by Bliss Bennet
Not that Fianna would ever say a word against such behavior. Didn’t his all-hours carousing give him little time for anything to do with the bedchamber besides dressing for his next bacchanal? Grateful, she should be, that she’d not had to lie with him since their arrival on his beloved English soil. Ridiculous to keen like a bean sí over the death of her own innocence as she’d done this morning when she’d awoken alone. He’d not stolen her virtue from her, after all; she’d offered it of her own free will, desperate to take advantage of this rare chance to afford passage to England.
England, where her father’s final betrayer awaited the justice it was her duty to deal.
No, she’d made this bed, and now she’d lie in it, no matter how distasteful she found the task. And surely it was far better to sleep on a mattress beside a fool than amongst criminals in the filth of a gaol cell, accused of attempted murder? Her hands clutched at the frame of the door by which she stood, pushing away the memory of young Pennington catching her eyes across Ingestrie’s crowded room the night before. Indulging in guilt and fear over shooting the wrong man would only churn her insides raw.
“Could Davenport have chucked the damned boot out the window?” Ingestrie pushed himself up off the bed, rocking on his feet as if they were still aboard the ship that had taken them across the Irish Sea. “Or used it to sip his champagne? Anna. . .”
The way he whined, one might be forgiven for thinking Ingestrie two instead of twenty. For all that Christopher Pennington had looked so young, his manner and speech indicated a man far more mature than the one beside her.
Fianna shook off the thought and trudged away from the door to engage in the search. Poking a foot under a fallen coverlet revealed two mismatched shoes, but no boot.
She didn’t like playing mother or maidservant to the ridiculous boy any more than she liked playing his lover. Yet it would not do to alienate him, not yet. Not until she’d mastered her own fear, and secured the full cooperation of young Pennington to help her track down her true target. Most likely a relative, given their connection to the house of Saybrook. An uncle, perhaps?
Getting down on her knees, she groped under the bed, pulling out a wine bottle, the half-burnt end of a cheroot, and, at last, the wayward boot. Repressing a sigh, she tossed the errant footwear in Ingestrie’s direction.
“Ah, you’re a bonny lass, my girl,” he said, sitting on the floor to pull it on. “If the pater weren’t so eager I dance attendance on him this morning, I’d take you for a drive in the curricle, demmed if I wouldn’t. Make all the other fellows’ jaws drop, spying me with such a prime article.”
She hid her grimace as she hauled him to his feet, then brushed the dust from the back of his coat. “Do up your neckcloth for you, shall I?”
“No time. Do it in the hack.” He drew a quick comb through his hair, then tossed it back on the dresser. “Good Lord, why don’t you put on one of the gowns I bought for you instead of that drab thing? I’ve wagered Kirkland and Cabot a hundred guineas each I’ve the most delicious piece in all London, but they’ll have to see a bit more of your charms before they concede.”
He gave her breast a quick, careless squeeze before turning and leaving the room.
Fianna stared in the mirror long after the slam of the door faded, willing her insides to still. She’d chosen to take on the role of courtesan; she’d no right, then, to take umbrage at being treated like one. Besides, a true McCracken would never allow such an insignificant snip of a man to wound her feelings. Grandfather, Aunt Mary, the uncles and cousins and wives—all the McCrackens kept their emotions decently in check. A girl who let her passions flow without restraint would never deserve a place amongst them.
So. It was nothing.
He was nothing.
The clock on the mantel struck the hour. Turning away from the mirror, she pulled on a hat with a heavy, concealing veil. She missed the reassuring weight of her father’s pistol against her thigh. But no matter. The razor she’d stolen away from Ingestrie’s valet would have to suffice.
All she need do was dupe young Pennington into revealing the whereabouts of his relation, without giving herself away in the process.
He stood by the door of the coffeehouse, the man she’d mistakenly shot a mere seven days earlier.
