Duchess of Sin

by Laurel McKee

  But the song ended too soon. All the couples spun to a stop as the last strains of the violins died away. Anna curtsied low to Conlan one more time, still laughing helplessly.

  As she rose to take his arm again, she glanced up at the minstrels’ gallery. Grant Dunmore still stood there, his fists braced on the balustrade. Even from that distance, she could feel the burn of his angry stare. He whirled around and stalked out of the gallery.

  Anna shivered, and Conlan asked, “Are you all right, Lady Anna? Are you chilled?”

  She made herself shake away the cold touch of that fury and smiled up at him. She wanted nothing to ruin this moment, this Christmas night. Cold morning would come soon enough. “I think I am in need of some refreshment, Your Grace. Would you escort me into the dining room? Lady Connemara has laid out a fine buffet.”

  “Of course.”

  “And then maybe you will dance with me again?” she said. She noticed Caroline standing in the dining room doorway with Lord Hartley, watching them with avid interest. Her little sister was far too observant. “But first, I fear you will have to meet my sister Caroline. Don’t let her quiz you too much about the history of Adair Court, and you may not want to mention your ancestor Ewan the Brave. She adores things like that and would question you about it incessantly.”

  Conlan laughed, as if he was completely undaunted by the prospect of being quizzed about his Irish ancestors by a young bluestocking. “She sounds like a most unusual colleen.”

  Anna sighed. “Yes, she is that. But that’s our family for you—unusual.”

  He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Lucky for me I am highly appreciative of the—unusual.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Are you sure we should be going to Parliament today of all days?” Caroline said.

  Anna leaned back on the carriage seat, watching the crowded Dublin streets flash by outside the window. It was a gray, wet day, and the pretty white Christmas snow had turned to black mush as they moved into the new year of 1800. Even though it was barely January, the bright holiday seemed long past.

  “Of course, we should be going, today above all,” she said. “It is the last debate before the Union vote.”

  “That’s what I mean. It’s sure to be a terrible crush in the gallery, and someone is bound to start a fight.”

  “I do hope so.”

  “And you’ll be fortunate not to get slapped or have your hair pulled, wearing that ribbon.”

  Anna toyed with the ribbon pinned to her fur-edged spencer. Its blue satin length was embroidered with the words “British Connection, Irish Independence, No Union.” “Jane gave it to me. If someone quarrels with us, you could hit them over the head with that book you insist on lugging about.”

  The carriage jolted to a sudden stop, and Anna could hear curses and shrieks out on the street. She peered from the window to see that they were trapped in a terrible traffic snarl on Hoggen Green, far down from the Parliament building. They were blocked in on all sides, and it was obvious they wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.

  “Come on, Caro, we’ll have to walk the rest of the way,” Anna said as she reached for the door latch. When it swung open, the shouts grew louder, and the pungent smell of rotted vegetables was noxious in the cold wind.

  “Anna, maybe we should just go home, or maybe to the milliner…” Caroline began, always the voice of prudence.

  “Nonsense! The fate of our homeland is being decided in there today, and we don’t want to miss it.” Anna took her sister by the hand and tugged her out of the carriage. They pushed their way past the crowds until they found the gray stone steps and the colonnade of soaring Ionic columns that led into the Parliament building.

  And there, they also found the main attraction, just at the foot of those steps. One of the Honorable Members, a man notorious for taking English bribes, attempted to alight from his fine new carriage, but his path was blocked by shrieking market women. They pelted him with old cabbages whenever he stuck out a silk-clad leg, much to the merriment of the onlookers.

  “English dog!” they shouted. “Castlereagh’s pig! Just try and sell us out, you fancy turd.”

  The guards stationed along the columns just laughed, and the crowd waiting to press inside acted as if they were watching a particularly amusing Christmas pantomime. Still holding on to Caroline’s hand, Anna shoved past them, ducking the flying vegetables. They hurried beneath the portico, lined with the grand statues of Hibernia, Fidelity, and Commerce. Their stone eyes stared down at the chaos without much interest, but the royal coat of arms above hadn’t fared very well. It was splattered with cabbage.

