A Rebel Without a Rogue (34 page)

Kit’s brain reeled. He’d long left behind any youthful illusions he’d once cherished about the infallibility of the British military. Men charged with defending their country did not always act with wisdom, or even honor, as he’d witnessed firsthand on the bloody grounds of St. Peter’s Field. But to hear his uncle suggest that such behavior was not a horrible aberration, but the norm? Even for an officer of the Colonel’s caliber? Impossible!

“What has any of this to do with Miss Cameron?” Benedict asked.

“She was supposed to end it! And she brought the pistol, yes,” Uncle Christopher cried, shaking the weapon in an unsteady hand. “But would she give me the satisfaction of taking away my sorry life? Of relieving me of this burden of guilt I’ve been carrying for more than twenty years? No, far too cunning a bitch, that get of McCracken’s. She’d not end my misery, no, not she. She wants me to feel how bitter it is, to see a nephew who once worshipped me as a hero now stare at me with disillusionment and contempt.”

Kit’s fists clenched at the Colonel’s ugly slur against Fianna, but the words that followed pulled him up short. “Why would you believe I’d ever hold you in contempt, Uncle?”

“Because she’ll tell you the truth of it,” Uncle Christopher cried. “The truth of what I did to her father, to her family. If she’d murdered me as she was supposed to, you’d have taken her for a liar. But now—”

Kit’s insides turned to ice as his intuition made the connection. “Was it you who spread the rumors that McCracken had turned apostate? That he’d betrayed his own men, all for the chance of a pardon?”

Kit grabbed his uncle by the lapels. “Did you, sir? Did you besmirch a gentleman’s honor? Did you lie?”

Uncle Christopher stared at Kit for a long moment, then gave one short, sharp nod. “I’d have done far worse if I’d thought it would end that bloody, pointless uprising even one day sooner.”

Kit’s hands fell to his sides.
My God.
How had he never seen it? The dutiful, loyal soldier, never speaking of his time in Ireland—it was all a mask Uncle Christopher had donned, wasn’t it? A mask hiding the sins he’d committed, a mask intended to protect poor, kindly Kit from the harsh truths of the world.

A mask to protect himself from his own shame.

A mask, yes, a mask just like the ones Fianna wore. Why, though, had it been so much easier to look beyond hers than to see the one behind which his uncle hid?

Theo dropped to his knees by Kit’s side, laying a gentle hand on Uncle Christopher’s sleeve. “Sir, please, let us remove you to the bed,” he said. The Colonel’s grim words still hung in the air, unacknowledged.
 

Yes, that would be just like a Pennington, wouldn’t it? To ignore their uncle’s bitter revelations, pretend he’d never mentioned anything about the dishonorable things he’d done. If you were loyal to your family, then you overlooked the frailties of its members, pretended they had no weaknesses, did you not? And above all, you hid all signs of flaws from anyone outside the tight family circle.

Hadn’t Kit spent his entire life doing the same? Accepting his father’s decisions about Kit’s future without protest. Pretending Theo’s fall into debauchery after their father’s death was only a bit of harmless carousing, rather than the debilitating grief that he’d never been allowed to voice. Following his family’s lead by steering the conversation away from Uncle Christopher’s time in Ireland whenever outsiders happened to bring up the topic in casual conversation. To save him discomfort, they’d all reassured themselves. But had it not been just as much out of fear of what he might reveal, and an unwillingness to share his pain?

The intention behind such blindness might be a kind one, but too often only injustice resulted. Injustice against Fianna and her family, who had suffered so much because of his uncle’s silence. Injustice against Kit, never allowing him to know the complex man behind his uncle’s shiny, heroic façade. But most of all, injustice against Christopher Pennington, a man who had suffered in silence for years under the burden of his guilt, with no way to expiate the pain of his sins. For how could you ever be forgiven for an injustice no one, not even yourself, would acknowledge you’d even committed?

No. Kit would no longer allow himself to be blinded by a loyalty that refused to see.