He looked even younger in the daytime than he had during the night. Younger than her own thirty years, certainly; a year or two older than Ingestrie’s twenty, perhaps. What a tiny cherub of a babe he must have been, with those celestial blue eyes and those fat, golden ringlets that wouldn’t stay brushed back over his forehead. Even now, young girls just awakening to the wonders of the other sex likely made calf eyes at him in droves. Fine to dream about stolen kisses with a fellow whose sweet face promised no real threat to that virtue you were just beginning to understand the necessity of guarding.
Even though he stood with a certain stiffness, his expression stern and unsmiling, still, something about him urged one to give him one’s trust, to hand it over as one might the only cup in one’s tea service with the tiny nick in its rim, certain that he’d take care to not make it worse, nor have the bad manners to comment on its defects.
What would it be like, to share one’s burdens with such a man?
She shook her head, flinging away such a ridiculous yearning. She was no young moonling, eager to spill her secrets to the first handsome face that passed. Leave the romantic reveries to the innocent young misses of the English ton for whom he was destined. The terrors of the night, with their fiery visions of vengeance, must be enough to sustain her.
What an irony it would be, though, if angelic Kit Pennington should end up being her guide to the very devil.
She crossed the room, all too aware of the blatant speculation in the eyes of the men she passed. Each assuming her presence in the all-male domain of the coffeehouse indicated her lack of respectability. Each wishing that he might be the one to reap the benefits of that lack. Lord, that one by the window—if she sent a smile in his direction, promised to spend a night in his bed, why, the stupid fellow would likely declare himself her slave.
She enslaved him, that leannán sídhe! Aunt McCracken’s bitter voice rang in Fianna’s head. My brother never would have done it, not any of it, but for your mother, that Irish witch, she’d hissed as she and Fianna had watched the cart carrying her mother, grandfather, and young uncle Sean crest the hill and pass out of sight. Far better rid of her, you are, Maria, rid of all of them. No McCracken girl will ever tempt a man to his downfall, we’ll make certain of that. . .
How utterly wrong her aunt’s prophecy had turned out to be.
Fianna straightened her shoulders, shaking off a fleeting pang of remorse. She had another man to tempt today.
When she reached Kit Pennington’s side, she lowered into her most graceful curtsy. “Mr. Pennington. I’m sorry to have asked you to come so far out of your way.”
“Miss Cameron.” Doffing his hat, he gave her a short bow, as if she were any other gentlewoman of his acquaintance. “It was no trouble, I assure you.”
She caught back the deep breath her body wanted her to take, cursing the part of her that obviously still feared him, feared he’d recognize her and call for the watch before she had a chance to finish what she’d come to England to do. No, even in the brighter light of day, he did not see her for what she truly was. And she’d be damned if she allowed her body to give him any reason to doubt her.
He remained unsmiling, but no expression of contempt marred his countenance. “Shall we find seating? I’ve some information I hope will be of benefit to you.” He crooked an elbow in her direction.
Reaching out a tentative hand, she rested her fingertips on the wool of his greatcoat, careful to keep her gaze directed demurely at the floor. Because it was part of her masquerade, of course, not because she was afraid.
Or because his eyes were the least bit compelling.
He led her to a table and settled her in a wooden chair. “Coffee?”
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br /> “Chocolate, if you please.”
He signaled to the server, then shrugged out of his greatcoat, reaching into a deep pocket before setting it on the chair beside him. He slid a small volume across the table, indicating with a nod that she was to open it.
She removed her gloves, then trailed her fingers over the golden lions embossed on the red leather cover before turning to the first page. A List of all the Officers of the Army and Marines on Full and Half-Pay.
Could it truly be so easy, the Major’s location written down in a book for anyone to see?
“You did say the man you sought was an officer, did you not?” he asked, reaching out in his eagerness to ruffle through the pages. “Do you know his regiment?”
She shook her head. “Only that it was stationed in Ireland during the 1790s. I do know he was a major, though.”
He pulled his chair around the table, setting it right beside hers. Her breath caught in her throat. At the thought of how close she was to her father’s killer, of course.
