A Rebel Without a Rogue

by Bliss Bennet

  “Fianna,” he whispered, entreaty entangling with command. “Touch me. Want me, as I want you.”

  Kit held his breath for what seemed hours, watching her eyes widen, the black of the pupils almost eclipsing the green. He swallowed as her hand finally, gently, cupped his jaw.

  “I am. I do.”

  A heady rush of triumph washed through him as he scooped up the warmth of her into his arms, a rush that only grew stronger at her cry of welcome surprise. Without haste, he made his way down the passageway, shouldering open the bedchamber door, kicking it closed behind him. Kneeling on the bed, he set her atop the coverlet, holding still as her slim hands gingerly pushed aside his coat, then worked at the stiff buttons on his waistcoat.

  “May I?” he asked, fingers itching at the ties of her gown. At her nod, he pulled the knots free, quickly unlacing until the fabric fell open and down over her slim shoulders. She wore no stays, only a thin chemise held closed by a pale green ribbon.

  As she worked, he toyed with that ribbon, undoing its bow, sliding its tip down the column of her neck, tracing it over the seductive arch of her brow. She shivered, but remained intent on her own task, tugging at his recalcitrant neckcloth with tantalizing, persistent fingers.

  When at last it drew free, she murmured in satisfaction, then slowly pulled at the ties of his shirt. As it, too, fell open, she mimicked his actions, drawing one tie with painstaking care across his left collarbone, then the right, until he, too, began to shiver. He wanted to close his eyes, to concentrate solely on the sensation of touch, but he forced them to stay open, unwilling to give up the sight of her, so serious, so intent. But when her tongue began to follow the tie, tracing a warm, slick path up his throat, up the line of his jaw, his lids lowered of their own accord, his neck arching in response.

  As she moved the tie to tickle against the lobe of his ear, he growled and pushed aside her hand. Clutching the tails of his shirt with both hands, he yanked the linen over his head, baring himself to her gaze.

  His hands clenched as she took him in, drawing her gaze over the planes of his chest, the muscles in his abdomen and arms. Those green eyes darted lower, just for an instant, to the bulge behind the fall of his trousers. His cock tightened in greedy response, straining for freedom against the constraint.

  Her eyes fixed on his, Fianna shrugged against her shift. His own eyes followed the garment’s path as it slid slowly, so slowly, down her arms, over the small mounds of her breasts, falling to pool in a puddle of white around her slim hips.

  “Touch me,” she said, even as her own hand, light as a dragonfly, skimmed over his chest.

  He reached out then, each hand cupping the weight of a breast, marveling at their curves, at the responsiveness of each rosy tip as he circled it with the pad of a thumb. When his fingers caught a nipple between them, she moaned, the sound vibrating deep in her throat. His grin of satisfaction disappeared, though, when her hands jerked away to cover her mouth. Did she think to push the too-revealing sound back from whence it had come?

  “Fianna,” he said, one hand tilting her chin up so he might meet her eyes. “I want to know what pleases you. What makes you groan with wanting. What will make you come apart in my arms. Tell me.” Placing her hand over his free one, he then moved both back to the swell of her bosom. “Show me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Fianna watched a shaft of sun drift over the drowsing form of the man beside her. She had been made for the shadows, for the murky dark of overcast days and moonless nights, but Kit had been formed for the glories of the light. It limned his curls, the whorls of hair on his chest, even his eyelashes, adorning each with hints of gold, as if he were a page she’d stolen from the Book of Kells.

  She reached out a finger, skimming it over the very tips of his lashes, as if she might sweep free a tiny speck of that light for herself. But it came away empty. Of course. It was simply a trick of the sun, after all. She couldn’t steal it, or him, not his warmth, not his heart. Only bask in them for a while, until the shadows claimed her once more.

  With a sigh, she lay her head down on his shoulder, her hand tracing circles on his chest.

  An arm stole around her shoulders, pulling her body close against his. The pad of a thumb stroked against her temple, then toyed with the damp curls beside her ear. She closed her eyes as his head turned, his lips and nose burrowing deep in her hair.

