The Irish Duchess Read online

  Only the sound of a footstep where there shouldn’t be one finally dragged him from his reverie. One too many violent incidents in these past years of political chaos had taught him caution. Had someone followed him from the club? Why?

  One of the things he had learned from Michael, Blanche’s new husband, was how to act quickly and defend himself. Over the years, his lessons with Gentleman Jackson had given him a much needed outlet for frustration. Neville needed no more than the snap of a twig to jump from absentminded thought to full alert.

  The scoundrel crashing through the shrubbery caught the full force of the gold-plated knob of Neville’s walking stick. The second scoundrel suffered the brunt of Neville’s fist plowing into his face at such an angle that his jaw fell slack. Neville cursed as still a third leapt from the bushes, and footsteps behind him indicated he’d attracted a crowd.

  Giving up any pretense of politeness, he flicked open the sword in his stick, slashed at the man advancing from his side, kicked at the one rising from the street, and heard the sweet sound of a groan as he connected with his soft target. Any triumph he might have felt dissipated the moment a cudgel cracked across the back of his skull.

  With a growl of fury, Neville swung and slashed at his opponent, but he’d already realized the futility. There were just too many of them.

  As someone grabbed his sword and twisted it from his hand, Neville plowed his fist into still another jaw and had the satisfaction of hearing it crack before the club came down on his skull again.

  This time, the Duke of Anglesey crumpled to the street, swearing as the blackness of unconsciousness threatened. He had no heir. He couldn’t die.

  Two

  McGonigle lifted his tankard at the bar in the dark Irish tavern and gestured at an audience as poorly dressed and world-weary as he. “The bleedin’ English are after drainin’ us dry as stones. We cain’t be lettin’ them take what little we possess. Those are our homes! I say we drive the bastards out, let them know we won’t take their thievery any longer!”

  His diatribe was interrupted by a shout from the doorway. “William McGonigle, you’re a scabrous, lying layabout with naught for brains but the whisky in your hand!”

  The men in the smoky tavern turned, although the feminine pitch of the words identified the speaker.

  Beneath the low portal stood a slender figure in boy’s jerkin and breeches, hands on hips and arms akimbo. Her green eyes caught the lantern light in the malodorous dusk of the tavern. Thick auburn curls tumbled in dishevelment around a delicately-boned face that might have captured a man’s interest—had ruby lips not tightened into a thin, disapproving line and her milky brow not been marred with a too-familiar scowl.

  Even before she strode into the room, the work-hardened men inched out of her path. That she carried a riding crop in one hand had little to do with their unease. That she had the sharp tongue of an adder had a good deal more, especially when she unleashed it.

  “Lazy, conniving troublemakers, the lot of ye!” she shouted into the silence, falling into the vernacular with the ease of experience. “You blame your sorry troubles on everyone but the ones who caused them—your own bleedin’ foolish selves! You knew that thievin’ Owen had no right to lease those lands, but you went on believin’ his lies because it suited ye. And now the rightful owner returns and wants to improve them, and the lot of ye sit here whinin’ like a bunch of pulin’ babes about bein’ robbed. You ought to be ashamed of yerselves!”

  “Fiona, ye’re after interferin’ where you don’t belong,” one of the older men intervened. “The earl won’t fancy it none, and yer uncle will take a switch to ye.”

  A low murmur in the background sounded suspiciously like “we wish,” but at the glare of green eyes, none spoke the words out loud.

  “I’d not be in here like this if the lot of ye were out moving your belongings like ye were supposed to be. It’s costing the earl enough to drain and fill those bogs ye call fields. Don’t expect him to up and move your lazy selves as well. I’ll tell him myself to plow your wretched hovels under! Did ye leave your poor wives to pack the babes and your belongings too?”

  Several of the men winced at her scorn and looked longingly at the door. McGonigle stood up. Larger than most of the men there, he towered over Fiona’s slight figure by a foot or more, but she didn’t flinch at his approach.

