A Rebel Without a Rogue

by Bliss Bennet

  They fell, laughing, into a tangle of silk and skirts on the tufted green settee. “But Miss Cameron, I’m afraid I do have one infinitesimally small condition before I say ‘I do.’”

  He half feared he’d set her back up, but she knew him too well now to mistake teasing for gravity. “Your condition, sir?”

  Kit pulled Aidan McCracken’s pistol from his pocket and placed it in her lap. “That you never wave this blasted firearm in my direction again.”

  “Oh, Kit,” she said, half laughter, half dismay. “I never did apologize for shooting you, did I?”

  “Come, we’ve had enough of apologizing for one day, have we not? Can you not think of better things to do with this fine moonlit evening?”

  Fianna cocked her head and gave a sly smile. “Shall we begin an essay on behalf of Catholic relief, then? Or perhaps a pamphlet on the evils of the Seditious Meetings Prevention Acts?”

  Kit growled, grabbing her up in his arms. “Tomorrow is soon enough to begin with all that. But tonight, I have other plans for that feather pen you so admire. Are the leannán sídhe ticklish, I wonder?”

  Yes, his heart sang. To make her laugh like that, her head thrown back, her mouth a rounded O, her eyes shining with uncomplicated pleasure—yes, if he could do that, at least once a day, why, then, how much harder could it be to change the world?

  Thank you!

  Thanks for reading A Rebel without a Rogue. I hope you enjoyed it!

  If you have the time, would you consider writing a review of Rebel? Reader reviews on Amazon, Goodreads, and other social networking sites are especially valuable for e-books. I’m grateful for all reviews, and if you take the time to write one of Rebel, you have my thanks.

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  Author’s Note

  We have got an addition to the family since you were last here, it is a little Girl said to be a daughter of poor Harry’s, it was bro’ very much against my inclinations. — John McCracken to his brother Frank, September 1798

  It’s amazing how a few short sentences from a primary or secondary research source can prove to be the catalyst for an entire novel. I first came across the lines reprinted above while reading a biography of Irish social reformer and abolitionist Mary Ann McCracken. Though well-known in late 18th and early 19th century Belfast for her progressive social beliefs and her activism on behalf of the indigent and the enslaved, today Mary Ann McCracken is primarily remembered as the younger sister of Henry Joy McCracken, one of the leaders of the northern rebels during the Irish Rebellion of 1798. Arrested by the British after the rebels’ failed attempt to seize Antrim in June, “poor Harry” was offered clemency if he testified against other United Irishmen leaders. He refused, and was tried and executed in Belfast on July 17, 1798.

  Shortly after her brother’s execution, Mary Ann McCracken was informed that the impetuous Harry had left behind an illegitimate child, and that “his inability to make provision for her had been his only sorrow in his last moments” (McNeil 194). Taking the burden of the four-year-old child’s provision into her own hands, the unmarried Mary Ann helped the girl’s Irish mother and family to emigrate to America, then moved the child, whom she called Maria, into her father’s house in Belfast.

  What would it have been like, I began to wonder, to have been that child? To have been born the bastard daughter of an Irish peasant, to have lived with a rural Irish Catholic family for the first years of one’s life, and then suddenly to find oneself uprooted and thrust into a genteel city family, one with Scottish roots and Presbyterian beliefs? And, on top of it all, to know that one’s father had been executed as a traitor? As I thought about this “what-if,” the idea for Fianna and her quest to redeem her father’s reputation, and to win a secure place in her father’s family, was born.

  By all accounts, the actual Maria McCracken grew up beloved by her aunt Mary Ann, with whom she lived in Belfast (except for time at a boarding school in Ballycraigy) until her aunt’s death. Even Maria’s own marriage did not separate them; “it was a foregone conclusion that Maria would bring her aunt to the new home,” her biographer writes (McNeill 300).

  A happy child and adult, though, does not a romantic heroine make. I hope Maria’s descendants will excuse the major liberties I’ve taken in imagining a far different course for the fictionalized characters I’ve loosely based on her life.

  The letters that appear in chapter 17, those purportedly written by Fianna’s father, are taken almost verbatim from actual ones written by Henry Joy McCracken to his sister while he was imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol in 1796–97 for his United Irishmen activities.

  You can read more such letters, and find out more about the real Mary Ann McCracken (a far more fascinating woman than I’ve depicted in my fiction), in Mary McNeill’s The Life and Times of Mary Ann McCracken: A Belfast Panorama. Dublin: Allen Figgis, 1960.

  Copyright © 2015 by Jackie C. Horne

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by law.

  Cover design by Historical Editorial

  Cover photograph copyright © 2015 by Jessica Boyatt

  Cover image of Scottish Steel and Silver Scroll Pistol, by Christie & Murdoch, Doune, courtesy of Lyon & Turnbull Auctioneers

  Fleuron from Vectorian Free Vector Pack: http://www.vectorian.net

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  ISBN: 978-0-9961937-0-2

  E-Pub Edition

  Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM that may be applied to this work.

