A Rebel Without a Rogue (36 page)

“Should you have? Truly? When I was not even certain of it myself? I tell you, Kit, when I entered Major Pennington’s rooms today, I hardly knew what I intended. Force him to confess his guilt? Or murder him, just as he killed my father?”

“But you didn’t kill him, did you?”

“I wanted to,” she whispered, her head bowed. “You don’t know how much I wanted to pull this trigger.”

“I know how much you care for your father, how bitter it must have been to come face-to-face with his executioner.” Kit drew the pistol from her slack fingers, then cradled her hands between his. “But when the time came, did you choose vengeance?”

She grimaced. “A coward, was I, to give it over?”

“No. No coward would choose mercy over vengeance. But you did. As anyone who cares for you should have known you would.” His hands squeezed hers tight. “Can you forgive me, then, for allowing my loyalty to my uncle to blind me to who you truly are? I swear, I never meant to betray you, Fianna.”

“Betray me? Kit, such a thought never crossed my mind.”

Kit moved to sit beside her. “Why did you leave, then? Theo said that he put the fear of God into you, and of course you gave in to his bribe. I knew you’d never be so craven, but if you felt I’d betrayed you—yes, that would be reason enough to leave.”

“It was not your betrayal, but my own, that preyed upon me.”

Kit frowned. “How did you betray me?”

“Oh, perhaps not betray. But I put your loyalties into unbearable conflict. How could you care for both me and your uncle, knowing how much I hated him, hated what he’d done? You care so deeply for what is right, what is just, Kit. If I told you how he’d lied, and you believed me, how would you ever have reconciled justice with the loyalty you owed him?”

She sighed, pulling her hands free of his. “It wasn’t fair, asking you to choose between your love for your uncle and your love for me. So I chose for you.”

Kit gave a bitter chuckle. “You chose for me? This, from the woman who objected so strenuously to me, or her uncle, or any man, making decisions for her? Do I not deserve the same respect as you demand for yourself?”

“Of course you do, Kit,” she whispered. “But you had already chosen, hadn’t you? After allowing your family to direct your path for so long, you’d finally chosen something you wanted, just for yourself: a political career. And I won’t stand in the way of that, not something that matters so much to you. Oh, Saybrook may object now,” she added, placing a hand over his mouth to stop his protest. “But you’ll make a fine member of Parliament, Kit. Your brother will see it, once you’ve rid yourself of the millstone of an Irish courtesan from around your neck.”

Kit jerked her hand down. “I think your feelings for me are blinding you to the truth, Fianna. It smarted, what Theo said of me—that I’m too outspoken, too hotheaded, to be successful as a politician. But now that I’ve had the chance to consider it, I cannot in all confidence say he’s wrong. I
am
short-tempered and I believe strongly in my own opinions. And I like to be in control. Brokering agreements between contending parties, making concessions when I know that I’m in the right—I don’t think it would sit well with me, not for very long.”

“Then you’ll enter the church, as your father wanted. And once again, we come to the end of our time together. For I doubt many of your priests bring their courtesans along when they take up their duties in a new parish.”

“No, not the church,” Kit replied, shaking his head. “Many men seek to help their fellow men by working for God, yes. But I don’t want to just help individuals; I want to change the society in which they live. If not through the law, then through the power of the written word. Did you not feel it, Fianna, the fire, the joy of language, when we wrote your father’s life together? Have you ever felt so powerful, so
alive
, as when we took up our pens and brought his principles, his world, to life? Aidan McCraken may have died that day in 1798, but through us, through the book we created together, his ideals will live on.”

Fianna frowned. “But that’s all finished, Kit.”

“That book, yes. But there are still so many ideas to write about, so many people to tell them to! A hundred years ago, nay, even fifty, people like my father and his fellow aristocrats could make decisions about our government without any regard for how the people felt about them. But now, more and more ordinary people are realizing they can play a role in government, too. If I can write—essays, pamphlets, articles for newspapers such as Wooler’s—and persuade the common man that his opinion matters, that he has a role to play in the disposition of our nation, why, then I’d have done something truly worthwhile. Something that truly matters.”

