Duchess of Sin

by Laurel McKee

  Had Grant sent those men, too? Her head was spinning, and she swayed dizzily. She didn’t fall, though, because Caroline rushed to catch her arm.

  “Lady Caroline,” Monsieur Courtois said in surprise. “I didn’t know you and Lady Anna planned to attend Parliament today. Is your mother here?”

  “She’s not interested in politics, monsieur,” said Caroline. “Now I see she was quite wise. Politics are perilous to one’s health.”

  Jane took a handkerchief from her reticule and pressed it gently to Anna’s lip. “Politics are a necessary evil, Lady Caroline,” she said. “It is politicians one must be wary of. Did Grant do this?”

  “I was merely a bystander who got in the way,” Anna said. “He ran into me on his way to Conlan. He wanted to kill Conlan. I could see it in his eyes.”

  “Let me take you home,” said Jane. “My carriage is right here.”

  Anna glanced at Conlan. She had so many questions. It seemed wrong to let him out of her sight. But he gave her a decisive nod. “Go with Lady Cannondale, colleen. You and your sister should be at home.”

  “And stay there with the doors locked and pistols at the ready?” Caroline said wryly.

  “If you are so inclined,” Conlan answered. “I have a feeling you would be a formidable shot, Lady Caroline.”

  “But what of you?” Anna protested. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Monsieur Courtois will walk with me,” said Conlan.

  Anna uncertainly examined the elegant drawing teacher. “Monsieur Courtois?”

  “I assure you, Lady Anna, I am armed with more than a paintbrush,” he said.

  “Come with me now, Anna,” Jane said, tugging at Anna’s sleeve. “We should be out of the cold. Plus, you rather reek of old cabbage.”

  Anna lifted her sleeve to her nose for a careful sniff. She did indeed stink, one more indignity to add to the day. She nodded and let Jane lead her and Caroline down the street to her carriage. Conlan and Monsieur Courtois set off in the opposite direction, talking together intently.

  Anna wanted so much to know what they said, to know all of what was going on here. But she was also suddenly very weary. She slumped back onto the fine silk cushions as Jane’s carriage jolted into motion.

  “I’m sorry I’m getting your pretty carriage dirty,” Anna murmured.

  Jane waved her apology away. “I’m just glad you are not hurt. Whatever happened out there?”

  Caroline answered. “Grant Dunmore attacked the duke and knocked him down on the steps. Then Anna hit him, Dunmore that is, over the head with my book and drove him away like a rabid dog. By the way, I seem to have lost that book. And my spectacles. But it was worth it. It was actually rather exciting.”

  Jane laughed as Anna protested, “It wasn’t quite as simple as that. I was shocked by Sir Grant’s sudden rage.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jane said. “He is a man full of hidden darkness. I just fear we have only glimpsed the beginning of it all. You should be on your guard, Anna.”

  “Should I take to carrying a pistol?”

  “It couldn’t hurt.” Jane opened her reticule to display a tiny, pearl-handled firearm. “You never know what can happen in these dangerous days.”

  “Is that real?” Caroline asked in avid curiosity.

  “Of course,” Jane said. She took out the gun and pressed it into Anna’s hand. “You should keep it. I have others at home.”

  Anna tested its dainty weight on her palm. It was almost as light as a fan, yet was somehow reassuring. As Jane said—these were dangerous days.

  “That was quite a scene, Sir Grant.”

  Grant, stalking past an open carriage door on Fishamble Street, was brought up short by the slurred words. The anger that overcame him when he saw Adair put his arm around Anna Blacknall had died down to simmering embers, but they still sizzled with the old, old injustices. He couldn’t even think straight anymore, and it made him foolishly lose his temper and show his hand too soon. Now word of his breach would spread over the whole city.

  Scowling, he peered into the dark depths of the carriage. George Hayes sat there, a silver flask in his hand as usual. The ridiculous sot was so lost in debt that he would do any dirty deed for money, yet he laughed at Grant.

  “It was an unfortunate lapse,” Grant said coldly. “It won’t happen again.”

  “I should say not,” said George. He took another swig from his flask. “Here, get in. I’ll drive you home.”