  The guards let Anna and Caroline go by into the marble foyer with its glittering crystal chandeliers. There was no quiet dignity there today, though, if there ever was. The hordes of people trying to get into the octagonal Parliament chamber were thickly pressed together, a tangle of pro-Union orange ribbons and anti-Union blue. There was just as much shouting as outside, shoving and pushing, and just as Caroline had warned, there was hair-pulling. No one was safe, whether man or woman, peasant or princess.

  Anna held on to Caroline with one hand and her blue-feathered hat with the other and went up the stairs to the observers’ gallery. The galleries surrounded the chamber on all eight sides, with widely spaced columns and tiered seating so that all the action below could be observed. She had been there a few times with friends, and it was always full of interested onlookers, heckling the speakers and eating sugared almonds and coffee. But it was never like today. People were jammed into every available space, opera glasses at the ready.

  “Anna!” she heard Jane call. “Here, I’ve saved you a seat.”

  Jane had somehow snared a prime place, at the end of one of the benches on the front row, and she was hotly defending it. Anna managed to slide onto the wooden seat beside her, dragging Caroline with her. Caro beat off an attempted poacher with her book.

  “Modern politics is no fun at all,” Caroline muttered. She dragged her battered bonnet from her head and straightened her spectacles. “They should try hand-to-hand combat to settle questions, like the ancient Celts.”

  “I think it might come to that,” said Jane with a laugh. She, too, wore a blue ribbon and blue feathers in her hat.

  “Have we missed anything?” Anna asked. She pulled her opera glasses from her reticule and trained them on the floor below, but she could only see a tangle of black coats down there.

  “Not at all. The Speaker is reading the Resolutions—or he would if he could keep from being shouted down,” said Jane.

  Anna’s glasses found Mr. Foster, the Speaker, where he stood on a platform. He waved a clutch of papers wildly, shouting, “We cannot begin until the Resolutions are called!” No one paid attention, except for the booing women in the gallery. All the Members were arguing amongst themselves, overturning benches and scattering more papers.

  Anna swung her glasses across the way to see who listened in the other galleries. The boos and cheers, orange and blue, seemed evenly divided, with no one getting the upper hand.

  “There is your rejected suitor,” Jane said wryly. “Keeping an eye on his pet delegate, I suppose.”

  “Rejected suitor?” said Anna, still caught up in the action.

  “Grant Dunmore, of course.” Jane moved Anna’s hand so the glasses pointed to another gallery. “Obviously he prefers behind-the-scenes work to—what did you call it, Lady Caroline? Hand-to-hand combat?”

  “I suppose you would know, Lady Cannondale,” Caroline murmured under her breath. “You seem expert at that sort of thing.”

  It was Grant Dunmore, coolly watching the debate boil below. Anna hadn’t seen him since the Christmas Eve ball because he had departed from the Connemaras’ the next morning, not even waiting for the Boxing Day theatricals. He wore a somber black greatcoat and stark white cravat, his coppery hair trimmed shorter and brushed back. The look on his face was utterly inscrutable.

  “Is he really pro-Union
, then?” Anna asked. “I thought so, but he is not one to let his convictions show.”

  “Convictions?” Jane laughed. “Some men have convictions; others have fortunes to protect or acquire. Scores to settle. Why else would he commandeer the by-election in Queen’s County last year, when he never cared about it before?”

  Anna lowered her glasses. “So he thinks Union, and a cozy relationship with Westminster, will open Adair Court to him again?”

  Jane didn’t answer as the roar from below grew even louder. Anna didn’t need an answer, though; she was already sure. And she felt like a fool for not seeing it before.

  The clang of a giant bell, hurriedly wheeled in from some unknown church, established a measure of order. The members fell back to their seats just long enough for Mr. Foster to take his seat on the Woolsack and the resolutions finally to be read. Then the debates commenced in full earnest, for and against, amidst even more boos and shouts. Finally came the moment everyone waited for, when the charismatic Mr. Grattan, an outspoken opponent of the Union, took the speaker’s podium, and the chamber fell silent at last.

