Countess of Scandal (2 page)

Eliza ignored them, passing serenely on her way, though she longed to burst out laughing. If they only knew! Mount Clare had never cared what she did when he was alive, as long as she left him alone with his cards, horses, and mistresses. It left her plenty of time to travel and study, to read and form "shocking" friendships of all sorts.

Now that he was gone, she finally had the funds to put some of her ideas into action. Ideas that narrow, cruel men like Morely could never understand.

Eliza sighed as she edged her way around the crowded dance floor, the blur of bright silks, velvets, and sparkling jewels, and the thunder of stamping feet and claps. Men so rarely understood her. Certainly not her husband or her poor late father! They had always looked at her as if she were a Chinese puzzle box, an exotic stranger in their midst.

Eliza paused before one of the floor-length mirrors that lined the green silk walls of the assembly rooms. She didn't
look
like a puzzle, she thought She wore a fine gown of silver-lilac silk, embroidered with silver thread and beads, proper half-mourning that went well with her grandmother's diamonds. Her dark hair was carefully curled and piled high and pinned with pearl combs, not tucked up "croppy" style, as Lucy Fitzgerald and her wild sister-in-law Pamela liked to effect. They w
ere easily reckoned to be "demo
cratical" and thus not danced with.

Eliza preferred to keep her convictions hidden^ or at least as hidden as they could be, where they could do the most good. Silks and diamonds were as good a mask as any, though her disguise was slipping, if Morely and Pelham's
conversation was any indication. Soon she would have to come out into the open—as they all would.

She closed her eyes against the lavish party. Ever since she was a girl, she had been keenly aware of the difference between her family's comfortable life and those of the Irish farmers and workers. She saw the gulf between the privileged Anglo-Irish few and the suffering many. As she grew older and her marriage gave her independence, she learned how the government in Dublin truly worked; she often went to Parliament to sit in the gallery and listen to the debates. Whenever any politician actually showed some compassion and tried to help the Irish people, tried to lessen the harsh Penal Laws or improve the lot of the Catholics, they were shouted down by the Ascendancy landowners who were protecting their exclusive powers and privileges.

She had tried to follow her mother's fine example of charity and compassion but quickly saw that would never go far enough to really improve anyone's life. It could never lessen the weight that prevented real prosperity and happiness. The land she loved so much was dying under oppression.

So, when Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the son of her mother's friends the Duke and Duchess of Leinster, came and asked for her help to make true changes in Ireland, to throw off British rule as America had done and move forward as an independent nation, it seemed the work she waited for. The work she was meant to do.

She would not turn away from it

Eliza turned her back to the mirror to study the room behind her. That kaleidoscope of dancers, the spiraling music and laughter, grew ever louder and wilder as the punch poured on. This Christmas season had been like none other
she could remember. Irish holidays were always lavish and merry, but this year there was a knife-sharp edge to it all, a frantic decadence, as if they could all go tumbling down into dark oblivion at any moment

"Apres moi, le deluge"
she heard someone say behind her. She turned to find her sister Anna standing just beyond the edge of the glass's reflection. Anna's beauty had only grown over the years, and now she was all gold and ivory and roses, a bright brilliant goddess in her white and pink gown.

Too bright perhaps? Eliza examined Anna's shining blue eyes, her tumbled blond curls—the champagne glass in her hand.

Anna laughed. "You see, sister, I can read your mind. We dance while Rome, or Dublin, burns."

Eliza shook her head and took the glass away from her sister. "Were you in the card room?"

"Of course. I must have my share of fun while I can, since I'm to be shipped back to Mama at Killinan after Christmas! She is shockingly strict these days, Eliza. You would think I was still in the schoolroom with Caroline."

That wouldn't be such a bad thing, Eliza thought as she tasted the champagne that was left Anna was as wild and frantic as everyone else in Dublin, and that could be very dangerous in the days to come. "How much did you lose?"

Anna waved her lace fan in a dismissive gesture. "The merest amount Eliza, I promise. Mostly to Peter Carstairs, too, and he won't press to be paid."

"Because he is violently in love with you. like all the other young men in Dublin."

Anna laughed, her cheeks bright pink. "Well, I am not
in love with any of them, I assure you! Silly puppies, all of them."

"One day, sister dear, someone shall capture your heart, and then you shall have to eat your words."

"I could say the same thing to you, Eliza. Where will all your talk of independence go when you meet someone you could truly love?" Anna took a lobster tart from a footman's tray, munching on it thoughtfully before saying, "Someone dashing and smart, not like Mount Clare. Someone handsome, too..."

Eliza laughed. "You have been reading too many romantic novels, Anna! I must lend you some more improving volumes."

"Not if it's going to make me sound like I'm reading from
Fordyce's Sermons.
We have to make merry while we're young—while we can."

"So, you will leave sermons until you're an old, gray widow like me?"

"Oh, Eliza dearest! Widow you may be; old and gray you are not You can still find romance." Anna pointed with her folded fan at the dance floor. "What of Walter Fitzwilliam? He cuts a fine leg."

"And he is a terrible drunk. He fell into the gutter on Sackville Street last week, they say."

'That does not bode well for the bedchamber, then," Anna muttered. "I have heard things about men who imbibe too freely. It, er, disables certain vital parts."

"Anna
Blacknall!"

'There
are
benefits in reading novels, sister. Especially French ones. What of Lord Aldington..."

At that moment, the assembly room doors opened to admit a group of latecomers. As was becoming more
frequent in Dublin, as regiments newly arrived from London sought amusement, they were officers. Young ones, too, not old and portly colonels in too-tight red tunics. These men seemed tall and strong, their bright gazes keen as they swept over the noisy throng.

