Laurel McKee Page 26

  The last name on the list was Lady Mount Clare.

  Will’s fist came down on the paper in fury, rattling the desk. Eliza was being watched, just as on that night he found her at the coffeehouse. And he could certainly guess what “questioned” meant. Arrest. Kilmainham. A hanging?

  But he would never, ever let that happen. Even if he had to fight the whole British government to stop it. The door suddenly opened, a flustered-looking secretary appearing there with another stack of papers in his arms. Will swept the list beneath the other documents, forcing his fist to uncurl.

  “Oh, Major Denton!” cried the secretary. “I am so sorry you have been kept waiting. General Fitch is on his way now to speak to you….”

  “Eliza, my dear, you are awake at last! Come, have some breakfast,” her mother said as Eliza made her way into the dining room.

  Katherine, Anna, and Caroline were already making progress through the meal, with racks of toast and pots of tea scattered over the polished mahogany table amid jam jars and spoons. Anna seemed pale and preoccupied, Eliza thought, but Katherine was determinedly cheerful.

  They all wore borrowed gowns from her own wardrobe, Eliza saw, which lent a faintly comic air to the scene, considering how much taller she was than everyone else.

  “Mary tells me it has grown difficult to obtain things such as milk and butter of late, as the roads into the countryside are mostly closed,” Katherine said as Eliza sat down. “There is little meat as well, but plenty of toast and jam and some tea.”

  “No chocolate, though,” Caroline said. “Which I’m sure has Anna quite disconsolate. She drinks an inordinate amount of it at home.”

  Anna made a face at her. “Tea is quite all right with me, I assure you.”

  Eliza was happy to hear her sister speak again, even if she did look distracted and pale.

  “But you’re not eating,” said Caroline.

  Anna glanced down at her plate, at the toast nibbled at the edge. “I’m not very hungry.”

  Caroline shook her head. “You’ll never fit into your fine gowns again if you don’t eat.”

  Eliza knew just how Anna felt; the thought of food made her slightly queasy, too. But she reached for the pot of jam and a piece of toast. “Caro has a point, I think. We need to keep moving forward, think of the future.”

  “Even when it comes to something as frivolous as gowns?” Anna said quietly.

  “Yes, even then.” Eliza firmly spread a smear of strawberry jam over the bread, trying not to think of how its sticky redness looked rather like blood. “Has Will had breakfast?”

  “Mary said he was gone long before we came downstairs,” Katherine answered gently. “I’m sure he had a great deal of work to do, now that we are back in Dublin.”

  “Of course,” Eliza said. Will was gone now. Would he return? “I may have to go out later, too.”

  “Are you sure that is wise, my dear?” Katherine said, passing Eliza a cup of tea. “Mary says everyone has been asked to remain indoors unless absolutely necessary.”

  “Wisdom, Mama, has never been one of my virtues.” Eliza took a sip of the tea, even though she was still not at all hungry. “I won’t be gone long.”

  Katherine frowned, but she did not argue. “The girls and I will set about altering these gowns, then. Even if no one sees us, we can’t go around like this.” She tugged at the sleeve of her borrowed black silk dress.

  “I would rather read, Mama,” Caroline protested. “Eliza’s dress looks quite well enough for me.”

  Anna, who could usually be trusted to have an opinion on matters of fashion, merely stared thoughtfully into her tea.

  “You cannot go about looking like a ragman’s child, Caro,” Katherine said. “But I suppose it does not signify now. I think we have all earned a respite from doing things we would rather not. Now, Eliza dear.”

  “Yes, Mama?” Eliza said, setting aside her half-eaten toast.

  “I have been thinking. Perhaps, after all this awfulness is ended, the girls and I might stay here in Dublin for a bit. I haven’t had a taste of town living for some time, and I’m sure Killinan can go on without us for a while.”

