Countess of Scandal

Book 1: Daughters of Erin

by Laurel McKee

Genres: Historical Romance; Regency Romance

Synopsis

As children, Eliza Blacknall and William Denton ran wild over the fields of southern Ireland and swore they would be friends forever. Then fate took Will away to England, while Eliza stayed behind to become a proper Irish countess. Years later, Will finally makes his way home-as an English soldier sent to crush the Irish uprising. When he spies the lovely Eliza, he is captivated by the passionate woman she has become. But Eliza's passions have led her to join the Irish rebel cause, and Will and Eliza now find themselves on opposite sides of a dangerous conflict. When Ireland explodes in bloody rebellion, Will's regiment is ordered to the front lines, and he is forced to choose between his duty to the English king and his love for Eliza and their Irish homeland.

Release date: April 10, 2010

Publisher: Forever

Print pages: 369

Sample

County Kildare, Ireland, 1790

Lady Eliza Blacknall slipped through the front doors of her home, Killinan Castle, easing them shut behind her. The drive was
quiet, the length of white gravel gleaming under the moonlight. Her slippers whispered over the stone, her muslin skirts held
close to still their rustle as she ran toward a small walled garden. Free at last! Her parents’ dull party, and the dull fiancé
they intended for her, were left behind.


The evening was still and clear but cool, and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself as she sat down on a marble bench.
The moon was a fat, silvery crescent set in the purple-black velvet sky, outlined in twinkling stars.


Certainly that must be a magical Irish moon, Eliza fancied, thinking of old tales her nanny once told her, tales of nights
when all the humans were gone home to their beds and everything was silent. That was when tiny battalions of fairies would
creep out from their hiding places and hold their own gatherings in magical circles beneath that moon. No dull Macbeth for them, oh no. No tea and minuets. Pipes and harps, wild jigs, laughter that went on until dawn. Eliza closed her eyes,
picturing tiny wings shimmering like diamonds….


Suddenly, a gentle touch interrupted her whimsical musings. Strong, warm fingers slid over her eyes, and the light scent of
soap and new wool tickled her nose. Her heart skipped, then pounded in her breast, so hard she was sure everyone could hear
it. She couldn’t breathe. Her blood ran hot, yet she shivered.


“Penny for your thoughts,” a low, rough voice whispered, his breath cool against the nape of her neck.

Eliza reached up and caught those hands in her own, holding them tightly as she twisted around on the bench. Their owner smiled
down at her, all golden hair and gleaming blue-green eyes.


“Will!” she cried out, too loudly. Lowering her voice, she leaned closer and whispered, “Will, what are you doing here? We
might be seen.” And yet hadn’t she hoped, deep down, that he would be waiting here? Wasn’t that why she slipped away from
the party?


“Seen by whom? The moon? The stars?” As he spoke, a puffy cloud slid in front of the moon, leaving them in the haven of darkness.

Will sat down beside her, twining his fingers tightly with hers. She knew she should pull away, move apart from him, or, better
yet, leave altogether. She should go back inside, where she couldn’t feel him, smell him, see his golden hair and laughing
eyes.


But she could not leave him. “My mother might come looking for me.”

Will shook his head, his bright hair gleaming under the stars. Surely he was only part of a dream, for he was too lovely for
every day. Too lovely for her. “When I last looked, your mother was deep in conversation with her friend Mrs. Franklin.” He
raised her hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss to her fingers before cradling her palm against his cheek.


She felt the smooth heat of his skin and the sharp line of his cheekbones. How she longed to be even closer! To crawl inside
his being and stay near him forever, warm and safe. To never lose that crackling excitement he brought with him whenever he
walked into a room.


How had she—tall, plain, dark Elizabeth Blacknall—ever been so fortunate to find him? To have him for her friend? She lifted
her other hand to his long, tied-back hair, stroking the satiny length with the tips of her fingers. “We must not stay here
too long. If my mother sees us, she and my father will lock me in my room for a month.” Or marry her to Frederick Mount Clare,
posthaste.


Will laughed, the sound deliciously deep, reverberating against her hand. It seemed to echo all through her, to the very core
of her heart. “Then you would have to let down your hair so I could climb up to rescue you. Like in a fairy story.”


