Countess of Scandal

by Laurel McKee

  She knocked twice in quick succession, then twice slowly. She held her breath as she listened carefully to any sign of movement behind that door.

  At last there was a thump, a squeal as the lock was peeled back. The door was opened a crack, and a woman's pale face, framed with a cloud of dark hair, peeked out cautiously.

  "Eliza!" she cried, her voice heavy with a French accent "You are here."

  She opened the door wider, letting Eliza slip inside before shutting and locking it again. The chamber was small, windowless, and cold, lit only with a branch of candles on the one table, which also held wine bottles and the remains of supper. An open traveling case spilled clothes and papers onto the floor, and on the bed slept a little girl under a pile of quilts.

  "Of course I am here," Eliza said, embracing the woman, who was heavily pregnant under her black muslin gown, her pretty oval face shadowed with exhaustion. Pamela Fitzgerald looked like she would give birth any day—without her husband nearby and no family. Her husband, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, son of the Duke and Duchess of Leinster and leader of the United Irishmen of Dublin, had been on the run from the British for months. Eliza had helped him find hiding places, and she had promised she would help Pamela if she could. She always kept her promises.

  Pamela sat down carefully on the edge of the bed, tucking the quilts closer around her daughter. "How has it been for you, petite aim? she said. "Have you been much harassed?"

  Eliza smiled at the sparrowlike Pamela calling her "petite." "I have not been harassed at all, so far. No one dares

  accuse a countess of sedition, not without solid proof. And I am careful."

  Tm glad for that at least"

  "But you, Pamela—I was surprised to hear you were here in Dublin. You should have stayed at your home at Kilrush or gone to Edward's family. They are powerful; they can protect you."

  Pamela shook her head. "Edward's maman, la duchesse, is in London. She has my little Eddy with her. She and her Mr. Ogilvie are trying to get Edward out of the country, I think, though he will never go."

  "You could go to Castletown, then. No one would dare bother you there."

  A wry smile touched Pamela's pale lips. "Lady Louisa would not want me there. She might be Edward's tante, but she and Mr. Conolly are Ascendancy through and through. Vraiment?"

  Eliza had to admit that was true, indeed. "It's not safe here. And this stuffy little room cannot be healthy for you."

  Pamela shrugged. "I am strong, Eliza, don't worry, and so are my bibis. We are here just for a few days, to see my husband. Then we will go back to Kilrush. It is safe for us there, even if it is not for Edward."

  Eliza reached into her reticule and drew out the object of her visit—Mr. Boyle's note, pressed into her hand as they watched the regiment on St. Stephen's Green. "You will give him this when you see him? He must receive it as soon as possible so he will know where to go next, and I do not know when I will see him again."

  "Certainment. He will be happy to hear you are well and that your own work progresses."

  "And you? Do you need anything? Food or milk for little Pam?"

  Pamela looked down at her sleeping daughter. "Non, nothing. Lady Lucy sends things. She looks after her brother's family well."

  Eliza stayed a while longer, telling Pamela what meager news she had. Then she reluctantly left the little family to their sparse lodgings, with Pamela's assurances they would move elsewhere the very next night

  As Eliza climbed into her carriage, she thought she glimpsed a shifting shadow across the street. She peered closer, her shoulders stiffening, but she saw only a bit of windblown debris and the cast of the moon in a shop window.

  Feeling foolish, she laughed at herself and turned toward home.

  Will stared after Eliza's departing carriage, pressed tight to the stone wall deep in the shadows. Only after he was sure she was gone, the coach rattling back toward Henrietta Street, did he turn his attention to the building she emerged from.

  A coffeehouse, one of several in this respectable neighborhood. Small, quiet, half full of genteel-looking patrons, but distinctly mercantile class. What was a countess doing there, slipping inside in the middle of the night with her cloak hood drawn up?

  He would wager it was not just for their blend of coffee.

  As soon as Eliza's coach was gone, a shadow detached itself from a wall across the way and followed at a fast pace. The man was not tall, but he was quick and muffled in a black coat and wide-brimmed hat. At the corner, he glanced back and held up his hand as if to signal someone else.

