A Rebel Without a Rogue (5 page)

Kit eyed the slim volume under his uncle’s palm. “Yes, then you’d find out where the regiment was stationed, and you could contact him there. But what if he’d left?”

“Been pensioned off, you mean? Well, that’d be a bit more difficult. I’d start by writing to the regiment’s commanding officer, see if he knew where the fellow’d taken himself off to. If he didn’t, I’d ask ’em to check the regiment’s muster roll; sometimes they write down where you signed on, and I could track him down that way. Couldn’t go myself, of course, but I could send a hale nephew to nose around on my behalf,” he said with a grin.

Kit smiled in return. “And if that didn’t work?”

“Why, then it’d be off to the War Office for you, my boy. Up to their ears in records books there. Bound to be something that’d tell you a fellow’s whereabouts amongst all that paper.”
 

With a sudden frown, the Colonel leaned forward and placed a hand on top of Kit’s. “But your interest seems more than idle, Christian. Why are
you
in search of some military man?”

The cold metal of his uncle’s signet ring against his hand brought back a sudden memory, the grating disappointment of the day he’d finally come of age, when he realized that his father, so ill, had forgotten the tradition of gifting each Saybrook son with a signet of his own. Though he’d said nothing at the time, Uncle Christopher must have guessed his feelings; only a week later Kit had found a box by his breakfast plate, one containing a ring that matched his uncle’s, the initials they shared entwined in elegant monogram on its lapis lazuli bezel. How proud he’d felt, finally slipping that sign of his manhood, his connection to the house of Saybrook, to his family, over his bare finger.

He could hardly imagine not having such a family to rely upon. But Fianna Cameron surely could.

“Such a quick mind you have, Uncle,” he said, pulling his hand from his uncle’s tight grip. “The search, though, is not on my own behalf, but on behalf of an acquaintance. And that acquaintance has not given me leave to share the details.”

“Sounds a havey-cavey affair. Not involved in anything untoward, are you, sir?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest.

“Of course not, Uncle. But might I borrow your
Army List
, to share with the young la— with my friend? I promise to return it forthwith.”

Uncle Christopher laughed. “A lucky young la—, to have your aid in her quest. A comely wench, is she?”

Kit hesitated, at first from surprise, then from reluctance. Embarrassing, just how much Miss Cameron’s person had affected him.

The Colonel nodded. “Yes, I see. Very comely. Well, no keeping her all to yourself, young man. Bring her round, so I can see if she’s deserving of a Pennington.” He sighed, rubbing a hand against his immobile thigh. “Would do me a world of good to see a handsome countenance around these dull rooms every now and then. Lord knows your great-aunt Allyne is bracket-faced enough to turn the milk sour.”

Kit forced a laugh, though he felt more like grimacing. How quickly his uncle’s sigh would turn to outrage if he had any idea from whence the lovely lady in question hailed.

No need to feel disloyal, was there, just for keeping a few secrets from his uncle?

CHAPTER FOUR

“Blister it, but my head aches. Anna, have you seen my other boot?”

Across the room from Fianna, a bleary-eyed Charles, Lord Ingestrie, sat on the side of the rumpled bed, his as-yet-untied neckcloth hanging limply over his shirt. Late nights of cards, wagers, and, most of all, raising celebratory glasses with every son, brother, or distant cousin of the lords of the land did not have the poor boy looking his best.

Not that Fianna would ever say a word against such behavior. Didn’t his all-hours carousing give him little time for anything to do with the bedchamber besides dressing for his next bacchanal? Grateful, she should be, that she’d not had to lie with him since their arrival on his beloved English soil. Ridiculous to keen like a
bean sí
over the death of her own innocence as she’d done this morning when she’d awoken alone. He’d not stolen her virtue from her, after all; she’d offered it of her own free will, desperate to take advantage of this rare chance to afford passage to England.

England, where her father’s final betrayer awaited the justice it was her duty to deal.

No, she’d made this bed, and now she’d lie in it, no matter how distasteful she found the task. And surely it was far better to sleep on a mattress beside a fool than amongst criminals in the filth of a gaol cell, accused of attempted murder? Her hands clutched at the frame of the door by which she stood, pushing away the memory of young Pennington catching her eyes across Ingestrie’s crowded room the night before. Indulging in guilt and fear over shooting the wrong man would only churn her insides raw.
 

“Could Davenport have chucked the damned boot out the window?” Ingestrie pushed himself up off the bed, rocking on his feet as if they were still aboard the ship that had taken them across the Irish Sea. “Or used it to sip his champagne? Anna. . .”

The way he whined, one might be forgiven for thinking Ingestrie two instead of twenty. For all that Christopher Pennington had looked so young, his manner and speech indicated a man far more mature than the one beside her.

Fianna shook off the thought and trudged away from the door to engage in the search. Poking a foot under a fallen coverlet revealed two mismatched shoes, but no boot.

She didn’t like playing mother or maidservant to the ridiculous boy any more than she liked playing his lover. Yet it would not do to alienate him, not yet. Not until she’d mastered her own fear, and secured the full cooperation of young Pennington to help her track down her true target. Most likely a relative, given their connection to the house of Saybrook. An uncle, perhaps?

Getting down on her knees, she groped under the bed, pulling out a wine bottle, the half-burnt end of a cheroot, and, at last, the wayward boot. Repressing a sigh, she tossed the errant footwear in Ingestrie’s direction.

