The Irish Duchess Page 5

  Neville stifled a groan. He’d hoped to hustle Fiona out of here before she heard the rumor. Before she could do more than emit the first screech of outrage, Neville stepped into the dust-moted light where O’Connor could detect his movement.

  “It’s McGonigle’s doing, you know that, Fiona,” Neville said dismissively. “The man’s a troublemaker. If your friends do not believe better of you than that, then they don’t deserve your time or care.”

  Neville turned his attention from Fiona to the lanky visitor. “You had no need to disturb her with such idiocy. Michael should have turned you over to the courts and let you hang.”

  O’Connor shoved his hands into the pockets of a shapeless tweed coat and regarded Neville with the same expression he’d give a particularly loathsome insect. “And the same to ye now,” he replied with remarkable placidity. “If ye must know, I’ve come to save Fiona from yer filthy clutches. I’d have her for wife, which is more than you can say.”

  The hard slap of Fiona’s hand across O’Connor’s long jaw echoed in the empty chamber. Neville stared in astonishment. O’Connor merely rubbed the sore place and regarded her without expression.

  “You’d not have done that had you not already thought the same yourself,” Eamon responded with the first hint of anger. “You’ll do whatever you must to feed your orphans. I know you that well, Fiona MacDermot, so you needn’t deny it. I’m here to stop you from making that mistake.”

  “You’re a great, lumbering jackass, Eamon O’Connor, and I want you out of here this instant!” Furious, she spun around to confront the damned duke, and caught a moment’s unguarded anger in his expression. She didn’t know whether it was at the insult to her or to himself and she was past caring.

  “To hell and damnation with the lot of ye!” Throwing up her hands, Fiona walked out.

  “Don’t say I didn’t warn you!” Eamon shouted after her.

  Warn her—of what? Of falling for the duke’s cold charms? She’d as likely fall for a viper in her sewing basket. Since she didn’t own a sewing basket and had no taste for snakes, the likelihood was nil. Fiona snarled at the stupidities of the male of the species. Wave a female in their faces, and they transformed into lust-crazed jackasses.

  The bloody boring Duke of Anglesey would never do something so common as fight over a woman’s honor. He’d probably pass a piece of legislation making it illegal for a man to insult a woman—or more likely, a duke—and assign the death penalty. That’s all the damned English Parliament was good for anyway.

  Despite her scorn, Fiona thought twice before taking the action Eamon’s news demanded she take. She would disappoint Lady Blanche, and she truly would hate doing that. Blanche was the only woman Fiona had ever known who fit the description of ladies in the old folk tales. One simply didn’t disappoint legends without good reason.

  Ignoring the maid buckling trunks, Fiona changed into her boy’s breeches and shirt. For a moment she felt a spurt of regret that she would not have the opportunity to snare a rich husband and make life easier for everyone, but nothing had ever come easily in her life.

  She slipped down the back stairs, through the nearly empty kitchen, and into the straggling walled garden. She’d thought to make the garden a thing of beauty as well as practicality, but she’d never had time to do more than plant a few herbs and a rose sucker someone had given her. The cook had planted potatoes, but the vines had died back at the end of summer. They’d need digging soon.

  She peered around the wall to the stables, prepared to avoid the duke if he blocked her way again. But she saw no sign of him. She didn’t think either he or Eamon cared enough to fight over her now that she’d left their presence. She supposed Eamon would crawl back into whatever hole he’d crawled out of, and the duke would be in the drive overseeing the loading of the carriage. He learned quickly, she must admit. The castle had few servants and those were untrained. If a person wanted something done, they’d best do it themselves.

  Slipping past the wall, Fiona hurried across the stable yard. She didn’t need a saddle to ride Maeve. She could be gone before anyone missed her.

  The horse nickered and took the carrot Fiona had snatched from the garden. After the drafty castle, the stable seemed almost cozy. Fiona felt more at home here than anywhere else. Giving the mare a hug, she used a crate as a mounting block and climbed on. Even if the duke should see her leave, he couldn’t catch up with her.

