A Rebel Without a Rogue

by Bliss Bennet

  Kit forced his eyes back to her face. “I may not have served myself, ma’am, but I do have friends amongst those who have. Horse Guards should be your next stop, I believe. The records of every man who has served his country are stored there, in the War Office.”

  “The War Office? But will they allow a woman, particularly an Irishwoman, access to such records?”

  Kit frowned. As the son of a nobleman, he took it for granted that any government official would be more than happy to help him with any inquiry he might pose. But of course, the same would not be true for a woman such as Fianna Cameron. “Perhaps not. But if I inquired on your behalf, I could send you word of my discoveries. If you’ll give me your future direction,” he ended awkwardly.

  “Ah, there’s the rub, sir. I’ve little idea where I might find myself tomorrow, and none at all where I’ll be at some unspecified date thereafter.” Remarkably even, her voice. And her face, unsmiling but unruffled. As if being abandoned by a callow protector were as expected as the daily rising of the sun.

  Perhaps for someone like her, it was.

  Still, a despicable excuse for a gentleman, Ingestrie. “Did the viscount not provide adequate funds to see you home?” he asked, his hand reaching for his pocket. Did he have any banknotes with him?

  Her ungloved hand reached out to stop his, then jerked away as another electric spark shot between them. She tucked her hand back in her lap. “More than enough for the mail to Holyhead, and the steam packet back to Ireland. Apparently ‘the pater’ wants this wild Irish girl as far away from his errant heir as possible.”

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re not going, though, are you?”

  “I am not going. Not until I’ve completed the task I came here for. I’ve not sacrificed so much only to be put aside now.”

  Had it been a sacrifice, suffering the attentions of a puppy such as Ingestrie? Her beauty struck him as without age, yet nothing about her suggested the first blush of youth. Nor that she’d suffer the foolishness of a child such as Ingestrie with any degree of pleasure.

  “Will you search out another protector, then?” he asked. Why? What she did with herself was certainly no concern of his.

  “That would be the wisest choice for the likes of me, would it not?” Her eyebrows arched, challenging him to deny it.

  “What if I were to offer you another choice?” he heard himself say.

  “Another choice?” The brittleness of her laugh scraped against his ear. “What, do you offer yourself up for the role? I’ll confess, I’d not thought you the type. You seem remarkably unmoved by my womanly assets.”

  “You mistake me, ma’am,” he bit out, clenching his hands behind his back. “The choice I offer does not involve trafficking in those, as you so charmingly describe them, womanly assets. In fact, it would require you to keep them under proper restraint. But it would offer you a safe place to live, and honest work. If, that is, your only goal in coming to England is to find the man who will complete your family. But perhaps I mistake the matter. Even after you’ve finished your search, do you intend to continue on as you’ve begun? Taking up with someone a bit more experienced than young Ingestrie next time, perhaps?”

  Miss Cameron’s lips thinned. Ah, at last, a crack in her icy calm. A minuscule one, but a crack nonetheless. Even that regal raise of the chin, meant to convey how wide of the mark his ill-bred barbs had flown, could not mask the intensity of her words when she finally deigned to speak.

  “My only goal, sir, is to repair my broken family.”

  “Then allow me to conduct you to a place from which you may do so free from the importuning of persons who do such little credit to the title of Englishman as does my Lord Ingestrie.”

  With a sweep of his hand, he invited her to take the first step through the open door.

  Only after she’d accepted, crossing to the landing with a mien as lofty as any queen’s, did he think to question the wisdom of becoming even more entangled in the affairs of Fianna Cameron.

  As the carriage wheels bumped over cobbled pavement, Fianna cursed herself for a thrice-bedamned fool.

  Hadn’t she used her head-turning looks to bend a man to her will dozens, nay, hundreds of times, during her quest for retribution? Of late, she’d relied on their power so often she hardly had to think, deploying a gaze here, a touch there as instinctually as a general deployed his troops on the battlefield. Distasteful, indeed, even loathsome at times, to do it, but such qualms had never kept her from her purpose before.