“Uncle,” he said, moving to kneel beside his brother. But the Colonel shook free of both Theo and Kit. With painstaking effort, he dragged himself to his feet. One arm leaned on the bed behind him, supporting his shaky weight. His eyes clouded as he slowly raised the other. The one still holding Aidan McCracken’s pistol.
 

With a quick shift of his wrist, Colonel Pennington pressed its barrel to the center of his chest.

Kit’s heart nearly burst out of his chest. “Bloody, bloody hell,” he heard Benedict whisper. But Kit only had eyes for the pistol, wavering in his uncle’s trembling hand.

“Uncle, no.” Kit rose to his feet, but stilled as his uncle brought the pistol to full cock.

“I can’t stand it, Christian,” Uncle Christopher said, an unfamiliar tremor in his voice. “The dishonor I’ll bring to this family, once all these secrets come out. I won’t stand for it. Now step back, and allow me to finish this.”

Kit shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir. So very, very sorry.”

“Sorry?” Uncle Christopher’s eyes watered. “For what do you have to apologize, Christian?”

“For forcing you to be someone you’re not. Forcing you to hide your pain, to keep it inside and allow it to fester. For refusing to see the truth of you, the noble and the cowardly, the sacred and the profane. For being so blindly loyal, I couldn’t imagine injustices you might do, or help you to lift their painful weight from your soul.”

“Then see justice served. Allow me to die, as I deserve!”

Kit shook his head as he reached out, laying both his hands over his uncle’s. “Being blindly loyal may be unjust, but what is justice if it is not tempered by mercy?
What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy?
No, if taking your life would have truly served justice, sir, Fianna would have pulled this trigger herself.”

Drawing a deep breath, Kit slowly pushed the pistol’s hammer back to half cock. Then, with painstaking care, he drew the weapon from the Colonel’s unresisting grasp.

With a groan, Uncle Christopher’s upright military stance crumpled. Before his body could reach the floor, Benedict and Theo each caught him underneath an arm. Setting down the pistol, Kit took his uncle’s feet; together the three brothers laid their uncle gently back on his bed.

Uncle Christopher’s eyes fluttered, but did not open.

“Summon his man, and call for the physician,” Kit said as he tucked the coverlet over his uncle’s chest. Theo nodded and left the room.

Pulling up a chair beside the bed, Kit sat and reached for his uncle’s hand. Benedict took up a stance close behind him.

“You think Fianna acted from mercy? And not from love, Kit?” Benedict murmured, his tone low. “Love of you?”

“I don’t know. I love her. Love her so much that it hurts. But she—” Kit couldn’t bring himself to finish the thought.

“You love her.” Benedict took a deep breath. “And since the Penningtons seem to have discovered a new penchant for truth telling, I’ll say what I’ve been thinking ever since I heard you utter those words, back in your rooms. You love her, but you don’t trust her.”

Kit turned to stare at his brother. “Trust her?”

“No. Not entirely. You would have told her that Uncle Christopher was still alive if you did.”

“Is that what you think? Not that I lied at first, but that I kept lying because I didn’t trust her?”

“Yes,” Benedict answered, his arms tight against his chest. “You’d never have kept such a secret from me, or from Theo. Not from a member of your own family.”

“No. I wouldn’t.” Kit swallowed down the painful lump in his throat and looked up at his brother. “I love her, but I’ve lost her, haven’t I, Ben? Not because she betrayed me. But because I betrayed her.”

At Benedict’s nod, Kit dropped his head into his hands, fingers pressing hard against his skull.

Minutes passed in silence until at last Theo returned with Mr. Acheson. Kit moved to stand beside his brothers as the physician began his examination.

“Do you know where Miss Cameron might have gone, Kit?” Benedict asked.

Theo’s eyes narrowed. “As long as she doesn’t return here, why should any of us care for Miss Cameron’s whereabouts?”

“Because Kit does,” Benedict answered. “He loves her. And he needs to tell her the truth.”

