Patrica Rice (34 page)

Biting her lip, she nodded. He could see the tears in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.

“I’ll go to Dorset,” she answered quietly.

Mid-August, Hertfordshire

Michael let himself in the family entrance of his adopted brother’s country house. Parliament had ended weeks ago without any major incident from the radicals. Afterward, Gavin and family had repaired to their rural abode outside London and the endless renovations on the Gothic monstrosity Gavin had inherited with the title.

Michael normally preferred this more informal atmosphere where he could come and go unnoticed, only this time, the chaos awakened curiosity in how Blanche fared with her renovations in Dorset—on the southern coast, far from here.

He’d sent letters at every opportunity, even though his damaged hand made writing difficult. Blanche’s replies couldn’t keep up with him. He’d found a cache of them in Bodmin when he’d returned from visiting other mining operations and had nearly memorized them by now. He longed for home and Blanche.

Standing in the lower hall, Michael debated searching out Gavin in his study, but he had little humor for set downs at the moment. The healing burns on his hands itched. He’d removed the bandages, but he still couldn’t use them as he wished, which increased his irritation and frustration. For a newly married man, he’d lost a good deal of his usual geniality.

He followed the direction of childish giggles and the thunder of boots to the nursery.

“That is not how it goes! Now put it right, you dolt, before the whole comes tumbling down.” Fiona’s distinct voice drew Michael’s steps.

“This is where the dolly goes, isn’t it, moppet?” a strange man’s voice asked laughingly. “We would not want the others touching it, would we?”

Entering the nursery, Michael encountered an exact replica of himself holding a wooden shelf above his head with a doll on it. Cousin Marian’s toddler laughed and tried climbing his leg to reach it. Fiona bounced a chuckling infant on her knee while Marian and Dillian crawled about the bare floor painting wildflowers along the baseboards.

Michael donned an insouciant smile when the others turned their startled gazes on him. Young Seamus scowled as he studied his mirror image, just as Michael blithely studied him. There were differences, he could see now. The younger man stood a few inches taller, but he lacked muscle and looked undernourished. Seamus’s hair glowed more carrot red than auburn, and his nose had a broken crook to it.

Edwina released her hold on Seamus’s trouser and raced across the floor to tackle Michael. Catching the toddler, he swung her in his arms, kissing her neck with a loud noise. Over her shoulder, he watched Seamus still and Fiona hand the babe to Dillian.

“Couthin Michael!” Edwina lisped, tugging at his ears. “Horthie ride!”

“Edwina, do behave. Cousin Michael has only just arrived. We must send for some tea and allow him to rest,” Marian scolded, reaching apologetically for her daughter.

Michael kissed the little girl’s cheek and whispered a promise for later, then handed her over to Marian. Someday, he hoped to make a good father, but with no example to guide him, he had his doubts.

His gaze returned to the pair who so closely resembled him that he thought they must share ancestors. He greeted his adopted cousin Marian and Gavin’s wife, then looking pointedly at his Irish rebels, indicated it was time to leave.

Fiona and Seamus followed him wordlessly. Like much of the mansion, the library he led them to had been stripped of its riches decades before the marquess’s arrival. Gavin had sold the more valuable volumes to finance repairs. Empty display cases were now dust-free and filling with little trinkets Dillian collected from long-unused rooms. Cobwebs no longer covered the shelves of remaining books. A mahogany table too large for removal occupied the center of a threadbare carpet.

Michael took a particularly ornate ebony chair with a tattered tapestry seat. He didn’t usually like sitting, but he’d traveled since dawn on top of days of traveling before that. He ached all over.

“I’m surprised to find you still here,” he said into the silence. “Where’s William?”

“Arranging transport to the Americas,” Seamus answered defiantly. “We have no funds of our own, but we can work our way across.”

“Even Fiona?” Michael turned his attention to the waif he’d brought to Blanche so many months ago. She no longer looked a waif. She wore her hair up and a gown that fit now. Her stance still reeked of defiance.

“The marquess has graciously paid her a wage for watching the nursery,” Seamus replied. “We’ll find the balance somehow. She goes with us.”