  “Those are our homes, Miss Fiona, and don’t ye be forgettin’ that! Our daddies built those houses. We grew up in them. You can’t be just throwin’ a man out of his home willy-nilly and expect him not to fight back.”

  Exhaustion lined her pale features, but her reply remained forceful. “You know the law, McGonigle. Your father knew the law when he built that place on rented land. Improvements stay with the owner, and the owner has the right to do what he will with them. You’re blamed lucky the earl has provided other housing for you. There’s not a bloody English lord out there who would have done the same. Michael is as Irish as you or me. He’s looking after you, if you weren’t too damned backward to see it. Once he drains those bogs, we’ll have twice as much land to farm. The fair has raised the funds for looms. Once we build those, we’ll see a difference.”

  “The bloody damned law needs changing!” someone in the background shouted.

  Fiona sought the face of the troublemaker, but her gaze was distracted. A girl with a shawl wrapped about her head and shoulders searched the interior, and Fiona knew what that meant. Glowering at the angry crowd, she shoved her way toward the child.

  “A whole lot of bloody damned things need changing around here,” Fiona shouted, at no one in particular. “And men who don’t keep their pants on and stay home where they belong are one of them.”

  A guilty silence fell behind her as she strode out and the child hurried in her path. Every man jack of them recognized the girl and knew what her arrival meant. Fiona had no idea how many of those men in there had lain with the child’s mother. She certainly didn’t want to know. She just wanted those responsible for the children that resulted to step forward and take their share of the burden. Not bloody damn likely in this lifetime, she muttered to herself, as she hurried down the village street.

  The western sun cast an unflattering light over the stone huts and muddy lane, shadowing the flowers at the doorsteps and illuminating the garbage and the pigs, but Fiona had lived with this setting so long she scarcely noticed it. As she reached the tumbledown hovel set far down a back lane from the main road, her attention turned to the terrified children huddled in what passed for the front yard. The screams from the interior curdled her blood.

  Fiona stopped and hugged the eldest, a too-skinny boy of nine. She whispered in his ear, and sent him off with the others on an errand she made up on the spot. They knew her as the lady who brought them milk and bread, so they eagerly obeyed her. Sighing, Fiona watched them scamper off. Why the devil didn’t the neighbors look after them at a time like this?

  She knew the answer to that, but she didn’t like thinking so cruelly of others. Despite the low portal, she didn’t need to duck upon entering the darkened cottage, one of the few advantages of her unlofty stature.

  The old woman in the corner continued rocking with grief without acknowledging Fiona’s presence. The younger one straining in the last stages of childbirth wasn’t conscious enough to notice. She gripped the filthy sheets over the rough pallet and screamed in an anguish Fiona recognized as abnormal.

  Feeling the fear come upon her, she looked for a basin of water in which to wash her hands. She wished she had more knowledge, but as a woman and a Catholic, she was denied an education. Her mother had taught her to read and write, but that couldn’t teach her what to do now. She could rely only on what little she had learned from experience.

  ***

  “Bless the Lord, and may the sainted Mother of God deliver us,” the terrified old woman whispered as Fiona wrapped the squalling babe in clean linen. “Ye’ve done it, lass. Let me have him, then, though it would hav
e been better had the wee bairn never been born.”

  Fiona mentally concurred, but exhausted, she wiped sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, and returned to the unconscious woman on the pallet. Those six children outside needed a mother, even a poor one such as Aileen.

  Cursing everyone from her parents to the bigotry of society, Fiona vented her anger and fear while she worked over her patient. The babe she’d saved wailed lustily.

  “Blessed Lord Jesus, why!” Fiona screamed some time later, as Aileen’s life ebbed with the flow of blood, and the old woman hastily murmured the sacraments.

  The new mother issued a sigh of peace and fell still despite Fiona’s frantic efforts. Beating the dirt floor with her fists, Fiona cried out her frustration and grief. She’d never had anyone die on her before.

