Virgin Star (3 page)

Listening no more to the good woman's unnatural verbosity, and against his better judgment, he ascended the opposite staircase and quickly swept down the hall past his apartments to the door of the green room. He crossed the carpeted space to the four-poster canopied bed against the far wall. Gently he laid the girl on its soft luxuriousness. Then he removed his hat and cloak and tossed them on a nearby chair.

Two servants rushed through the doors. Instantly Sean silenced their excited exclamations. They started a fire in the hearth and lit the lamps, flooding the room with golden light. Another two maids came in with bandages, washcloths, and a brass bowl filled with hot water.

Tilly dismissed the other servants to their tasks before corning to stand by Sean. Her chubby hands covered her face in a habitual gesture of shock. Though God knew this was hot the first time a poor or lost soul had found the way to Hanover House for the captain's help and generosity in these dark days, it was, she realized with consternation, the first time anyone had been practically naked and unconscious. "I'm afraid to see the rest of 'er, I am. Do ye know the girl?"

Seanessy shook his head. He parted the wet potato-sack cloth, only to discover it was wrapped around the slender form many times over. Tilly turned to get scissors before she saw Seanessy had withdrawn a jeweled dagger. This was put to the cloth and he deftly cut a neat line down the length of it. With one hand lifting her limp form, and with Tilly's help, he pulled the wet cloth out from under her.

The young girl wore only a tattered and muddied chemise, the old-fashioned French kind. This, too, he cut from her cold skin, but as Sean felt just how cold she was, he whispered, "Tilly dear, we need those hot water bottles."

"Aye, at once."

He parted the cloth to reveal the startling nudity. His hand touched the vibrant silken skin along the delicate lines of neck and well-formed slender shoulders, skin astonishingly tender and utterly feminine, and his interested eyes widened as he took in the round, flattened mounds of her breasts, the unexpected enticement of large coral-pink tips.

Not quite a child after all.

Yet there was ample evidence of a bad beating: a bruise on her arm, and one purplish bruise on her rib cage. She was as thin as a reed and as pale as porcelain, appearing, he thought, to stand on death's portal.

Toothless might not be enough after all.

He leaned closer. His hand ran over the pink lines just above one of the tempting peaks of her breast, thinking them faint blood spots or perhaps a scar. Why, how odd—

Sean's brows drew together as he saw his mistake. A pink tattoo? On a woman? He looked closer still, seeing the tiny diamond with a point inside, and an odd-shaped face with two dots for eyes, one for a nose, and a straight line for a mouth, all of it less than thumb-sized.

Branded like a sheep. The child was marked!

Marked and beaten and all of her wet, dropped on a stranger's doorstep to be used some more. She was just a child too—no more than ten and six, he guessed. His gaze traveled down the length of her: over the slender waist as tight and narrow as a boy's, past the feminine flare of her hips and down the lines of slim, impossibly long legs. She looked half-starved; he could practically count her ribs. Thank God none of his boys went for young innocents, even when they were not so innocent: "A good woman's like a fine bottle of port," Kyler once said to a crewman who took up with a fifteen-year-old. "You need a goodly few years to make the juices sweet."

Kyler entered with Tilly, who was holding three hot water bottles wrapped in cloth. "I got five men out searching for the bastards that dropped her off. How is she doing?"

Sean brought a luxurious pale green satin comforter over the girl as Tilly carefully positioned the hot water bottles around the cold form. Then she began wrapping the long wet hair in a towel, very careful not to touch the bloodied part. "La! That bump be th' size of a goose egg!"

"Aye," Sean said, "and look at her arms." He withdrew an arm from beneath the comforter, revealing the purple bruise. Kyler whistled, a sound of equal parts disdain and dismay at the scoundrel who had caused them. The whistle stopped midway as he abruptly spotted her tightly closed fist. He gently lifted her hand and pried her cold fingers open to see a tiny slip of paper. He focused on the name and address there.