Eliza laughed, too, picturing such a thing. “I don’t think my hair is long enough.”

“No?” He released her hand to twine one curl around his finger. Usually dark brown, her hair was ebony in the night. It caught
and clung to his skin. “Then I shall have to remember to bring a very tall ladder.”


If only he could. A very, very tall ladder, to lift her from her real life into a world with only him. Where she would never
be apart from him and the way he made her feel—so very alive, as if all her fifteen years before had merely been a waiting
slumber.


“Can you come riding tomorrow?” he murmured, still toying with her hair.

She could scarcely think straight when he did that. “I don’t think so,” she said reluctantly. “I have to have tea with my
mother and Lady Mount Clare.” And Frederick. “But the next day I can.”


“It’ll seem like ten years until then.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her hair, then gently released the curl to rest it on
her shoulder.


“My parents are going to the village after luncheon to inspect the new school that day,” she said. “Will you wait for me in
our secret place?”


“Always, Eliza.”

She nodded, swallowing hard past the dry longing in her throat at the way he spoke her name. “I should probably go back to
the house now.”


As she spoke, the clouds slid from the moon, and its chalky light streamed down over their hidden garden. That was when she
saw it.


Will wore the scarlet coat, faced in yellow and trimmed with narrow gold lace and brass buttons, of the Thirteenth Regiment
of Foot. An English regiment. After she had told him how she felt about Ireland and all it stood for! After she poured out all her passion to
him.


A cold wave seemed to break over her at the sight of that hated coat, washing away the warm, giddy haze of unreality that
always wrapped around her when he was near. Her skin turned to ice, and she dropped his hand, leaping up from the bench to
move away from him.


She had known this might happen. He was, as her mother pointed out, a younger son, and younger sons had to make their own
way. But an English regiment!


“You… you purchased your commission?” she said, her voice strained.

Will frowned, tucking his hands behind his back as if he, too, felt the sudden chill. The slow snapping of their friendship.
“Of course. My family has long intended me for the army.”


“Yes, but surely the Kildare militia would—”

He laughed humorlessly. “An Irish militia would offer few chances for advancement, I fear.”

“Advancement in London, you mean? You would rather be an English officer, sent away from here? From Ireland?”

“Eliza,” he said, shaking his head. “Are we not English ourselves? We owe our allegiance to the king, the same as anyone in
London. This is the best way for me to make my way in the world. Surely you see that?”


All Eliza could really see was that he was leaving, going into a world that she had never really understood. But he was part
of it, as was her own family. Protestant Ascendancy families like the Dentons and the Blacknalls had come from England decades
ago to claim estates as prizes from the king for their loyalty. They lived in Ireland, derived their fortunes from it, but
were still English in their hearts. They were the rulers; the Irish who had been there for centuries before had no power.


Eliza had only ever wanted to be Irish, but no one else in her world felt that way. Not even Will. And now he was leaving her behind.


He took her hand again, holding it tightly in his warm embrace. Eliza stared down at their joined fingers, at the touch that
had so thrilled her. Now… now she just felt cold numbness. Will, and the dream of their friendship, was gone. Captain William
Denton was the reality, and the future she had not wanted to face was upon her.


Perhaps her mother was right after all. Love didn’t last. Position and responsibility were forever.

“Eliza,” he said coaxingly, “the regiment is being sent to the West Indies, but surely it won’t be there for long. When I
return, we will be older, and I will have made money of my own. May I write to you?”


His eyes, as blue-green as the deepest sea, stared down at her, full of wary questions. She could not read them. Yet, for
an instant, it was as if they galloped over the fields together, laughing again. Or when he kissed her in the woods and all
time stood utterly still. They were the only two people in the world, bound together by a shimmering, unbreakable bond.


Then the moonlight glinted off one of those newly minted buttons.

“I don’t think my parents would allow that,” she said.

“When have you ever cared what your parents allowed?” he said with a puzzled laugh.

True enough. Her parents seemed to lecture all the time about proper behavior and family honor, and she seldom listened. She
was too caught up in her own fancies. But maybe it was time—past time—she started paying heed.


