Laurel McKee Page 27

  “I will marry you, then,” she said, holding out her hand to let him slip the ring over her finger. A bit of green she would carry with her as a reminder of home, until they could come back again.

  Will laughed, lifting her in his arms as he twirled her around and around. “At last! I have been waiting for this for years and years. You will not escape me now, Eliza.”

  “Will, your shoulder!” Eliza cried dizzily, holding on to him tightly as the room blurred. She wasn’t sure if she laughed or cried, or both all at once.

  “I feel no pain at all,” he said, but he did lower her to her feet, the two of them swaying with the giddiness. The one transcendently happy moment born of all the chaos. The one thing that stayed strong and lasted—love. “I will be much happier when we are safely away.”

  “But do you really know what you are getting into?” she warned. “Even if we are on the Continent, you will still be part of my family. They won’t ever let you forget that.”

  “And I always wanted sisters. We’ll be as one family, Eliza, as we should have been a long time ago….”

  As if to prove his words, the drawing room door flew open to reveal Katherine, Anna, and Caroline, poised there in anticipation.

  “Well, William?” Katherine said sternly. “What have you to say for yourself?”

  “Lady Killinan,” Will said, turning to her with a formal bow. “May I have the honor to ask your permission to marry your daughter?”

  “It seems my daughters have never needed permission for anything at all.” Katherine came to him and kissed his cheek, smiling up at him. “But I give my blessing, most heartily. It takes a special man, indeed, to deserve one of my daughters, and I think you may prove worthy after all.”

  “Let me see your ring!” Anna cried, the first sign of emotion she had shown since the battle. She rushed forward, grabbing up Eliza’s hand to examine the emerald. “It is lovely, indeed. Just like you, Eliza.”

  “I am glad you approve,” Eliza said, laughing.

  “How can I not? He is a fine man. I only hope I may find such a man someday.”

  “I thought you were set on marrying a prince, Anna,” said Eliza.

  “Princes are rare. But even rarer, I fear, is true love,” Anna said sadly.

  “Not so rare as all that,” said Will, sliding his arm around Eliza’s waist and pulling her close for a soft kiss. “Sometimes love is right before you all the time.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE—LAUREL MCKEE

  I’ve wanted to write a book with an Irish setting for a very long time! My own family is of Irish descent, and I grew up with tales of “the green shamrock shore” (as well as stories of all the magical creatures, like faeries, gods, and gnomes, who live there). But I always knew it would have to be just the right story, with the right characters. It took a while for me to “meet” the three Blacknall sisters and their heroes, but as soon as I did, I fell in love with them and had to discover what would happen to them.

  I also found just the right setting for them, the tumultuous year of 1798 and its aftermath (which goes on to this day in Ireland). I read Stella Tillyard’s great book Aristocrats: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah Lennox, 1740–1832 (and watched the lush Masterpiece Theater adaptation) and was hooked on the story of these beautiful, intelligent, headstrong sisters, two of whom married Anglo-Irish noblemen and spent their adult lives in Ireland. One of them, Emily, Duchess of Leinster, was the mother of twenty-two children, among them Edward Fitzgerald, whose story led me to look deeper into the 1798 rebellion.

  I loved doing the research for this time period. Be sure and visit my website, http://www.laurelmckee.net, for Behind the Book research notes, a list of sources, excerpts, and photos of sites in Ireland I used in the story (as well as hints about Anna’s and Caroline’s stories!).

  The Daughters of Erin Trilogy

  continues in

  Laurel McKee’s

  next captivating romance!

  Please turn this page

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  Duchess of Sin

  Available in December 2010.

  Chapter One

  Dublin, Autumn 1800

  She really should not be doing this. It was a terrible, imprudent idea.

  But had that ever stopped her before?

  Lady Anna Blacknall drew the hood of her black cloak closer over her pale gold hair, which would shimmer like a beacon in the night and attract unwanted attention. She pressed her back tighter to the stone wall, peering out at the world through the eyeholes of her satin mask. Her endeavor to become invisible seemed to be working, as everyone hurried past her without even a glance.