  “This Union is not an identification of two nations,” he began. “It is merely a merger of the parliament of one nation into that of the other. One nation—England— retains her full proportion, while Ireland strikes off two-thirds; she does so without any regard to either her present number, or to comparative physical strength. She is more than one-third in population, in territory, and less than one-sixth in representation! Her tax coin, her products of wool and linen and crops, are taken without regard to the good of this land and its people.”

  As he went on with this litany of injustice, the murmurs of the crowd grew steadily into a low roar, and his voice rose as he hammered his fist on the podium. “It follows that the two nations are not identified, though the Irish legislature be absorbed, and by that act of absorption, the feeling of one of the nations is not identified but alienated! I say British connection, Irish independence, no Union!”

  The throngs on the floor surged forward again, Grattan carried from his platform on the shoulders of anti-Union members as blue ribbons rained down from the galleries. It seemed his passionate eloquence had carried the day, but the jeers were just as loud.

  Anna caught a glimpse between the columns of black hair and broad shoulders, and she swung her glasses up just in time to see Conlan turning down the stairs. Grant Dunmore was several paces behind him.

  She knew that he couldn’t hear her shout above the din, but she had the terrible feeling that she had to warn him somehow. Of what, she didn’t know, but that sense was very strong. Amid all the shouting and bell-ringing, and the shower of ribbons and torn paper, something was bound to happen.

  She jumped to her feet and pushed past the crowds in the gallery. Everyone stood atop the benches now, shoving each other amid the clamor. She made it to the stairs and dashed down them to the foyer, but she didn’t see Conlan or Grant anywhere.

  She ran down the corridors, much quieter than the chaotic chamber but still crowded with people rushing in to be part of the madhouse. She burst out onto the steps next to Commerce, and there at last she glimpsed Conlan standing on the walkway below. The market women were gone, leaving only piles of old cabbage, and there were just a few wise souls who departed the building around him. He calmly lit a cheroot, perfectly composed, as if he had not just escaped from Bedlam.

  “Conlan!” she cried and hurried down the steps. Her shoe slid on a bit of cabbage, and she collided with his shoulder just as he turned to her.

  “Well, cailleach, this is quite a greeting,” he said, his arm coming around her waist to keep her from falling.

  Despite her rush of panic, she was very happy to see him again. His teasing smile and the glint in his green eyes were as gorgeous as ever. “Are you—well?” she asked.

  “As well as a man can be who just escaped a wild menagerie,” he answered, tossing aside the cheroot. “And you? I’m surprised you wanted to come to this pandemonium.”

  “How could I not? After everything we talked about. I thought I could…”

  Suddenly, she felt a hard push to her shoulders, and she fell hard to the stone steps. Pain flashed through her side, and all the breath was knocked from her lungs. She heard a woman scream, it sounded like Caroline, and the violent pounding of skin on skin and the crack of bone.

  She managed to push herself up, her head spinning, just in time to see Grant punch Conlan in the face.

  For an instant, Anna could only stare, stunned. It was so entirely unreal that she was sure it must be a hallucination brought on by her fall. But it was all too real.

  All Grant’s calm inscrutability in the chamber had vanished in a raw, primitive fury. As Anna scrambled to her feet, Grant and Conlan went tumbling down the steps locked in combat.

  “Stop this right now!” Anna shouted, struggling to be heard over Caroline’s screams and the shouts of the crowd gathering around them. Dublin was always a rowdy city, but a duke, a baronet, and an earl’s daughter in a brawl was not seen every day. The tale would be known everywhere by sunset, but Anna couldn’t worry about that now.

  She had to keep the two stupid men from killing each other.