“You are thinking of your future,” she said. “I must think of mine. And mine is here, in Ireland.”

“So you still feel the English officers are oppressors?” he asked, disbelieving. “You think I…”

She gently extracted her hand from his clasp and went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. Even though she was tall, he was taller.
The perfect handsome officer. His skin was so warm and smooth under her lips, his clean scent so alluring. An ineffable sadness
seized her heart, and she longed to stay just where she was, to wrap her arms around him so tightly he could not escape.


But she stepped away and said, “I wish you fair prospects, Will. I’ll think of you often, I promise.”

And she turned and walked quickly away from him, hurrying toward the lit edifice of Killinan Castle. It looked just the same
as ever—sturdy gray-white stone, Palladian columns, all the many windows glowing with welcome. Yet, even though she had been
gone only half an hour, she felt completely changed.


As she entered the foyer, she could hear the hum of voices and laughter from behind the drawing room door. The play had not
yet resumed, and hopefully that meant her mother was still too busy playing hostess to have missed Eliza.


She paused before a tall, gilt-framed looking glass to smooth her dress and hair. Was it only her imagination or did she even
look older than before? She had certainly been a fool to think she could marry Will Denton. It was time for new plans.


“Psst! Eliza!” she heard someone hiss. She turned toward the grand staircase to find her two sisters perched there, peering
through the carved banisters. Anna, who at nine was becoming the golden-haired beauty of the family, always cried about not
being allowed to join the parties. And seven-year-old Caroline, dark like Eliza, would rather hunt for tadpoles in the pond.
It was she who had spoken.


“You two are supposed to be abed,” Eliza said, hurrying to the foot of the stairs.

“We wanted to see the gowns,” Anna answered. “And watch the party!”

“It’s not much to see,” said Eliza. “Quite dull, in fact. I wish I could be upstairs with you!”

“I don’t think Mama would allow that,” Caroline said. “She was out here looking for you.”

Eliza was afraid of that. “When?”

“Not ten minutes ago. The Mount Clares have arrived.”

“I had best go in, then,” Eliza sighed. She turned away, smoothing her skirts again.

“Eliza,” Anna called. “Why were you outside for so long?”

“I think she was meeting an admirer,” Caroline sang. “He was reading her poetry in the moonlight.”

“No such thing,” Eliza said sternly. “I just needed some fresh air.”

Caroline seemed convinced, more interested now in persuading Eliza to bring her refreshments from the party. But Anna, the
Blacknall sister most addicted to romantic novels and sad songs, watched her solemnly, as if she knew what Eliza had been
doing in the garden.


Eliza hurried into the drawing room. Everyone still milled about, sipping wine and negus as they chatted, waiting for the
play to resume. Her parents stood near the stage, her mother’s silvery-blond hair and pale blue brocade gown shimmering in
the crowd like a stylish beacon. With them were the Mount Clares, and their son.


Katherine saw Eliza the moment she stepped into the room and beckoned her closer with a bejeweled hand. Eliza pasted on a
polite smile and stepped forward into the future—whatever it might hold.




Dublin, December 1797

Isn’t that Mount Clare’s widow?” a man asked as Eliza passed by him in the crowded, palatial assembly rooms of Rutland Square.
It was Lord Morely, secretary at Dublin Castle. He raised his quizzing glass to his eye, watching her closely.


“Indeed, it is,” said his portly companion, Mr. Pelham. “Poor Mount Clare. He was a friend of mine, y’know. We hunted together.
Lucky he can’t see what his wife’s been up to since he died.”


“Formed one of those blasted teapot societies, I’ve heard,” Lord Morely answered.

“Sedition over the tea table and embroidery hoop. My wife tells me she entertains teachers, poets, female radicals, even Catholics. Shocking.”


“Those damnable United Irishmen. They prey on the gullible peasants, persuading them to do their filthy, treasonous work.
Lord Camden has been a weak Lord Lieutenant, indeed. He does little to stop them. He should be sent back to England.”


Eliza ignored them, passing serenely on her way, though she longed to burst out laughing. If they only knew! Mount Clare had
never cared what she did when he was alive, as long as she left him alone with his cards, horses, and mistresses. It left
her plenty of time to travel and study, to read and form “shocking” friendships of all sorts.


