Duchess of Sin Read online

  Anna ran even faster toward the shelter of her own room.

  She had told her mother earlier that she was not tired, but once she was alone in the quiet safety of her chamber, she felt drained. The long nights were catching up with her, she thought as she loosened her gown and lay down on her chaise.

  Soon, very soon, she would have to face her future and make a decision once and for all. She could not go on crazy adventures forever, could not go on with dangerous men like Adair. She had her family to think of, her place in Society, and her duty. Grant Dunmore was a good choice. It was what she was born for, to be a wife and mother, and a Society hostess. How could she marry Grant, though, knowing the sort of man he was? A man with no family loyalty.

  Anna closed her eyes against the pounding in her head. She couldn’t decide the rest of her life right now. She pulled the blanket up over her head and drifted into sleep, letting the thick darkness pull her down.

  But she didn’t find oblivion in sleep. She only found more restless dreams.

  She was back at Killinan Castle, and it was night. Not a cold, wintry night, though; it was a hot summer, the darkness dusty and heavy. The grand rooms, spaces she had known since she was born, were empty and silent. Everything was filled with an ominous dread.

  Anna stood at the top of the sweeping staircase, staring down at the marble floor of the foyer. The blank stone eyes of ancient statues stared back at her, and she suddenly knew when it was. Her dream—and she knew that it was a dream, even as she knew she could not escape it—had catapulted her back to the days of the rebellion. Their neighbors had fled in fear of the advancing rebels, but Anna was trapped in the tomblike silence of Killinan.

  She seemed alone there, too, without her mother and sisters. The shadows crept closer and closer. She ran down the corridor to one of the windows, throwing open the casement to try and find a breath of clean air. The gardens, her mother’s great pride, were also dark, lit only by faint moonlight. The white gravel drive stretched away toward the road, offering the illusion of escape.

  If she fell from the window, Anna wondered, would she tumble out of the dream and back into her Dublin bedroom? Would the danger be gone, or just waiting to return?

  She heard a sound, a footstep, a rustle of cloth, a low moan of pain. Her startled glance flew to the doorstep, and a wave of sickness rose up in her at what she saw there. The dream suddenly became all too real.

  It was that night again. The night the ominous quiet of Killinan was broken by a sudden pounding at the door, rousing them all from their restless sleep. Eliza went down alone to answer it, insisting they all stay hidden, but she didn’t know that Anna watched from the upstairs window.

  She saw a man, or devil as he seemed then, leave the wounded Will Denton on their white stone steps. The man was tall with broad shoulders, wrapped in a black coat, his long black hair and beard tangled and wild. The blood stood out starkly on Will’s torn white shirt, revealed by his open red uniform jacket, and as Anna leaned out of the window to see better, she could smell it, too. That coppery tang of blood, the mustiness of death, blotting out the sweet summer flowers.

  She could only hear a few muffled sounds. Eliza’s scream as she knelt by her lover. The man’s gruff brogue, telling Eliza she should take Will and flee. Then the devil was gone, and Eliza and their mother dragged Will into the house.

  The black-haired man had haunted Anna’s nightmares for a long time after that. Yet she had never seen him, not really. In her dreams, he usually took on horns and glowing red eyes.

  But when he looked up at her now, a ray of moonlight fell across his face, and he took on a very different aspect. It was Conlan. Conlan who had left Will at Killinan. He stared at her for a long moment and vanished into the blood-soaked night.

  Anna sat up on her chaise, her heart pounding. For an instant, she had no idea where she was. That hot summer night at Killinan, months and months ago, was so near. The terror was so fresh that she shook with it.

  She pulled in a shuddering breath and forced herself to open her eyes and look around. She was in her Dublin chamber, with the fresh, pale, blue-and-white walls and flowered bed hangings, her cloak draped over the dressing screen. The portrait of her with her sisters hung over the carved white mantel. Killinan Castle was far away, and that time was long ago.

  It was dark gray outside the window, yet it couldn’t be very late, for Rose hadn’t come to light the lamps and help her dress for dinner. She could only have been asleep for a short time. But she felt as if she had passed years in her dreams.