  So Will was not alone in watching Eliza at the coffeehouse. He wasn't the only one tracing her movements, keeping track of where she went and who she talked to. But who sent this man? What did they hope to gain?

  Will, in turn, followed the follower, keeping the man in his sights as they made their way through the quiet streets.. He would not let anyone hurt Eliza,

  Will trailed him at a discreet distance, but the man did not go to Eliza's house on Henrietta Street. He went toward the Castle, dark and ominous in the night. Before he could reach the locked gates, he stumbled on the paving stones.

  "Blast it all," he muttered in a rough accent, the words unnaturally loud in the dark silence. A twist of paper and a few coins fell from his pocket. For a flashing instant, Will wanted to grab the man, to hit him viciously until he confessed his mission, confessed who sent him to watch Eliza. To beat him bloody for daring to threaten her in any way. But cold reason held him back. He could not help her at all if he was in prison for attacking a Castle lackey.

  And he would learn nothing behind bars, either.

  A guard let the man in through the gates, so obviously he was expected. Once all was quiet again, Will scooped up the twist of paper left behind when the man collected his dropped coins. It was probably nothing, but who knew what could be useful.

  Will unrolled the scrap, his blood freezing as he saw what it was—another seditious pamphlet from By A Lady. The Castle knew about her writing, then.

  Stuffing the paper into his own pocket, he turned back toward the coffeehouse, intent on discovering what led Eliza there in the first place. What sort of secret meeting had she attended there? What was she up to now? And who exactly at the Castle ordered her followed?

  He was determined to find out—and to stop her from destroying herself.

  Chapter 6

  But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon...'"

  Eliza peered down at the stage through her opera glasses, watching Romeo gaze up at Juliet on her balcony. She leaned her elbow on the gilded balustrade of the box, wrapped up in that little dreamworld.

  It hardly mattered that the painted backdrop behind the balcony depicted the solid bulk of the Dublin Parliament building, pale gray against a blue sky, where there was no evidence of a moon, envious or otherwise. The carved allegorical figures of Theater and Music to either side of the stage looked on stolidly, unmoved by this or any other spectacle they beheld here at the Crow Street Theater.

  But the audience was not so hard-hearted. Usually Dublin theatergoers were loud and rowdy, conversing between themselves, shouting at the actors, even causing riots, as Edward Fitzgerald had several months ago when one of those actors shouted too enthusiastically, "Damn France!" and he took it as an insult to his French wife. The new decorum of London theaters had not yet found its way across the Irish Sea. Tonight, though, everyone, from the glittering gold and blue boxes down to the rough benches of the pit, was transfixed by the romance unfolding onstage.

  As was Eliza. It had certainly been a long time since she was a teenaged girl, giddy with first love for Will Denton. And the actors, too, looked as if it had been some time since they saw fifteen. But none of that mattered. Their acting skills and the eternal power of Shakespeare's beautiful words made her remember it all. The soaring highs of love; the dark despair when it was oyer.

  Exc
ept she feared it was not over. Not yet.

  She raised her glass from the stage to a box just across the U shape of the theater. Will sat there with General Hardwick and Mrs. Hardwick, along with their pretty daughter Lydia. His gaze was focused on the stage. He looked handsome as always in his red and gold coat, his bright hair tied back in a queue that shimmered in the' house lights. But a frown etched his brow as if he, too, remembered those sunlit days of their infatuated youth.

  "I take thee at thy word,*" Romeo declared, climbing up the ivy-covered stones of Juliet's tower. "Call me but love and I'll be new baptized...'"

  "What man art thou, that thus bescreened in night so stumblest on my counsel?'" Juliet protested, modestly gathering close the neck of her gauzy night rail.

  Eliza reluctantly smiled, remembering Will climbing the ivy up her own wall. Perhaps they were not past such youthful follies after all.

  "By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am,'" said Romeo. "'My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself because it is an enemy to thee.'"

  An enemy to thee. Eliza lowered her glass. Romeo and Juliet's deep-seated enmity, through no fault of their own but part of their essential natures, led to their doom. What would happen here and now?