“Ah, you’re a bonny lass, my girl,” he said, sitting on the floor to pull it on. “If the pater weren’t so eager I dance attendance on him this morning, I’d take you for a drive in the curricle, demmed if I wouldn’t. Make all the other fellows’ jaws drop, spying me with such a prime article.”

She hid her grimace as she hauled him to his feet, then brushed the dust from the back of his coat. “Do up your neckcloth for you, shall I?”

“No time. Do it in the hack.” He drew a quick comb through his hair, then tossed it back on the dresser. “Good Lord, why don’t you put on one of the gowns I bought for you instead of that drab thing? I’ve wagered Kirkland and Cabot a hundred guineas each I’ve the most delicious piece in all London, but they’ll have to see a bit more of your charms before they concede.”

He gave her breast a quick, careless squeeze before turning and leaving the room.

Fianna stared in the mirror long after the slam of the door faded, willing her insides to still. She’d chosen to take on the role of courtesan; she’d no right, then, to take umbrage at being treated like one. Besides, a true McCracken would never allow such an insignificant snip of a man to wound her feelings. Grandfather, Aunt Mary, the uncles and cousins and wives—all the McCrackens kept their emotions decently in check. A girl who let her passions flow without restraint would never deserve a place amongst them.
 

So. It was nothing.

He
was nothing.
 

The clock on the mantel struck the hour. Turning away from the mirror, she pulled on a hat with a heavy, concealing veil. She missed the reassuring weight of her father’s pistol against her thigh. But no matter. The razor she’d stolen away from Ingestrie’s valet would have to suffice.
 

All she need do was dupe young Pennington into revealing the whereabouts of his relation, without giving herself away in the process.

He stood by the door of the coffeehouse, the man she’d mistakenly shot a mere seven days earlier.

He looked even younger in the daytime than he had during the night. Younger than her own thirty years, certainly; a year or two older than Ingestrie’s twenty, perhaps. What a tiny cherub of a babe he must have been, with those celestial blue eyes and those fat, golden ringlets that wouldn’t stay brushed back over his forehead. Even now, young girls just awakening to the wonders of the other sex likely made calf eyes at him in droves. Fine to dream about stolen kisses with a fellow whose sweet face promised no real threat to that virtue you were just beginning to understand the necessity of guarding.

Even though he stood with a certain stiffness, his expression stern and unsmiling, still, something about him urged one to give him one’s trust, to hand it over as one might the only cup in one’s tea service with the tiny nick in its rim, certain that he’d take care to not make it worse, nor have the bad manners to comment on its defects.

What would it be like, to share one’s burdens with such a man?

She shook her head, flinging away such a ridiculous yearning. She was no young moonling, eager to spill her secrets to the first handsome face that passed. Leave the romantic reveries to the innocent young misses of the English
ton
for whom he was destined. The terrors of the night, with their fiery visions of vengeance, must be enough to sustain her.

What an irony it would be, though, if angelic Kit Pennington should end up being her guide to the very devil.

She crossed the room, all too aware of the blatant speculation in the eyes of the men she passed. Each assuming her presence in the all-male domain of the coffeehouse indicated her lack of respectability. Each wishing that he might be the one to reap the benefits of that lack. Lord, that one by the window—if she sent a smile in his direction, promised to spend a night in his bed, why, the stupid fellow would likely declare himself her slave.

She enslaved him, that
leannán sídhe! Aunt McCracken’s bitter voice rang in Fianna’s head.
My brother never would have done it, not any of it, but for your mother, that Irish witch
, she’d hissed as she and Fianna had watched the cart carrying her mother, grandfather, and young uncle Sean crest the hill and pass out of sight.
Far better rid of her, you are, Maria, rid of all of them. No McCracken girl will ever tempt a man to his downfall, we’ll make certain of that. . .

How utterly wrong her aunt’s prophecy had turned out to be.

Fianna straightened her shoulders, shaking off a fleeting pang of remorse. She had another man to tempt today.

When she reached Kit Pennington’s side, she lowered into her most graceful curtsy. “Mr. Pennington. I’m sorry to have asked you to come so far out of your way.”

“Miss Cameron.” Doffing his hat, he gave her a short bow, as if she were any other gentlewoman of his acquaintance. “It was no trouble, I assure you.”

She caught back the deep breath her body wanted her to take, cursing the part of her that obviously still feared him, feared he’d recognize her and call for the watch before she had a chance to finish what she’d come to England to do. No, even in the brighter light of day, he did not see her for what she truly was. And she’d be damned if she allowed her body to give him any reason to doubt her.

He remained unsmiling, but no expression of contempt marred his countenance. “Shall we find seating? I’ve some information I hope will be of benefit to you.” He crooked an elbow in her direction.

Reaching out a tentative hand, she rested her fingertips on the wool of his greatcoat, careful to keep her gaze directed demurely at the floor. Because it was part of her masquerade, of course, not because she was afraid.

Or because his eyes were the least bit compelling.

He led her to a table and settled her in a wooden chair. “Coffee?”
 

“Chocolate, if you please.”

He signaled to the server, then shrugged out of his greatcoat, reaching into a deep pocket before setting it on the chair beside him. He slid a small volume across the table, indicating with a nod that she was to open it.