“That should be enough,” he said. “See, here, right at the front, all officers, from general to major. Not alphabetically, but by date of commission. Of course,” he acknowledged with a self-deprecating smile, “it might be easiest just to check the index. You do know his name, do you not?”
His sleeve brushed against her arm as he thumbed to the end of the book. No odor of smoke or stale, unwashed bedsheets hung about him, as it always did about Ingestrie. Kit Pennington’s scent soothed, like freshly washed linens hanging to dry in the sun, or perhaps the rich, fertile earth after a summer rain. Warm, friendly even.
With a jerk of her head, Fianna focused her attention back on the book. “Pembroke,” she said, remembering the small, wheeled table from which Grandfather McCracken took his meals when he was too ill to come to table. In an index, surely Pembroke would not be too far away from Pennington.
“But I needn’t take up your time now,” she added, placing a quelling hand over his. It would do her little good to raise his suspicions now, when she was so close.
Today luck appeared to be on her side. She waved a hand toward the entrance of the coffeehouse. “If the arrival of that large group of gentlemen is any indication, the antiquarian meeting about which I was told is soon to begin.”
“Antiquarian meeting?” he asked. He looked not at the door, though, but down at their hands. When had his fingers curved around hers?
“Yes,” she said, startled by the low pitch of her own voice. With a shake of her head, she slid her hand from beneath the warmth of his. “As difficult as it may be to believe, some Anglo-Irish Protestant antiquarians have become quite interested in the past of the country they oppress. We might even find a scholar who knows enough Gaelic to tell you what your mysterious words mean.”
No, not Kit Pennington’s words, but Father’s. Not long after Aunt Mary had taken her away from her mother and brought her to Belfast, during that short time she’d lived in the McCracken home before they’d sent her away to school, she’d found it, her dead father’s pistol, buried in the attic of Grandfather McCracken’s house. Deep in a box, it had been, hidden beneath the neatly folded letters Aunt Mary had exchanged with her brother the year he’d been held in Kilmainham Gaol, accused of fomenting rebellion. She’d taken care to conceal the letters, and the firearm, from prying eyes after she’d stolen them away to her own room. Not out of fear of being connected to the disgraced rebel to whom they had belonged, but from a fierce, angry desire to keep the only mementos of her father she possessed solely to herself.
She’d never dared ask anyone what the words he’d had engraved upon the pistol meant.
Kit Pennington rose, holding out his arm once again to her. How could anyone smile with such ease, as if he were certain nothing in the world would do him harm? No, he had no idea that the pistol belonged to her.
Together, they made their way across the room to where the party of gentlemen had begun to confer over a pile of books and manuscripts.
With a bow and a genial smile, Pennington introduced himself. “Pardon my interruption, good sirs, but I was given to understand the most knowledgeable antiquarians in all the city met here. Might we have a word?”
For all his youth, he had the easy assurance of the aristocrat born and bred. How simple he made it seem, evoking both deference and curiosity from the group of scholarly men with his confident bearing and friendly mien. If she’d been by herself, she’d never have been able to set them at their ease so quickly, nor to gain their respect or trust.
“You’ve an intelligent informant, then, sir, at least if your interests lie in the history of the land to our west,” one of their number replied, removing his glasses and bowing in return. “Artemus Callendar at your service. Have you an inquiry you wish us to undertake? An old manuscript you wish to have copied?”
“A task far less daunting, I promise. Just a line or two of translation, if any amongst you can read Gaelic.”
“What, that jargon still spoken by the unlettered vulgar?” muttered a man from across the table, casting a scornful glance in her direction.
Although Pennington’s countenance remained cordial, the muscles beneath her hand tensed. Had he taken umbrage on her behalf? Fianna gave his arm a light squeeze, warning against alienating their best chance of finding the answers they sought.