  “I would rather walk.”

  George’s bloated face turned from tipsily genial to furious in a flash. “After what you just did, Sir Grant, brawling like a common prizefighter in the street, you have no cause to look down on me! Now get in. We have to talk about what action to take now.”

  “Did Lord Ross send you?”

  “Just get in.”

  Grant glanced down the street. Everyone seemed to be scurrying on their own errands, paying him no attention even with his bruised face and dirty coat. But a carriage turned the corner, one with the Cannondale crest on the shiny black door. Jane—his former lover, and, as he had just discovered from one of his spies in Parliament—a traitorous bitch. He climbed into George’s carriage before she could see him and slammed the door behind him.

  George offered him the flask, and Grant shook his head in disgust. George shrugged and gulped down the last of it. The interior of the carriage reeked of old upholstery, brandy, and rotten cabbage.

  “It doesn’t matter who sent me. We have to act now,” George said. “The final vote on Union is very soon. We have the numbers on our side now, but that could change too easily. Adair has been a thorn in our side too long.”

  All my life, Grant thought. Adair had been his nemesis all his life. But that would end soon. Even if he had to ally with scoundrels like George Hayes to achieve it. “What are you saying?”

  “Adair seems to know everything we’re doing before we do. He frightens men off so even bribes don’t work on them. And every time someone is sent to finish him off, he walks away unscathed. It has to stop. Too bad you didn’t finish that fight by bashing his ugly Fenian head on the marble steps.”

  Grant flexed his bruised hand. He had wanted to do that with a ferocity that shocked him. “He doesn’t have to be dead for me to get what I want.”

  “A man like that? Of course he has to be dead. Come, Dunmore. You want Adair Court; I want Killinan Castle. My lovely cousin has been unlucky in her children. Eliza and her damned United Irishman, and now Anna wasting her considerable charms on the likes of Adair. Caroline is just a useless bluestocking. But poor Katherine seems to love them. Emotions can be useful. They can be used against people when it’s most needed.”

  Grant stared down at his bloody knuckles and thought of Caroline Blacknall. She was small, slender, so young, but she had been so fierce as she dragged him out of the fight. Like Athena, riding into war.

  Yet her brown eyes were so soft as she looked at the Chronicle of Kildare; as if she understood its significance.

  “I won’t involve ladies in this,” Grant muttered.

  “Even a lady like Anna Blacknall, who threw you over for an Irishman?” George said with a drunken laugh. “She’s already involved up to her beautiful neck. Now, do you want to defeat Adair or not?”

  Grant slammed his fist down on the seat, blotting out the image of Caroline Blacknall’s dark eyes and pretty smile. “I want to take him down.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Is my mother home, Smythe?” Anna asked as the butler opened the door for them. She leaned lightly on Caroline’s arm as they stepped into the foyer, still a bit unsteady after the day’s adventures.

  “No, Lady Anna. She is still at her Ladies’ Charitable Committee meeting, and I must go to the market for her before she arrives home. She wanted veal chops for dinner and cook has run out, and it seems the kitchen maid has a cold,” Smythe said with a suffering sigh. His eyes widened as he took in their disheveled state. “Shall I send up s
ome hot water before I go, my lady?”

  “Yes, please, Smythe. A great quantity. And some tea,” said Anna.

  “Of course, my lady,” Smythe said. “Right away. Oh, and this letter arrived today from Switzerland. I thought you might like to read it immediately.”

  “News from Eliza!” Caroline cried, taking up the thick letter. “At last. It has been ever so long since we have heard from her.”

  “That is something cheerful, at least,” Anna said. “Come, Caro, you can read it to me while I change my clothes. We can certainly use the distraction.”

  Deeply grateful that her mother was not home to see the state of her daughters, Anna hurried to her chamber and tore off her ruined jacket. The sight that greeted her in the mirror almost made her shriek—wild, tangled hair, red cheeks, and her eyes glittering with nervous excitement. No wonder Conlan called her a witch.