  “Did I please you?” he whispered.

  Oh, the vanity of the man! As if he hadn’t even been there in the bed beside her, a witness to her hedonistic cries, to her body shuddering so completely beyond her control. Even now, she could barely believe she’d allowed herself the luxury of indulging her desire. With men she’d only seduced out of vengeance, disgust, at both them and herself, had made it easy to keep her own passions firmly in check. And with Ingestrie, disgust had been sharpened by discomfort and pain—she never would have persuaded him to bring her to England if she had complained about his dreadful lack of skill.

  When Ingestrie would lift his clumsy weight off her and roll to his side of the bed, she’d always felt a sense of reprieve, the bone-deep relief of a sinner finally freed from the stocks. But when Kit had pushed up on his elbows, whispering worries about crushing her, she’d pulled him back, one hand on his head, the other on his tight, round buttocks, not nearly ready to give up the comforts of his body. He’d laughed then, his breath warm against her neck, and rolled them both until her weight rested atop him.

  “Heartkin? Did I please you?” he asked again.

  Had he pleased her, indeed.

  “Well enough,” she replied in as dampening a tone as she could muster. Best to turn the conversation in a less dangerous direction. “But what is this word, heartkin? I’ve not heard it before.”

  He laughed, the rumble in his chest echoing against her cheek. “A love word, an endearment of my mother’s. She only used it when speaking to my father, never to my brothers or sister or me. I think I rather envied him, having that word all to himself.”

  Nodding proved difficult with her head pressed in the crook of his arm. “Ah. Mo chroide.”

  “Ma chree?”

  “Yes. What my mother called my father. Of my heart.”

  He fell silent for a moment, his hand resting against the curve of her shoulder. “She loved him that much? Even though he wouldn’t marry her?”

  Fianna sighed. “I suppose she must have. But what does a child know of her parents’ hearts?”

  “Does she never speak of him, then?”

  “I do not know,” she said, the words thick in her throat. “I’ve not seen her since I was a child.”

  He inhaled sharply. “Was she hanged, as well as your father?”

  “No. But once the English soldiers had finished dealing with the rebellion’s leaders, she feared they’d turn their attention to those who had aided and abetted them. And so they fled.”

  “They?”

  “Yes. My mother, and her father, and her brother.” How strange, to speak of them and not receive a quelling frown in return.

  “But not you?”

  “No. My aunt Mary, my father’s sister, agreed to give them coin, enough for passage to America. But I remained in Ireland, with my father’s people.”

  She’d spoken in a flat, even voice, one that kept her emotions closely in check. But still his arms tightened around her. “They left you behind?”

  “What kind of life could I expect, being raised by unlettered Irish peasants in a foreign, heathen land? Far better to accept the protection of the McCrackens, safe in familiar Belfast. They gave me warm clothes, good food, and an education that would allow me to make my way in the world as a gentlewoman. Just as my father would have wanted. Even my mother agreed it was for the best, Aunt McCracken said.”

  “Did she?” An unfamiliar undercurrent of anger edged Kit’s voice. He rolled her to her back and propped himself on his elbow by her side. “And did you believe her?”

  Fianna stared at his
frowning face. “My aunt was a God-fearing woman. What cause would she have to lie?”

  Kit waved a hand. “To shield herself from her own unkindness, perhaps? For it was unkind—no, more than unkind, it was a damned cruelty—to force a woman to give up a child in order to save the lives of a father and a brother.”

  On the most difficult days of her childhood, those days when the townspeople whispered bastard behind her back and Grandfather McCracken’s gaze skimmed right over her as if she did not even exist, Fianna often consoled herself by imagining a tearful Mairead begging and pleading with Aunt Mary to be allowed to take her child with her. She’d always felt sinful, afterward; her aunt and grandfather had saved her mother, and her mother’s family, at great risk to themselves. To imagine their rescue as a crass exchange, or even worse, a bribe or a threat—no, it had simply been unthinkable to a child dependent upon their care.

  But even if her mother had been compelled to leave without her, did that mean she had not grieved for her loss? Was there not room in a woman’s heart for love and sorrow, as well as for fear?

