A Rebel Without a Rogue (21 page)

Kit circled an encouraging hand over her back.

Fianna took a deep breath, pinching her eyes shut. It was easier to speak without his clear blue eyes staring at her undeserving soul.

“So many assumed I’d been born evil—a bastard, the devil’s spawn,” she murmured. “But
Dadaí
would never tax me with my sins.
Máire
, he’d cry, pulling me up into his arms whenever he came to visit.
What good deeds has my sweet
cailín
done today?
”

“Is that your true name?” Kit asked. “Máire?”

She trembled to hear the Gaelic syllables on his English lips. “Máire was the name my mother gave me. Though no Catholic priest nor Presbyterian elder would allow me to be baptized with it.”

She felt him stiffen beneath her. In anger? Or in sympathy? But his voice was even as he asked, “Your parents never married?”

She shook her head. “Aidan McCracken might have believed with all his heart that the Anglicans, Dissenters, and Catholics should unite in order to throw off the yoke of English rule. Yet somehow the son of a prominent Presbyterian manufacturer could never quite bring himself to wed an illiterate Irish Catholic.”

“Then your real name—it’s not McCracken?”

What might her life have been like, if her parents had married? If she’d been born a McCracken, rather than an O’Hamill? If Grandfather McCracken had openly claimed her mother as daughter-in-law, had given her the protection of the McCracken name, would Mairead have stayed in Ireland? Or would the memories of her dead lover still have been too painful, the sight of his child too much to bear? Even then, would her mother have left her behind?

“True name, real name?” she scoffed. “What matters the name, if no one cares enough to claim the person who owns it?”

“Would your father have claimed you, if he’d not died?”

Fianna rubbed a fold of Kit’s neckcloth between her fingers. “I like to think he would. Would a kind man reject his own flesh and blood?”

“Kind,” he echoed, doubt in his tone. “I can’t help but find it difficult to picture a man of kindness leading peasants into armed conflict.” Kit’s thumb stroked down and up her temple, soothing away the sting of his words.

“But he was more than just kind,” she protested. “He threw himself wholeheartedly into everything—political debates, discussion about the family’s linen manufactory, arguments over how to alleviate poverty and injustice. He had high spirits, and charm, and more courage than anyone she ever knew, his sister always told me.”

“Not a peasant, then. How did such a man come to agitate on behalf of the poor?”

“He’d been sent to Scotland, to recruit workers for the family’s cotton mill,” she said, her words coming with more ease as the old stories flooded her mind. “And when he returned to Belfast, he started the first Sunday school for the impoverished. Not just Presbyterians, but anyone who wanted to learn how to read and to write, so they might gain knowledge for themselves, no matter what religious sect they embraced. He believed with all his heart that if Christians living in Ireland would only join together, they could throw off the tyranny of English rule.” She smiled, even now so proud of his boldness, his vision. “That’s why he helped to found the Society of United Irishmen. Because he believed in a genuine brotherhood of man, irrespective of religion.”

“But what of the violent protests of the Catholics? The burning of cottages, the destroying of crops, the brawling and killing? Did he condone it? Did he participate in it?”

“Ah yes, the English do so like to believe it was only the Catholics who turned to violence.” When had her voice grown so bitter? She took a deep, calming breath. “But the Protestants did their fair share of maiming and killing, too, though the government-run newspapers never reported it. And of course, whenever culprits were caught and tried, Protestants were always found innocent, while Catholics ended up in gaol or sentenced to death. The magistrates were all from landed families, weren’t they? Protestant families, who would convict a Catholic on the flimsiest of evidence. No, my father did not participate in mob violence, but he did extend substantial sums to meet the legal expenses of the unjustly accused.”

Kit sat in silence for a long while, considering. “But he did participate in the rebellion,” he said. “Did more than participate, according to my uncle. In the north, he was its leader.”

“Yes, but not out of liking for the role,” she said. “The man originally appointed general of Down was arrested before the uprising began, and then the general for Antrim resigned. My father didn’t ask for the post; the men proclaimed him their leader.”

“And then he led them to their downfall. And to his own.”

She sighed. “He believed in Ireland, in its people. So much so that he was willing to die for them.”
To die and leave his family behind
.

Kit shifted then, his hand moving from temple to chin as he tipped her face up to his. “As was my uncle,” he said, his words quiet but firm. “Willing to die, for England and its people. Should a man of honor, one only performing his duty when he oversaw the execution of a rebel leader, be put down like a dog run mad? What kind of justice is that?”

Fianna shook her head. How could the eyes of a man who had reached the age of twenty-four still shine with such trust? Such steadfast belief in the honor of a man she knew to be anything but honorable?

Something dark and wild inside whipped her, urging her to strike against such blindingly innocent trust. To make him keen with the same sense of abandonment and loss that had driven her all these dark years. All she need do was tell him how his uncle had lied about her father after his execution.

But what use would it be to disillusion him? With Major Pennington dead, there’d be no chance now of forcing him to retract his lies against her father, no chance of redeeming her father’s good name. No chance of returning in triumph to claim her rightful place amongst the McCrackens, of winning a true welcome from her grandfather, or from any of his kin.

Fianna lowered her head, pulling free from Kit’s embrace. Had she truly become so spiteful that she’d undermine an honest man’s loyalty to his family? Simply because she had lost the chance to earn the loyalty of her own?

It was more than spite, though, wasn’t it? But even if he knew his uncle had not been quite as honorable as he once believed, would that make her any more so in his eyes?

No. She had sunk low, to be sure. But even she could not bring herself to hurt an innocent so.

She rose, crossing to the window to lay her forehead against a pane. But the sun had moved away; the glass held no warmth.