Kit placed a palm upon Fianna’s cheek, tilting her face to his. “But I need you, my
leannán sídhe
, to make it happen.”

“Your
leannán sídhe
?” she said, jerking away from his touch. “What, you want me to play your muse? I’m to sit about and look pretty, am I, and inspire you to ever-greater compositional glory?”

“No, Fianna, that’s not what I meant!” Kit rubbed the back of his neck. “It wasn’t I alone, inspired by you, who wrote that life of your father. It was you and I, working as partners, as a team. Your cool logic, your analytical mind; my feelings, my ability to evoke a reader’s emotions—together, we created something more than either one of us could have done alone. And we can do it again, Fianna. I know we can. Put us together, and our words will remake the world.”

“What a dreamer you are, Kit! You imagine us as writing partners?”

“Writing partners, yes. But not just that.” He reached out again for her, cupping his palms over her slim shoulders to draw her close. “Damn me for a greedy fool, Fianna, but I want all of you. I want you for my colleague and my helpmeet, my lover and my friend. But most of all, I want you for my wife.”

“Wife? But why, Kit? Why should you want to tie yourself to a mongrel of a woman like me?”

“Because I love you, Fianna. I love the woman you’ve made of yourself, with so little help from any of your family. Your courage and your keen mind, your calm objectivity and oh-so-regal manner. The way your green eyes snap when you’re vexed, the way you sigh when I kiss you here, right behind your ear. How devoted you are to the truth, no matter how painful it may be, how many people’s feelings get hurt when you tell it. And because I think you may love me, too, Fianna, even if you can’t bring yourself to believe it.”

Fianna drew a harsh breath. “Have you forgotten the price the
leannán
sídhe
demand in return for their gifts of inspiration, Kit? A man’s life force.”

“You won’t harm me.”

“Oh, not literally. But still, I’d drain you, kill your spirit, just the same. Do you not realize what censure you’d bring down upon yourself, an English gentleman with a viscount for a brother taking an Irish whore to wife? Oh, you’d scorn it, at least at first. But it grows heavy after a while, the constant oppressive contempt people sow with such a free hand. Believe me, I know. I’ve lived with it these five-and-twenty years.”

“Are you not brave enough to love me, then?” Kit asked. “You’ve never said the words.”

“Damn you, Kit. How could you ask it, after what we’ve shared? But no matter how you imagine yourself in love with me now, you must know that I’m not worth a future of nothing but shame and scorn.”

“Not worth it?” Kit fought back the urge to shake some sense into the stubborn woman. “Did you not boldly declare to your uncle that you didn’t need to prove your worth to anybody? Did your actions not say the same to mine?”

Fianna said nothing in reply, only bowed her head. Kit swallowed, hard. “Ah, were you wrong, then? Fianna Cameron will never be worthy, not of the McCrackens, or the O’Hamills, or any man who dares to love her prickly self, no matter how loudly she declares the opposite. No, not unless she, Fianna Cameron, can come to believe in her own worth.”

Fianna’s lips rounded in an O of surprise. Yes, one’s own shames bit deep, as Kit had discovered this afternoon. But she’d taught him the importance of facing the truth, and he’d be damned if he allowed her to shy away from what she’d been hiding from for so long.

 
Kit slid his hands from her shoulders to her cheeks, willing her not just to listen, but to truly
hear
.

“Talking with my uncle today, I saw that I’ve been blinded for too long by my loyalty to my family. But you’re being blinded by
dis
loyalty, Fianna, disloyalty not to your family, but to yourself. You only see your mistakes, your flaws, and judge yourself unworthy. But I see all of you, a woman made of both flaws
and
strengths, ambiguities
and
truths. And I’m as certain as I am that the sun rises each day that you’re worthy of everything. Especially of being loved. Can’t you trust yourself and believe it, too, Fianna?”

He watched as the delicate muscles in her throat worked, swallowing not bitter sorrow, but the far-less-familiar draught of hope. “I stood up to your uncle,” she whispered at last. “I stood up to Sean, too, did I not?”

“Yes, love, you did.”

“Why then should it be so hard to stand up for myself?” Tears glittered in the corners of her eyes.