Michael nodded. It was best. The men had a sentence of death hanging over them. But he’d had hopes of their aid in discovering his family. He didn’t think he would ever have the chance again.

He gestured to the chairs as a maid carried in the tea tray. “We’ve not had opportunity to talk. Has Gavin offered any hope of your sentence being commuted?”

Taking a chair as ordered, Seamus scowled. “That’s not bloody likely now, is it? They’d see us all hanged if they could.”

Michael sipped his tea. “You’ve associated with men who threatened the government. I can scarcely blame whatever magistrate sentenced you. I’m from America myself. I’m rather reluctant to wish you on my countrymen. But at least there they’ll not hang you for voicing your opinion.”

“But Galway is our home,” Fiona protested softly. “We grew up there. Our friends and family are there. My grandfather was an earl and lived in a castle. Why must we give all that up because of our religion?”

Michael rubbed his brow. “I know nothing of politics. I know little enough of the law. I didn’t think the British much inclined to hang earls if they could avoid it. But I understand the problem is that Seamus is not son of a son, but son of a daughter, and your grandfather did not get parliament’s permission to pass the title through the female line.”

“He had three sons. He did not think it necessary,” Seamus responded gloomily. “He did not know that they would all die without leaving heirs.”

“Sure and he’d hoped he would find his eldest son alive after seeing the youngest buried,” Fiona offered. “He sent messengers all over America, but by the time they returned saying they found his grave, grandfather lay dying. There was no time for the petitioning of parliament. So he named Seamus his heir and deeded his estate through our mother.”

“But the bloody British wouldn’t acknowledge it,” Seamus said angrily. “They stole our lands, our name, everything. What was I supposed to do? Say ‘yes, sir, whip me some more, sir,’ and kneel before them?”

Michael wished he were the robin he heard singing on the lawn so he could fly away. Blanche accused him of having no sense of responsibility, but the truth was, he had one so over-developed that he imagined he must save the world. Right now he didn’t have the patience for saving anything but time. “I don’t suppose your grandfather’s messengers mentioned whether or not the American son married or had children?”

Seamus looked at him blankly. Fiona did her best to answer. “That was all before our time. We only have the stories. His eldest son was after fleeing the British much as Seamus must do now. He fought the British when they burned our fields and houses and condemned innocent men to death. He took his wife with him. My grandfather had them smuggled out of the country on a fishing boat. I’m thinking the messengers would have asked after a wife and child. Uncle William may know more of the story. He was courting our aunt at the time.”

Michael groaned inwardly. He would have to wait for Uncle William if he wanted the whole story. He didn’t want to wait. He well knew the impossibility of this lost Irish earl having any relation to him. But he’d waited a lifetime to learn of his origins.

Another idea caught him, and he played with it as he sipped his tea and consumed his tart. His gaze drifted to Fiona. She was the younger of the two by age, but as she had once told him, she was wiser in other ways. She would do well in America. She had the wit and beauty to make something of herself. He could give her references, letters of introduction. People owed him favors on both sides of the Atlantic. He could ask Blanche to finance their journey.

“How long before William returns?” Michael asked idly, still toying with his plans.

“Not until he finds a ship.” Even Seamus had lost some of his defiance as he responded in a voice of doom.

“Send for him, then. I would speak with him before you leave here. I have friends in America. I can see that you travel in better style than as cabin boy. But first, I would see that there is no other choice left. I’ll need your uncle for that.”

Michael startled himself as he issued these commands. He sounded more and more like Gavin every day.

* * *

Blanche read and re-read the note from Michael. He was in Hertfordshire. He might as well say he occupied the moon. Rubbing the growing roundness of her abdomen, she looked up from the letter and gazed out to the lawn. Mary laughed and played with one of the village children there. The child had even managed one or two steps on her crippled limb the other day.

The physicians had said the leg too bent for her to ever walk normally, but they’d carved her a crutch and cane. The child had been a different person ever since. Blanche feared leaving her so soon would set back all the progress Mary had made. She, of all people, knew the fear and loneliness of a parent’s abandonment. She couldn’t chase off to Hertfordshire. The journey would take over a week if she traveled at the sedate pace required by her pregnancy.

