A Rebel Without a Rogue

by Bliss Bennet

  “Is he, now? And cannot the lovely cailín do the honors?” the stranger asked, nodding toward Miss Cameron, who stood a bit apart from their group. “I’d wager my last groat that she’s the blood of the Irish flowing through her veins.”

  All the antiquarians had responded to Fianna Cameron’s disquieting beauty in one way or another—darting glances, shuffling papers, a quick hand smoothing over an unruly head of hair. And even Sam, usually indifferent to the attractions of the fairer sex, kept turning his head in her direction before jerking it back to the conversation of the men.

  But none had the effrontery to stare at her the way this O’Hamill did.

  Oddly, though, nothing of lust, nor even of admiration, warmed his eyes. His workingman’s clothes, his grim, creased face, both said here was a man inured not just to want, but to the deadening certainty of want ever unsatisfied. But still he stared at her, his eyes narrowed, considering. What could he mean by it?

  With a frown, Kit made the introductions. Neither Miss Cameron nor Mr. O’Hamill gave any indication that they knew one another, but tension still charged the air. Kit made sure to keep himself between the burly man and the far smaller woman. To reassure her? Or to warn O’Hamill off? He wasn’t quite certain.

  “I’ve no knowledge of the Gaelic, alas,” Miss Cameron said, eyes downcast. “Mr. Pennington had hoped these kind gentlemen might be able to aid him.”

  “But your antiquarians, even the Anglo-Irish ones, rarely have much facility with the language, do they?” the man answered, his smile edged more with contempt than collegiality.

  “But they’ve been kind enough to recommend your skills,” Kit replied before any of the antiquarians could take offense. “Might you be able to oblige?” Kit gestured to a table apart from the others.

  “Your servant, sir.” Turning to Callendar, O’Hamill added, “Please, do not hold off on your meeting for my sake. I’ll join you presently.”

  “Mr. Pennington, do not hesitate to call on us if you find you need the advice of an educated man,” Callendar called before turning back to his group. Miss Cameron’s mouth tightened, but O’Hamill’s steps did not even pause. Had the Irishman become so used to such casual slights as to render them insignificant?

  Kit reached to pull out a chair for Miss Cameron, but O’Hamill was quicker. Kit’s jaw clenched at the sight of the Irishman’s hands as they remained on the back of her chair, even after she’d taken her seat. It would hardly be gentlemanlike to point out the impropriety of how close they were to her person. Especially if Miss Cameron did not object. Kit scraped his own chair across the floor and sat down opposite her.

  Sam hovered beside the table. “Is this a private matter, Kit? Uncle’s asked me to write an article for the paper about Mr. O’Hamill’s efforts on behalf of Ireland’s poor, but I’ve no need to intrude upon your concerns.”

  “Please, Sam, sit down. You may be of as much help as either Miss Cameron or Mr. O’Hamill, as you were actually there when the shooting took place.”

  “Shooting?” O’Hamill’s work-roughened hands flattened on the table. “You begin to interest me, sir. Come, tell me all about it.”

  Between them, Kit and Sam related the events that had occurred at the Crown and Anchor a week earlier. O’Hamill listened intently, his occasional interruptions to clarify a point or to draw out a pertinent detail demonstrating a quick, analytical turn of mind. Miss Cameron remained silent.

  “And the inscription on the pistol is the only clue you have? Might I see it?” O’Hamill asked when Kit reached the end of the embarrassing tale.

  “You will understand my reluctance to tote the firearm about London, I’m certain.” Kit grimaced as he pushed a paper across the table. “But I’ve written down the words from the engraving. I believe they’re Gaelic, but whether Scots or Irish, I’ve no idea.”

  O’Hamill glanced down at the paper, then frowned. “Irish Gaelic, it is, not Scots—see, no grave accents, only acutes. Agus means ‘and,’ and this, here, the Tá and curtha together make ‘has been.’ Something about strings, here, and hearing—a reference to a harp, perhaps?”

  “A harp?” Kit’s forehead creased.

  “The harp is the most common emblem of Ireland,” O’Hamill replied, placing the paper back on the table. “Does not your king himself include the harp on his coat of arms, as reminder of England’s union with our fair nation?”