"Well, now," Anna said. "This is more like it"

"Anna, I am hardly likely to take up with some newly arrived officer," Eliza said.

"No one said you have to 'take up' with one! A dance would make a fine start" Anna tapped her fan against her chin as she examined the new arrivals. "What about that one there? He is quite a beauty, I must say, and even taller than you."

Eliza couldn't help laughing. It felt as if they were at a horse fair, and Anna was a shrewd Arab trader evaluating fillies. "Which one?"

"That one, of course. He doesn't appear a drunkard at all, does he?"

Eliza followed the pointing line of Anna's fan to a man who was half turned away from them, greeting Mr. Neilsen, the Master of Ceremonies. From that angle, he
did
seem a beauty, she had to admit Very tall, with broad shoulders, a tight backside, and his long dark golden hair tied back with a black ribbon. If only those fine shoulders weren't encased in a red coat!

Green would suit them so much better.

Then he turned toward her, the flickering light of dozens of candles falling over the chiseled angles of his lean face.

Eliza gasped. She was surely imagining things! Anna's romantic nonsense was infecting her senses.

She closed her eyes, gulping down the last of the champagne. When she looked again, though, nothing had
changed. He was still there. Bigger than life. Bigger even than the dreams that had come to her, unbidden, over the years.

Will Denton was back in Ireland.
Major
Denton, to judge by the decorations on his uniform, lime had carved his face into a hard, elegant sculpture, like a statue of a Roman god colored bronze by a harsh West Indies sun.

From across the room, his eyes, those intense blue-green eyes she had imagined so often over the years, seemed to touch her very heart The noise and movement of the room all faded away, and she saw only him. For an instant she was fifteen again, so full of yearning and romantic hope.

Her hand tightened on the glass until it bit into her rings and dragged her back down to earth. To cold reality.

"Good heavens!" Anna exclaimed "Isn't that Viscount Moreton's younger son? The one who's been gone so long?"

"I believe so," Eliza said hoarsely. Her throat felt so dry and tight Where was that champagne when it was needed? "I'm surprised you remember."

"Oh, I never forget a face. Especially one like that Was he not your friend back then?"

"I wouldn't call him a Mend. Just a neighbor and acquaintance."

"Did you sneak out to go riding with all your acquaintances, then?"

Eliza shouldn't be surprised, really. Despite her careless, party-loving facade, Anna had always been a shockingly sharp observer. Which meant having her in Dublin, now of all times, was not very wise. "That was a long time ago."

"The years have certainly been kind to our old neighbor.
We should renew our acquaintance. It's surely the polite thing to do."

Before Eliza could protest, Anna seized her by the hand and drew her across the room, through the knots of laughing people. Will watched their approach, his expression utterly unreadable, as if he had become a Roman statue in truth. As she drew closer to him, she suddenly recalled every minute they had spent together. Every single stolen kiss.

She tried to breathe, but her stays were too tight Only Anna's firm clasp on her arm held her fast, not allowing her to run away. She had to keep moving forward, ever forward—toward Will, and the past that was suddenly all tangled up in the present

Mr. Neilsen bowed to them as they drew near. "Lady Mount Clare, Lady Anna. May I present—"

"No need, Mr. Neilsen, for we are old friends! Are we not, Mr. Denton?" Anna said gaily. "Or should I say Major Denton, yes?"

"I am most pleased to meet with you again, Lady Anna," Will answered. Eliza thought she saw a flashing glint in his eyes, as if he would smile at them. But he merely bowed politely.

"I'm surprised you recognize me. Have I not grown much taller?" Anna said. "Yet my sister, Lady Mount Clare, has grown only more beautiful. Would you not agree, Major?"

Will looked directly at Eliza, his gaze steady and as dark blue and unreadable as the deepest sea. Eliza clutched at her folded fan, as if its carved ivory could keep her from drowning. "Most beautiful, of course—Lady Mount Clare. Then, you always were. Lord Mount Clare is most fortunate."

"He would be if he wasn't dead!" Anna said brightly.

"Anna!" Eliza admonished.

Far from being repentant, Anna took Mr. Neilsen's arm and smoothly led him away, saying, "Mr. Neilsen, there is something I absolutely must ask you about next week's reception..."

And Eliza was left quite alone with Will.

Well, alone in a room with dozens of other people— people who always watched each other's behavior with the most avid interest. Yet it felt as if there was only the two of them, cast round by a spell of glittering silence. All the years of her unsatisfactory marriage, her work, everything, just... disappeared.

"You look well," she said, finding her voice at last "The islands must have agreed with you."

That lurking smile touched the corner of his lips. A mere shadow, but it sufficed. "Can they agree with any man? The heat, the hurricanes..."

"Those recalcitrant natives?"

"Them, too."

"And now you are brought back to Ireland to subdue a different set of natives?"

Will laughed. She remembered well his old laugh, that merry, carefree sound that would burst forth like sunshine. This laugh was different, harsher somehow. Rougher and darker.
"Do you
need subduing, Eliza?"

"Not by the likes of you, Will Denton. Ato or Denton."

"Ah, yes, I remember—not by a man in an English coat"

"That was a long time ago."

"And things change, do they?" His gaze swept over her, her silk gown and diamonds, the gold ring on her finger. "How long has Lord Mount Clare been gone?"

"Over a year now."

"You look surprised as you say that"

In truth, she was a bit surprised. It seemed longer than a year, he had been so often away from home, from her—and she from him: An arrangement that suited everyone most admirably.

Once, she could have said that to Will Said anything, really. But the sun-bronzed, hardened man who stood before her was a stranger, and she had learned caution. Keeping one's own counsel these days was essential.