  Why, then, had she scrupled to turn the force of that beauty on the man who sat across from her in the hack?

  She’d certainly beguiled far uglier men. That fat old turnkey from Kilmainham Gaol, for one, the one who’d taken Father’s money but then not given him the food or books he’d promised in return. And those three other rebels imprisoned alongside her father, who’d all pledged to stand with him in protest against English oppression, but then, as the weeks dragged on into months, begged their relatives to petition for their individual releases. She’d been all of four when that had happened, but she’d waited until time, and her looks, had ripened, then flirted and flaunted until she had each ancient apostate panting for a mere glance from her. How satisfying, to betray each in her turn, just as they’d betrayed her father, and then to write to Grandfather McCracken, sending word of the punishment God had seen fit to visit upon each sinner.

  Only by using the one execrable endowment with which the Lord had seen fit to gift her had she been able to bring such treacherous men to justice, to prove herself worthy of the McCracken name.

  Why, then, did she not have young Mr. Pennington begging even now to make her his mistress? To carry her back to his own rooms, where she might find some further clue as to the whereabouts of his uncle, instead of off to God only knew where? Or if she couldn’t bring herself to use him, why did she not tell him to instruct the hack to take her to St. Giles, where Sean O’Hamill had taken lodgings?

  Fianna stared from under lowered lashes at the man on the seat opposite, willing his eyes to hers. But unlike every other male she’d deliberately enticed, Kit Pennington did not stare back. Instead, his gaze stayed fixed on the book she’d been reading back in Seymour Street, flipping through its pages with eager interest.

  How was she to beguile a man who regarded her with such indifference? Nay, who barely regarded her at all?

  She rustled her skirts, even gave a little cough. But still his eyes did not wander.

  Might this one need to be approached through his mind, rather than his body?

  She cleared her throat. “He’s an intemperate liar, that Sir Richard. Not that an Englishman such as yourself would see it.”

  That had him raising his eyes. “Is he, now? Why then did you purchase his”—he paused, his finger tracing the title embossed on the book’s spine—“Memoirs of the Different Rebellions in Ireland?”

  “Because I wanted to see what falsehoods the English public is being fed about my country, my people.” Because she’d hoped to find mention of her father, more fool she. But none of the Northern rebels warranted mention by name, at least not in the mind of a conservative such as Sir Richard Musgrave.

  “And what lies did you discover?”

  “That the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was just a Catholic conspiracy against the Protestants, not a quest for political rights and freedom from oppression. And that all Catholics and Protestants were mortal enemies, rather than partners in calling for an end to religious discrimination and a greater franchise for the people.”

  “But Musgrave writes with such authority. And here, he vows he makes the truth his ‘polar star.’”

  Could the man truly be so naïve? Or was that a hint of irony edging his words?

  “And look, here, he writes that the officers of the military, as well as the civil magistrates, confirm the accuracy of his account.” He held out the book for her inspection.

  Yes, that merest wisp of a smile surely hinted at a far keener intellige
nce than one so easily taken in by the blatantly biased arguments of a Sir Richard Musgrave. How novel, to be invited to engage in a war of wits with a man, rather than serve as the object of his lusts. Fianna quelled the unfamiliar urge to offer her own hint of a smile in return as she took the volume from his hands.

  “Ah, the officers of the English military. But I see little mention of him speaking to any Irishmen to discover their motivations.”

  “And you have? But no, how could you? You couldn’t have been more than a babe when these events took place.”

  “A bit older than that, sir. And even the youngest child can listen to the stories her elders tell, can she not? Stories they’d never share with a man such as Sir Richard, one who deems them savages, barbarians, and fanatics.”

  “And what do you deem them?”

  Words her McCracken relatives had used when speaking of her father swirled in her brain. Courageous. Idealistic. Impetuous. Rash. She finally settled on the one nothing she could do would ever change.

  “Dead.”

  The bitterness of that one word would have pushed another man away. But she had gauged him well, this Kit Pennington. Though he sat abruptly back against the squabs, his back taut, she had seen the sudden pity flaring in his eyes.