  Anna pushed back the blanket and rose on shaky legs to go to the window. The winter fog was creeping in, like shreds of silver-gray silk spreading down the street. It was a perfect night for concealment, for nefarious deeds. Just as that night had been.

  “Was it just a dream?” she whispered. Had her exhaustion made her put Conlan’s face onto the devil’s in a bizarre twist of her imagination? Or was that what she really saw that night and then forced herself to forget? Could he really have something to do with the ambush of Will’s patrol?

  “Remember, remember!” she whispered, pressing her forehead to the cold glass. But the dream vanished again, and her memories of those days were hazy with the fear and uncertainty they all felt back then. She had tried to forget for so long that the memories didn’t want to be unearthed now.

  What would she do if it was Conlan? Demand answers, probably. Eliza and Will deserved them. And Anna needed to know the truth, too. Maybe then she could truly put those days behind her and move on, free of them. Free of Conlan and her obsession with him.

  Anna turned away from the window and tiptoed over to open the door a crack. She listened carefully, but the house was quiet. Hopefully odious George was gone and her mother was lying down with a cold compress to recover. Caroline was probably working on her drawing.

  She didn’t have much time to convince them all that she was having a megrim and needed to be left alone for the night. She spun around and went to remove Jane’s red gown from its hiding place in the back of her wardrobe. As she unfastened her day dress, her gaze fell on the open box of dark orchids. She had to make a decision, once and for all.

  Chapter Twelve

  This Union business makes for strange bedfellows, does it not, Adair?”

  Conlan took a long drag on his cheroot, peering through the blue-gray smoke at his friend Mr. Foster. The meeting in the back room of McMaster’s tavern had not yet begun so the space was only half-filled, men milling about as they muttered together in low, angry voices. The thick mist rolling in outside seemed to make the atmosphere even more tense. The specter of the fire hung over them.

  “Aye,” Conlan said. “I never thought I would be in with Ascendancy politicians like Grattan and Ponsonby, but we do what we must. They stand against Union, so I stand with them for now.”

  “Even though they are not prepared to make common cause with those for Catholic emancipation?”

  Conlan inhaled deeply, feeling the bite of the smoke in his lungs. It wasn’t as acrid as the taste of religious conflict in his mouth. He had lived with that all his life, from the first time he heard his mother complain bitterly of having to marry his father in a Protestant church first to satisfy the law. It would never go away, and he knew that.

  “Prime Minister Pitt thinks Union will be an integrative force, make us all one nation united in a common cause,” Conlan said. “With the Catholics as a harmless minority enfolded by the majority. Clearly he knows nothing of the nature of this country if he thinks such a thing can ever happen.”

  “And the pro-Union Catholics believe Pitt when he flirts with emancipation?”

  “I cannot speak for all Catholics, Foster,” Conlan said with a laugh. “Pitt might think he can push through Catholic emancipation once Ireland is tied firmly to England, but in that, too, he is deluded. I know the Ascendancy—they will riot if forced to let the Catholics into politics and the law and their precious schools. That doesn’t concern
me right now, anyway.”

  “Oh?” Foster reached for his whiskey. He had looked more nervous as the night went on, and now his hand shook as he took a long drink. He had been like that since before the warehouse fire.

  Conlan didn’t know why the man was so jumpy at a simple organizational meeting. They were only planning to talk, not start an armed uprising—yet.

  “No,” Conlan said.

  “Then what does concern you?”

  “Taking care of my people, of course. I might not be able to sit in Parliament, but I don’t care to see eighty boroughs disenfranchised and thirty-two members whittled down to one. The power of the landowners is my power to protect those who depend on me,” Conlan said firmly.

  “That sounds like Orange talk,” Foster said. “Are you prepared to join the Loyalist families who would shun you? Shun all of us?”

  “While it suits my purpose.” Conlan stubbed out his cheroot. “I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty, Foster, nor should you be. Our time grows short, with the vote coming up after Christmas. There’s no time to be choosy about our allies.”

