Duchess of Sin (17 page)

“But…”

“Go on now,
cailleach.
I have to take care of some business now.”

Those clanging bells grew closer, louder, and the crowd that had been enthralled by the flames scattered in sudden noisy confusion.
The roof of the warehouse caved in with a great roar, sending flames shooting high in the air.

“Go!” Conlan shouted. He pushed her to McMann, who grabbed her firmly by the arm and half-carried her through the roaring
crowds. He was too strong for her to break away, and over his shoulder, she saw Conlan’s figure disappear along the embankment.

Ireland was in flames yet again, and Conlan was a part of it all. Was she being a damned fool to be so drawn to him? To give
up a safe place in the world to go with him?

“Will he be caught?” she said as McMann led her over a bridge and farther and farther from the chaos. Her heart ached at the
thought of Conlan in prison.

McMann laughed roughly. “Not him, miss. We need him too much.”

Anna wanted to ask who “we” could be, but she was
afraid of the answer, of knowing everything once and for all. Besides, she was sure McMann would not tell her anything.

She was suddenly so weary. All the excitement of the night drained away, leaving her tired and confused. She followed McMann
numbly, wrapped in her own thoughts.

“Where do you live, miss?” he said as they left the district of shops and old houses behind for the relative safety of newer,
finer townhouses and squares. It was eerily silent there without the flames and bells.

“Henrietta Street,” she said automatically.

Surprise flickered over McMann’s face at the mention of the fine address. He wondered who she was, to live at such a place
and be here with a man like Conlan McTeer. Anna could see that. She often wondered who she really was, too.

“The servant’s entrance,” she said, and hurried on into the mysterious night.

W
ell, I suppose Lord Ross is fortunate that no one was home last night, and that he is already building that fine new house
on Fish Street,” Katherine said. She, Anna, and Caroline rode in their carriage on the way home from the shops, mired in the
traffic snarl that formed while everyone stopped to gawk at Lord Ross’s partially burned house by the river.

Anna stared out the window at the smoke-stained walls, starkly outlined against the gray sky. So that was the end result of
all that ruckus last night, a pro-Unionist’s house destroyed. “It’s lucky the flames were put out before those warehouses
over there caught fire.”

Caroline put down her book to peer past Anna’s shoulder. “They’re full of bales of linen and wool, not to mention whiskey
and rope. They would have gone up like a Catherine wheel. Were the culprits caught?”

“Some of them,” Katherine said. “But I heard many of them escaped into the night.”

“That’s a surprise, considering how many extra troops are quartered in Dublin for the Union vote,” said Caroline.
“I suppose they were all busy elsewhere, in the taverns and brothels, and couldn’t get here until too late.”

“Caroline, please,” Katherine murmured. “You shouldn’t speak of brothels.”

“No one can hear me but you and Anna,” Caroline said. “I’m sure I can’t shock the two of you. Everyone knows that’s what soldiers
get up to. Brothels, brothels…”

“All right, Caroline, that’s enough,” Katherine said sternly, but Anna could see she wanted to laugh. Anna pressed her hand
to her mouth to hold back her own giggles. She must be hysterical from lack of sleep.

“I’m glad we’ll be going to the country soon. Hopefully the Christmas festivities will distract you from such gossip,” Katherine
added.

The carriage at last lurched forward into a break in the crowd, and they slowly rolled toward home.

“Maybe the mistletoe will finally inspire Anna to choose one of her suitors,” Caroline said.

“Maybe Caro is in a hurry to get me out of the way so she can marry,” said Anna. She thought of the stark anger on Conlan’s
face last night as they watched the burning warehouse. Maybe Sir Grant was the right and safe choice after all.

“She can’t do that until she finishes her studies and makes her debut,” Katherine said. She glanced at the little watch pinned
to her pelisse. “Speaking of which, this delay has made us late for Monsieur Courtois’s first drawing lesson. He will think
us so terribly lax.”

