Duchess of Sin

by Laurel McKee

  “I can hardly leave you alone to wander on my property. Who knows what havoc you would wreak? I promise the McEgans are kind people. They will welcome you.”

  “Very well then. I will go with you. But I warn you, I am not as good at these things as my mother is.”

  “No one expects a witch to suddenly be an angel,” he said. “You did say you wanted to see more of my home.”

  “I do. Thank you.”

  She tugged at the reins, following Conlan down the slope of the hill and along a narrow path around cottages laid out like a little village. They were small, but tidy and snug, the walls thick and sound. She could hear laughter through the windows, and there were holly wreaths on the doors.

  “Some of the servants live there,” Conlan said, “though most of them live in the house itself. There’s also a shop or two.” He led her past more widely spaced cottages and through a thicket of trees. Nestled among their bare limbs were two small brick buildings, with no windows and stout doors. One had a plain wooden cross above the door.

  “The school,” he said simply. “And the chapel.”

  With those words, Anna knew for certain that he trusted her. In ’98, hidden Catholic chapels and secret “hedge schools,” led by priests, were rooted out and brutally destroyed. Even now they were technically illegal, but a strong landowner like the Duke of Adair could keep them safe.

  “Do you have many pupils?” she asked.

  “A fair number. The tenants’ and servants’ children go there to learn reading and writing, a few sums, things to help them with their business or farms later.”

  And religion, too, Anna was sure. “What of trades? Such as sewing and cooking for the girls? Perhaps training as ladies’ maids? My mother has a whole separate school for the girls at Killinan.”

  “That would be most welcome, if a lady could be found to teach them,” he said.

  They emerged from the trees to find more fields, fallow now for the winter season, but she could see that by summer they would be alive with wheat and oats and vegetables. The stone walls were sturdy and the hedges tall and neatly clipped.

  “You are certainly a good landlord,” Anna said. “Everything looks so well-tended and prosperous.”

  “Are you surprised? Did you expect neglect and weeds?”

  “Not at all. I already know how much you care for your people,” she answered. She had seen how he fought, how much he would sacrifice for them. A duke’s existence was not merely one of lofty titles and privileges; it was duty, the care of the people and the land. She truly saw that now in these lands.

  “The McEgans’ farm is just this way,” Conlan said as he led her down a hedge-lined lane. The house was also whitewashed with a thatched roof, but larger than the village cottages. It was two stories with a little vegetable garden enclosed by an iron fence. Chickens pecked around the doorstep, and rosebushes twined dormant around the blue door.

  Conlan swung down from his horse and reached up to help Anna from her saddle. They stood there for a long moment, his hands warm at her waist, mere inches from each other. Anna leaned into him and inhaled deeply of his familiar, much-missed scent. How good it felt to be close to him again! She had a fierce longing to throw her arms about him, to kiss him and feel that lust rise within her again. Feel his body harden and know he wanted her, too.

  But the door swung open behind them, and Conlan let her go. Flustered, her cheeks uncomfortably hot, Anna fussed with her gloves and the braided edge of her habit, before she turned to the door.

  A man stood there, tall and raw-boned, and a little girl with adorable blond braids held on to his hand. They both smiled in greeting, warmth and the scent of fresh bread slipping from the house behind them.

  “Your Grace!” the man said happily. “We didn’t expect to see you here on such a cold day.”

  “I wanted to see how your mother fared, Patrick,” Conlan said. He took Anna’s arm and whispered in her ear, “His mother has been ill, and I sent the doctor to her yesterday. She’s quite elderly now, I fear, but an excellent teller of tales.”

  “You send a doctor to your sick tenants?” Anna said in surprise. Her mother nursed the people at Killinan herself and sent a doctor in more difficult cases, but most landowners would not take such care. She should have known Conlan was different.

  “Of course,” he said. “There is a midwife, too.”

  “Your Grace!” the little girl cried, and to Anna’s shock came skipping up the cobbled walkway to tug at Conlan’s coattails. “I’m getting a new doll for Christmas!”

  Conlan laughed and swung the girl up high into his arms until she shrieked with giggles. “Are you indeed, Molly girl? What a fine Christmas gift!”