  She didn’t count on finding him waiting for her as she rode out of the barn.

  He grabbed the bridle before she could kick Maeve and fly past him. “You’re becoming predictable, Fiona,” he said coolly, holding the dancing animal without a hint of strain.

  “So are you, your gracious lordship.” Fiona could have sworn she almost saw a tug of a smile at the corner of his mouth. She hauled on the mare’s reins, hoping to dislodge his hold. “You’ll have to be off to London without me.”

  “I rather suspected that would be your response after that blackguard’s visit. That’s what he wanted from you, you know. He knows well how to manipulate you.”

  Fury shot through Fiona. “And dumb female that I am, I do as he says, don’t I, my lord? Sure, and that’s the way of things. A woman must always answer a man’s call, and I’m no better than the rest.”

  Before Fiona even knew he’d moved, the duke hauled her off the horse, and she slid down his frock-coated torso. The shock of that closeness momentarily unnerved her, and she stood frozen, clinging to his lapels for support.

  “And am I not a man, my lady sharp-tongue? It’s my call you’ll answer now. You gave me your word, and I’m holding you to it.” The duke caught her loose shirt back and steered her in the direction of the castle.

  Fiona planted her boots firmly in the soft ground and refused to budge unless he bodily hauled her. “I only promised to behave if we went to London. I’m not in London, nor am I going. So we have no bargain. Stop it, Your Grace! Leave off!” She reached behind her to twist his fist from her shirt.

  He stopped, but he didn’t loose her. In spite of the chilly morning, heat shimmered from the duke’s body as he stood toe to toe with her. He hovered a head taller, and her nose nearly pressed into his cravat. She could smell the clean starch of the linen, and another scent, a tempting manly scent that she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  “Is running away the only answer you have to your problems?” he demanded.

  Fiona jerked her head back to meet his gaze. “I am not running away,” she informed him coldly. “Going to London is running away. Staying here and finding Burke’s murderer is the responsible thing to do.”

  “You are not the magistrate; you are not responsible for finding a murderer. You’re not the earl; you’re not responsible for the village. You’re not even related to those orphans back there and you have no responsibility for them. Pretending otherwise is foolish.”

  “There is no magistrate to punish poor Burke’s murder! The earl isn’t here, and there’s none else to care.” Fiona shook free of his hold. Tears wetting her lashes, she stared blindly at the horizon. The duke’s harsh words were like nails, piercing her armor and crucifying her. She’d made the earl’s castle her home, borrowed her mother’s brother for family, adopted the village as hers when it was no such thing. But they were all she had.

  “Someone must take responsibility sometime,” she said distantly. “Who else will do it?”

  Neville watched her quivering lips and a brittle bit of his soul cracked. He had thought of Fiona as a wild hellion, a kind of Queen Maeve rescuing the undeserving. Yet for just this moment, the glitter of tears reminded him of Blanche as a child. She’d bravely fought her tears after some childish accident but willingly buried her grubby face in his cravat and sobbed when he comforted her. Neville had the urge to comfort now, but he retained sufficient sense to realize that just because she was petite, Fiona was no child.

  “I can’t return to London without you,” he told her flatly. “I meant to return early so
I could consolidate my position behind the reform bill before the session begins...” He sighed and clamped his mouth shut as he realized what he was about to say, yet in the next breath, the words came out anyway. “I can postpone the matter for a week, no more.”

  Hope bloomed in Fiona’s expression as she turned to him. He could almost see the sun breaking through the gray gloom.

  “If you’ll help me, I promise to go quietly to London without further argument.”

  He didn’t like the way she looked at him when she said that. For nigh on ten years now he’d worn blinders to keep from seeing anything but the narrow path of duty. Fiona didn’t fit on that path. Doing anything in her company would be a reckless deviation.

  Neville frowned. “Don’t make promises you can’t possibly keep.”

  He caught Fiona’s fist before it could strike his jaw. For a moment, he knew jubilation. He’d reacted faster than the Irish scoundrel, Eamon, more quickly than Fiona herself. He wasn’t entirely washed up on the shore of stodginess then. With a widening grin, he braced himself. “Didn’t anyone tell you ladies do not use fists like pugilists?”