  Sit beside him. Place your hand on his arm. Whisper in his ear.

  But somehow her body would not obey.

  Why? Why should she be plagued by such reluctance now, when her final quarry was almost within reach?

  “Where are you taking me?” No sweet whisper that, but a rasp as harsh as a file against steel.

  “To the Guardian Society.” He crossed his arms and gazed out the window. “A benevolent institution for the reform and rehabilitation of penitent prostitutes. My aunt is one of its patrons.”

  Her fisted hands pressed hard against her stomach, as if she’d received an actual blow. Mother of God, he thought her a prostitute. Of course he did. He only knew Fianna Cameron, the mask of the practiced courtesan she’d worn to lure Ingestrie, to persuade him to pay for her passage to England. Be glad that he’d never see past it, never catch sight of Máire O’Hamill, or Maria McCracken, the child and woman buried far beneath.

  Ignore that weak, gut-sick feeling. Think instead about this philanthropic aunt, the one simple enough to take pity on the fallen women of the world. A lady of such sensibility would surely be less of a threat, and far easier to fool, than the man opposite. Perhaps she might even prove to be the wife of Major Pennington.

  Yes, far better to keep this one at bay, and use her wits on another.

  It must have been the devil in her, then, that pushed the goading words from her mouth. “You think me capable of reform, do you, Mr. Pennington?”

  “All God’s creatures are capable of reform, ma’am.”

  “Capable, of course. But desirous of?”

  Good, that made his eyes widen. But after considering a moment, he shook his head. “A lady who has traded her person only to help her family is no hardened whore.”

  “And who’s to say I’ve not traded my person to others? Why, for all you know, I might have sold my body up and down the coast of Ireland long before I ever took up with young Ingestrie.”

  He shook his head. “You’ve not the look of a practiced jade.”

  “Are you so familiar with the look of a jade, sir? No wonder you think yourself unsuited to the clerical life. But then, what Englishman truly is?” Ah, that should set his hackles a-rising.

  But instead, he reached out his hands, taking one of hers in his gentle grasp. “You’ve been deeply hurt by an Englishman, haven’t you, Miss Cameron?”

  She found herself frozen in his gaze, unable even to blink. So long, it had been, so long since anyone had spoken to her thus, not with disgust or desire, but with simple kindness. Touched her intent on offering sympathy, rather than satisfying lust.

  Back in Ingestrie’s rooms, she’d accused this Kit Pennington of indifference. But his indifference wasn’t the trouble, was it? The real trouble was her own unexpected, unwelcome awareness of him, of the compassion written as clearly on his face as the crimes of a wanted man screamed from a broadsheet.

  How she longed for it, that fellow feeling, that sharing of a burden with another.

  But how quickly such compassion would be jerked away, once he discovered her true reason for pursuing him.

  With a sudden rush of breath, she pulled her hand free, staring down, away, anywhere but into the charity of his eyes.

  “A miracle, it would be, to find any Irishwoman who’d not been harmed by the English in some way or another, Mr. Pennington,” she said, her voice flattened of all emotion.

  The carriage bucked to a halt before he could answer.

  “And this must be the Guardian Society of which you spoke. Will I be able to keep my own clothing, do you think, or must I garb myself in sackcloth and ashes, like a true penitent of old?”

  He reached out for the door’s handle, but she was there before him, nearly tumbling down the metal steps in her eagerness to escape the close confines of the carriage. Yes, the sooner she could find Mr. Pennington’s aunt and play upon her sympathies, the sooner she could leave this dangerous man far behind.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Pacing back and forth like a caged beast won’t bring your brother here any sooner, Christian. Nor does it demonstrate the patience required of a successful politician. Sit down, if you please, before you wear a hole in your aunt’s carpet.”

