A Rebel Without a Rogue (6 page)

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.”

“Is he, now? And cannot the lovely
cailín
do the honors?” the stranger asked, nodding toward Miss Cameron, who stood a bit apart from their group. “I’d wager my last groat that she’s the blood of the Irish flowing through her veins.”

All the antiquarians had responded to Fianna Cameron’s disquieting beauty in one way or another—darting glances, shuffling papers, a quick hand smoothing over an unruly head of hair. And even Sam, usually indifferent to the attractions of the fairer sex, kept turning his head in her direction before jerking it back to the conversation of the men.

But none had the effrontery to stare at her the way this O’Hamill did.

Oddly, though, nothing of lust, nor even of admiration, warmed his eyes. His workingman’s clothes, his grim, creased face, both said here was a man inured not just to want, but to the deadening certainty of want ever unsatisfied. But still he stared at her, his eyes narrowed, considering. What could he mean by it?

With a frown, Kit made the introductions. Neither Miss Cameron nor Mr. O’Hamill gave any indication that they knew one another, but tension still charged the air. Kit made sure to keep himself between the burly man and the far smaller woman. To reassure her? Or to warn O’Hamill off? He wasn’t quite certain.

“I’ve no knowledge of the Gaelic, alas,” Miss Cameron said, eyes downcast. “Mr. Pennington had hoped these kind gentlemen might be able to aid him.”

“But your antiquarians, even the Anglo-Irish ones, rarely have much facility with the language, do they?” the man answered, his smile edged more with contempt than collegiality.

“But they’ve been kind enough to recommend your skills,” Kit replied before any of the antiquarians could take offense. “Might you be able to oblige?” Kit gestured to a table apart from the others.

“Your servant, sir.” Turning to Callendar, O’Hamill added, “Please, do not hold off on your meeting for my sake. I’ll join you presently.”

“Mr. Pennington, do not hesitate to call on us if you find you need the advice of an educated man,” Callendar called before turning back to his group. Miss Cameron’s mouth tightened, but O’Hamill’s steps did not even pause. Had the Irishman become so used to such casual slights as to render them insignificant?

Kit reached to pull out a chair for Miss Cameron, but O’Hamill was quicker. Kit’s jaw clenched at the sight of the Irishman’s hands as they remained on the back of her chair, even after she’d taken her seat. It would hardly be gentlemanlike to point out the impropriety of how close they were to her person. Especially if Miss Cameron did not object. Kit scraped his own chair across the floor and sat down opposite her.

Sam hovered beside the table. “Is this a private matter, Kit? Uncle’s asked me to write an article for the paper about Mr. O’Hamill’s efforts on behalf of Ireland’s poor, but I’ve no need to intrude upon your concerns.”

“Please, Sam, sit down. You may be of as much help as either Miss Cameron or Mr. O’Hamill, as you were actually there when the shooting took place.”

“Shooting?” O’Hamill’s work-roughened hands flattened on the table. “You begin to interest me, sir. Come, tell me all about it.”

Between them, Kit and Sam related the events that had occurred at the Crown and Anchor a week earlier. O’Hamill listened intently, his occasional interruptions to clarify a point or to draw out a pertinent detail demonstrating a quick, analytical turn of mind. Miss Cameron remained silent.