“I’m sure that’s not what he thinks of us,” said Caroline as she opened her book again. “Especially not you, Mama. You are
the Angel of Kildare. You can do no wrong.”

Katherine laughed. “Angels can be tardy, too, I suppose.”
She glanced over at Anna, who still stared blindly out the window. “Are you quite well, Anna dear? You look tired.”

Anna tore her gaze from the passing streets to smile at her mother. “I’m fine, Mama. Never better.”

“I knew you should not have gone to the ball last night. You are wearing yourself out.”

Anna almost laughed to think what her mother would say if she knew the
real
reason why her daughter was so sleepy. Drinking in a tavern; kissing an Irishman in a dark doorway. Letting him kiss her
down there
. And then the fire…

She shivered at the memory of his mouth on her, of that terrible, wondrous pleasure, and the shock of violence that came afterward.
She clutched her fists tight in her fox fur muff. “I am fine,” she said again. “I just didn’t like seeing that burned building.
It was too much like—then.”

“Of course. I don’t like remembering, either,” Katherine said quietly. “But it is behind us, my dear. It won’t happen again.”

Anna nodded, even as she had her grave doubts. Ireland was always like a powder keg set too near a flame; perhaps it always
would be. Much like Adair himself.

They arrived back at Henrietta Street at last, only to find the foyer bustling with activity. As footmen took their wraps
and saw to the shopping parcels, Smythe handed Anna two boxes and Katherine a stack of cards.

“Monsieur Courtois is waiting for Lady Caroline in the library, my lady. And Lady Anna had two callers while you were out,
Sir Grant Dunmore and His Grace the Duke of Adair. They both left flowers.”

Anna looked at him in alarm. “They were not here at the same time, Smythe?”

“No, Lady Anna.”

Of course not, or surely their furniture would not still be intact. Anna opened the boxes to find Grant’s violets and a sheaf
of deep red, almost black orchids from Conlan. She buried her nose in them, inhaling the faint, earthy scent of the orchids.

“Sir Grant has invited us to a party at his house,” Katherine said as she perused one of the cards. “Supper and whist with
a few friends. Shall we go, Anna dear?”

“Of course, if you like, Mama,” Anna said. “I don’t think Sir Grant has ever opened his house to guests before. How curious.”

“It seems his aunt, Lady Thornton, is to play hostess. That should be interesting. The last time I met with her, she had gone
quite deaf and liked to converse with the teacups. But we can certainly attend.”

She glanced at the card underneath, and her lips pursed. “What is this, Smythe?”

“That, I fear, is the other matter, my lady,” Smythe said. “Captain Hayes waits for you in the drawing room. He did insist
on waiting for your return.”

“Oh, dear,” Katherine sighed. “Did you give him tea?”

“He asked for brandy, my lady. Most emphatically.”

“Whatever could George want? Besides our liquor, that is,” said Katherine. “I suppose I will go in. It gets close to dinnertime;
surely he will have to leave soon.”

“I must go in for my drawing lesson,” Caroline said quickly, backing toward the library. “Mustn’t keep monsieur waiting!”

“And I must go upstairs and rest,” said Anna. She had no desire to see George, to feel that slimy, speculative sort of look
that he always gave her. “I am quite tired after all.”

“Cowards,” Katherine murmured. She squared her shoulders and marched toward the drawing room, like a martyr going to the scaffold.

As Anna fled up the stairs, she heard George’s booming, slurred voice. “Katherine! Took you long enough. What’s this I hear
about your Frenchie drawing teacher? Most unwise, I would say. The dirty villains are just biding their time before invading
again. He’s probably a spy.…”

Anna ran even faster toward the shelter of her own room.

She had told her mother earlier that she was not tired, but once she was alone in the quiet safety of her chamber, she felt
drained. The long nights were catching up with her, she thought as she loosened her gown and lay down on her chaise.