  “Domination of our land, more like,” Miss Cameron said in a flat, expressionless voice.

  “So one might say, if he’d little care for keeping his neck out of a noose,” O’Hamill replied with an affable nod.

  He hadn’t thought Fianna Cameron’s face could grow any less revealing, but O’Hamill’s words seemed to shear away every shred of expression from her eyes. Was the man threatening her in some way?

  “The harp’s also a symbol used by radical groups in Ireland,” Sam added, rubbing the back of his neck. “Although I can’t see you being the target of a politically motivated shooting, Kit. Even though your brother’s a viscount, your views hardly qualify you as an enemy of radical causes. Not since Peterloo, at least.”

  “Were you in attendance at that horrific event, Mr. Pennington?” O’Hamill’s eyes lit with interest. “How difficult to believe the accounts of the English soldiers’ brutality toward the innocent populace who had gathered to hear Mr. Hunt speak on behalf of universal suffrage.”

  Miss Cameron’s lips parted, as if to scoff at the Irishman’s assertion. But Sam, who loved to tell the tale, spoke first. “We both were there, although not together. At least, not until Kit saved my friend and me from being skewered by a slightly overzealous member of the yeoman militia.”

  “And Abbie’s been scolding me ever since for pushing him out of the way. How dare I muddy his clothing!” Kit said, hoping to turn the conversation. He hated it when Sam told the story, making it sound as if Kit had been some kind of damned hero that day. Would Sam be as eager to claim friendship with an aristocrat if he’d come across Kit even a few moments earlier, moments when Kit had stood, frozen in disbelief, as that maddened militia began to attack the crowd? As he’d watched a soldier slash at an old man, another cut down a woman with a babe in arms, without making a single move to intervene? Only when a sword had come swinging in his direction had Kit jerked free of the shock and begun to push other unarmed members of the crowd away from the attacking soldiers.

  “The harp is also a symbol of Irish culture,” Miss Cameron said with a quick glance in his direction. Had she picked up on his discomfort, as he had begun to recognize hers? The thought brought a smile to his lips.

  “You think the pistol’s owner may be a musician?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Is there a section of London where the Irish generally reside? Perhaps you might extend your inquiry to that neighborhood’s taverns.”

  Sam leaned forward. “St. Giles, mostly, and Seven Dials. But you’d best take a pistol with you if you venture into the rookeries, Kit.”

  Kit turned back to the Irishman. “Do the words truly suggest a musician? What is the exact translation, O’Hamill?”

  The Irishman tapped a finger against the paper, glancing not toward Kit but toward Sam before he spoke. “Wouldn’t want to say for certain, sir, least not before confirming my reading. Could ask a friend or two, ones who have a bit more knowledge of the Gaelic than I, if you’d like, and let you know what I find.”

  “Of course. Here is my direction, if you discover anything of interest.” Kit took out a pencil and scribbled a few lines below the Gaelic, then slid the sheet back across the table. “I’d be most grateful for any help.”

  “No trouble, no trouble at all, sir.” O’Hamill nodded in Sam’s direction. “Mr. Wooler, shall we join the antiquarians, as we had originally planned?”

  “I’ll be with you in a moment, O’Hamill,” Sam said. “Just need a word with Pennington first.”

  Taking up his hat, O’Hamill gave a short bow. “Your servant, sir. Ma’am
.”

  Kit watched the sturdily built man thread his way across the crowded room, glad to see the back of him despite his offer of aid. Even after O’Hamill took a seat amongst the antiquarians, though, Fianna Cameron’s posture remained rigid. Had O’Hamill not been the only cause?

  With an abruptness that took him by surprise, she pushed back her chair. “I, too, must bid you good day, sirs. I’m afraid another engagement awaits.”

  Kit rose, oddly reluctant to let her go. “Please, allow me to see you to it.”

  He held out his arm, but she only shook her head. “Do not concern yourself, sir. Arrangements have already been made for my safe return. Mr. Wooler, a pleasure.”

  If Miss Cameron were a lady, he’d have insisted she not leave unaccompanied. But would a courtesan resent the courtesies a gentlewoman would demand as her due? Unsure, Kit returned his hand to his side.