  Would Fianna herself not feel both when it came time for her to leave Kit?

  Kit caught her cheek in a palm, turning her eyes to his. “Your mother loved you, Fianna. I have not the least doubt of it. And neither should you.”

  He made it sound so simple. So obvious. Was this what it would be like, to truly belong to a family? To be comforted, reassured, sheltered from hurt, even when one did not in the least deserve it? Or was it only because it had been Kit who had spoken the words, offered the comfort? Would she always feel so safe, if she knew she would wake up to find him beside her every morning?

  She jerked her head free of his hand and rolled to her side, shunting away the ridiculous thought. If the son of a Presbyterian merchant could not fathom bringing a Catholic peasant girl into his family, how much more preposterous to imagine the son of an English viscount welcoming an illegitimate Irish whore into his?

  And why should she even want to tie herself to a family who claimed as one of its own the very man who had murdered her father? Would she betray Aidan McCracken, then, just as surely as had the men upon whom she’d wreaked retribution?

  A warm hand stroked down her back. “Fianna—”

  “It matters little whether she loved me or no,” she interrupted, jerking away from the bed and reaching for her shift, which had fallen to the floor. “It’s the McCrackens with whom she left me, and it’s to the McCrackens I must return. Though whether they’ll accept me empty-handed, I’ve no idea.”

  She’d whispered the last words to herself, but he still must have heard. “Accept you? After forcing your mother to abandon you, did they then have the gall to make you feel unwelcome?”

  “Unwelcome? They gave me shelter, and sent me to the meetinghouse and to school. Far more than many a peasant child ever receives. What more of a welcome could I expect?”

  “What more, indeed,” he answered, sitting up on the side of the bed to pull on his trousers. “And so you thought to buy your way into their hearts by killing your father’s executioner?”

  She stilled, pinned by his words. He made it sound so crude, as if an act of justice were some low, mercantile exchange. As if she’d disappointed him in some deeply important way. How dare he?

  “I thought to support my family by redressing an injustice,” she bit out, yanking her gown over her head. “To wipe away the care from my aunt’s eyes, and make the smile return to my grandfather’s face. The Penningtons are not the only ones who hold family loyalty dear, you know.”

  “But violence isn’t the only way to right a wrong, Fianna,” he said, pulling her closer to tighten her laces. “And rarely the best way, for it only leads to more of the same.”

  “Oh, and what would you do if your father’s name had been smeared in the mud, and he were no longer alive to demand satisfaction from those spreading the lies?” she tossed over her shoulder.

  “I’d refuse to listen to such low gossip. Shun anyone who did,” he answered, tying off the laces and tucking them under her skirt.

  She crossed to the dresser, where one of her stockings lay. “Ah, there speaks a man who has never felt the lash of disrespect. Simply ignoring gossip doesn’t keep it from spreading. Or keep those who listen to it from shunning those caught in its net.”

  “All right, then,” he said, rising to pace the room, his feet and torso bare. “What of this? I’d gossip, too, but I’d tell the truth. Tell it to everyone. Holler it from the rooftops. Make a sermon of it. No, I’d print it up on broadsides and hang them all about the town. Especially across from the houses of the ones spreading the lies.”

  He looked so alive, so eager, with that wide, determined smile, those arms gesturing as if he might pull in the entire world and make it believe whatever he would. A soldier of words, armed with broadsides and hammer, not pistol or sword.

  Why could she not summon the scorn that such naïveté deserved? She shook her head as she reached for her other stocking, the one he’d abandoned on the counterpane, then sat on the chair beside the bed. Before she had the chance to pull it on, though, Kit knelt in front of her, a pamphlet waving from his fist.

  “Do you have any of your father’s letters? You could publish them, just like Henry Hunt did after he was sent to prison for his role at Peterloo. Or you could write his life story. You said that fellow who wrote Memoirs of the Different Rebellions in Ireland told only one side. Why should you not tell the other?”

  “A biography, of my father?” Her brow furrowed. “Who would be interested in reading such a thing, never mind printing it? No one in Ireland would dare.”