What to do now? Crawl back to Ireland in defeat? Or throw herself on the mercy of Sean O’Hamill?

No matter which she chose, she could no longer remain here. Not after revealing herself so painfully to Kit.

She took a moment to make certain her mask of impassivity was firmly in place before turning back to him. “I thank you for your hospitality, sir. But I fear you must have long been wishing my absence. If you give me a few moments, I’ll pack up my belongings and be out of your way.”

She took a few steps toward the passageway, but before she could reach the door, Kit moved to stop her.

“Oh no, Máire,” he whispered, catching her by the shoulders. “No more pretending, not between us.”

“Fianna,” she bit out, shrugging free of his hold. “Máire no longer exists.”
 

But he caught her up again, shook his head in denial. “Fianna. Máire
.
It’s not the name that matters. Only what’s between us. Don’t pretend you don’t feel it.”

Her body urged her to step closer, to shelter once again within the confines of his arms.
A Mháthair Dé!
She willed herself not to move.

“Something between us? Whatever could you mean?”

He answered not with words but with touch, his fingers burning a path across her collarbone, then up the column of her neck. Was it anger that made the blue of his eyes spark like the hottest fire? Or something far more dangerous?

“We never did discuss terms,” she continued, forcing her voice to splinter like ice beneath a boot. “But since you’ve not had the satisfaction of taking your pleasure of me, you needn’t worry about compensation. Or perhaps you wish me to repay you for my room and board?”

He made not the slightest flinch at the coarse reminder of what they truly were to each other. Instead, he took a step closer, capturing her face between his palms.

“Oh, you like it when that’s all the world sees, don’t you? The icy fae queen, with no feelings to call her own. So high above us all, so unmoved by anything as mundane as a human emotion.” His thumbs traced across her cheeks, catching against the trails of salt her tears had left behind. “But my waistcoat, still damp from your crying, knows it for a lie. No, that proud, disdainful mask won’t fool me any longer, Fianna Máire McCracken Cameron. If you leave, at least be honest enough to acknowledge that it won’t be because I wish you gone.”

“More fool you,” she said, praying her voice did not tremble. “But why should I be witless enough to remain?”

“For me. For this.” And he lowered his face to hers.

The softness of her, the warm, yielding curves of her body—a dream, damn near a revelation, she’d been, the Fianna Cameron who had cried out her sorrows, then fallen asleep in his arms. And when she’d trusted him with the truth of her father, her small form nestled close against his chest, Kit had felt immense, boundless, as if he could drag down castles with his bare hands, save all the innocents of the world from every iniquitous blow. Anything, if only it were done on her behalf.

She intended to use you. To betray you. To murder your uncle
, family fealty rebuked.

But she acted out of justice, and a loyalty to her family as keen as your own
, conscience countered.

He’d tried to reconcile the two, asking her to consider what justice might look like from his uncle’s point of view. But the challenge had sent that warm, feeling Fianna fleeing, even while her body remained in the room. Something wild and desperate clamored inside him then, an urge to grab her and shake her, that wintry fairy seductress who’d banished the woman he truly wanted. He wanted her back, no,
needed
her back, that woman who felt. Not because his uncle suspected her of treason. Not even because he’d promised the Colonel to use her to track down the Irish assassins. But because the loss of that Fianna had felt too much like other soul-withering losses he’d not been able to prevent—Benedict, to the Continent and his art; his father, to wasting disease and death; Theo, to grief and the blinding oblivion of drink.

He’d held his recklessness in check until, in that cold, impassive voice, she’d announced her plans to leave. Instead of watching her go, as a wise man, a rational man, would have done, he found himself kissing her, demanding, daring,
begging
that feeling human to chip her way free of the
sídhe
’s icy hold.

But for the longest time, her lips remained cool and still beneath his own. He might almost have been fooled, but for the race of the blood in her throat, her pulse pounding so quick beneath his stroking thumbs. So very skilled at self-protection, she was, this woman with as many masks as she had names.
 

“You think to hide from me?” he whispered, pulling back to stare into her unrevealing green eyes. “To pretend you’re nothing but a fair face? A fae without a soul?”

Dark, narrow brows arched in disbelief. “Is that not what all men want? A beautiful, empty shell? Pretty but vacant, ready to be filled with their own low desires?”

Kit scoffed. “What man would want the simulacrum, after once having glimpsed the substance of you?”

“My
substance
? Be glad you’ve not had more than a glimpse of my
substance
, Kit Pennington. It’s not nearly so attractive as the veil that conceals it.”

“But I have seen it, Fianna.”

She tried to jerk free of his arms, but he held tight, willing her to listen.

“I’ve seen the passionate, caring woman you work so hard to deny. I’ve seen your beauty and your anger, your independence and your loyalty. How much you care for your family. How you fight against what you feel. For me. For us.”

His hands rose to frame her face, his fingers lightly brushing back the wisps of hair by her temples. “I see
you
,” he whispered. “I want
you
.”

“Then take me, and be damned,” she whispered, yanking down on his neckcloth, pressing her lips to his.

Kit sank deep into the welcome of her mouth, reveling in a heat closer to the hearths of heaven than any fires of hell. Hot, and lush, and sweeter than anything he’d ever imagined, a pyrotechnics of taste and touch. With a gasp, his hands slid down the sharp blades of her shoulders, as if he might somehow pull the flaming whole of her entirely inside him, set himself alight on her flame.

The feel of her firm breasts against his chest sent his cock surging, pressing for attention into the softness of her belly. He pulled back, embarrassed, afraid she’d shy away at the evidence of his arousal. But instead, her arms rose to twine about his neck, drawing him even closer. Why did he keep forgetting she was no inexperienced girl, but a mature woman, one who’d warmed Ingestrie’s bed, and perhaps many others’?