  For other permission requests, please contact the author: blissbennet@gmail.com.

  Acknowledgments

  It’s been a long and detour-filled journey, this road to romance publication, and there are many people to thank for helping me navigate it.

  The many, many inspiring teachers who have influenced me over my long educational career: Augusta Thomas, Anne Maerklein, and Kathleen Ryan; Sandra Coyle and Jennifer Bagley; Cathryn Mercier and Susan Bloom; John Plotz, Sue Lanser, Beverly Lyon Clark, and Susan Staves. Special thanks to Laura Baker for helping me brainstorm about Kit’s and Fianna’s characters, and the major turning points in their story.

  Romance writing friends and colleagues, in particular my fellow NECRWA chapter mates and the members of the Beau Monde (especially my Beau Monde mentor, Kate Pearce). Thanks for sharing your knowledge and expertise about this crazy business of romance with an eager newbie.

  Readers and critique partners who have known when to offer praise, when to raise eyebrows in confusion, and when to give me a swift kick in the pants: Dan Feinberg, Fran Fowlkes, Jane Lesley, Audra North, Trey Peck, Sabine Priestley, and Myretta Robens. Special thanks to Cecilia Grant for taking a look at the opening chapters of this story and giving me invaluable feedback on how to improve them.

  My publishing support group, including: My editor, Meredith Efken of Fiction Fix-It Shop, who protects me from committing the sins of painfully contrived plotting and overly purple prosing. And my copyeditor, Carolyn Ingermanson, who graciously but meticulously points out all my typos and corrects my wanton misuse of the hyphen. And the designer of my web site, Denise Biondo of Biondo Studio; thanks for taking my sketchy vision and turning it into gorgeous reality. And Jenny Q of Historical Editorial, for creating such a wonderfully evocative cover.
You all are the best!

  The many, many readers who have commented on, and/or disagreed with, the blog posts my alter ego, Jackie Horne, has written at Romance Novels for Feminists. I love the way you challenge my ideas, and push me to think harder about the hows and whys of feminist romance.

  My toddler dinner neighbors. Have we really been getting together every week since the last century? Thanks, Jessica, Trey, Anita, Norbert, Anne Marie, and Roger for not just listening to all my talk about romance, self-publishing, and sex, but actually being curious enough to ask questions about it. And special thanks to Jessica for the lovely author and cover photos.

  Dan Brenner, who has helped me through many dark days, and always encourages me to see the light.

  Mr. Bennet (my own, not Elizabeth’s), who is so supportive of all my goals, and who laughs out loud whenever he reads Jennifer Crusie’s Bet Me. And my own young Miss Bennet, even though she’d far prefer to read fantasy than icky romance. I love you both so much.

  And last, but certainly not least, my readers and reviewers. Thank you for taking a chance on a new author. There are so many romances being written and published today; it is an honor to know that you’ve chosen to spend your time with mine.

  Something about Bliss

  Despite being born and bred in New England, Bliss Bennet has always been fascinated by the history of that country across the pond, particularly the politically volatile period known as the English Regency. So much so that she spent years writing a dissertation about the history of children’s literature in the period. Now she makes good use of all the research she did for that five-hundred-plus-page project in her historical romance writing.

  Bliss’s mild-mannered alter ego, Jackie Horne, muses about genre and gender on the Romance Novels for Feminists blog.

  Though she’s visited Britain several times, Bliss continues to make her home in New England, along with her husband, daughter, and two monstrously fluffy black cats.

  Find Bliss

  On the web, at www.blissbennet.com

  On Facebook, at www.facebook.com/Blissbennetauthor

  On Twitter, @blissbennet

  A sneak preview of Bliss Bennet’s next book,

  A Man without a Mistress

  February 1822

  “You’ll feel differently, my dear, once you are married. . .”

  Sibilla Pennington sighed, her gloved finger tracing smaller and smaller circles on the tufted velvet of the carriage seat.

  One hundred and forty-seven. Great-Aunt Allyne had uttered the phrase “You’ll feel differently once you are married” one hundred and forty-seven times during their all-too-lengthy journey from Lincolnshire to London. As if once Sibilla exchanged maidenhood for the married state, this devilish penchant for risk taking she’d developed since Papa’s death would miraculously be replaced by the demurest of haloes and wings.

  Only someone who had spent as little time with her over the past year as her aunt would believe the daughter of the fifth Viscount Saybrook likely to be tamed by matrimony. No, she had as little intention of changing her unconventional opinions as she had of participating in this year’s Marriage Mart, despite what she had implied to her brother. For did not her promise to her father come first? She’d risk far worse than another quarrel with Theo to keep her word to Papa.

  Still, she’d have to exercise at least a modicum of restraint if this devil’s bargain were not to come crashing down about her head.

  “Is it not a wife’s duty, ma’am, to keep herself well informed?” she asked in as innocuous tone as she could muster. “So she might appear to advantage in the polite world, and be a credit to her husband?”