  “Ye done the best ye could, cailin,” the old woman whispered as it became evident her daughter would not breathe again. “Do not greet so. She’s at peace now. Just look at her. We’ll see to the babes. Ye get yerself home before it comes dark.”

  Numb, Fiona listened to the babe wail and wondered how they would feed it. And the other children. What could one old woman do to feed those six children and a babe? The priest would take them away. They had orphanages in Dublin. Perhaps the children would have some chance of survival there.

  Even as she thought that, she heard the children sneaking into the hut, weeping and clinging to their grandmother. Stairstep, all of them, each one a head taller than the next. The eldest was but nine. Some had their mother’s red hair, others had the dark curls of their various fathers. If not for the dirt, they’d be a handsome lot.

  Guilt ate at Fiona’s innards as the old woman rocked the wailing babe and the next youngest wept. Sean, the eldest, looked at her anxiously. It was well past their supper times. They’d come to expect their mother’s frequent lying-ins. They hadn’t quite realized this one was permanent. They waited for an adult to provide.

  Driven by curiosity, one of the neighbors arrived, took one look at the corpse on the pallet, and throwing Fiona a sympathetic look, herded the children toward the door. “I’ll send Maureen to lay her out. Ye get yerself home now, Miss Fiona. I don’t know what’s to become of these chicks, I really don’t.” Shaking her head, she ushered them out.

  “I failed her, I did,” the old woman wept from the corner. “I tried to bring her up right, but what’s a mother to do? There’s naught for us here. I used to weave the most beautiful cloth, but they’ve taken that away. And even the wool is worthless now. How’s a mother to support her babes, I ask? They’ve destroyed us all, the royal bastards.”

  The bitterness fell from her lips with the resignation of much repetition. Fiona knew the tale only too well. “My cousin’s trying,” she whispered, as much an apology as she could offer. “But he can’t move mountains. And he can’t spend all of his wife’s money on charity. Whoever heard of a landlord paying tenants to use his land? It’s not done.”

  “We know, lass. Don’t fret yerself. The earl’s made all the difference, giving the men jobs and their self-respect back. He can’t do everything. We’ll manage. Ye go on home now.”

  Glancing around the dismal cottage, Fiona felt the rage building again. She had traveled to England, seen the great houses and the glittering chandeliers and the wealth. It wasn’t fair. Why should so few have so much, and so many have so little? It wasn’t because they hadn’t tried. Every attempt at saving themselves had met with the booted feet of the bloody rich crushing them back into the soil. It was time the nobles paid for their sins, but not the way the men in the tavern hoped to do it. Violence wasn’t the answer.

  Clenching her teeth and straightening her weary shoulders, Fiona started for the door. “I’ll find a way, Mary. There’s wealth enough out there to be had, and I’ll have it someday, if I have to marry a bloody English lord to get it.”

  Had the worn leather hinges of the door allowed for it, she would have slammed her way out. As it was, she stalked into the lowering rays of the sun in a guilty fury that would have murdered the first man crossing her path. Sensibly, no man in the village left the shadows of their doorways while Fiona MacDermot stalked the streets.

  ***

  “Fiona, where the devil have you been? We’ve been looking for you for hours.” Seamus clattered down the stairs, waving two sheets of expensive paper in his hand. “We’ve got letters from Blanche.”

  “Lady Aberdare,” Fiona corrected wearily, pushing past her brother and up the massive front stairs toward the security of her room and a hot bath.

  “She doesn’t stand on formality,” Seamus replied without heat, following her up. “She wants you to join her in London, says it’s much too boring otherwise, and Michael has business in the Lords, so she can’t leave. She says she’ll give you a come-out. You can find yourself a wealthy husband who can finance my campaign when I graduate.”

  Fiona snorted inelegantly at this specious bit of selfishness as she continued trudging up the stairs. “Marry a wealthy widow and support your own campaign.”

  “You can’t disappoint Blanche after all she’s done for us. I’m to escort you to London when I return to Oxford. It’s time you left the muck of this place and become the lady you’re supposed to be.”