“I know where she’s gone,” Kit whispered, his stomach roiling at the realization. “God in heaven, she’s gone to an uncle as mad-brained as our own. To O’Hamill.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The smell of roasting pork, rich ale, and men’s bodies after a hard day’s work washed over Fianna as she took a few cautious steps into the interior of the Green Dragon Tavern. The patrons of this establishment were a different sort than those who frequented the Patriot Coffeehouse. Workingmen both, but the laze of contentment, rather than the fire of injustice, held sway here. A haunt of men employed by England’s wealthiest families, mayhap, men far more likely to take pride in their employers’ rank than to chafe against their own lack of status. No, Sean would be giving no incendiary political speeches at the Green Dragon.

Why, then, had the note she’d found in his rooms after her return from Major Pennington’s asked her to meet him here?

Heads turned and eyes widened as she threaded through the crowd, once again the only woman in a very public room. But no one offered challenge or insult. Good manners? Or fear of the man glowering from a table at the corner of the room?
 

“It’s done, then?” Sean asked, pushing out a chair for her with his foot. “You’ve taken care of the Major?”

She answered with only a curt nod.

He waited for her to elaborate, but she remained silent. How could she explain her choice to her uncle, when she could barely understand it herself?

 
Sean stared for a moment, then gave his own brief nod. Raising his tankard toward the serving maid, he gestured for her to bring another. “A toast, then,
cailín
. To one less butcher in the world.”

Christopher Pennington might still be alive, but he was a broken man, unlikely to do any further harm to the innocent. Fianna raised her tankard to Sean’s, then drew a deep, bitter sip.
 

Sean stretched an arm wide over the back of the chair beside him. “An interesting place, the Green Dragon,” he said, looking not at her but at the men jostling about the tavern’s bar.

Fianna set down her own tankard, pushing it away from her. She’d never been partial to ale. “This is not just a simple celebration, then, Uncle?”

A grim smile slashed across Sean’s face. “See that fellow behind you? The lean one by the counter, putting on airs as if he were the very cock of the walk?”

Fianna turned slowly in her chair, bending down as if to retrieve something that had fallen to the floor. She glanced at the men by the bar out of the corner of her eye. Not the rotund one in blue, nor the one with a laugh as high-pitched as a woman’s. Ah, that one—tall, thin, and surrounded by a claque of fawning plauditors. Still wearing his livery, his dark hair cut in a manner far more similar to that of Ingestrie’s dissipated friends than any servant she’d ever seen. A high opinion of himself, this one had, and no mistake.

“Castlereagh’s head footman,” Sean said as she returned her attention to their table. Her uncle spoke in a low voice, but intensity underlaid each word. “My friends and I have all tried to ingratiate ourselves with the arrogant bastard, but we’re far too lowly for the likes of him. You’ll soon bring him to a better sense of his own worth, though, will you not,
cailín
?”

Fianna frowned. “And how will I be doing that,
Seanuncail
?”

“Why, by playing to his
amour-propre
, of course. Flash those green eyes, fawn over him as if he’s the Second Coming, and you’ll soon have him jumping to do your bidding.”
 

“After I’ve gained a post in Lord Castlereagh’s household?”

Sean shook his head. “Castlereagh’s grown suspicious. Won’t allow any new servants about his London house or his person, only those from his own estate. Besides, this way will be quicker.”

“What way, Sean?”

Reaching across the table, Sean took her hands in his. “Just use the talents with which the good Lord has blessed you, Máire. Surely a
cailín
handsome enough to seduce not one but two English lordlings will have no trouble leading a mere footman astray.”

Fianna stiffened. “You wish me to seduce him?”

“I wish you to have him so crazed with lust that he’d do anything you ask for the chance of slaking it.”

Pulling her hands from Sean’s, Fianna turned and stared at the man in question. Difficult, it was, to summon the glamour of allure for a man other than Kit. This one was so caught up in his own performance as ringleader of the sycophants who surrounded him that he didn’t notice her looking at him at first. But when a few of his cronies began laughing and clapping him on the back, gesturing in her direction, the footman deigned to turn his eyes to her. His stare contained more insolence than admiration, as if he took it as the natural course of events that all eyes in the room should come to rest on him. He raised his tankard to her, then, with a wink and an overfamiliar smile, drank deep.