  “Well informed, yes, but to read the newspapers? The political columns? No proper young lady would even consider such a thing,” her aunt said with a delicate shudder.

  Sibilla shoved her reticule, which held a tightly furled copy of the Times, farther behind her back.

  “If only your father had listened to my advice and allowed you to remain in London with me three years ago, rather than curtailing your come-out in that quite shocking fashion,” Aunt Allyne continued. “But he never would listen to the guidance of a poor female, not when I advised him about the dangers of filling your head with talk of radicals and reform, nor when I cautioned him about waiting too long to find you a suitable husband. If you had but stayed in town, surely you’d be a happy wife with a child or two by now, and this unwonted interest in politics would be long forgotten.”

  Aunt Allyne could imagine her happy, with Papa barely a year in his grave?

  She clenched her hands in her lap, wishing the kid of her gloves did not protect her palms from the sharp bite of her fingernails. Physical pain could often distract from pain of the emotional sort.

  “Aunt, your offer to keep me in London was all that was good and kind. But my father’s health truly did benefit from my company. And missing the rest of my Season did not strike me as so great a loss. As you yourself noted, so few of the young men that year seemed inclined to marry,” she hurriedly added at the sight of Aunt Allyne’s frown.

  “Ah yes, you are quite right,” her aunt replied, apparently appeased. “Only three marriages of any consequence in the year ’19, and only five the year after, all involving only the most handsome gels. And with your looks. . . of course, beauty is as beauty does, dear child. But perhaps it was better to wait. I find you in far better countenance now than when you were only seventeen.”

  Sibilla turned to stare out the window, determined to avoid the pity in Aunt Allyne’s eyes. She’d long understood that she would never embody the slim, fair, fashionable ideal held by the ton, but her aunt’s forthright summary of her charms still stung. Shorter than the average, with eyes of the plainest brown and straw-colored hair that did not so much curl as wildly corkscrew in all directions, her face would hardly turn even the most shortsighted of male heads.

  But the only male head she needed to turn during this Season was the one belonging to her eldest brother, Theo Pennington, the new Viscount Saybrook. And turn it not in her own direction, but toward his duty. Theo had little liking for politicking, but surely her offer to act as his political guide would convince him to follow in Papa’s footsteps and speak in Parliament for reform. Hadn’t her father, after all, chosen to share with her, rather than any of her older brothers, all he had known about the House of Lords? And wouldn’t Theo, who had never shown the slightest interest in political goings-on, need her to smooth his way into Whig circles by acting as gracious hostess, rather than marry her off as expeditiously as possible?

  Her heart began to pound at the thought of seeing her brother again. Even though Theo had long been the brother to whom she felt the closest, since their father’s passing—no, since that last bitter parting shortly before it—they had each acted as politely as strangers the few times they had crossed paths. But she must make him understand why every peer who believed in a temperate reform of the government was vitally necessary if England did not wish to see the grievances of the poor erupt in riot or revolt. Surely then he wouldn’t allow his antipathy to politics, or their personal disagreements, to stand in the way of his duty.

  Still, perhaps it would be wise to recruit an ally or two.

  “Do you know if Theo is acquainted with Lord James Dunster, son of the Marquess of Tisbury?” Yes, and what other aristocratic names appeared most often in the Parliamentary Intelligence column of the Times? “Or Mr. Harold Hardwicke, cousin to the Earl of Trent?”

  “Oh, I am pleased to see you finally taking an interest in potential suitors!” Aunt Allyne’s wrinkled face creased with a smile. “But do not worry yourself; Theodosius and I will choose to whom you should be introduced. Now, my Bible is in my valise, but I do have Miss Hatfield’s Letters on the Importance of the Female Sex to hand. Shall we take up from where we left off?”

  Ah, the enervating strictures of Miss Hatfield. Something between a groan and a sigh escaped Sibilla’s lips.

  “Now, no
w, no need to take on so, my child.” Aunt Allyne gave Sibilla’s knee a kindly pat. “The Season will soon start in good earnest, and you will have your chance to meet the most eligible partis.”

  Heaven help her if her plan failed, and she must accede to her aunt’s idea of an eligible marriage partner! She could picture him now, declaiming her aunt’s favorite commonplaces as if they held the wisdom of the ages: An idle brain is the devil’s shop, Miss Pennington. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, Miss Pennington. A little learning is a dangerous thing, Miss Pennington, especially for an unmarried lady with an unseemly interest in politics. And when you are married, surely you’ll think the same. . .

  The coachman’s “Hollah!” brought the disagreeable litany to a blessed halt. Berkeley Square, at last. Before a groom could drop from the seat above or a footman scurry from the house beside, Sibilla opened the door of the carriage. One nimble jump and she was on the pavement; three quick steps brought her to the portico-covered door.

  “My dear girl, have a care! Lady Jersey resides at number 38, and you would not wish to risk making a poor first impression on one of Almack’s most esteemed patronesses!” Aunt Allyne called from the door of the carriage.

  Paying no heed to her aunt’s chidings, she pushed past the footman and stepped through the just-opened front door.