  The sharpness of his uncle’s tone stilled Kit in his tracks. Aunt Allyne hadn’t mentioned that her boarder was having a difficult day. But the strange restlessness that had driven Kit the past week, ever since he had left Ingestrie’s mistress in the hands of the Guardian Society, would not be confined to a chair, even to soothe a fractious invalid. Instead, he perched against the sill of the bedroom window, crossing his arms over his chest to keep his hands from tapping out a rhythm as irritating to his uncle as the pound of boots across the floor.

  The sooner Theo agreed to support his political aspirations, the sooner Kit could travel back to Lincolnshire and begin the work of canvassing for support. Lincolnshire would be a welcome distance from London and from the all-too-alluring Fianna Cameron. More than once this week he’d found his steps taking him in the unlikely direction of the Guardian Society, even though his inquiries at the War Office had yet to be answered. The lust inspired by that sharp, icy beauty—against that he could stand firm. Why, then, should a mere hint of sadness, one that had fluttered across her face when he’d asked about the pains of her own past, prove so much harder to resist?

  Kit pushed aside the curtain yet again to look for a sign of his brother. But the street below remained cursedly empty.

  “You’re certain it was the fourth and not the fifth?” he asked.

  The Colonel shook a piece of foolscap in Kit’s direction. “The fourth of March, clear as day. But look yourself if you think me so feeble as to misread your brother’s own hand.”

  “No, no, of course I believe you. And being in good time was never one of Theo’s virtues. But I did think he’d show more respect to you than to forget the appointment completely.”

  “Not everyone regards their elders with as much consideration as you do, Christian. Witness Ingestrie, Earl Talbot’s heir, kicking over the traces in Ireland when the poor man had all he could do to keep the peace in that godforsaken land. At least he’s back now in a civilized country, where a man can exert due control over his wayward sons.”

  Kit rose, striding back toward his uncle’s bedside. Had the earl’s talk extended to his wayward son’s mistress?

  “Did the earl pay you a visit, sir? Tell me, what news had he of the unrest in Ireland?”

  “Now, no more of that political talk, boys, not when Mr. Acheson has come for a match with the Colonel,” Aunt Allyne said, bustling into the room with a chessboard in hand.

  Kit bowed to his uncle’s physician, a man whom his uncle would only allow in his
rooms on the pretext of a game of chess. If Aunt Allyne had thought it necessary to summon Acheson, his uncle must be feeling far worse than Kit had realized.

  “My apologies, Uncle, for taking up your morning on this sleeveless errand. Shall I send a note to Saybrook and arrange another time for us to meet?”

  Uncle Christopher gave a short nod, his lips pursed tight. Against pain? Kit cursed himself for an unobservant fool as he followed his aunt from the room.

  “Why did you not inform me, ma’am, that my uncle felt poorly?” Kit asked as they reached the bottom of the narrow staircase. “I could easily have postponed our meeting until another day.”

  “Oh yes, feeling poorly, to be sure, Christian,” Great-Aunt Allyne answered, her brow furrowed. “What a sad excuse for a nurse you must think me, not to realize the pain the boy must be suffering. But he never spoke a word of it, truly, not to me, at least, and not to Peg, either, for all the silly creature must have seen the blood on the bedsheets when she changed them this morning. And to think I would have missed it, too, if I had not taken a moment from my packing to make sure that wasteful girl did not use too much lye in the washing.”

  Blood. From bedsores? Or something worse?

  Damn his uncle for valuing his privacy over his health. But haranguing poor Aunt Allyne would do little to persuade the Colonel to be more forthcoming.

  Before the diminutive woman could set off on another self-deprecating lament, Kit placed an arm around her and gave a reassuring squeeze. “Do not trouble yourself, Aunt. Acheson’s sure to have him on the mend before you even leave for Lincolnshire.”

  “But there is so much to do before I may even step foot in the post-chaise!” Aunt Allyne gave a deep sigh. “Saybrook depends upon me not just to bring your sister from Lincolnshire to London, but to oversee the hiring of more staff for the London house, and to ensure it is in a fit state for entertaining. And how can I depend on Peg to properly convey Mr. Acheson’s instructions after this morning’s debacle with the sheets? Oh dear, how long does it take to play a round of chess?”