  Next to her, Anna sat perched on the edge of her seat, her eyes wide and shining with tears as she watched the lovers embrace. Anna was young and so romantic, so fragile. Eliza feared so much for her, as she did for all who felt so deeply.

  She raised her glass again, glancing back across the theater to find Will watching her. That frown was gone, but his face was smoothly expressionless. Utterly unreadable.

  Eliza feared she would cry. She felt the ache of tears behind her eyes, a new, sharp sadness for what could not be. She did have feelings for Will; she had to admit that to herself. The old feelings had never quite gone away, even over the years of his absence, and now that he was back, they, too, returned. Deeper, fuller—a woman's desire.

  But she could not be turned from her course. Irish independence was just and true, far bigger than herself and her desires. And she was sure Will would not be turned from his course, either. One of them would be defeated in the end.

  Yet, for this moment, it was the calm before the storm. Just like Romeo and Juliet's moonlit balcony.

  The blue velvet curtain dropped over the lovers' futile plans, signaling the interval. The audience stirred back to life, stretching and laughing as the girls selling oranges and sugared almonds took to the aisles.

  Anna dabbed at her eyes with her lace handkerchief. "It's so beautiful, Eliza. I'm glad we came here tonight"

  Eliza laughed, despite the tight lump in her own throat, and squeezed her sister's hand "I am wondering if a comic opera might not have been better for you, my dear."

  "Oh no! What can be better than love, love against all odds? It is glorious."

  Glorious until the wrenching end. "Mama would say a sensible marriage, based on parents' good advice, would be far better."

  Anna shook her head. "Did your sensible marriage make you happy, Eliza?"

  "Mama would say happiness is irrelevant Duty is all," Eliza said carefully.

  "So she would. But would you?"

  "My marriage was no Romeo and Juliet tale, to be sure. But it was not so very bad." It gave her the independence to pursue her own work, to find out who she really was. That was more than most women had.

  "I don't want 'not so very bad,'" Anna said stubbornly. "I want passion and joy! I want someone who makes my soul sing. Mount Clare didn't make your soul sing, did he?"

  Eliza laughed. "Not at all I am not sure that would be such a pleasant sensation."

  "Oh, sister, always so sensible. Haven't you ever met anyone who made you feel like Romeo and Juliet, just a bit?"

  Oh yes. She certainly had. And he sat right across the theater, making her feel those things all over again.

  Or he had been there. When Eliza peeked over at the Hardwicks' box, she saw that Will was gone.

  "Mama would say such things are unimportant, and even dangerous," Eliza murmured. "They disrupt the natural order of things."

  Anna sighed. "I know what Mama would say. She lectures endlessly at Killinan. But what do you say, Eliza?"

  "I say ... I am thirsty, and I need to stretch my legs. I shall go and find someone to procure us some negus."

  "By yourself?" Anna said. "Now, Mama would say that is most unwise."

  Eliza laughed. "I will be gone for only a moment. Surely you can behave yourself without me for that long, sister dear."

  "Perhaps," Anna said teasingly. "But can you behave yourself without me?"

  Eliza left the box, still laughing, her gray silk skirts rustling. The corridor outside was crowded with others seeking refreshment and gossip. Eliza eased around them, headed toward the staircase to seek out a footman to send for the drinks.

  She found Will instead.

  He was just coming up the stairs, a look of intent concentration on his face, as if he thought of something far away. They nearly collided on the dimly lit landing, and his hand shot out to clasp her arm, steadying her.

  "In a hurry for an appointment, Lady Mount Clare?" he said. A half-smile curved his lips, but his gaze studied her intently.

  "Yes, indeed," she answered. "An appointment with a glass of negus. I am perishing of thirst."

  "How appalling. We certainly cannot have that Come, let me be of assistance."

  He held out his arm to her. Eliza glanced over her shoulder, but no one seemed to be paying them any attention. "Are you sure you should, Major Denton?"

  "Fetching refreshments in a theater is shocking, I know, Lady Mount Clare. But I think my reputation can bear the strain."