  “Aye, but Papa doesn’t know I know, so it is a secret.” She turned curious blue eyes onto Anna. “Who is this?”

  “This is my friend Lady Anna,” Conlan said. “Anna, this little charmer is Miss Molly McEgan.”

  “How do you do, Miss McEgan?” Anna said. “I am so very pleased to meet you.”

  Molly shyly popped a finger into her mouth and whispered around it, “She is pretty, Your Grace.”

  “Yes, indeed she is,” Conlan said. He smiled at Anna over Molly’s golden head.

  Anna thought Molly would be a perfect pupil for that girls’ school, and she resolved to find a proper teacher for it. “I should very much like to see your doll, Miss McEgan, once she is no longer a great secret. I once had a beautiful doll myself, named Eleanor, but I’m sure she is nothing compared to yours.”

  Molly’s eyes widened. “You won’t tell Papa I know, will you, Lady Anna? He might not give it to me then.”

  “I promise I will not tell,” Anna solemnly whispered. “It is our secret.”

  “Molly, me girl, quit nattering on at the duke and let them come in where it’s warm,” called Mr. McEgan.

  Conlan set Molly on her feet, and they followed her into the house. “Patrick, this is Lady Anna Blacknall from Killinan Castle.”

  “Lady Killinan’s second daughter, of course,” Patrick said with a bow. “It’s an honor to see you here, my lady, but I’m sorry the house is in no proper state.”

  Anna glanced around at the neatly swept stone floor, the dried herbs hung from the smoke-darkened rafters to perfume the air, and the comfortable chairs and pictures on the walls. “It is lovely,” she said. “And so comfortable. It’s kind of you to receive me so close to Christmas.”

  A woman in a brown dress and long apron appeared with a baby on her hip and was introduced as Mrs. McEgan. She seemed flustered to have such guests suddenly on her doorstep, but Anna hastened to give her a smile and a bright compliment, which appeared to put her at ease.

  “You must have some tea,” Mrs. McEgan insisted. “And some Christmas cake. It’s just warm from the stove.”

  “I helped make the cakes,” Molly said.

  “Then they must be quite fine,” Anna answered. “I do hope your mother-in-law is feeling better, Mrs. McEgan. I would not want to disturb her or be in your way.”

  “She is sitting by the fire,” Patrick said. “The medicine the doctor left has done wonders for her spirits. She’ll be happy to see you.”

  He led Anna and Conlan into the main room of the house, a cozy space with a large fireplace and cushioned chairs. A painting of the Virgin Mary hung on the wall, watching over the scene with gentle blue eyes. A small, gray-haired woman sat by the fire wrapped up in a thick quilt.

  It was a scene Anna saw often when she went visiting at Killinan, but she was always with Katherine then. She tried to think of her mother’s example, of her way of being helpful and kind while not being obtrusive. It was harder than it appeared.

  “Mother,” Patrick said loudly, “here is His Grace and Lady Anna Blacknall to see you and wish you happy Christmas.”

  “A lady?” the elder Mrs. McEgan cried, turning rheumy eyes toward them. “I did not know the duke had married. About time, I must say. This place has been too long without a mistres
s.”

  Anna laughed and knelt down beside the woman’s chair, the purple skirts of her riding habit spreading around her. “I fear I am only the duke’s friend, Mrs. McEgan, not his wife. Though any lady would be honored to be mistress here.”

  “He hasn’t married you?” She studied Anna carefully, touching her cheek with a wrinkled hand. “Then he is a bloody great fool. This estate needs a lady’s touch.”

  Anna glanced up to see that Conlan’s color had risen suspiciously. Was he blushing? That made her laugh even more, and suddenly she was quite at ease. “Does it indeed? I should be most interested to hear what improvements you would suggest, Mrs. McEgan, if there was a duchess to put them into place.”

  “Sit here with me, my lady, and I’ll tell you,” Mrs. McEgan said. “Maybe my daughter-in-law will bring us some tea. And you men go off to look at the new calf or some such. We women have important matters to discuss.”

