Patrica Rice (23 page)

He wondered if Blanche would visit him in the Tower if he was charged with treason.

“Dillian, you know perfectly well you and Madeline are the only reasons I allowed those ninnyhammers to talk me into staying prisoner in my own home.” Blanche pounded the bass keys of her pianoforte. “Madeline seems quite recovered and never looked peaked at all. And if you continue pacing that way, I’ll become convinced this is all a hoax and take myself into London immediately.”

“Anglesey’s fresh air is doing me a world of good,” Dillian replied absently, glancing at the ormolu clock on the mantel. “And you shouldn’t speak so harshly of Allendale and Benington. They’ve done their best entertaining us while the Season is at its finest.”

“That’s because their creditors can’t find them here and they’re eating and sleeping for free,” Blanche said dryly, picking out a tune on the pianoforte. “They’re like the brothers I never had, but they’re still harboring some foolish notion that I’ll choose between them.”

Dillian dropped into a damask-covered chair and clasped her hands. “And will you not? They’re perfectly agreeable gentlemen and willing to permit you control of the purse strings. Isn’t that what you wanted?

Blanche picked out a brief refrain. “Do I want a biddable husband? What is the point? I can do as I wish without marrying. Why should I saddle myself with someone who will only interfere with my life and expect things of me that I’m not willing to give?”

Dillian watched her shrewdly. “If you want children, you must take some man to bed. Did you have some other in mind?”

“Not Allendale or Benington,” Blanche said curtly. “If you’re feeling well enough to tax me with this nonsense, then you are feeling well enough to be left here alone. I really must go into London. The stewards my solicitor keeps sending for interviews are thoroughly hopeless. I must find someone who will listen to my ideas. I can’t do that while sitting in the country.”

“If I’m feeling stronger on the morrow, I will come with you,” Dillian assured her. “I’ve asked Gavin to look around for someone. You do not set him an easy task.”

An ominously low chord emanated from the pianoforte. “No, of course not. What sensible man would listen to a woman’s opinion? And besides, Gavin no doubt concerns himself overmuch with Neville’s dinner tonight, is that not so?”

Dillian started nervously, glancing at Blanche before reaching for her sewing basket. “Of course not. What makes you say that? I’m not even certain Gavin will attend.”

“Dillian, you always were a poor liar.” Giving up, Blanche slammed the pianoforte lid and rose from the bench. “Where are our incompetent bodyguards tonight? Stationing the militia on the grounds?” She didn’t miss Dillian’s nervous twitch as she hit the target. “Do you think me a complete imbecile? Admittedly, I foolishly fell for Michael’s assurances that he needed my help in finding Fiona. But after spending weeks trying to reach London only to be carted off to Anglesey by you and my eager suitors, I’m not so deluded. I haven’t been to town in well over a month. Neville’s dinner party is tonight. And you expect Fiona’s radicals to attend. Don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re babbling about.” Dillian fixed her with a glare. “And what is this about helping Michael find Fiona? You were with him that week, weren’t you? Blanche, how could you?”

Blanche waved a hand in dismissal. “Don’t distract me. I know that ploy too well. What is happening back there, Dillian? Is there really any danger?” She ran her hand over the pianoforte’s lid, avoiding Dillian’s watchful gaze. She’d removed Michael’s ring weeks ago and had no intention of ever speaking to him again, but she couldn’t help worrying. He’d gone far out of his way in seeing her safe at Anglesey and out of trouble. She would wring his neck for that. But she wanted to be the one murdering him. She didn’t want anyone else doing it for her.

Dillian gave up her innocent pose now that nothing could be done. She dropped her sewing in her lap. “I don’t think there’s any danger, but Gavin wouldn’t tell me if there were. They just don’t want to take any chances. Fiona said you were a possible target, and they didn’t want to worry about you while they went about stopping the others. Do you hate me terribly?”

“No, I’m just sorry everyone thinks I’m such a helpless goose that I must be protected at all costs. You’ve spent weeks here for no reason when I’m sure you’d much rather be with Gavin. And I could have been looking for a new man of business. And I would have liked to know more about Fiona. I suppose she’ll disappear back to Ireland after this.” Casually, Blanche asked, “Do you think Michael fancies her?”