  “Yes, of course, Mama. You can use this house as long as you like,” Eliza said in surprise. She could scarcely imagine her mother away from Killinan, or Killinan without her mother. The two had been synonymous for so long. But she had certainly learned that all things change, sometimes in the mere beat of a heart.

  “No, we can always take a house nearby,” Katherine said. “You won’t want us constantly underfoot, especially as Anna is going to be so busy with her Season next year. You must be accustomed to great independence now.”

  “Not at all. You must stay here. There is plenty of room in this vast old mausoleum,” Eliza said. “But I thought you were going to England?”

  “I see no need for that,” Katherine answered with grim determination. “Ireland is our home. We can’t leave it; we can’t let anyone drive us away.”

  “Oh, how grand! I didn’t want to leave,” Caroline exclaimed. “When will the bookstores and lending libraries open again, do you think? I am terribly behind on my studies.”

  Eliza smiled. It seemed Caroline, at least, was recovering from her experience on their journey! She would lose herself in her studious pursuits.

  Anna looked to be another matter, though. She still seemed quiet and preoccupied, despite the mention of her Season. But Eliza didn’t know what could distract her from all that happened.

  “I will see if any of the shops are open when I go out,” Eliza said.

  “I still wish you would stay in, my dear,” said Katherine. “You need to rest.”

  “I don’t think I could sleep if I tried, or even sit still,” Eliza answered, sipping at the last of her tea. “I won’t be gone long. Perhaps I can find some news of what is happening.”

  “I’m sure there is no good news to be had,” Anna murmured.

  “Even so, it is surely better to know,” said Eliza. And she had to arrange for Billy’s safe passage out of Ireland. She wondered if she should arrange her own passage while she was at it.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Eliza sat in the drawing room after sunset with her mother and sisters, sewing and half-listening to Caroline complain about it every moment. Her thoughts were far away, though, wandering and worrying. Where was Will? What happened at Dublin Castle?

  Anna had been right—there was little enough good news to be found or reliable news of any sort at all. But there were rumors aplenty. The United armies had seized towns and barracks; no, the Crown forces had taken them back. United leaders were captured and hanged; no, they had escaped and were marching on Dublin. There was nothing certain known.

  “Caro, dear,” Katherine finally said. “Why don’t you read to us for a time, if the needle is so onerous?”

  Caroline happily tossed aside her stitchery. “At last. My fingers are all bruised from this horrid work.”

  “You shouldn’t be so clumsy, then,” Anna said, examining her sister’s puckered stitches as Caroline hurried to the bookshelves.

  “Something cheering, if you please,” Katherine called after her. “A comic novel or some poetry. No ancient Celtic battles tonight.” She glanced at Eliza, who tried to smile at her.

  “I am quite all right, Mama,” she said. “I’m sure I won’t faint away at a tale of warfare, no matter how violent.”

  “I think we have all had quite enough violence, don’t you?” Katherine looked at the clock, ticking away on the marble mantel. “I’m sure William will return very soon.”

  Eliza nodded. “I’m sure he will.”

  They stitched on in silence, Caroline reading from Mrs. Burney’s Camilla as the minutes ticked away on that clock. Only when Eliza was quite sure he would not return that night, that he had been dispatched to fight in Wexford or Antrim, did she finally hear the knock at the front door.

  She jumped up from her chair, the sewing falling to the floor, as the bu
tler came into the drawing room.

  “Lord William Denton, my lady,” he announced, as if at some formal reception.

  “Will!” Eliza cried. She ran to him and flung her arms around his neck. He lifted her off her feet, holding her close. “Oh, Will, I thought you weren’t coming back.”

  “I promised I would, didn’t I?” he said, his face buried in her hair.

  As he lowered her to her feet again, she stepped back to examine him carefully. He had shed his borrowed coat and loosened his cravat, the white linen stark against his tired, tight smile.

  “You must be terribly hungry, William,” Katherine said. “I’m sure there is some of that mutton stew left from supper. Come, girls, help me see what we can find in the way of provisions.”

  “Why should we…,” Caroline began, but Anna grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the room.