  "But can mine?” She slid her hand through the crook of his elbow, just as she had at the ball, letting him lead her downward. The blue-carpeted stairs were narrow, lined with framed sketches from past plays. As the stairs turned on a landing, she and Will were momentarily alone, caught in a second of silence.

  "I need to see you, Eliza," he whispered in her ear.

  She stared at him in surprise. "You are seeing me."

  "Alone. Please, I need to speak to you alone."

  An enemy to thee. Eliza wanted to refuse, for she was not sure what would happen when they were alone. What emotions would flare up, burning away caution and sense and . . . everything. Yet he looked so very serious, she feared he would just climb up the ivy and hide under her bed again if she refused.

  "Very well," she said. 'Tonight, after my household has gone to bed."

  He arched his brow questioningly. "Shall I climb to the window again?"

  "I think the play has too much influenced you, Romeo. I shall let you in by the kitchen door." That should be safe enough, because her cellar was empty now.

  He quickly kissed her hand as they neared the foot of the stairs."Tis twenty years till then.'"

  Eliza tiptoed down the back stairs of her house, the silence of deepest night crowding around her. Everyone was asleep, even Anna, and the cavernous kitchens seemed to echo like a cave.

  Was she being foolish, agreeing to meet Will like this? She very much feared she was. His eyes, so blue, so quiet, calm, and watchful—angel's eyes—sought out all her secrets. But she wanted to talk to him and had to know what he would say to her.

  She remembered his words about how he, too, was Irish, his family planted here for decades, as was hers. Why could he not, then, see things as she did? There had to be a way.

  She gathered the high swansdown collar of her dressing gown closer about her neck, shivering as the cold of the flagstone floor seeped up through her slippers. The fires were banked for the night, but she still smelled the residue of smoke, of cooking meat and boiled vegetables. It made her think of the kitchens at Killinan, of how she would dash through their bustling activity to snatch a picnic lunch of bread and cheese on her way to meet Will in the woods.

  Not much had really changed, and yet everything had.

  Eliza l
eaned against the locked door, listening for any sound outside. Her heart pounded so loud in her ears that she could scarcely hear, but then at last it came. A knock.

  She went up on tiptoe, peering through the tiny barred window. It was Will, dressed again in his rough black clothes, his cap pulled low over his brow. She unlocked the door, drawing it open just enough for him to slip inside.

  Without a word, he caught her in his arms, his mouth coming down on hers in a desperate kiss. He touched her tongue with his, tasting, seeking, and it was as if she were struck by a sizzling, blue-white bolt of lightning. Enveloped by fiery heat mat burned away everything else.

  She curled her fists into the coarse cloth of his coat, dragging him closer, closer. Yet still it was not enough. The desperate tension of life in Dublin combined with her desire for Will, creating an explosion of sheer need, of the necessity to feel alive again, as if for the last time.

  But from along one of the snaking corridors, she heard a sound, a rustle, reminding her of where they were. She tore her mouth from his, leaning away from the heat of his body.

  "Come with me," she whispered.

  Wordlessly, he took her hand, letting her lead him up the stairs and into her bedchamber. A smoldering fire crackled in the grate, providing the only light The bed, with its turned-back blankets, was in blessed, forgetful shadows.

  Will closed the door, leaning back against it as he studied her from under the concealing brim of his cap.

  Eliza studied him, too, unsure of what to do next. She still trembled with the force of their kiss. But was he still Will, her Will, or was he Major Denton?

  He swept off that cap, dropping it to the floor as he shook his long hair free. He smiled at her and held out his hand, and she knew—he was Will, if only for tonight

  She took his hand, letting him draw her closer until he took her in his arms again. He kissed her hair, her brow, the pulse that beat at her temples. Eliza closed her eyes, losing herself in the sensation of his lips against her skin.

  "I missed you, Eliza," he muttered.

  "I missed you, too," she answered, and knew the terrible truth of it She had missed him over all these years, even as she tried to deny it tried to lose herself in the routines of her own life. Whenever she was at Killinan and they called on Will's mother at Moreton Manor, she tried to stay indifferent to Lady Moreton's news of him in the West Indies. But those tidbits had been like precious pearls, hoarded by her against lonely days. Laid away with her memories of him.