  She lunged at him then, pounding his chest with both fists. Catching the angry sprite and swinging her from her feet, Neville laughed loudly. The sound surprised even him.

  Six

  “It’s no mystery who needs the money most.” None too pleased at being dragged into a murder mystery when he was supposed to be escorting Fiona to London, Seamus kicked at a peat block drying in the sun outside Burke’s empty kitchen. “If you discount Aileen’s orphans, the finger points at Colin. He’s gambled himself into a pit in Sligo, then had to marry Patsy, and now with the new babe comin’, he’s lost his position at the granary. He’s in desperate straits, he is, and there’s naught to save him but a ship to America.”

  “Your fancy Oxford accent is fading fast, big brother,” Fiona said scornfully, checking for clues in the weeds beside the porch. “You’d best get yourself back to university before they tar you for a Paddy again.”

  “I’d be on my way to university now if it weren’t for your meddlin’, interferin’ ways, brat. It’s because you had a crush on the charmer Colin yourself that you bite at me. He’s a rogue, and you know it.”

  “Just because he has looks and charm doesn’t make him a rogue.” Feeling irritable, Fiona took up the argument more heatedly. “Colin never hurt a soul but himself.”

  “Fighting amongst ourselves isn’t getting us anywhere,” the duke intervened without looking up from his appointed task of looking for traces of a murderer. “Colin will go on our list of suspects. He has the motive. Desperate men may do desperate things.”

  There stood most of the reason for her irritation, Fiona fumed, glaring at the man poking his dandified walking stick through the weeds of Burke’s potato patch. The sun caught glints of gold in the duke’s hair, reinforcing the whole Golden Ball image he projected. She knew little of London fashion, but she recognized the constraining fit of his broad-shouldered frockcoat as the result of expensive tailoring. And the polish of his high top boots didn’t come from walking muddy fields. She suspected real gold and not cheap brass made up the knob of his cane, and briefly, she wondered how much a stick like that would fetch in a pawn shop. Probably enough to feed Aileen’s orphans for months.

  She ignored the odd tug of interest she felt when the duke lifted his tawny head and watched her as if awaiting her reply. “Fine then,” she answered with scorn to hide her wayward notions, “if money’s a motive, you can add every man in the village to your list.”

  “And how many of the women?” the duke asked in that same placid tone that had escalated her irritation earlier. “A knife in the back is the work of a woman as much as a man. He knew his murderer, opened the door for them. Was he seeing anyone?”

  “The Widow Blackthorne,” Seamus answered. “But she’s a wee bit of a thing and stood to gain more by marriage to Burke than from his death. I don’t fancy her as a murderess.”

  “Mrs. Blackthorne is a harpy,” Fiona replied with scorn, giving up on finding anything in the weeds and heading for the house. “Burke had more sense than to marry her. I wouldn’t put it past her to suggest they take a share of the village’s money. Burke would have told her where to go, and that would be that. Very likely, if you ask me.”

  “Women,” Seamus muttered, following his sister inside.

  “Don’t ignore them,” Neville recommended. “They see things we don’t often enough.”

  Both Seamus and Fiona turned and stared at him in surprise. Neville shrugged and let his eyes adjust to the dimness of the kitchen. McGonigle and his friends had already torn the place apart looking for any sign of the money. If there were clues here, they’d be hard to find.

  “Just precisely what are we looking for?” Fiona asked as she scanned the contents of the cupboard. “Burke had no family. People have been in here scavenging his larder already. If there was anything valuable lying around, it’s gone now.”

  “It seemed reasonable to search for something that might have belonged to the murderer. We’d have to look for something that doesn’t belong here, a loose button, perhaps. Did the knife match the ones in his kitchen?” Neville glanced around the humble room with distaste. The task seemed impossible. Or improbable.

  Both Seamus and Fiona rewarded his suggestion with looks of scorn.