  As soon as the maids delivered the hot water and tea tray, she splashed great handfuls on her face and scrubbed with her scented soap. But it couldn’t erase the violence of the fight or the fact that, despite her resolve to be respectable from now on and not embarrass her family, she had brought gossip onto them yet again.

  “That was quite an adventure,” Caroline said after the servants departed and they were alone again. “Should we talk about it?”

  Anna shook her head. She reached for her brush and yanked the bristles hard through her tangled hair. “Not yet. I’m not sure I could be quite coherent. Read me Eliza’s letter.”

  Caroline looked as if she very much wanted to argue. But she just nodded, poured out some tea, and opened the letter. Anna closed her eyes as she listened to her faraway sister’s words, trying to lose herself in Eliza’s accounts of walking in the beautiful, sparkling white snow, skating on frozen lakes, and Swiss Christmas festivities. It sounded like a magical, unreal world.

  “Even though I don’t much care for sweets, I have had such cravings for the stollen, a sort of Christmas cake they seem to adore here, because…” Caroline suddenly broke off with a squeal. “Because I am to have a baby in the summer! Oh, Anna, we will be aunts.”

  “A baby!” Anna’s eyes flew open, and she snatched the letter away to read it herself.

  “Mama will be so happy when she hears!” Caroline said.

  “Indeed she will. A grandchild at last,” said Anna. “And it should also distract Mama from my brawling in the streets of Dublin like a market woman.”

  “Oh, Anna, she won’t be angry,” Caroline protested. “You had to come to the duke’s aid when he was attacked.”

  Anna laughed ruefully. “I hardly think someone like Adair needs my assistance in combat.”

  “If I was in trouble, I would definitely want you at my back. You were quite fearless, the way you hit Grant Dunmore over the head with my book.”

  “Speaking of that, I will be sure and buy you a new volume tomorrow.”

  Caroline shrugged. “It was only Herodotus. I have more of his work somewhere around here. Have you definitely decided against Dunmore then?”

  Anna remembered the raw, burning fury in his eyes. “I would say assuredly yes. He is not the man for me. He never was.”

  “But Adair is the man for you?”

  “He hasn’t asked me to marry him.”

  “He will, I’m sure. Especially after today. And you always did say you wanted to marry a duke.”

  “He is not quite the duke I imagined when I used to say that!”

  Caroline propped her chin on her hands, steadily watching Anna with her solemn brown eyes. “What did you imagine? Pomp at Court in London? Coronets of strawberry leaves while everyone bows to you?”

  “Something like that, I suppose. Something grand and—and purposeful.”

  “And what do you imagine with Adair?”

  With Adair she had, or could have, everything. Everything she had never realized she needed so much. Love, belonging, a place where she could be really useful. Passion like she had never imagined, but danger, too.

  “Caro,” she said slowly, “how do you know so decidedly that Lord Hartley is what you want?”

  Caroline shrugged. “I just knew, the first time we talked together. We have so many mutual interests, and we understand each other. I know he is not much to look at, but he is kind and intelligent. He will never expect me to be something I’m not. We could have a comfortable and content life together.”

  Comfortable and content—those were certainly two things Adair was not. “But what do you feel when he kisses you? Does it feel as if you’ll explode, burst into flames, when he touches you?”

  Caroline looked at her in bewilderment. “I’ve never kissed him. But I doubt it would be like that. I’m not even sure that would be—required. Is it that way with you and Adair?”

  “Yes,” Anna said simply. “I forget everything when I’m with him. He makes me feel completely alive.”

  “Well,” said Caroline. “I think you had better marry him, then. You should have no problem getting Mama’s permission now. Once she hears Eliza’s news, she’ll want more grandchildren.”

  “Won’t she have Lord Hartley’s brood, once you become their stepmother?”

  “Yes,” Caroline said. For the first time a note of doubt crept into her voice. “I suppose she will. But they are not children.”

  “I don’t think we can solve all our romantic dilemmas right now,” said Anna with a yawn. “I’m so tired I can hardly think at all. Maybe I should just lie down until Mama returns.”

