Stormfire (50 page)

Amauri blinked and a rustling murmur went round the table. Liam was livid, Sean's eyes almost slitted. "But, mademoiselle, surely you must reconsider!" Amauri protested. "Pistols loaded with paper pellets, perhaps? Then you may have a fair chance."

"Colonel, you questioned my courage. I haven't been in awe of paper wads since a tutor made me eat those I had leveled at him." The fan waved languidly. "You
are
familiar with knives, Colonel? I shouldn't wish to put you at the disadvantage."

Amauri reddened. "But
of
course."

"Good. The foyer in fifteen minutes? My lord Culhane won't want his ballroom parquetry scuffed." With a snap of her fan, Catherine sailed out the door.

Faced with a barrage of questions, Sean was unable to follow Catherine upstairs until the guests crowded from the dining room into the foyer. He met her just outside her bedroom door. Barefoot in Tim's clothing, hair in a knot atop her head, she slipped a long knife into her belt, then saw him. Waving a warning hand, she backed from his intent look. "Oh, no. You're not stopping me. Raoul's getting his fight."

"Where did you get that knife?"

"Flannery gave it to me. To fend off undesirables."

"Give it to me."

"No," she said quietly. "Amauri tried to bait Liam into making a fool of himself, perhaps a dead fool. If I can make
him
appear the fool tonight, he won't dare cause any more trouble."

Sean caught her arms. "When Amauri sees you're in earnest, he'll stop playing games. I'll not have you sliced up."

Their eyes locked. "You said I was free."

His hands dropped. "I did, but you're taking wild advantage of it."

She smiled impishly. "Don't worry. I mean to prick the colonel's pride, not his hide."

"I'm not concerned about that."

Her smile faded. "I won't be careless."

Sean let her go down alone. He stood in the hallway for a moment, his mind in a knot. Was she trying to force him to split the alliance? If he had to interfere in the duel to save her, she would have created a nice mess. And it was probable her increasingly devious mind had entertained just that notion. He wondered if he was trying to tame a filly that couldn't be broken.

When Sean reached the foyer, his mistress and the colonel were ringed by military men and muttering civilians. The women were scandalized by Catherine's bold manner and masculine attire. She stood boyishly with hands on hips, bare feet spread on the black-and-white marble. Having removed his coat, Amauri stood rolling up his sleeves. He eyed her with some amusement. "So, mademoiselle, we are about to have a demonstration of your formidable needlepointskills."

She cocked her head and drawled, "It's time you had a lesson in stitchery, Colonel. Our good doctor will explain everything as he sews you up."

Lieutenant Courbier and two of the Irishmen snickered, but immediately stifled as General Fournel shot them a look and stepped forward. "You do intend to use point-guards?"

She smiled. "But of course, General. I was only teasing your handsome colonel. I shall take every precaution, naturally." She turned to Sean. "Mr. Culhane, have you guards?"

Grimly, he nodded and waved a servant toward his study. The man returned with weapon guards and presented them. Catherine selected one and slipped it on her knife. "Thank you. We shall not need the other."

Fournel turned red as Amauri's smile grew a bit tight. "Monsieur Culhane, I protest! This is impossible."

Sean leaned casually against the stair rail and shrugged. "Miss Flynn was challenged. She may dictate rules concerning weapons."

"Don't be concerned, General," Catherine said lightly.

"We're only playing. You must agree a duel is more diverting than the usual pianoforte repertoire after dinner." She saluted Amauri with the knife in the formal manner of a swordsman. "Are you ready?"

Amauri smiled and returned the salute.
"Comme vous voulez, mademoiselle. En garde."
His smile soon vanished. The Frenchman handled his knife with facility, but Catherine's better training, sharper reflexes, and quicker footing were quickly evident. His first feints teased as they circled, but if he advanced, she retreated, and her blade always blocked any opening before he could attempt to take advantage of it. Without warning, her knife blurred toward his chest and there was a clink on the marble.

"You've lost a button, sir," one of the adjutants called.

"The one over your heart, Colonel," his small opponent murmured helpfully.
"Faites attention."
The knife flicked out again. "Tsk. There goes another. Colonel, you really must learn to sew if you lose buttons like a schoolboy."

Amauri's smile became grin. "I think it's the schoolgirl who needs a lesson." He began to circle intently, and Sean palmed his dagger from the sheath beneath his silk cuff. Amauri made a calculated jab, but Catherine faded before it like a wraith. He tried again, with due respect for a possible counterattack; again she was out of range without seeming to move.

For once in his life, Amauri was confused. The girl was making an idiot of him. One part of him wanted to slice her to ribbons, but the other simply wanted her. The countess was magnificent, he thought, a beautiful, wily panther. What must she be like in bed? Before he knew what was happening, he felt a slice across his midriff and heard a husky, teasing murmur. "For shame, Colonel, now I know your mind is wandering." Flushing, he took a furious swipe and she laughed, easily avoiding him. "Ah, Colonel, you're wearing a sour face. What a pity when you have such a charming smile. It has just a suggestion of mischief . . . .la!"