  Anna settled herself in the chair next to the old lady’s, and Molly scrambled up onto her lap. Suddenly, Anna felt quite wondrously at home.

  Conlan had thought that he knew all the facets of Anna now: Society lady, the temptress in red, the brave warrior who charged in to fight by his side with no thought to her own safety. But he realized now that he had never really seen the essence of her.

  For he saw that now, as he stood in the doorway of the cottage and watched her listening intently to an old lady’s ramblings. She nodded and smiled as she cuddled little Molly on her lap. The girl reached up to play with the amethyst beads of Anna’s necklace, leaving cake-sticky fingerprints on it, and Anna didn’t even seem to notice. There was no grand lady there at all, nothing of the careless, gambling coquette she showed to the world. Just a calm-eyed, caring woman at ease in even a humble farmhouse. A true lady of the manor.

  The younger Mrs. McEgan, passing from the kitchen to the sitting room with a teapot in her hands, paused as she saw Conlan lurking there. “Your Grace? Is something amiss?”

  Conlan turned to her, startled. He was too wrapped up in this new, disquieting aspect of Anna Blacknall to notice anything else. “Not at all, Mary. Patrick will be in directly. He’s just seeing to your fine new calf.”

  “Won’t you come in by the fire? There’s fresh tea and plenty of Mother’s advice to be had.”

  “My boots are muddy.”

  She laughed. “That is nothing new here, Your Grace! But I do fear Mother has been telling all her old tales to her ladyship for this half-hour at least. I don’t want to frighten Lady Anna away.” She peered past him into the sitting room to study that cozy, firelit scene. “She must be bored to tears, bless her, but she doesn’t show it. She’s let Molly pester her, too. She’s a lovely lady, so much like her mother.”

  “Yes,” Conlan murmured. “She is very lovely.”

  Mary hesitated, then said softly, “I don’t like to talk out of turn, Your Grace, but it’s past time Adair Court had a fine mistress like that. It is a large responsibility, and you’ve carried it alone so long. Someone like Lady Anna could help you a great deal.”

  “Why, Mary,” Conlan said with a grin, “I didn’t realize everyone was trying to marry me off.”

  “Well, there wasn’t a lady like her on the estate before. She even asked me what I thought about the idea of a special girls’ school here! And she cares about you, Your Grace. I can see that plain in the way she looks at you. You shouldn’t let her get away.”

  Conlan looked back at Anna. She was laughing at a joke of old Mrs. McEgan’s as she smoothed back Molly’s hair. The girl now wore the amethyst necklace. “I doubt a Blacknall would have me, Mary. Not with the way things are here.”

  “They’re Protestant over at Killinan, you mean? Well—maybe we need that here, too, Your Grace. Just in case another uprising comes along. Now, come in and have some tea with your lady before you go out into the cold again.”

  Perhaps Mary McEgan was right there, Conlan thought. A Protestant duchess from an old Anglo family might be a benefit to Adair Court, one more protection. But would he not then be just like Grant, seeking to use Anna’s connections for his own ends? That was not something he could solve at the moment, though, so he went and joined Anna and the McEgans for tea and Christmas cake.

  By the time they left the farmhouse, the threatened snow had begun to fall, cold white flakes drifting from the dark gray sky. They caught on Anna’s lashes, sparkling like diamonds as she laughed in delight.

  “Now it really feels like Christmas!” she cried, galloping down the lane with Conlan chasing close behind her. It seemed like she had gone from lady of the manor to winter goddess of nature in one instant.

  “We should get you back to the Connemaras’ before the storm begins in earnest,” he called to her.

  “Oh, no, not yet! I had such a fine time at the McEgans’ home. They were so kind and welcoming. I don’t want to listen to silly gossip over the card table just yet.” She looked back at him over her shoulder, a mischievous smile on her lips. “Take me to see your castle, Conlan.”

  There was nothing he wanted more at that moment than to take her home with him. To see her in his house, his bed, and hold her there until they were sated with each other at last. Until this obsession burned away, and good sense and duty reigned again.

  Only he feared that he could never be sated with her. Her brightness would always draw him in.