  “And no time to be choosy about our methods!” McMann interrupted. He was a young hothead, unpredictable but useful. “Ross’s old house was burned, but it would have been better to burn his new house, with him inside it. Make them listen to us at last.”

  Conlan shook his head. “Don’t be a fool, McMann. What did violence gain us two years ago? Torture, transportation, and the rope. The people are more oppressed than they were before.”

  McMann slumped back in his seat, his arms crossed. “So we just talk and talk? Talk gets us nowhere!”

  “It’s hardly just talk,” Conlan said. “Is it, Foster?”

  Foster swallowed hard. “Wh-what do you mean?” Beads of sweat popped out on his brow despite the cold night.

  Conlan had merely suspected Foster was up to something before; now he was sure of it. Was the man a spy? For who? “What do you think I mean, Foster?”

  Foster reached again for the whiskey, not meeting Conlan’s eyes. “Nothing, of course.”

  Conlan pushed back from the table and went to ease back the edge of the black curtain and peer out into the gathering night. The fog was thick now, a blue-black miasma that didn’t let even a glimpse of starlight shine through. The Olympian Club would be quiet tonight because of the weather, but it was perfect for other, more surreptitious tasks.

  He thought of Anna, wondering where she was tonight. Did she venture out in the bone-chilling damp to dance with her admirers? Did she see his cousin, the man who claimed to be her future husband? And did she see Grant that way? Perhaps her daring escapades with Conlan were merely a last fling before she settled into life as Lady Dunmore, queen of Ascendancy Society.

  He didn’t sense that in her, though. She was reckless, to be sure, and impulsive. He felt like she didn’t quite know herself, that she wanted more than her life offered but didn’t know where to find it. There was something inside her that she fought against, something he wanted so much to know about. He wanted to know her, everything about her.

  But that meant that he would have to let her know him in return, and that he couldn’t do. He had let her too close as it was. She declared herself a frivolous featherbrain, but that was far from the truth. She was one of the smartest women he had ever met, old beyond her years in some ways, and if she could ever find her focus—heaven help them all.

  So if she was with Grant tonight, being paraded on his arm before Society as his pretty prize, Conlan shouldn’t care. He should let her go to that life. Yet Grant was so very unworthy of her.

  And he, Conlan, was not much better. He got her involved in fires and rough taverns. That knowledge couldn’t stop him wanting her, though.

  “What’s amiss with Foster tonight?” McMann said quietly at Conlan’s shoulder.

  “I’m not sure,” Conlan answered. He watched as a few of their cohorts emerged from the fog and went into the tavern. “But I think we should be careful of what we say to him. Can you have some of your men follow him for the next few days?”

  “Of course!” McMann said, too eagerly.

  “Discreetly,” Conlan warned. “We don’t want anyone to know. And I don’t want his body dragged from the Liffey.”

  “Certainly not. It won’t get out of hand, Adair, I promise. They’ll just see where he goes, who he talks to. If he’s taking English bribes.” McMann paused. “Do you want some of the boys as guards for yourself? After what happened at St. Stephen’s Green…”

  “No. They’ll just get in my way. It won’t happen again.”

  “I hope not. We can’t do without you, Adair, not so close to the time.”

  The others came into the room in a flurry of cold wind and shouted greetings, and there wasn’t time to say anymore. The meeting was about to begin.

  “A quiet night, eh, McIntire?” Conlan said as he handed his greatcoat to the butler in the Olympian Club foyer. He could hear only a murmur of sound drifting down the staircase from the club.

  “It’s a nasty night out there, Your Grace,” McIntire answered, shaking out the damp coat. “Sensible people are at home by their fires.”

  “The Olympian Club doesn’t trade in sensible people, McIntire.”

  “Obviously not. Lord Fitzwalter is here, and Mr. Napier. They were quarreling already. And also…” McIntire hesitated.

  “Who else is here then? Grant Dunmore, perhaps?”