And the likelihood of Michael being there when she arrived was very small. Sighing, Blanche folded the letter and tucked it away with the others in her desk drawer. He had given her what she wanted with the agreement that they carry his name. She should expect little more.

Of course, Michael being Michael, he had done a great deal more. He’d settled the problems of the mining operation at last. He’d even shown Neville how profits would increase should the government pass a labor law so all mines operated under the same conditions. Neville hadn’t liked it, but since it affected his own pocket, he’d promised to look into the matter.

She had no idea what he was doing about the mills, but he’d sent her a man to interview for the position Barnaby had forsaken. Perhaps Michael would come home once he saw that her new steward did his job well.

With no exploding carriages or fiery inns, life had become almost sedate these past months. Looking over the foundation of the cottage’s new wing, Blanche derived some satisfaction in life as it was now. She’d learned that she wasn’t the adventuring sort. She liked solving problems, but she didn’t like solving them at gunpoint.

Since no one had told her otherwise, she assumed Barnaby had fled the country and the radicals planned their subversion elsewhere. Riots continued in the north, but she was far out of them.

A parlor maid rushed to give her the day’s post, and Blanche smiled at the sight of a letter from Ireland. She might be a homebody, but a great deal could be accomplished from home when one had enough money and connections.

It took a week for Gavin’s messengers to locate William and haul him back to Hertford. But every time Michael thought to leave, another packet of papers arrived from London with still worse news of riots in the north and of labor protests shutting down Blanche’s largest sources of income. He knew something of her holdings now. Although the capital invested seemed immense beyond his comprehension, the income teetered precariously based on a number of factors. He might never understand it all, but he did understand the importance of the mills.

He would have to go to Manchester. Cursing as if born to it, Michael strode helplessly up and down Gavin’s lawn, clenching and unclenching his scarred fingers as best he could. The raw new skin ached. The muscles beneath did not respond as they ought. He would never juggle pennies again. He could scarcely hold a thick pen with which to write Blanche.

He breathed a sigh of relief when a tired, dusty messenger finally rode in accompanied by the older man Michael barely recognized from their brief meeting in Dublin. He nearly hauled the man into Gavin’s study. Only Dillian’s hasty interference reminded him that their guest deserved rest and refreshment first.

William O’Connor graciously agreed he could take a bite in the study as they talked, if he could have a few minutes in which to wash off the dust of the road. By the time he returned with hair wet and combed, Fiona and Seamus had materialized, greeting him with hugs.

Michael plowed through their happy reunion, grabbing O’Connor by the arm and shoving him into a chair. Seamus shut the study door.

“I need a few answers before I set the lot of you on a ship and out of my hair,” Michael said ungraciously, dropping into Gavin’s desk chair.

“You’ve done more than enough,” the older man replied stiffly. “We’ll repay you when we can. I’ve found a ship sailing at the end of the month. We’ll be on it.”

Michael leaned across the desk, glaring at the man who should have kept his wards from harm but had led them into rebellion instead. “You’ll send Fiona on a freighter with a hundred starving sailors for three months? Not likely. And what of your home and tenants? How do they fare without you? Did you even consider what would happen to those closest to you when you embarked on this insane plan of treason?”

“I think I have a few years on you, lad,” O’Connor responded wryly, sipping at his ale. “You’ll not teach me any lessons I haven’t already learned. But there comes a time in a man’s life when he must defend what is his or not call himself a man. I would not have involved young Seamus, but he is as hot-headed as all the fool MacDermots. It’s better that he do it now while he has none of his own to weep over him when he’s gone.”

Fiona held her tongue, watching Michael with the same care she had since he’d known her. She would make a dangerous woman when she came of age.

Michael threaded his fingers through his hair. “That’s neither here nor there. Fiona and Seamus tell me you know something of the late earl’s search for his eldest son. Did he ever discover what became of the son’s wife? Were there children? Could we offer a court reason to believe heirs to that estate exist?”