Fiona was the only reason she could think of that would summon Michael back to London in such a hurry that he would leave her in the care of a coachman while he went rattling off on his own. She didn’t like thinking it.

She didn’t know Fiona well. She didn’t even know the girl’s age. But the resemblance between the two was unmistakable. Michael had grown up in America with the Lawrence family, so a family resemblance to the Irish girl wasn’t likely. But she suspected a similarity of the soul called them together. She couldn’t say that of Michael and herself. They had nothing in common but their physical desires.

Blanche stopped her hand from traveling to the flat space between her hip bones. It was too soon to tell. She’d missed monthlies before. Terror that they might have created a child warred with the first sprouting hope that she had actually accomplished what she had set out to do.

”I don’t think Michael fancies Fiona any more than he fancies any of his other waifs.” Dillian watched her with curiosity. “What happened between the two of you? I won’t tell, Blanche, but I worry for you.”

“Nothing happened,” Blanche answered airily. “Michael was the perfect gentleman as always. It’s just best if Neville doesn’t know. He wouldn’t understand.”

“Neither would most of society,” Dillian grumbled, picking up her sewing again. “You cannot go about with Michael as if he were your brother. He’s not, and it’s best you remember it. Michael might carry the conscience of a saint, but he’s a man. Men have weaknesses of which you know nothing.”

Oh, yes, she knew something of men’s weaknesses. And of her own. She shouldn’t risk further involvement with a man who spent his life rescuing the world at the expense of all close to him.

Blanche returned to the pianoforte and rippled the keys again. Maybe he would go back to Ireland with Fiona after tonight. And she would make plans for the Continent.

* * *

Wearing ragpicker’s clothes, sitting in a drafty attic with Fiona, Michael fingered the dainty square of perfumed lawn in his pocket. He’d found Blanche’s handkerchief among his effects, reminding him of how intimately they’d shared their lives for a few halcyon days. How had he left a lady’s bed to end up in this filthy attic with a nest of dangerous rebels below?

“I’m in favor of letting them all hang,” Michael muttered as still another of the fools stood to speechify about the noble cause of the poor and downtrodden.

Fiona held a finger to her lips and pointed to the hole in the floor she’d been peering through. “Eamon’s arrived.”

Michael sighed and checked the placement of his array of tricks. They had reluctantly concluded they had no chance of talking all the radicals out of destruction, but they might end their dastardly plans by removing their munitions expert from the scene. Unfortunately, Eamon O’Connor had been remarkably elusive until tonight.

Eamon was a man of few words. The glorified speeches ended with his arrival. The leaders proceeded to give their orders. With Fiona’s help, Michael could have handed this whole group over to Neville’s men, but he’d promised her he would end the plot without turning the conspirators over to British justice. If she had family involved in this, he couldn’t tell. He didn’t want to know. The time had come to take out Eamon.

Fiona caught Michael’s arm as he stood up. “They could implicate my uncle and brother,” she whispered urgently, as if reading his thoughts. “Please be careful.”

So, there it was. Not just Eamon, but her family, too. Nodding curtly, Michael slipped from the attic to the darkened landing.

Neville had soldiers patrolling both alley and his townhouse. The radicals in the room below didn’t have a rat’s chance of escaping the noose should he, or anyone else, sound the alarm about their nefarious plot. Somehow, he must convince them to abandon their plans without anyone getting killed.

He slipped down the stairs to the hall outside the meeting room. Faded wallpaper hung in tatters from the walls of the abandoned tenement. A single sconce illuminated a darkened water stain along the ceiling. Sitting on the floor cross-legged so he seemed slight and less harmless, Michael could see layers of dust and filth and more than a few rat droppings. Fiona had lived here for weeks. He grimaced and shook his head, knowing he’d done the same. He’d hoped he was older and smarter these days.

Detaching a metal pan from the rope at his waist, he set it on the floor, then scattered a handful of dry ingredients from the chemist’s into it. He wasn’t a man of science, but he’d learned a thing or two from a traveling medicine show. If Eamon really knew his business, he’d have his attention swift enough.

Setting fire to the chemicals, Michael sat back against the wall and warmed his hands at the blaze. The odor would choke a sewer, but he’d come prepared with a heavy muffler perfumed with Dillian’s lavender water. He’d survive.

Coughing soon ensued in the closed room beyond as Michael idly fanned the smoke in that direction. A scraping of chairs followed, and he settled into his new role.