Mr. Callendar frowned at the sharp-tongued man, then smiled in apology. “I’m sorry, sir, but Gaelic is a difficult language to master. We tend to rely upon native scholars and scribes when a bit of treasure still locked up in the Irish language needs unraveling. But few such men choose to leave their homeland, alas.”
“What of that political fellow, the one from Cork, come to raise funds for the destitute?” another member of the group asked.
“Ah yes,” the rude gentleman acknowledged. “That sly gent, who made the utterly ridiculous claim that the barbaric Gaels valued learning as much as they did military skill.”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Callendar said, with a slap of his hand on the table. “And he said he’d come again today, did he not? Now, what was his name?”
A chorus of “O’Hanlon?” “No, O’Hanley?” “You’re wrong, I’m certain it was O’Hara!” flew about the room, the antiquarians squabbling over the name like fowl over freshly strewn feed. Kit Pennington cut his eyes to hers, quirking a sardonic eyebrow.
How long had it been since she’d felt such an urge to smile at a man in shared amusement?
A heavy tread behind her checked the unwise impulse before it had a chance to take root. “O’Hamill, sirs. The name for which you seek is O’Hamill.”
Fianna stilled, all her senses snapping to painful attention. A common enough name in Ireland, O’Hamill. But a man from Cork, in the south of Ireland, would never set the syllables dancing with a musicality found only in the north. Why would he lie?
She turned, half a beat after all the others, to find her gaze caught by a pair of eyes as green as her own.
Kit had been born with the gift of intuition, at least when it came to sensing the emotions of others. A quick glance at a person’s face, or the way they held their body, and the edge of irritation, or disappointment, or fear that lay beneath the polite exterior seemed as clear to him as if they’d spoken their true feelings out loud. How often he’d winced as others foundered, misreading others’ feelings, until he’d realized that most people could not see beyond social façades as he could.
But his usual skill had failed him when he’d met Fianna Cameron. Even given her impassive, cold demeanor and the stillness in which she held her petite frame, it had taken him aback, his inability to read beyond her glittering surface.
How odd, then, to sense her sudden disquiet now, even as she stood behind him, out of his line of sight. He could feel it quivering in the air, like the trembling tension of a rabbit immobilized by the sight of a predator yet unable to still the wild beatings of its heart. What had shaken her so?
Her countenance, when he
turned to face her, proved just as unrevealing now as it had been two nights earlier. But when he followed the direction of her gaze, he found a possible answer.
One of the two men making their way across the coffeehouse was as familiar to him as were his own brothers. More so, perhaps, given how little time he’d spent with either Benedict or Theo of late. But surely his friend Sam Wooler wouldn’t make any woman uneasy. Kindly and even tempered despite his radical politics, Sam rarely allowed strong emotion to overset him.
It must be the man beside Sam, then, a man Kit did not recognize. Did Miss Cameron know the burly, stern-faced fellow? Impossible to tell, for by the time the two men reached them, she had turned her eyes modestly to the floor.
“Kit!” Sam grasped his hand with eager welcome. “Why did you not send me word you were up and about again?”
“Because attempting to amicably settle your argument with Abbie was what led to the trouble in the first place,” Kit said, quirking up one corner of his mouth. “I’d no wish to listen to the two of you continue to squabble over my sickbed.”
The night he’d been attacked, he’d been searching the news room at the Crown and Anchor for a copy of the second volume of The Rights of Man, in an attempt to settle a ridiculous quarrel between Sam and their friend George Abbington-Pitts over the precise wording of one of Mr. Paine’s pithier pronouncements. Witnessing a fellow being shot would have sent such petty quibbles straight out of the heads of most men, but once Sam and Abbie sniffed out a bone of contention, neither was likely to let it drop.
“Ah, you already know our friend Mr. Wooler, do you, sir?” Callendar exclaimed. “But not Mr. O’Hamill, I’ll warrant. How fortuitous!”
Callendar nodded to the Irishman, then gestured him toward their group. “Mr. Pennington, may I introduce Mr. O’Hamill? Pennington here is in search of a Gaelic scribe.”