  “Don’t argue, Caro, for once,” Anna said, her words muffled as Katherine firmly closed the door behind them.

  “You do look as if you could use some sustenance, Will,” Eliza said. “Here, sit down. I’ll pour you a whiskey.”

  “No laudanum this time?” he said with a grin, lowering himself wearily onto the settee.

  Eliza laughed. “None at all, I promise. You look quite tired enough without it.” Despite the fact that she ached to know what had happened at the Castle, she took her time at the sideboard, pouring out two tumblers of whiskey. She handed him one as she sat down beside him. “Fad gaol agat.”

  “Agus bas in Eirinn.” He took a deep swallow of the fiery, fortifying liquid. “Not very good, is it?”

  “Ungrateful wretch,” Eliza said, lightly kicking him on the leg. “One of the Killinan tenants makes it in his own still. It’s healthy for you.”

  Will sighed, knocking back the last of the “healthy” brew. “Why are so many things that are good for us so bloody unpleasant?”

  “Are you going to tell me what happened, then?”

  “The Castle is in an uproar. Camden is being replaced as Lord Lieutenant by Lord Cornwallis, who will be arriving any day now.”

  “Indeed?” Eliza said, surprised. “Well. Who would have thought one could change horsemen in the midst of Apocalypse?”

  “They think Camden has been too soft, that a firm hand is needed to bring the heathen Irish to heel once and for all.”

  “They think the United army is defeated, then?”

  “Not entirely. No one is a more fiery, or more stubborn, warrior than an Irishman—or woman. But General Lake is hacking his way brutally through Wexford, and McCracken was captured in Antrim. It’s only a matter of time. Then they will set to pacifying the country any way they can.”

  Eliza stared down into her glass. “And you, Will? Where will they send you now?”

  “Nowhere at all. I have resigned my commission.”

  “What?” She sat straight up in shock. Whatever she expected, whatever she braced herself to face—separation, arguments, parting forever, Deirdre’s sorrows—it was not that. He held his duty much too highly. “You left the Army?”

  “I had a very good reason.” He carefully set his empty glass on the table, giving her a terribly gentle smile.

  Eliza did not trust that smile. It was the way one person looked at another just before they delivered terrible news. She folded her hands tightly together, bracing herself. Had Billy been intercepted as he left, smuggled out in a France-bound boat?

  But, no. Will could not know of that. She took a deep breath, waiting.

  “When I arrived at the Castle, I was taken to that office where I found you at the birthday ball.”

  “Indeed?” she said carefully. “That was most careless of them.”

  “But most fortunate for me. I was there for only a few moments, but I did learn from your example.”

  “You looked at the papers there?” she said. She could scarcely believe it! Will, snooping? She almost laughed aloud.

  “Of course. And I found one I did not like at all.” He reached for her cold hand, cradling it between his.

  Eliza swallowed hard. “What sort of paper?”

  “A list of people to be watched, questioned. Arrested.”

  “And I was on it, yes?” Or… no. It could not be Anna. No one could know what happened there in the heat of battle.

  Will just nodded.

  “I should not be surprised,” she murmured. “I’ve long known I was suspected, of course, but, damn it all!”

  How could she help anyone now, go on with her work, if she was watched and followed at every moment? Everyone she talked to would be suspected along with her, even her family.

  Even Will.

  “Eliza,” he said firmly, his hands tightening on hers, not letting her go. “Eliza, listen to me now. I have a plan.”

  “A plan?” Plans so often came to naught; she knew that now.

  “Yes. You must know now it is not safe for you to stay here. I say we leave.”

  “Leave?” she cried. She had not expected him to say that. To leave Ireland? How could she? But then again, how could she stay when she could no longer do anyone any good? “But… where would I go?”

  Will laughed. “Not just you, my dear. We. We should leave for the time being, as soon as possible.”

  “You will go with me?” She stared up at him, a tiny, fearful hope just barely touching her heart. Will loved her enough to leave Ireland again, to stay with her? Even with everything he knew about her? Everything that had happened?