  She smiled and curtsied, then walked in the direction opposite to the one taken by O’Hamill. Her reticule, heavy with the weight of the book he’d lent her, swung below her hip.

  “Pennington?” Sam asked, his voice low and tight. “Kit, are you involved with that woman?”

  Kit gave a start. How long had he stood there, staring at another man’s lightskirt?

  “Involved?”

  “Yes, involved.”

  “Sam. Please. She’s Ingestrie’s mistress, not mine. Even if he didn’t accompany her here, he knows she offered to help me.” Praise heaven Sam had far less skill reading others’ emotions than he. “Do you know some ill of her?”

  “No. In fact, I’d believe I’d never met her before in my life, except for this feeling, right here”—Sam’s palm rose to tap against his chest—“that I have. And not under pleasant circumstances, either.”

  Kit forced a grin. “Come, Sam, aren’t you the one always mocking Abbie for his irrational superstitions? How he’d laugh to hear you, you and your mysterious ‘feeling’!”

  “It’s not the same, Kit, not at all. If only I could put my finger on where I’d seen her before!” Sam shook his head in frustration. “But she’s a danger, I’m sure of it.”

  “A danger? That little slip of a chit?”

  “Another slip of a chit aimed a pistol at you only a week ago, Kit! And if she’d had better aim, you’d not be here to argue the point.”

  “Granted. But would you have me place every woman in London under suspicion?”

  “Perhaps, at least until you’ve run your attacker to ground.” At Kit’s grunt, Sam took a step closer. “Look, Kit, you need to take better care of yourself. We’ve few enough men amongst the gentry willing to take up the cause of parliamentary reform as it is. Don’t risk decreasing that number out of some childish belief in your own invulnerability.”

  Sam laid what was surely meant to be a comforting hand on Kit’s shoulder, but the gesture simply increased Kit’s frustration. Shrugging out from under Sam’s fingers, Kit took a step closer to the door through which Fianna Cameron had left. His untoward response to Ingestrie’s mistress was anything but childish.

  “At least have a care of that Cameron woman,” Sam said, worry making his voice uncharacteristically gruff. “Meeting with a fellow’s mistress behind his back isn’t the wisest thing you’ve ever done, Kit, even if she’s not a threat herself.”

  “No, it’s not, is it?” Kit murmured. Especially for a man attempting to clear his name of another scandal.

  Why, then, did the very air of danger that hovered around Fianna Cameron entice him so?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “More tea, miss?”

  Fianna sighed as the sole serving girl in the nearly empty pastry shop interrupted her yet again. The fashionable hour for indulging in bonbons and ices had yet to arrive, it would seem, and the girl had little to occupy her time besides offering to refill her cup every five minutes.

  Fianna shook her head and turned back to the window. Foolish of her not to put as much distance as possible between herself and the men in the coffeehouse across the street. She’d almost choked on her heart when Pennington’s friend strode toward her, recognizing him from the night of the shooting. And his Irish companion, with his sharp green eyes and his too-familiar surname—her own family name, at least for the first six years of her life, before she’d been taken away from her mother—had made all her self-protective instincts prick.

  Mr. Wooler, just like Kit Pennington before him, might have failed to recognize her. But that Irishman had far too much of the look of the O’Hamills for her comfort. What if he knew her, or the family from which she had come? What if he suspected her? Revealed her original identity to Kit Pennington? She must find out who he was, no matter the danger.

  The imaginary appointment she’d invented gave her all the excuse she needed to leave alone, freeing her to lie in wait for the Irishman. Whether she’d confront him or simply follow him remained to be seen.

  But O’Hamill had tarried at the coffeehouse far longer than she’d expected, so long that she hadn’t been able to resist glancing through Kit Pennington’s Army List while she waited. Well, she’d been fittingly rewarded for indulging that bit of impatience, now, hadn’t she? For while the book’s index listed Pennington, Lowther, Pennington, Thomas, and Pennington, William, of Pennington, Christopher it made no mention. Nor did the name appear on the book’s list of army majors, amongst the officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery in Ireland, or on the list of officers on the Irish half-pay. She’d even begun to search the lists of more senior officers, in case the man’s scurrilous actions in Ireland had earned him a promotion or two. But for all this book had to report of him, Major Christopher Pennington might never have existed.