  “Matching knives?” Fiona of the hasty tongue replied first. “Whoever heard of such? Burke might have a knife handed down from his grandda, or from his late wife’s family, or if what he had was worn to a nubbin, and he felt particularly wealthy, he might have bought new from a tinker. But who’s to say what his knives looked like?”

  “The Widow Blackthorne,” Seamus answered before the words were scarce out of her mouth.

  Neville nodded thoughtfully. “Your Uncle William has the knife now, doesn’t he? Why don’t you have him take it to the widow and ask if it came from this kitchen? It’s a pity we can’t show it around town and ask to whom it might belong if it’s not Burke’s.”

  “It’ll be Burke’s,” Fiona replied wearily, slamming the cupboard doors. “There’s none here, and a man wouldn’t leave his own knife behind.”

  “That could mean whoever did it, didn’t mean to commit murder when he came in.” Despite his irritation at the delay, Neville found the puzzle intriguing. He supposed he could give the earl a full report when he returned, and the effort wouldn’t be entirely wasted. Michael had a strong sense of justice.

  Keeping his mind on the puzzle didn’t keep Neville from noticing the smudge on Fiona’s cheek and wishing he could brush it away. He’d never seen a woman in such dishevelment before, and he found it oddly disconcerting that she had no care for her appearance in his company.

  If he had a shilling for every female who’d thrown herself in his path these last ten years, all gowned and coifed and reeking of expensive scents, he’d be a rich man today. But those same women hadn’t given him a second look when he’d been a lonely student and the son of a younger son, far from the grandiose title of duke. He’d never learned how to talk with those women in his formative years. That’s why he’d decided on shy Gwyneth. But even Gwyneth didn’t go about in boy’s breeches with dust on her face—not in his presence, anyway.

  Without a care to how it looked, Fiona got down on her hands and knees to explore the space behind the stove. Neville gulped and closed his eyes before he could look too closely at the rounded posterior presented to him.

  “Fiona!” Seamus shouted angrily.

  Fiona jumped and banged her head on a pipe. Cursing, she rubbed her head, not bothering to pull back to see what he wanted.

  “Get your silly arse out of there!” Seamus demanded, shooting Neville a furious look that said he’d seen far more than was good for him.

  “Curse your dratted hide, Seamus, what are you after scaring me half to death like that?” Backing out, still rubbing her sore head, Fiona turned and glared at her brother.
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br />   Cobwebs formed a silver halo in her hair, and soot blackened her forehead as much as her scowl. Neville stifled a grin. Looking like that, the stubborn chit could almost be classified as adorable.

  Seamus grabbed the back of her shirt, hauled her up, and shoved her toward the door. “Go put on something decent for a change and ask the Widow Blackthorne about the knife.”

  Catching the brat’s upraised hand before she could land a blow, Neville planted himself between the siblings. “Your mother should have taught you it’s easier to catch flies with honey,” he addressed Fiona first. “I ought to send both of you to Blanche for training. She would have Seamus crawling on his knees and begging with just a few words.”

  Feeling the tension in the young man’s muscles beneath his other hand, Neville glared at him. “It’s a little late to complain about her appearance. And if it’s my intentions you’re questioning, I’m the one who will plant you a facer.”

  With satisfaction, Neville noted this last declaration startled Fiona. She was an obnoxious, rebellious brat, but she was completely innocent of the way a man’s thoughts strayed in her presence. Blanche would have her hands full.

  Growling, Seamus jerked away. “Eamon warned me to keep my eye on her, and I mean to do that.” The warning in his tone was unmistakable.

  “The two of you are bloody damned fools if you think—”

  At a loud thump on the ceiling, they craned their heads upward. Without a word, all three dashed for the front room and the staircase.

  ***

  Neville signaled his two companions to halt their weary horses on a hill overlooking a bustling small town.

  “I don’t know why you couldn’t have caught him before he got out the window,” Fiona said crossly, glaring at the mob hiding their prey.

  Hay wagons, farm carts, and mules cluttered the roads entering the town, shoving foot travelers to the muddy edges. The tents and crowds of trade day covered the town square—where once they’d hoped to buy looms.