  “I’m tired, too.” Caroline rubbed at her spectacle-less eyes. Without them, she looked younger, prettier, and more vulnerable. Anna hoped her too-smart-for-her-own-good sister was not making a terrible mistake with Hartley.

  She hoped she didn’t make a mistake with Adair, either. She couldn’t afford any more mistakes.

  They both curled up on Anna’s bed as the day slid into evening, and Anna drifted into a troubled sleep.

  Crash!

  Anna sat straight up, bewildered, still caught in the sticky cobweb of sleep and dreams and startled by the sound of breaking glass. Was it only part of her dream? But then she heard another pane shatter, and she knew it was no dream. In the hazy half-light, she saw a large gloved hand reach through the broken window to unlatch the casement and swing it open.

  “Caro, run!” she whispered frantically, pushing at her sleeping sister’s shoulder. She tried to jump off the bed, but her numb legs refused to work. Her panicked brain couldn’t seem to command her body.

  “Wha…” Caroline said as she sat up groggily. She, too, saw the man climbing in the window, and she screamed and rolled off the bed, landing with a thud on the floor.

  The haze vanished from Anna’s mind in a sinking, cold rush of terror, and she screamed. But it was too late. One of the intruders, a large, burly man in rough wool, grabbed her hard around the waist and clamped his gloved hand hard over her mouth. She could hardly breathe, yet the fear made her fight like a wild beast. Anna kicked at him through her skirts, ruing the fact that she took off her boots before going to sleep. She twisted her head to bite his hand.

  “Crazy bitch!” the man muttered. He didn’t sound Irish, or even English. He forced his palm harder over her face and pushed her to the floor on her stomach. “How is yours?”

  “Just as wild,” another man said. Then Anna heard Caroline drive her elbow into his belly, and the sickening crack as he slapped her. “I thought these fine ladies were supposed to faint as soon as you look at ’em.”

  “Well, I thought there was only supposed to be one. That’s what they told me when they said to use this window,” Anna’s captor said. She struggled to roll over and gouge his eyes out, but he wrangled her arms back and bound them tightly together. Sharp pain shot from her right shoulder as it was wrenched. “We’ll just have to take ’em both, let the toffs sort it out.”

  Through the pain, Anna could hear her sister struggling. “I vote we just kill them and leave them here, troublesome sluts,” one of the m
en said.

  “Then we wouldn’t get paid. Here, tie this around yours and lower her out the window to Jim. I’ll follow with this one,” said the other captor.

  They meant to carry her and Caroline away to some horrible fate! Anna was an avid reader of Gothic novels; she knew just what happened when fair ladies were kidnapped by villains. Terrified, she summoned up every bit of her strength and threw her head back. It smacked into his jaw with a satisfying crack, but her head pounded.

  “Bitch!” the man cried. “No more trouble from you.” Something landed hard at the base of her skull, and everything went black.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Are my daughters home, Smythe?” Katherine said. She deposited her parcels with the butler and stripped off her gloves and cloak. Sparkling bits of ice clung to the velvet folds. “I hope they haven’t ventured out. It’s terribly cold.”

  “They’ve been resting upstairs for a while now, my lady,” Smythe answered. “I only just returned from the market with the veal you wanted for dinner.”

  “Yes, the meeting ran long, I’m afraid. And then I had to purchase some new paints for Lady Caroline’s lessons.” Lessons with Nicolas. Just thinking his name made Katherine smile. It had been thus ever since they met at Christmas—and again, secretly, once they returned to Dublin. She felt quite ridiculously ebullient these days, like she might burst out laughing at any moment.

  “I will just go look in on my daughters,” she said. “I’m anxious to hear how it went at Parliament today.”

  “Oh, I gather it was quite lively, my lady.”

  Katherine laughed and climbed the stairs to the quiet corridor that housed the family bedchambers. At Anna’s door, she could hear no voices or laughter. Parliament must have been tiring, then, if they were actually resting.

  “Girls,” she called as she knocked on the door. “Are you awake? It’s nearly time for dinner.”

  There was no answer. She turned the unlocked door handle and pushed it open. A rush of cold air greeted her, and the first hint of disquiet touched her heart. The chamber was dark and silent.