“Because you’ve had the misfortune of not having any of your family set you the example. But that’s a misfortune I vow you’ll suffer no longer, heartkin. Will it help, knowing I’m standing by you?”

“A little. And perhaps, if you kissed me—”

Kit needed no further invitation, pressing his lips against hers with all the urgency of loss just barely averted. The passion with which she answered him, her hands reaching around his torso to tug him closer, suppressed sobs turning into sighs, sent heat radiating throughout his body.
 

How long they kissed before they were interrupted by the cough of the coachman and his polite inquiry—“Once more around the park, sir?”—Kit had no idea. More than a few minutes, if the swelling of Fianna’s lips and the disarray of her bodice were any indication. With a smile, he tugged her clothing to rights, then gave the driver his direction.

“Does this mean you’ve accepted the inevitability of joining your fate to mine?” he asked, tucking her close against his side. Yes, right there, against the heart that beat with so much more vitality, simply because she was near. It would be a long time before he’d let her from his sight again.

“All your family will object,” she said. But her voice lacked the assurance he’d grown accustomed to hearing. Tread lightly, but press on, and he might just persuade her.

“Not all my family, surely. Aunt Allyne is always after my brothers and me to marry and ensure the continuance of the Pennington line.”

“Your aunt! But surely she’ll be scandalized! Do you not recall that she and I have already met, at the Guardian Society?”

“Oh, but these days, Aunt Allyne’s so busy trying to find a suitable husband for my sister that she scarcely remembers her own name, never mind the face of every penitent prostitute to whom she’s offered her aid.”

“Lord Saybrook, then. I did take his bribe, after all.”

“A bribe we’ll be certain to pay back in full, from the copious remunerations we’re sure to reap from the glory of our writing. Oh, he may threaten to cut me off without a sou, but he well knows that the income from the small property gifted to me by my paternal grandmother is more than enough to keep us afloat. And if he wishes for us to remain on speaking terms, he’ll soon learn not to say a word against you.”

“And Benedict?”

Kit smiled. “Yes, Benedict will likely be angered. Having such a striking model as sister-in-law is sure to rankle. Perhaps if we invite him to dine on a regular basis, and allow him to sketch us to his heart’s content? I’ll leave it to you to make sure he washes the charcoal from his hands before coming to table.”

“And your uncle Christopher?” Fianna said with a sigh as she rested a cheek against his chest. “He for one will never accept me. How will you stand to be estranged from a man you hold so dear?”

“If there is any estrangement, it won’t be caused by me, love. I’ll continue to visit him, as long as you do not object. And if he refuses to welcome you, too, why, that will be his loss, won’t it, now? But I think he might surprise you. The two of you have more in common than you might think.”

No, it would not be easy, forging a family from such stubborn, antagonistic members, both of whom felt far safer keeping their darker feelings to themselves. But he knew how important family was to Fianna, and would do everything in his power to make her feel welcome in his.

But first, he’d have to convince her to become a part of it.

“Is Fianna Cameron the only other name you’ve used, besides the ones given to you by your O’Hamill and McCracken families?” he asked as the hack pulled up in front of his rooms.

“Cameron’s only one of the many surnames I’ve adopted over the years,” she answered, accepting his hand out of the carriage. “But I’ve always come back to Fianna. My mother loved to tell stories of the brave warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill and his
fianna
, the landless warriors from different tribes all across Ireland who joined together to protect the country from invaders. Mother said that in days long past, both men
and
women were welcome in the
fianna
.”

“A fitting name, then, for a warrior such as yourself,” Kit said, unlocking the door to his rooms.

“I’m glad you think so.”

Oh, so tempting, that knowing smile lurking about the corners of her mouth. Kit bent to capture it, knowing he’d have to be satisfied with the chase alone. For as many times as he caught it, it would always come back, more wise, more tantalizing than before. The blood coursed hot through his body at the thought of the hours, the days, he’d devote to its pursuit.

“Then it’s only Cameron I’ll be asking you to change,” he said when he finally lifted his head from hers.

He’d never seen her eyes so befuddled, half confusion, half darkening desire. “Change? What do you want me to change?” she asked, her hands drifting down from where they’d been entangled in his hair.