  Seamus was her elder by two years, but Fiona had decided long ago that his brains were ten years younger. “I am not supposed to be a lady!” she shouted down at him where he hesitated on the landing. “And I’m bloody well not returning to that den of iniquity they call London!”

  “You have no choice,” he shouted back. “Michael has sent the fares and Uncle William has already arranged our transportation. We’re to leave the day after tomorrow.”

  That she damned well was not. She had Aileen’s children to worry about. Someone must find them food and homes. And the other women without menfolk in the village would starve this winter if she did not find some means of providing for them.

  Mr. O’Donegal was supposed to teach them the old ways of preparing the flax they grew this summer so they could earn coins by weaving cloth. She had hope that quality linen might save the village, once the money they’d raised at the festival bought the looms. Burke would see to that on trade day.

  Fiona heard her Uncle William calling her from the study above. The emotion of the day finally hit her with the impact a cannonball. She couldn’t face him now. She simply couldn’t.

  Without further thought, Fiona took the back stairs two at a time, rushing out through the kitchen and past the startled cook, heading for the stable. Once upon a long time ago the earls of Aberdare had kept the finest stables in all of Europe. Those horses were long since lost, and the new earl resided in England and had little use for more. But they still had two fine mares eating them out of house and home. Fiona had practically grown up on the back of them. They were her one comfort in times of distress.

  The roan tossed her head and nickered in greeting as Fiona grabbed a bridle.

  ***

  Neville’s duties kept him from traveling often. He had never visited Ireland for pleasure, and had certainly never expected to be fascinated by greenery lush to the point of opulence. Dusk created dancing shadows over the rolling fields he could well imagine peopled by cavorting elven folk. The mist and the lowering sun spun even the animals in the field into creatures of imagination.

  The blows to his head must have warped his brain. The persistent headache had faded recently, lulling him into a false sense of well-being. The pain returned full force now, after an exhausting day of riding rough roads and losing himself in the byways by failing to understand the directions given when asked. If he didn’t find Aberdare shortly, he’d be forced to sleep in the hedgerows.

  Glancing toward the setting sun in hopes of seeing civilization ahead, Neville nearly fell from his saddle as a silhouette of a fey creature on horseback flew from the woods, hair streaming in silken lengths behind her. He imagined a lady centaur, or a fairy thieving some poor farmer’s best mare.
/>   Not once did he consider that the animal had taken control and endangered its rider. Even through the lengthening shadows Neville could see slim limbs and confident hands guiding the racing animal over potholes and ruts and into a breathtaking leap over a crumbling rock wall. The amazing sight not only tore the breath from his lungs, but aroused a lust he’d neglected for so long, he scarcely recognized it for what it was.

  Forgetting headache and weariness, he steered his mount on a connecting path with the wayward rider’s. Despite her apparel, he knew the equestrian was female. She was a woman wearing breeches. Perhaps she had a liberal view of other things besides attire.

  Her mount nearly collided with his in the shadows of the trees as she raced across the road he traveled. She reined in, rearing her horse to a halt. “Who the devil are you?” she demanded imperiously.

  Instead of grinning at her brash introduction, Neville scowled at the familiarity of a voice he hadn’t heard in years. “Fiona MacDermot! You damned well haven’t gained a particle of sense since I saw you last.” So much for any brief hopes of pleasure.

  The feminine figure stilled, then as recognition dawned, she responded in outrage. “His bloody majesty, it is! And a fine damned ending to one of the worst days of my life this is. If it’s paying for me sins I am to have the likes of you about, then I’ll do penance and never sin again.” She swung her horse around and started to ride away.

  Realizing she could lead him to Aberdare, Neville grabbed her reins, earning a crack across his gloved hand with her riding crop for his imposition. He snatched the weapon from her grasp before she could strike again. “Bigad, I can’t believe Blanche wants a hoydenish creature like you anywhere near her. What the devil are you wearing?”