"Take a look,"

In neat letters was a name and address: Seanessy. Nine King's Highway. “A dramatic way of droppiri' by for tea, she has."

"That is not the only oddity." Sean brought the comforter from her shoulder, leaving just enough for the girl's modesty, assuming she had some, a rather generous assumption considering her circumstances.

"La! She be marked like a Dorset cow!"

Kyler almost laughed when he saw the tattoo. "Not the convent-bred, churchgoing type. Unless curent ladies' fashions have changed recently to include tattooing bosoms."

"Oh no, Mister Kyler." Tilly shook her head. "Do not be so quick to judge, now. She looks so lost and helpless—"

"And like a lot of trouble," Seanessy finished for her as he turned to retrieve his cloak and hat. "And, Tilly dear, when the child wakes and tells you a woeful tale of kidnappers or cruel fathers—or what-ever! what are you to do?"

"Why, I'll come right in and tell ye—"

The look on the captain's handsome face stopped her cold. She knew that look, a look somehow as powerful as a hard box to the ears. She turned hopeful eyes to Kyler.

Kyler was already moving through the door, disappearing in what he hoped was a prophecy of his future relationship with the girl. Now they were late for the meeting with O'Connell. There was no telling what the Irishman might do because of it.

Tilly had turned back to Seanessy. She thought of Mr. Butcher and the great bounty of his compassion. 'Mister Butcher, mayhap?"

"Good!" Sean smiled approvingly arid leaned over to kiss Tilly's cheek affectionately before withdrawing from the room. He swept down the well-lit hall, his cape billowing behind him as he took the stairs two at a time. He saw the lights were out in the entrance hall.

His left hand-slipped into a pocket, emerging with brass knuckles, but otherwise not a muscle twitched in recognition of the would-be ambush waiting at the bottom of the stairs. As he came down, he saw the man stood to his right. Whistling a tune, he took one step into the entrance hall and swung around, hitting the man with a metal fist and enough force to knock down a fortified brick wall. A grunt sounded and the man fell to the marble squares. Seanessy heard the cocking of a pistol just as he felt the cold press of metal through the wool cloth in the dead center of his back.

O'Connell chuckled from a few feet away, hidden in the darkness near the place where two men held an irritated Kyler at gunpoint as well.

Seanessy's curses filled the space, loud and vicious; he swore at the outrageous Irishman as he extended an arm to help the poor fallen brute to his feet.

Keegan O'Connell just kept laughing. For a minute, maybe two, it seemed the more vicious Sean's curses sang, the louder Keegan laughed. The man loved nothing more than catching Seanessy off-guard, if only for a moment. "I told Carlin ye always led with the sinister paw but he did not see how ye kin after watchin' that fight last spring with yer left hand tied. Remember that, lad?"

Seanessy always fought in the ring with his left hand tied so as to prevent a death blow, and there had been many match fights in the ring. Yet he knew well which fight Keegan spoke of: a Well-publicized fight between the Dublin champion and himself with half of Ireland and a good portion of England there to watch it. Neither of the two men was aware that Keegan had had the center of the ring greased beforehand, though God knows, they discovered it quick enough. That fight was still talked about, and always with wild hoots and knee-slapping amusement.

"Blast ye, Keegan O'Connell!" Seanessy bit his lip to stop the sound of his amusement, as Keegan needed no encouragement. "My idea of heaven is a piece of green Irish field and nothing and no one between us—" In the same breath he demanded, "Why the hell are you sneaking in here covered by darkness?"

"Ah! I was just checkin' to see if you can still land on your feet, lad," O’Connell said by way of explanation, motioning to the men holding pistols to back away. Lowering the metal weight in their hands, the men did. "You see, Sean boy, I was gettin' a little worried when you didn't show up. Now the Earl— bless his black tin heart!—knows full well your sterling reputation for keeping appointments with the bloody redcoats." The famous redheaded man laughed. "And you see dear ole' Earl be more anxious than a fair virgin on her wedding night to pass words with you before the boys ship out to the jeweled coast of Malacca. I reasoned he'll give up waiting by the next bell and arrive here with a dozen soldiers and a bloody gold-engraved card. I wanted to be first."