  But where was Jane? If she turned coward and refused to appear, Anna couldn’t get into the Olympian Club on her own. Jane was the one who was the member, and the club had a strictly enforced “members only” policy. It wasn’t likely Jane would abandon her, though. Jane, the widowed but still young Lady Cannondale, was the most daring woman in Dublin, always up for a lark or a dare. She was also Anna’s new bosom bow, much to her mother’s chagrin. Katherine Blacknall, Lady Killinan, feared Lady Cannondale would run Anna into scandal and ruin.

  It was fortunate Katherine didn’t realize most of their pranks were Anna’s idea, just like the one tonight.

  Anna pressed her hands tight to her stomach, where a nervous excitement fluttered like a hundred drunken butterflies. This had seemed like such a fine idea when she first heard about the exclusive, secretive, scandalous Olympian Club and found out Jane was a member. Tonight the club was holding a masked ball, the perfect opportunity to see what went on inside its hidden environs. Something so secretive must be worth exploring.

  Strangely, though, Jane had tried to put her off, to laugh away the invitation to the ball. “It is sure to be quite dull,” she insisted, taking the engraved card from Anna’s hand after she found it hidden in Jane’s sitting room. “The club has such a reputation only because it restricts its membership. There’s just cards and a little dancing, like everywhere else in Dublin.”

  Anna snatched the invitation right back. “How can a masked ball at a secret club possibly be dull? I’ve been so bored of late. Surely this is just the excitement I need!”

  Jane had laughed. “You have been to parties every night this month. How can you be bored?”

  “All anyone talks about are the Union debates in Parliament,” Anna said. Those endless quarrels for and against Ireland’s Union with England, rumors of who had been bribed with titles and money to switch sides, who had come to fisticuffs over the matter in St. Stephen’s Green. She was so vastly tired of it, tired of everything.

  It did not distract her from memories, either, from the old, terrible nightmares of blood and death. Only dancing and wine and noise could do that, for a few hours anyway.

  She had finally persuaded Jane to take her to the Olympian Club’s masked ball. Anna crept out of her house at the appointed hour, in disguise, to wait on this street corner. But where was Jane?

  She tapped her foot under the hem of her gown, a borrowed frock of Jane’s made of garnet-red satin embroidered with jet beads and trimmed with black lace. Her own gowns were all the insipid whites and pastels of a debutante, but this gown was much better. The beads clicked and sang at the movement, as if they, too, longed to dance, to drown in the sweet forgetfulness of music and motion. But if Jane did not hurry, they would have to leave the ball before it even started! She had to be home before dawn if she didn’t want to get caught.

  At last, Jane’s carriage came rattling around the corner. The door opened and Anna rushed inside, barely falling onto the velvet seat before they went flying off again. Those nervous butterflies beat their wings even faster as they careened through the night, and Anna laughed at the rush of excitement.

  “I thought you changed your mind,” she said, straightening her skirt.

  “Of course not, A,” Jane answered, tying on her own mask over her piled-up auburn hair. “I promised you an adventure tonight. Tho
ugh I do fear you may be disappointed, once you see how dull the club really is.”

  “I’m sure it can’t be as dull as another ball at Dublin Castle,” Anna said with a shudder. “Terrible music, endless minuets with stuffy lordlings. And Mama watching to see if I will marry one of them and cease my wild ways at last.”

  Jane laughed. “You ought to let her marry you off to one of them.”

  “Jane! Never. Just the thought of one of them touching me… that way. No.”

  “It lasts only a moment or two, A, I promise. And then you have freedom you can’t even imagine now. My Harry was a terrible old goat, but now I have his money and my Gianni, who is quite luscious.” Jane sighed happily. “It is a marvelous life, truly.”

