Duchess of Sin (33 page)

“They say the waltz is still terribly scandalous in London,” she said. “All the high sticklers say it incites improper lust.”

He grinned down at her. “No wonder it’s so popular in Dublin then.”

Anna laughed as the musicians swung into the lilting tune, and Conlan whirled her in a circle. He
was
a good dancer, even without the wild freedom of the Olympian Club. Their steps were perfectly matched, their movements as
one as they turned and dipped and twirled. The giddy patterns made her want to laugh in delight, to whirl on and on with him
just like this forever.

But the song ended too soon. All the couples spun to a stop as the last strains of the violins died away. Anna curtsied low
to Conlan one more time, still laughing helplessly.

As she rose to take his arm again, she glanced up at the minstrels’ gallery. Grant Dunmore still stood there, his fists braced
on the balustrade. Even from that distance, she could feel the burn of his angry stare. He whirled around and stalked out
of the gallery.

Anna shivered, and Conlan asked, “Are you all right, Lady Anna? Are you chilled?”

She made herself shake away the cold touch of that fury and smiled up at him. She wanted nothing to ruin this moment, this
Christmas night. Cold morning would come soon enough. “I think I am in need of some refreshment, Your Grace. Would you escort
me into the dining room? Lady Connemara has laid out a fine buffet.”

“Of course.”

“And then maybe you will dance with me again?” she said. She noticed Caroline standing in the dining room doorway with Lord
Hartley, watching them with avid interest. Her little sister was far too observant. “But first, I fear you will have to meet
my sister Caroline. Don’t let her quiz you too much about the history of Adair Court, and you may not want to mention your
ancestor Ewan the Brave. She adores things like that and would question you about it incessantly.”

Conlan laughed, as if he was completely undaunted by the prospect of being quizzed about his Irish ancestors by a young bluestocking.
“She sounds like a most unusual colleen.”

Anna sighed. “Yes, she is that. But that’s our family for you—unusual.”

He leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Lucky for me I am highly appreciative of the—unusual.”

A
re you sure we should be going to Parliament today of all days?” Caroline said.

Anna leaned back on the carriage seat, watching the crowded Dublin streets flash by outside the window. It was a gray, wet
day, and the pretty white Christmas snow had turned to black mush as they moved into the new year of 1800. Even though it
was barely January, the bright holiday seemed long past.

“Of course, we should be going, today above all,” she said. “It is the last debate before the Union vote.”

“That’s what I mean. It’s sure to be a terrible crush in the gallery, and someone is bound to start a fight.”

“I do hope so.”

“And you’ll be fortunate not to get slapped or have your hair pulled, wearing that ribbon.”

Anna toyed with the ribbon pinned to her fur-edged spencer. Its blue satin length was embroidered with the words “British
Connection, Irish Independence, No Union.” “Jane gave it to me. If someone quarrels with us,
you could hit them over the head with that book you insist on lugging about.”

The carriage jolted to a sudden stop, and Anna could hear curses and shrieks out on the street. She peered from the window
to see that they were trapped in a terrible traffic snarl on Hoggen Green, far down from the Parliament building. They were
blocked in on all sides, and it was obvious they wouldn’t be moving anytime soon.

“Come on, Caro, we’ll have to walk the rest of the way,” Anna said as she reached for the door latch. When it swung open,
the shouts grew louder, and the pungent smell of rotted vegetables was noxious in the cold wind.

“Anna, maybe we should just go home, or maybe to the milliner…” Caroline began, always the voice of prudence.

“Nonsense! The fate of our homeland is being decided in there today, and we don’t want to miss it.” Anna took her sister by
the hand and tugged her out of the carriage. They pushed their way past the crowds until they found the gray stone steps and
the colonnade of soaring Ionic columns that led into the Parliament building.

And there, they also found the main attraction, just at the foot of those steps. One of the Honorable Members, a man notorious
for taking English bribes, attempted to alight from his fine new carriage, but his path was blocked by shrieking market women.
They pelted him with old cabbages whenever he stuck out a silk-clad leg, much to the merriment of the onlookers.

“English dog!” they shouted. “Castlereagh’s pig! Just try and sell
us
out, you fancy turd.”

The guards stationed along the columns just laughed, and the crowd waiting to press inside acted as if they were
watching a particularly amusing Christmas pantomime. Still holding on to Caroline’s hand, Anna shoved past them, ducking the
flying vegetables. They hurried beneath the portico, lined with the grand statues of Hibernia, Fidelity, and Commerce. Their
stone eyes stared down at the chaos without much interest, but the royal coat of arms above hadn’t fared very well. It was
splattered with cabbage.

The guards let Anna and Caroline go by into the marble foyer with its glittering crystal chandeliers. There was no quiet dignity
there today, though, if there ever was. The hordes of people trying to get into the octagonal Parliament chamber were thickly
pressed together, a tangle of pro-Union orange ribbons and anti-Union blue. There was just as much shouting as outside, shoving
and pushing, and just as Caroline had warned, there was hair-pulling. No one was safe, whether man or woman, peasant or princess.

Anna held on to Caroline with one hand and her blue-feathered hat with the other and went up the stairs to the observers’
gallery. The galleries surrounded the chamber on all eight sides, with widely spaced columns and tiered seating so that all
the action below could be observed. She had been there a few times with friends, and it was always full of interested onlookers,
heckling the speakers and eating sugared almonds and coffee. But it was never like today. People were jammed into every available
space, opera glasses at the ready.

“Anna!” she heard Jane call. “Here, I’ve saved you a seat.”

Jane had somehow snared a prime place, at the end of one of the benches on the front row, and she was hotly defending it.
Anna managed to slide onto the wooden seat
beside her, dragging Caroline with her. Caro beat off an attempted poacher with her book.