  “I hardly think you could be trusted abroad alone. You would get involved in a revolution in Turkey or something like that.”

  “Very well, then. If not Turkey, where?”

  He sat back, watching her carefully as if to gauge her reaction to his words, to forestall protests. “I have thought about it, and I say it should be Hamburg. It is a free port; there will be no passport troubles there. I heard Pamela Fitzgerald went there after her husband’s arrest. There will be friends to welcome you. And from there, we can go wherever you like.”

  Her head spun wildly. After the endless day of waiting, now all this at once. Danger, imminent arrest, questioning. The possibility of giving away her United friends. Will declaring they had to run away together. “It seems you have considered everything.”

  “It does not have to be Hamburg, if that doesn’t appeal. We can go anywhere you like. Vienna, Venice, Bonaparte’s armies be damned! Or America.” He crooked his finger gently under her chin, raising her gaze to his as he smiled at her coaxingly. “I am quite sure we could find some Indian tribes to live with there. You could teach them of Voltaire and Paine, and I could fish for our supper.”

  She laughed despite herself, catching his hand in hers. “I’m sure Hamburg is quite far enough; I do not need to go to the American frontier. Not yet. But my family—how can I leave them?” But even as she spoke, she knew she had to. Her presence put them in danger. If she was gone, the Angel of Killinan could hold them off. They would never find out about Anna and the soldier she killed.

  “It won’t be forever, my love. Only until things calm down here at home.”

  “Will they ever be calm?”

  “Not for a Blacknall, perhaps. You all do seem to have a knack for finding trouble. But I am sure your mother would urge us to go as well. It’s not safe here. Once they finish with the United military leaders…”

  “They will look to others ruthlessly,” Eliza whispered. “Yes, I am sure that is so.”

  She rose from the settee on unsteady legs, going to stare out the window. The whole city was blanketed again in night, in silence that seemed to wait and watch and fear. This was her home, everything she knew. Her work was here, or had been. It seemed she could help no one now.

  Will came up behind her, his reflection wavy in the glass. He gently touched her shoulder, drawing her back against him. Eliza sighed and leaned into him, feeling his kiss on her hair.

  “We will come back to Ireland,” he said. “And while we are gone, perhaps you could w
rite.”

  “Write what?” she said with a laugh. “One of Anna’s romances?”

  He chuckled. “I think you would be an excellent author of horrid novels. But perhaps you would prefer a memoir of 1798, a treatise on all that has happened and the ideals of freedom. You can tell the world what happened here, what it was all for.”

  Tell the world what happened. Yes, that was one way her work could go on. And there would be others, if she could stay alive to find them. “I could write about freedom, the rights of all people. One day.”

  “When you are ready, I will be here to help you. If you will do something for me.”

  Eliza smiled. “Of course. There is always a price.”

  His hand slid in front of her eyes, holding up an emerald ring. “Before we leave, you must marry me. Tonight. Will you, Eliza? I know it will be difficult to give up the title of countess to be mere Mrs. Denton….”

  Eliza stared at the ring, at the way it gleamed, as fresh and green as an Irish summer against the endless night. For the first time in that dark day, she saw a glint of hope. “I might be persuaded to the demotion, if the offer was tempting enough.”

  “I offer you my heart—but you have had that for years. I offer you love and devotion for as long as I live. I will never leave you again, Elizabeth Blacknall. You are my family now, my duty, my life. If you will have me.”

  If she would have him? She had dreamed of such a thing, of having Will for her husband, since she was fifteen. Even when they were apart, when she thought never to see him again, she had never forgotten. Their coming together now was not entirely as she imagined. It was flawed by the past, by war, by the end of ideals.

  But it was wondrously sweet nonetheless. Perhaps even sweeter for all the obstacles they had faced, all they overcame to be together. And she would grab on to their love, their life together, with all her might. She would never leave him again.