  “But you are Harry’s widow, Jane. You no longer have to endure his… attentions.” Anna stared out the window at the city streets flashing by, a blur of gray-white marble, austere columns, and black-painted doors. She thought of old Lord Cannondale before he popped off last spring, his yellow-tinged eyes that watched Jane so greedily, his spotted, gnarled hands. And she thought of someone else, too, that crazed soldier who had grabbed her in the midst of battle…. “Not even for my freedom could I endure sharing my bed with someone like that.”

  “Well, what of Grant Dunmore, then? He is young and so very handsome. All the young ladies are in love with him, yet he wanted to dance only with you at the Overton’s ball last week. He would not be so bad.”

  Yes, there was Sir Grant Dunmore. Not so very old at all, and the most handsome man in Dublin, or so everyone said. If she had to marry someone, he would make a fine enough choice.

  “He’s all right,” she said neutrally.

  “Oh, A! Is there no one in all of Dublin who catches your eye?”

  Anna frowned. Yes, once there had been a man who caught her eye. It felt like a hundred years ago, though in fact it had not even been two. When she closed her eyes, she could still see him there. The carved lines of his dark, harshly elegant face, the glow of his green eyes. The way his rough, powerful hands felt as he reached for her in that stable….

  The Duke of Adair. Yes, she did still think of him, dreamed of him at night, even though they had not met since those fearsome days of the uprising, when she was on the run with her family and he was intent on his own unknown, dangerous mission. He would not want to see her again, not after what she did to him.

  She shook her head hard, trying to dislodge him from her memories, to shake free any memories at all. The past was gone. She had to keep reminding herself of that. “No, there is no one.”

  “We shall just have to change that, then,” Jane said. “Oh, look, here we are!”

  Desperately glad of the distraction, Anna peered out the window to find a nondescript building. It could have been like any other house on Fish Street, a square, harsh, classical structure of white stone. The only glimmer of light came from a leaded, fan-shaped window over the dark blue door. All the other windows were tightly muffled with dark drapes.

  Anna smoothed her black silk gloves over her elbows, taking in a deep, steadying breath as a footman opened the carriage door.

  “Are you quite sure this is the place?” she said. “It doesn’t look scandalous at all.”

  “I told you it might be disappointing,” Jane answered, stepping down to the pavement. “But then again, the most delicious forbidden places are adept at disguise.”

  Just like herself? Anna had found she, like this house, was very good at putting up facades and pretending to be what she was not.

  Or maybe trying on different masks to hide the terrible hollowness inside. But that would require far too much self-introspection, and that she did not have time for.

  She followed Jane up the front steps, waiting just behind as her friend gave her invitation to the unsmiling butler who opened the door.

  “Follow me, if you please, madame,” he said, letting them in after examining them carefully. As two masked footmen stepped forward to take their cloaks, the door swung shut with an ominous, echoing clang. Now that they were really in that strange, cold, silent house, Anna wondered if Jane was right—maybe they should not be there.

  But if she was not there, she would be alone in her chamber, with nothing but Gothic novels to distract her from her own thoughts.

  She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror as the butler led them up the winding marble staircase, and she scarcely recognized the woman who stared back. In that sophisticated red gown, with her face covered by a black satin mask and a beaded black lace net over her blond hair, she looked older than her eighteen years, as mysterious and cold as this very house.

  That was good. Sometimes she did not want to be herself at all, didn’t want to be Anna Blacknall, with all those duties and expectations and memories. And she didn’t want anyone else to recognize her, either.

  If anyone discovered she was here, she would be quite ruined. She would disappoint her mother and family yet again, in the worst way. But on nights like this, it was as if a terrible compulsion, almost an illness, came over her, and she had to run away.

  They turned at the landing on the top of the stairs, making their way down a long, silent corridor. Medieval-looking torches set in metal sconces flickered, casting bronze-red shadows over the bare walls. At first, the only sound was the click of their shoes on the flagstone floor. But as they hurried farther along, a soft humming noise expanded and grew, becoming a roar.

  The butler threw open a pair of tall double doors at the end of the corridor, and Anna stepped into a wild fantasy.