A feather brush across the corner of his mouth left a fine white scratch across his flushed cheek. Angry now, he attacked her as he would have a man. Suddenly he held a handful of stinging fingers, but nothing else. His weapon
lay near the foot of the stair; when he would have retrieved it, he found a polished boot firmly planted across its blade.

"The duel is at an end, Colonel." Without looking around at Catherine, Sean continued lazily, "I trust your honor has been satisfied, Miss Flynn."

"Completely, Mr. Culhane."

Sean nodded pleasantly. "Good. Any objections, Colonel?"

Amauri was angry, but not foolish. He smiled sheepishly. "No, monsieur. It is I who have been objectionable." As Catherine was slipping the knife back into her belt, he took her hand and kissed it. "Please accept my most profound apologies, mademoiselle. Believe me, I shall never underrate you again."

Catherine laughed, then curtsied. "I think it's time I resume a skirt, Colonel. It's hardly fair for a woman to amuse herself by wearing breeches. After all, how many men can enjoy the option of petticoats?"

As she responded to a witticism from Fournel, Sean turned to a lanky Irish officer and ordered quietly, "Hal- loran, circulate and invite all officers into the study. All except my brother." He nodded toward Liam, who was sullenly plying his wineglass as he leaned against the dining room door. "Lord Culhane is in no state to lend our allies confidence. We've a good deal to cover tonight."

Leaving the throng, Catherine retired to her room and locked the door in case her audacity might tempt a visiting male to further test her unconventionality. As she stripped off Tim's shirt, she noticed a small bouquet of flowers by the bedside: tiny, starlike white wildflowers from the startings she had planted on Maude Corrigan's grave. The Irishman was-asking her to have faith in him. She fought back tears. It was too late to change course now; the marriage had taken care of that.

Quickly, she donned the satin peignoir and slippers newly brought from Paris, then brushed out her hair. If she was to discover anything from the conference in the library, there was no time to lose. Quietly, she took the service passage to the ballroom.

The great room was thunderously silent, its tall win
dows shaping ghosts of moonlight. Sean had said the house's peculiar acoustics enabled ballroom sounds to be perfectly distinct in the library; surely the reverse was also true. She crisscrossed the room methodically and heard nothing but a droning mumble, until finally, near the foyer wall, the voices clarified. Not everything was audible, but during the next hour she heard enough. The rebels planned to seize the Dublin mail coaches; the failure of the coaches to arrive at their destinations would signal the uprising throughout Ireland. The initial objectives would be to control Dublin and Wexford. Weather permitting, French support would come ashore at Killala across Donegal Bay and somewhere else she could not make out. Fournel appeared concerned with infantry, while Amauri discussed artillery, talking of roads and horses, fortifications and counterbatteries. Mostly she heard fragmented snatches, but the tone certainly suggested a major French buildup after the initial invasion.

Finally, the conference began to break up and she returned the way she had come, anticipating a hand at her throat at every turn. Not until safely in bed did she draw a complete breath. The candle was barely snuffed when the door of Sean's room clicked open into hers. Heart thudding, she forced her breathing to seem regular. After a moment, the door closed and she was left alone to lie sleepless until dawn.

As the sun came up, Catherine finally drifted wearily into sleep, not to awaken until she felt Sean's presence. Tall against the window light, he stood in his riding clothes at the foot of the bed. The look on his face tugged at her heart and she lifted her arms to him. In a moment, he lay across the bed, his mouth slanting first fiercely across hers, then slowly, savoring the heady wine of her lips, feeling the lushness of the slim body under the clinging satin, the softness of breasts, barely contained by filmy lace butterflies. His fingers caught in her hair and he drew her head back, murmuring against her throat, "You'd tempt the devil, witch."

Her fingers stole inside his shirt, touching him, luring him. Desperately, she wanted to hold him inside her, to shield him like a child from the hurt she must give him.

With a sigh, he traced a finger down her cheek. "But even the devil cannot always suit himself. Fournel and Amauri are cooling their heels on the terrace even now."

She touched his lips. "Be careful."

He looked at her quizzically. "Of Fournel? He'd sell out his own mother. But, if he turns on me, he'll catch a bullet with his perfect teeth."

"Not just Fournel. Everyone."

"Even you?"

"Even me."

He pushed back the tendrils of her hair. "Nay, lass, it's not in you to bury the knife with a kiss. Not in me. Not now." His lips reclaimed hers with a searing sweetness that left them both shaken. At last, reluctantly, he tore away and headed for the door. "Sleep as long as you like. You've nothing but entertainment of country biddies this afternoon." His piratical grin flashed. "Why not give 'em a rousing chorus of 'The Tart of Whitemarsh'?"