Sean chuckled as he crossed the short space to embrace his friend. "I wouldn't be surprised if you knew the exact time and day Wilson swipes the upstairs maid."

" 'Tis a scullery wench, lad!" Keegan appeared to be quite shocked that Seanessy didn't know this as he reached up to slap Sean's back. "Aye, the ole man takes his John Thomas to the ace Tuesday evenings when the good wife is at Bishop Westminster's charity seminar. And get this, lad—the man likes it the Irish way!"

The men laughed uproariously, all but Kyler, who was not Irish and had no idea what the Irish way was. Keegan settled down and waved his hand in dismissal. "Ah, lad, information and sacks of cold Irish potatoes, 'tis all an Irishman has these dog days. How fare thee, Seanessy?"

Sean exchanged ribald greetings with the other men. Kyler sighed, wondering when he would get used to the Irishman's calling card as he glanced out the dark windows. If Wilson and men headed to Hanover House—and Kyler had learned never to doubt any of Keegan's information—the last thing they needed was for Wilson to find the Irish rebel here. He opened the door to the study and said, "Step inside and away from the open windows."

Sean slapped the short heavyset man on his back again as the group of seven men filed into the study. The door shut. Sean reached into a nearby drawer and withdrew a bottle of the finest Irish whiskey to be had and the glasses to hold it, glasses made of Irish crystal—cut with the same precision and craftsmanship as a king-sized diamond. He tossed one glass hard and fast. O’Connell caught it and set it on the table with a clink. As Sean filled his glass with the liquid gold, Keegan asked, "You heard about the trouble, have you?"

"Aye," Sean said as he poured his own and handed the bottle to Kyler to pass around. "Jaime and his clan are giving you a lot of noise."

"More than just noise, lad. Two of Jaime's lads pulled guns on the steps of Saint Michael's last week." He shook his head. "Four dead, Sean."

Seanessy stared into Keegan's fine eyes, grief and regret exchanging without words. Ireland was being torn in two: on one side was O'Connell, the great and moderate barrister who sat before him, a man who wanted to work toward a free Ireland within the English Parliament—and on the other side, a new breed of Irishmen who would wait peacefully no more, a faction of men who just wanted to wash the land in blood.

"'Tis bad enough spilling the blood of the goddamn redcoats, but I'll be damned to Hades if it goes down Irish against Irish. The whole isle will be awash in enough blood to change the color of the Sea. ‘Tis come to this: I've got to give them something. I've got to have something to show them we are gaining ground. So it all comes back to: you, Seanessy. I need you. I need you like never before."

"Aye," Sean said, and every man in the room knew how much he meant it.

"I need ye to get one seat in Parliament by next term."

Sean stared as if he hadn't heard right. "You what?"

The outraged aristocratic breeding in Seanessy's tone was enough to scare half the entire English serving class, a tone that utterly defied his modest origins and. spoke instead of Oxford, a blood relationship with Barrington Hall, the very boots on his feet that were worth more than most Irishmen's annum. "Why not just ask me for the King's crown? Keegan, you fool—I may play chess with Jenkinson on occasion, or even wager on the polo field with the King's brother, but I doubt—"

"You know who's coming with Jenkinson tonight, don't you?"

Seanessy almost lost the mouthful of whiskey. "And you do? I haven't a clue. I rather thought Jenkinson just wanted to borrow a ship or two, is all. Who is it?"

“
'Lord Robert Clives."

Surprise lifted oh the handsome features of Seanessy's face. “Robert Clives?" The man was none other than the chief of the honorable East India Company itself, a title that might as well be Sole Proprietor of India. Sean knew him well; knew everything about him, except what the man might want from him. "And I suppose you can also tell me why."