“Modern politics is no fun at all,” Caroline muttered. She dragged her battered bonnet from her head and straightened her
spectacles. “They should try hand-to-hand combat to settle questions, like the ancient Celts.”

“I think it might come to that,” said Jane with a laugh. She, too, wore a blue ribbon and blue feathers in her hat.

“Have we missed anything?” Anna asked. She pulled her opera glasses from her reticule and trained them on the floor below,
but she could only see a tangle of black coats down there.

“Not at all. The Speaker is reading the Resolutions—or he would if he could keep from being shouted down,” said Jane.

Anna’s glasses found Mr. Foster, the Speaker, where he stood on a platform. He waved a clutch of papers wildly, shouting,
“We cannot begin until the Resolutions are called!” No one paid attention, except for the booing women in the gallery. All
the Members were arguing amongst themselves, overturning benches and scattering more papers.

Anna swung her glasses across the way to see who listened in the other galleries. The boos and cheers, orange and blue, seemed
evenly divided, with no one getting the upper hand.

“There is your rejected suitor,” Jane said wryly. “Keeping an eye on his pet delegate, I suppose.”

“Rejected suitor?” said Anna, still caught up in the action.

“Grant Dunmore, of course.” Jane moved Anna’s hand so the glasses pointed to another gallery. “Obviously he
prefers behind-the-scenes work to—what did you call it, Lady Caroline? Hand-to-hand combat?”

“I suppose you would know, Lady Cannondale,” Caroline murmured under her breath. “You seem expert at that sort of thing.”

It
was
Grant Dunmore, coolly watching the debate boil below. Anna hadn’t seen him since the Christmas Eve ball because he had departed
from the Connemaras’ the next morning, not even waiting for the Boxing Day theatricals. He wore a somber black greatcoat and
stark white cravat, his coppery hair trimmed shorter and brushed back. The look on his face was utterly inscrutable.

“Is he really pro-Union, then?” Anna asked. “I thought so, but he is not one to let his convictions show.”

“Convictions?” Jane laughed. “Some men have convictions; others have fortunes to protect or acquire. Scores to settle. Why
else would he commandeer the by-election in Queen’s County last year, when he never cared about it before?”

Anna lowered her glasses. “So he thinks Union, and a cozy relationship with Westminster, will open Adair Court to him again?”

Jane didn’t answer as the roar from below grew even louder. Anna didn’t need an answer, though; she was already sure. And
she felt like a fool for not seeing it before.

The clang of a giant bell, hurriedly wheeled in from some unknown church, established a measure of order. The members fell
back to their seats just long enough for Mr. Foster to take his seat on the Woolsack and the resolutions finally to be read.
Then the debates commenced in full earnest, for and against, amidst even more boos and shouts. Finally came the moment everyone
waited for,
when the charismatic Mr. Grattan, an outspoken opponent of the Union, took the speaker’s podium, and the chamber fell silent
at last.

“This Union is not an identification of two nations,” he began. “It is merely a merger of the parliament of one nation into
that of the other. One nation—England— retains her full proportion, while Ireland strikes off two-thirds; she does so without
any regard to either her present number, or to comparative physical strength. She is more than one-third in population, in
territory, and less than one-sixth in representation! Her tax coin, her products of wool and linen and crops, are taken without
regard to the good of this land and its people.”

As he went on with this litany of injustice, the murmurs of the crowd grew steadily into a low roar, and his voice rose as
he hammered his fist on the podium. “It follows that the two nations are not identified, though the Irish legislature be absorbed,
and by that act of absorption, the feeling of one of the nations is not identified but alienated! I say British connection,
Irish independence, no Union!”

The throngs on the floor surged forward again, Grattan carried from his platform on the shoulders of anti-Union members as
blue ribbons rained down from the galleries. It seemed his passionate eloquence had carried the day, but the jeers were just
as loud.

Anna caught a glimpse between the columns of black hair and broad shoulders, and she swung her glasses up just in time to
see Conlan turning down the stairs. Grant Dunmore was several paces behind him.

She knew that he couldn’t hear her shout above the din, but she had the terrible feeling that she had to warn
him somehow. Of what, she didn’t know, but that sense was very strong. Amid all the shouting and bell-ringing, and the shower
of ribbons and torn paper, something was bound to happen.

She jumped to her feet and pushed past the crowds in the gallery. Everyone stood atop the benches now, shoving each other
amid the clamor. She made it to the stairs and dashed down them to the foyer, but she didn’t see Conlan or Grant anywhere.

She ran down the corridors, much quieter than the chaotic chamber but still crowded with people rushing in to be part of the
madhouse. She burst out onto the steps next to Commerce, and there at last she glimpsed Conlan standing on the walkway below.
The market women were gone, leaving only piles of old cabbage, and there were just a few wise souls who departed the building
around him. He calmly lit a cheroot, perfectly composed, as if he had not just escaped from Bedlam.

“Conlan!” she cried and hurried down the steps. Her shoe slid on a bit of cabbage, and she collided with his shoulder just
as he turned to her.

“Well,
cailleach,
this is quite a greeting,” he said, his arm coming around her waist to keep her from falling.

Despite her rush of panic, she was very happy to see him again. His teasing smile and the glint in his green eyes were as
gorgeous as ever. “Are you—well?” she asked.

“As well as a man can be who just escaped a wild menagerie,” he answered, tossing aside the cheroot. “And you? I’m surprised
you wanted to come to this pandemonium.”

“How could I not? After everything we talked about. I thought I could…”

Suddenly, she felt a hard push to her shoulders, and she
fell hard to the stone steps. Pain flashed through her side, and all the breath was knocked from her lungs. She heard a woman
scream, it sounded like Caroline, and the violent pounding of skin on skin and the crack of bone.