  “The press in England is restricted, too,” Kit said, sitting back on his heels. “But not so tightly controlled as it is in your country. Why, I know any number of printers here who would be more than eager to pay for such an account. Do you remember Sam Wooler? His uncle publishes a radical journal, and I’m sure he’d be eager to include articles detailing the life of a man who played such a key role in Irish reform efforts. You could even have them printed as a book.”

  He sat forward, his hands gripping her knees. “Imagine handing such a volume to that grandfather you’re so eager to please. Far more likely to bring a smile to his face, I’d warrant, than my uncle’s head on a platter.”

  A frown began to form on her lips. But before they could shape a denial, he pressed a finger against them. “Don’t say no, not yet. Not without considering the idea first. Come, we’ll find Sam and meet with his uncle, and then you can decide.”

  He slipped on her stockings, tied her garters, and slid her shoes onto her feet, all before the tingle of his touch faded from her lips. Had she ever met a man of such unbridled optimism? It would almost be worth it, indulging his fantastic scheme, if it would bring such a smile to his face. What harm could it do to grant him a day, or two at most? It would give her time enough to think, to come up with a plan for what she might do with the rest of her life, now that retribution had slipped beyond her grasp.

  And so when he stood, holding out his hand to her as if he were a gentleman requesting a dance at a ball, she placed her own within it, and allowed him to pull her in his wake.

  “Thank you, Mr. MacGowan, for sharing your memories of my father. I’d no idea he’d traveled to Scotland to recruit workers displaced by the Highland Clearances.”

  Even now, after he’d spent more than a fortnight as her lover, the sight of Fianna Cameron’s rarely bestowed smile still set Kit’s insides all a-tumble. At present, her smile wasn’t even aimed at him, but at the garrulous older man whom they’d been questioning. Only after a moment of standing transfixed could Kit shake himself free of its enthralling charm. Poor MacGowan, however, remained impolitely fixed in his chair long after Fianna had risen.

  Kit exchanged an amused glance with Sam Wooler as they waited for MacGowan to regain his wits. Once Kit had told Sam of Fianna’s connection to the Irish rebel McCracken, Sam and his printer uncle had
done everything they could to help advance the project of writing the man’s life history, including inquiring amongst all their radical acquaintances for any who might have known him. Over the past fortnight, Sam had brought several such men to meet with them in Kit’s rooms, including MacGowan, who had once worked in the McCrackens’ Belfast mill. As he had promised his uncle, he’d kept an ear attuned for word of political plots, but neither MacGowan nor any of the other fellows with whom they’d spoken had even mentioned the United Irishmen or their rebellious cause.

  The old Scot had not been intimidated by his Mayfair surroundings, nor by the questions of a woman with the beauty and imperiousness of a monarch, as had most of the other men Sam had found. No, for nearly two hours MacGowan had told stories of Fianna’s father without pause. But the sudden warmth of her smile, so unexpected in the midst of such a cool, collected face, seemed to have finally tied the poor man’s tongue.

  “How cruel, that tenants of such long standing could be summarily displaced, just to give their lands over to the grazing of sheep,” Kit finally interposed.

  MacGowan shook his head, as if waking from a spell, then scrambled upright. “Aye, sir, terrible cruel. Never thought I’d see the day when a laird would care more for a dumb animal than for a hardworking crofter. Nothing like your father, miss, those mean, miserly men who cleared us from their lands,” he added, swinging back to Fianna like a compass point drawn to the north. “He never promised Belfast’d be anything like the Highlands, not like those false sayers who swore we’d grow fat on the land they forced us onto. Barren as an old crone’s womb, wasn’t it, though? Better to emigrate than to starve, McCracken said, and gave us his word that work at the mill in Ireland would pay well enough. And so it did.”

  The more he learned about Aidan McCracken, the more Kit’s admiration for Fianna’s father grew. That a man such as the one described by MacGowan—an intelligent, capable man who interacted with the poor with a rare ease, who did something, rather than just lamented over the plight of the displaced—should in the end succumb to the temptation of violence filled Kit with frustration and regret.