  “Miss? A cup fer yer man?”

  Fianna’s eyes jerked away from the window. “My man? What man?”

  The apron-clad girl shrugged a shoulder toward the door. Twisting in her seat, Fianna caught sight of a stocky, stern-faced male, his hand raised in greeting.

  O’Hamill.

  Her instincts had not played her false, then. There was some connection between this man and the family of her birth. She gripped the edge of the table, her knuckles growing white.

  “Ah, I’m that sorry, cailín, for making you wait,” he said as he reached her table, his tone suggesting they were the oldest of friends. “But prying coins from the hands of an Englishman’s worse than prising a stick from a starving dog. Begging your pardon, ma’am.”

  The smile he tossed at the serving girl did not come close to reaching his eyes. But she hardly seemed to notice. “Tea, sir?” she asked.

  He nodded. As the girl scurried away, he pulled out a chair and sat down across from Fianna, as comfortable as if she’d invited him into her own house.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Mr. O’Hamill. Why did you follow me?”

  “Do you call a quick glance out the window, noting the path taken by a pretty wench, ‘following’?”

  “Yes, I do.” Lowering her voice to barely above a whisper, she hissed, “I want nothing to do with you, sir. Nothing. And if you think to importune me, you’ll find yourself regretting it.”

  The stocky man clasped his hands on the table, then leaned toward her, his countenance grim. “It appears that someone else has already done the importuning, cailín. If yon Pennington’s ruined you, I’ll make sure he’ll regret it, to the very end of his days.”

  She nursed her anger, willing it to drown the uneasiness his words inspired. Worry not on her own behalf—she’d been taking care of herself for far too long to allow a simple threat to give her pause—but on behalf of the far-too-innocent Kit Pennington. And what if he was in danger—what was it to her? She’d be a right fool to give in to such ridiculous sentiment now.

  “I believe you’ve misunderstood our relationship, sir,” she said, smoothing all expression from her face. “Mr. Pennington is simply an acquaintance to whom I offered my aid.” No need to inform him of her less-than-respectable relationship with another young member of the English ton. Es
pecially if O’Hamill turned out to be kin. Irishmen did not look kindly on their womenfolk taking up with the English.

  “Pleased I am to hear it,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “I’d not be shocked to find you despairing of your treatment at his or any other Englishman’s hands, what with the way the brutes ravish our women with as little concern as they despoil our land.”

  “I am no Mary Le More, sir,” she replied, her hands clenching tight under the table. How she scorned the heroine of that popular ballad, driven mad after her rebel menfolk were killed and herself debauched by marauding English soldiers. As if crying and raving were all a woman could do in the face of such bitter injustice.

  No, she’d done far more than weep and wail in her campaign against those who’d betrayed her father. She’d not been Ingestrie’s victim, nor any other man’s, but their hunter, ensnaring each in order to achieve a larger, more worthy goal. And she’d be damned if she shied away from using Kit Pennington, or even this grim-faced Mr. O’Hamill, if the using would help gain justice for her father and his family. She wasn’t the daughter of Aidan McCracken for nothing.

  “From Cork, are you, sir?” Fianna asked as she leaned forward across the table. “Englishmen may have little ear for the speech of our countrymen, but I assure you, I can tell the difference between a man born and bred in the south and one who hails from Antrim or Down. What cause have you to lie, sir?”

  A grim smile played about O’Hamill’s lips. “A smart one, aren’t you? But not as smart as you think. A truly intelligent wench would be far less worried about from whence I hail, and far more about the fire with which she plays. Tá na téada curtha go húr agus cloisfear í, indeed!”

  Fianna’s lips thinned. “Then you do know what the words on the pistol mean. Why did you not say so?”

  “Because young Mr. Wooler, involved as he is in radical politics, would have recognized them immediately. And I believe, Miss Cameron,” he said, his tone giving a derisive edge to her name, “you would not have liked that at all. No, you would not have liked that one little bit.”