Soon, very soon, she would have to face her future and make a decision once and for all. She could not go on crazy adventures
forever, could not go on with dangerous men like Adair. She had her family to think of, her place in Society, and her duty.
Grant Dunmore was a good choice. It was what she was born for, to be a wife and mother, and a Society hostess. How could she
marry Grant, though, knowing the sort of man he was? A man with no family loyalty.

Anna closed her eyes against the pounding in her head. She couldn’t decide the rest of her life right now. She pulled the
blanket up over her head and drifted into sleep, letting the thick darkness pull her down.

But she didn’t find oblivion in sleep. She only found more restless dreams.

She was back at Killinan Castle, and it was night. Not a
cold, wintry night, though; it was a hot summer, the darkness dusty and heavy. The grand rooms, spaces she had known since
she was born, were empty and silent. Everything was filled with an ominous dread.

Anna stood at the top of the sweeping staircase, staring down at the marble floor of the foyer. The blank stone eyes of ancient
statues stared back at her, and she suddenly knew when it was. Her dream—and she knew that it was a dream, even as she knew
she could not escape it—had catapulted her back to the days of the rebellion. Their neighbors had fled in fear of the advancing
rebels, but Anna was trapped in the tomblike silence of Killinan.

She seemed alone there, too, without her mother and sisters. The shadows crept closer and closer. She ran down the corridor
to one of the windows, throwing open the casement to try and find a breath of clean air. The gardens, her mother’s great pride,
were also dark, lit only by faint moonlight. The white gravel drive stretched away toward the road, offering the illusion
of escape.

If she fell from the window, Anna wondered, would she tumble out of the dream and back into her Dublin bedroom? Would the
danger be gone, or just waiting to return?

She heard a sound, a footstep, a rustle of cloth, a low moan of pain. Her startled glance flew to the doorstep, and a wave
of sickness rose up in her at what she saw there. The dream suddenly became all too real.

It was
that
night again. The night the ominous quiet of Killinan was broken by a sudden pounding at the door, rousing them all from their
restless sleep. Eliza went down alone to answer it, insisting they all stay hidden, but she didn’t know that Anna watched
from the upstairs window.

She saw a man, or devil as he seemed then, leave the wounded Will Denton on their white stone steps. The man was tall with
broad shoulders, wrapped in a black coat, his long black hair and beard tangled and wild. The blood stood out starkly on Will’s
torn white shirt, revealed by his open red uniform jacket, and as Anna leaned out of the window to see better, she could smell
it, too. That coppery tang of blood, the mustiness of death, blotting out the sweet summer flowers.

She could only hear a few muffled sounds. Eliza’s scream as she knelt by her lover. The man’s gruff brogue, telling Eliza
she should take Will and flee. Then the devil was gone, and Eliza and their mother dragged Will into the house.

The black-haired man had haunted Anna’s nightmares for a long time after that. Yet she had never seen him, not really. In
her dreams, he usually took on horns and glowing red eyes.

But when he looked up at her now, a ray of moonlight fell across his face, and he took on a very different aspect. It was
Conlan. Conlan who had left Will at Killinan. He stared at her for a long moment and vanished into the blood-soaked night.

Anna sat up on her chaise, her heart pounding. For an instant, she had no idea where she was. That hot summer night at Killinan,
months and months ago, was so near. The terror was so fresh that she shook with it.

She pulled in a shuddering breath and forced herself to open her eyes and look around. She was in her Dublin chamber, with
the fresh, pale, blue-and-white walls and flowered bed hangings, her cloak draped over the dressing screen. The portrait of
her with her sisters hung over the
carved white mantel. Killinan Castle was far away, and that time was long ago.

It was dark gray outside the window, yet it couldn’t be very late, for Rose hadn’t come to light the lamps and help her dress
for dinner. She could only have been asleep for a short time. But she felt as if she had passed years in her dreams.

Anna pushed back the blanket and rose on shaky legs to go to the window. The winter fog was creeping in, like shreds of silver-gray
silk spreading down the street. It was a perfect night for concealment, for nefarious deeds. Just as
that
night had been.