  “No, Your Grace, not Sir Grant. But you did say to let you know if the lady in the red gown reappeared.”

  Conlan froze. “She is back?”

  “Yes, alone this time. I know we are not to admit guests without a member escorting them, but it seemed better not to send her back out into the night.”

  “Quite right. I will see to her, McIntire.” Conlan dashed up the stairs two at a time. Anna was back at the Olympian Club? What game did she play now? It seemed his imaginings of her evening, parading through Society as the future Lady Dunmore, were quite wrong. Sneaking into his club seemed much more like her.

  He strode down the corridor, smoothing back his rumpled hair and straightening his coat. He usually did not go into the club except in evening dress, but it seemed there was no time to change. Where Anna was concerned, there was not a moment to lose. If he failed to keep pace with her, she would leave him behind forever.

  At the closed double doors, there was a basket full of masks for those who forgot theirs and preferred to be anonymous, and he grabbed up a scrap of white leather and slid it over his face just before he went inside. The ballroom was dark and silent; there was no dancing tonight. But a few people sat at the small tables in the dining room, partaking of the buffet and the fine wine, and a steady hum of voices flowed from the card room.

  Conlan scanned the people gathered there, their heads bent over games of whist and trictrac. It was only the regulars tonight, the ones who showed up to play deep several times a week. Except for the lady who sat at the faro table.

  Anna wore her red-and-black gown again, a spot of brilliant, burning color in the cold night. Her golden curls were piled high, fastened with two of the perfect black orchids he had left at her house. She wore a black satin mask over her face, but it couldn’t conceal her bright smile. She laughed as the dealer turned up the player’s card and clapped her black silk-gloved hands. The dealer said something that made her laugh even more, the two of them chatting like old friends.

  Only then did Conlan realize the faro dealer was Sarah, his business partner, friend, and sometime-lover. She and Anna bent their heads together as they talked, almost like they were about to share female confidences. Sarah was very good at eliciting secrets from gamesters, but he certainly didn’t want her hearing any secrets from this one.

  Sarah’s gaze met his, and she smiled in welcome. Anna glanced back over her shoulder, and her smile faded a bit. She waved to him, though, and he hurried across the room to the faro table. Anna had a pile of chips in front of her, and she turn
ed one gracefully between her fingers.

  “A quiet evening,” he said, watching the slow movement of her hands.

  “Not for this lady,” Sarah said. “She has the devil’s own luck. I’m afraid she’ll break the bank.”

  Anna laughed. She set down the chip and reached for a half-full glass of wine. “Not tonight. I know to quit while I’m ahead.”

  If only he did, too, Conlan thought. But he feared he never knew when to quit when it came to Anna Blacknall.

  “Lucky for us,” Sarah said. Her shrewd gaze moved between Conlan and Anna, a small smile on her lips. “We may end the evening in the black after all.”

  “Perhaps the lady would care for some supper then and leave the table to someone less lucky,” said Conlan. He held out his arm to Anna.

  She drained her glass before taking it. “Thank you, sir. And thank you, madame, for the conversation. It was most… enlightening.”

  As Conlan led her from the card room, he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “What are you doing here, Anna?”

  She slanted him an unreadable glance. “Are you not happy to see me?”

  “I’m always happy to see you.” Too happy. He remembered the taste of her female essence on his tongue, the way she moaned and pressed him closer, and his traitorous penis hardened. “I’m just surprised you ventured out in this fog by yourself. It’s too dangerous, especially after the fire.”

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “And you could not send me a note? I would have called on you tomorrow.”

  “This isn’t the sort of conversation for my mother’s drawing room.”

  “Come with me.” He steered her down a dark hallway and into his private office. Sarah had been working on accounts there earlier, it seemed, for a lamp was lit on the desk next to a pile of ledger books. The rest of the room was in shadow.

  Conlan shut the door and leaned back against it. He watched as Anna sat down on the leather chaise by the wall and took off her mask. Her ivory face glowed, and he could smell the sweetness of her perfume. Her presence invaded the whole space, making it hers as she did with everything.