A thin man in a frock coat frayed at sleeves and elbow appeared in the doorway. Michael knew he couldn’t count on Eamon arriving first, but he’d lure him out. He scratched at the gray wig hiding his head and half his face and glanced up at the intruder. “Keepin’ off from the bloody soldiers, too, ain’t you? They’ll likely lock us all up afore dawn iffen they dunt find their fella.”

“What the hell is that you’re cooking?” the man in the frayed coat demanded. “It smells like rotten eggs. Be off with you now. This place is taken.”

Michael studied the tattered walls and broken windows and gave a gaped-tooth grin. “Taken by me, it is. And a few rats, likely. Grew up here, I did, ’til I got ’pressed leastways. Docks full of soldiers tonight. Must be expectin’ Frenchies. Got a drop of gin on ye? Mighty cold in these old bones.”

By this time, the smoke had everyone in the far room choking. A hoarse voice shouted at the thin man to shut the door. Before he could do so, a larger man elbowed past him.

Recognizing Eamon’s black curls and chiseled chin, Michael threw a handful of chemicals on the dying fire. The embers roared into a blazing flame that nearly singed his eyebrows. He sat back hastily to keep his wig from going up with it.

Cursing, Eamon stamped out the blaze with his heavy boots and aimed a kick at Michael for good measure. Michael leaped to a wooden crate, and the kick merely earned Eamon a stubbed toe.

“Are ye after burnin’ the place down, ye old fool?” Eamon cried in exasperation.

“Mr. O’Connor, and it is a rare plasure to be meetin’ you at last,” Michael responded. “A fair lady was by way of telling me yer troubles. She fears for yer worthless neck, she does, and that of her only brother’s.”

Both men stopped cold and stared. Michael gathered his ragged woolen coat with some semblance of dignity but kept his position on the crate. “Are ye dumbstruck then, at the thought of a fair lass lookin’ after ye? She says as ye once pushed her little swing as a lad. She would not see yer neck in a noose if she can help it.”

“Fiona,” Eamon spat out. “I knew it! Where the bleedin’ hell is she?”

“Lookin’ after yer fine neck, it seems to me,” Michael said equably. “As well as her brother’s,” he added to be honest. “The duke has a list of names and ye’re all on it,” he lied gleefully. “Just look out the windows. His men are after lookin’ for ye now. Unlike ye silly stumps, the lass courts friends with power.”

The thin man cursed and hurried to warn his coughing comrades. Eamon remained.

“I will not believe Fiona turned us in,” Eamon said stubbornly.

“That she did not,” Michael agreed. “But the duke has spies everywhere. As I said, the lass doesna wish ye to hang, but the duke knows your name.” That should scare the fool. “He did not take kindly to your terrifying his lady cousin. ’Twas a shameless thing ye did there, O’Connor. The lady works as we speak to right the wrongs her grandfaither made.”

“Who the divil are ye?” Eamon stepped forward to grab Michael’s collar.

A flick of Michael’s wrist sent a column of smoke soaring between them. Coughing, backing out of the smoke and wiping his eyes, Eamon stumbled into the crowd of men hastily donning their coats and looking for escape. When Eamon reached for the gray-haired apparition again, he was gone.

“Red coats in the alley,” a ghostly voice reminded them from above. “Spies in your midst!”

From a distant corner of the ceiling a more feminine voice joined in cheerily, “I hear France is quite nice this time of year.”

As men fled by back doors and windows, scampering across alleyways and trash bins, Eamon O’Connor dashed for the attic.

He found only a beggar’s wool coat and a gray wig for his efforts.

“Well, I’m happy to hear it was a lot of to-do about nothing,” Dillian exclaimed as she straightened her skirt and took a seat on the sofa one mid-May morning after the crisis had passed. “Neville has had his important dinner without anyone blowing up the prime minister. Now we must think what to do about Fiona. She cannot continue running about the city like a ragamuffin.”

“I’ll return her to Ireland where she belongs,” Michael replied absently, not looking up from the papers in front of him. Restlessly, he set aside his pen and strode to the window. To keep from clasping and unclasping his fist, he fingered the cloth in his pocket. “The radicals may have left London, but they’re out there somewhere, burning with the fires of injustice. I don’t suppose Neville has changed his position any?”