  “Diolain!” Conlan shouted. He had the upper hand, holding Grant’s arm pinned behind his back. But a livid bruise bloomed on his jaw where Grant had punched him, and Grant seemed to be possessed by some demon of fury. He drove his elbow back into Conlan’s ribs and called out hoarse, incoherent words that no lady should hear.

  The onlookers were no help. They only kept shouting encouragement of more violence. A few fights even broke out amongst them.

  Anna snatched the book from under Caroline’s arm and cried, “Help me, Caro!”

  Caroline nodded numbly and followed Anna into the fray.

  Dodging flying fists, Anna cracked Grant over the head with the book. She rained down blows on him until he fell back. Caroline seized him by the arm and dragged him down the steps with a burst of strength as Anna fell to her knees by Conlan.

  His eyes were nearly black with fury, and he lunged after his retreating cousin as if to finish Grant off, once and for all. Anna threw her arms around his shoulders, using all her strength to hold him back.

  “No more, Conlan!” she cried. On the steps below them, Caroline had twisted her fist hard into Grant’s cravat and seemed to be lecturing him. He, like Conlan, looked mutinously angry, but he stayed where he was. The crowd, sensing the drama was over, slowly dispersed in search of other diversions.

  Anna felt out of breath and exhausted. The fight had lasted only minutes, a sudden firestorm of murderous temper, but she felt as if she had been battling for hours.

  “Please, Conlan, no more,” she begged. “No more.”

  He tore out of her grasp and spun around, as if he would shout at her, too. But something in her appearance—her hat lost, hair pulled from its pins, and face dirty from rolling around on the steps—made him freeze.

  “You’re hurt,” he said hoarsely. He reached out and gently touched her lip. His finger came away smeared with blood.

  She swiped her hand over the spot and found a cut. She hadn’t even felt it in the furor of the fight. “Blast,” she whispered. Then she caught sight of her blue velvet sleeve, smeared with cabbage. “Double blast! This was my favorite jacket.”

  “Diolain!” Conlan shouted as he spun back toward Grant. He stood up straight, his arms spread wide. “You’ve been scheming to get me for years, Dunmore. Well, here I am. Face me like a man. Don’t involve innocent women in your villainy.”

  “You stole everything from me,” Grant called back. He shook away Caroline’s grasp to face Conlan squarely. His handsome face was twisted with rage. “Everything that should have been mine. But you had best beware, cousin. Your day of reckoning is coming fast. Your time is ending.”

  “And you’re lurking in the wings, waiting to swoop in and claim what is yours?” Conlan said with a sneer. “The estate you couldn’t
get by treachery? My fortune? Maybe even my woman.”

  Grant’s stare raked over Anna with palpable contempt. “After your dirty Irish hands have touched her? I don’t think so.”

  With a roar, Conlan lunged toward Grant. Anna seized his coat and yanked him back just in time, almost sending them both toppling to the ground.

  “Heed my words, cousin,” Grant said. “Your time is over. This time I will win.” He stalked off down the street, disappearing into the rushing crowds as Caroline stared after him angrily.

  Anna suddenly felt every bump and bruise, every touch of the cold wind. The sudden violence made her think too much of ’98, the nearness of rape and death. She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling.

  “Anna, don’t cry, colleen,” Conlan said. He gently touched her arm, but she shook him away. “It is over.”

  “Of course it’s not over,” she whispered. “You heard him.”

  “Grant? He’s nothing. I fought him before. I’ll win again.”

  Anna shook her head. “It isn’t just him, though, is it?”

  “Your Grace?” someone called. “What happened here? They said in the gallery there was a fight.”

  Anna turned to see Monsieur Courtois, Caroline’s drawing teacher, hurrying down the steps toward them. Jane was right behind him, her usual expression of fashionably cynical amusement replaced by tense concern.

  “Grant Dunmore thought he would start something with me here,” Conlan answered. “But he’s gone now.”

  “Monsieur Courtois,” Anna said. She was amazed that her voice sounded steady at all. “I didn’t know you were interested in politics.” She did remember that the Frenchman knew Conlan, though. They had met the night that Conlan was attacked next to the river.