  It was a ballroom, of course, but quite unlike any other she had ever seen. The floor-to-ceiling windows were draped in black velvet; streamers of red and black satin fell from the high ceiling, where a fresco of cavorting Olympian gods at an Underworld banquet stared down at them. More gods, stone and marble, stood in naked splendor against the silk-papered walls. The air was heavy with the scent of wax candles and exotic orchids and black lilies, tumbling over the statues in drifts of purple and black and cream white.

  A hidden orchestra played a wild Austrian waltz, a sound strange and almost discordant to Anna’s ears after the staid minuets and country dances of Society balls, but also gorgeous and stirring. Masked couples swirled around the dance floor, a kaleidoscope of whites, reds, blacks, greens. It was a primal scene, bizarre and full of such raw energy.

  That nervous feeling faded, replaced by a deeper stirring of excitement. Yes, this Dionysian place was exactly what she needed tonight.

  Jane took two glasses of champagne from the proffered tray of another masked footman, handing one to Anna. “Cheers, A,” she said, clicking their glasses together. “Is this more like what you expected?”

  Anna sipped at the sharp, bubbling liquid, studying the dancers over the golden rim. “Indeed so.”

  “Well, then, enjoy, my friend. The card room is over there, the dining room that way. They have the most delectable lobster tarts. I think I will just find myself a dance partner.”

  “Have fun,” Anna said. As Jane disappeared into the crowd, Anna finished her champagne and took another glass, making her way around the edges of the room. It was decidedly not a place her mother would approve of. It was too strange, too dark—the dancing much too close. One man leaned over his partner, kissing her neck as she laughed. Anna turned away from them, peeking into the card room, where roulette and faro went on along with more intimate card games. There seemed to be a great deal of money, as well as piles of credit notes, on the tables.

  No, the Olympian Club was assuredly not Dublin Castle, the seat of the British government; not some stuffy Society drawing room. And that was the way she wanted it. There was no forgetfulness in staid reels and penny-ante whist.

  She took another glass of champagne. The golden froth of it, the rich scent of the flowers, was a heady combination. For a moment, the room swayed before her, a gilded mélange of red and black and laughing couples, and she laughed, too.

  “You shouldn’t be here
, beag peata,” a deep voice said behind her, rough and rich, touched at the edges by a musical Irish accent. Though the words were low, they seemed to rise above the cacophony of the party like an oracle’s pronouncement.

  Anna shivered at the sound, the twirling room slowing around her as if in a dream. Her gloved fingers tightened on the glass as she glanced over her shoulder. And, for the first time since she stepped into the alternate world of the club, she felt a cold frisson of fear trickle down her spine.

  The man stood far enough away that it would be easy for her to run, to melt into the crowd. Yet something in his eyes, a fathomless, burning green behind a plain white mask, held her frozen into place, his captive.

  He was tall and strongly built, broad shoulders and muscled chest barely contained in stark black and white evening clothes. And he was so dark. Bronzed, almost shimmering skin set off by close-cropped raven-colored hair, a shadow of beard along his sharp jaw. Dark and hard, a Hades in his Underworld realm, yet his lips seemed strangely sensual and soft.

  They curved in a wry smile, as if he read her fascinated thoughts.

  “You don’t belong here,” he said again.

  Something in that gravel voice—the amusement or maybe the hint of tension—made Anna prickle with irritated anger. He did not even know her; how dare he presume to know where she belonged? Especially when she did not even know that herself.

  She stiffened her shoulders, tilting back her head to stare up and up, into his eyes. He really was cursed tall! She felt like a delicate little elf beside him, when she wanted to feel like a powerful goddess.

  “On the contrary,” she said. “I find this all remarkably amusing.”

  “Amusing?” His gaze swept over the room before landing on her again, pinning her as if she were some helpless butterfly. “You have strange taste in amusement, beag peata.”

  “You should not call me that. I am not that small.”

  One dark brow arched over his mask. “You know Gaelic?”