  “Won’t they miss you there?” he said.

  She shook her head. “Not until dinner, and that’s hours away. They’re too busy planning some sort of amateur theatricals.”

  “And you don’t want to join in? A play seems just your sort of thing, Anna.”

  She tugged at her horse’s reins, slowing to a walk so she could face him squarely. “I’m tired of playacting, Conlan. That’s why I’m so glad you took me to see your tenants, why I want to see your house. I want to be in something real.”

  Something real. That was what he sought, what he fought for, all his life. Adair Court was real. His people and their needs were real. Could his golden witch possibly be real, too? Or would she just vanish like those snowflakes, spinning away in yet another incarnation of herself that he could not follow?

  He shook his head, but she reached out and covered his hand with her own. Her gaze was steady and dark blue. “Please, Conlan,” she said quietly. “Please show me your house before I have to go back. We should get out of this snow before we catch cold.”

  It fell thickly around them now, a cold mass that blanketed everything in concealing, purifying white.

  “For an hour or two,” he said. “Until the weather clears.”

  Then they would both have to wake from their winter dreams.

  Chapter Twenty

  You have a holly wreath on your door,” Anna said as Conlan lifted her down from her horse. “My nanny used to say fairies would hide under the leaves to get away from the winter cold.”

  “You know the old tales then?” His hands lingered at her waist, only sliding away as a groom appeared to lead the horses away.

  Anna felt a sharp pang of regret at his lost touch. She had missed being near him so much. She had to enjoy it while she could. “Of course,” she said, following him up the rough stone steps to the stout, iron-bound doors. “My parents always had a holly wreath at Christmas, and my nanny always told us the story as it was hung, as well as the reason we left a candle in the window, to show the Holy Family the way. Christmas was always so wonderful at Killinan.”

  “Then I hope you won’t be disappointed by the lack of festive greenery here,” he said as he swung open the doors. “Most of the servants have gone to stay with their own families until Boxing Day, and it’s bare and cold.”

  “Oh!” Anna cried at the sight of the grand foyer. “It is like something from King Arthur.”

  The interior matched the exterior of the house, just as she had hoped. The foyer soared upward, bisected by a wide stone staircase lined with an ornate wrought-iron balustrade. An enormous iron chandelier h
ung overhead, looking down on ancient pennants, shields, and swords hanging on the walls, speaking of times past for the McTeer family. A thick, plush green carpet muffled their footsteps and warmed the cold stone floor. Anna saw a faded gold knotwork pattern woven along its edges.

  “It’s not very fashionable,” Conlan said ruefully. “No fine plasterwork or brocade French furniture.”

  “Everyone has those things. This is ever so much better.” Anna took off her hat and gloves and tossed them onto a mosaic-topped table before she dashed to the nearest door. She threw it open to reveal a drawing room, but not just any drawing room. It was more like the great hall of a feudal king with a long, polished wooden table that ran the length of the chamber.

  Tapestries covered the walls with scenes of Irish mythology, and at the far end of the room, a woman’s portrait hung over the enormous fireplace. A dark-haired lady clad in a yellow satin gown and pearls looked out at the world with Conlan’s green eyes. She sat before that very same fireplace, a book open in her hand, smiling proudly as if to welcome guests into her home.

  “Is that your mother?” Anna asked.

  “Yes. She loved this room.”

  “I can see why. It’s wonderful.” Anna made her way along the table, studying the tapestries as she went. They were all woven in rich, glowing colors, telling wondrous tales of gods and heroes from ancient Ireland. She paused before the last one, an image of Deirdre and her doomed husband, Naoise, embracing on the rocky shore. “Deirdre of the Sorrows?”

  “Ah, so you know not only the legend of the holly wreath but also the Sorrowful Tales of Erin?” Conlan said teasingly. “How shocking, Lady Anna. Anyone would think you were Irish. Maybe even a member of that horrid Hibernian Society.”

  “I’ve told you before, Conlan McTeer—I am Irish,” she answered. She studied Deirdre’s sad, beautiful face, the tragedy of impending, profound loss in her eyes. “My family has been at Killinan for generations.”