawling on her carpet as his hair spilled over his shoulders. An unreadable little smile touched his lips as he watched her. A pagan god, indeed. A heroic legendary warrior, Cuchulainn, returning victorious from his cattle raids and waiting for his reward.

  Well, he could wait until Morrigan, the death goddess, came along and snatched him away! Eliza pulled her dressing gown tightly around her and scrambled to her feet.

  Will’s grin widened as he gazed up at her. “Now, that is what I call a grand welcome home, Eliza.”

  “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 fears 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.