Now that he was gone, she finally had the funds to put some of her ideas into action. Ideas that narrow, cruel men like Morely
could never understand.


Eliza sighed as she edged her way around the crowded dance floor, the blur of bright silks, velvets, and sparkling jewels,
and the thunder of stamping feet and claps. Men so rarely understood her. Certainly not her husband or her poor late father!
They had always looked at her as if she were a Chinese puzzle box, an exotic stranger in their midst.


Eliza paused before one of the floor-length mirrors that lined the green silk walls of the assembly rooms. She didn’t look like a puzzle, she thought. She wore a fine gown of silver-lilac silk, embroidered with silver thread and beads, proper half-mourning
that went well with her grandmother’s diamonds. Her dark hair was carefully curled and piled high and pinned with pearl combs,
not tucked up “croppy” style, as Lucy Fitzgerald and her wild sister-in-law Pamela liked to effect. They were easily reckoned
to be “democratical” and thus not danced with.


Eliza preferred to keep her convictions hidden, or at least as hidden as they could be, where they could do the most good.
Silks and diamonds were as good a mask as any, though her disguise was slipping, if Morely and Pelham’s conversation was any
indication. Soon she would have to come out into the open—as they all would.


She closed her eyes against the lavish party. Ever since she was a girl, she had been keenly aware of the difference between
her family’s comfortable life and those of the Irish farmers and workers. She saw the gulf between the privileged Anglo-Irish
few and the suffering many. As she grew older and her marriage gave her independence, she learned how the government in Dublin
truly worked; she often went to Parliament to sit in the gallery and listen to the debates. Whenever any politician actually
showed some compassion and tried to help the Irish people, tried to lessen the harsh Penal Laws or improve the lot of the
Catholics, they were shouted down by the Ascendancy landowners who were protecting their exclusive powers and privileges.


She had tried to follow her mother’s fine example of charity and compassion but quickly saw that would never go far enough
to really improve anyone’s life. It could never lessen the weight that prevented real prosperity and happiness. The land she
loved so much was dying under oppression.


So, when Lord Edward Fitzgerald, the son of her mother’s friends the Duke and Duchess of Leinster, came and asked for her
help to make true changes in Ireland, to throw off British rule as America had done and move forward as an independent nation,
it seemed the work she waited for. The work she was meant to do.


She would not turn away from it.

Eliza turned her back to the mirror to study the room behind her. That kaleidoscope of dancers, the spiraling music and laughter,
grew ever louder and wilder as the punch poured on. This Christmas season had been like none other she could remember. Irish
holidays were always lavish and merry, but this year there was a knife-sharp edge to it all, a frantic decadence, as if they
could all go tumbling down into dark oblivion at any moment.


“Après moi, le deluge,” she heard someone say behind her. She turned to find her sister Anna standing just beyond the edge of the glass’s reflection.
Anna’s beauty had only grown over the years, and now she was all gold and ivory and roses, a bright, brilliant goddess in
her white and pink gown.


Too bright, perhaps? Eliza examined Anna’s shining blue eyes, her tumbled blond curls—the champagne glass in her hand.

Anna laughed. “You see, sister, I can read your mind. We dance while Rome, or Dublin, burns.”

Eliza shook her head and took the glass away from her sister. “Were you in the card room?”

“Of course. I must have my share of fun while I can, since I’m to be shipped back to Mama at Killinan after Christmas! She
is shockingly strict these days, Eliza. You would think I was still in the schoolroom with Caroline.”


That wouldn’t be such a bad thing, Eliza thought as she tasted the champagne that was left. Anna was as wild and frantic as
everyone else in Dublin, and that could be very dangerous in the days to come. “How much did you lose?”


Anna waved her lace fan in a dismissive gesture. “The merest amount, Eliza, I promise. Mostly to Peter Carstairs, too, and
he won’t press to be paid.”


“Because he is violently in love with you. Like all the other young men in Dublin.”

Anna laughed, her cheeks bright pink. “Well, I am not in love with any of them, I assure you! Silly puppies, all of them.”

“One day, sister dear, someone shall capture your heart, and then you shall have to eat your words.”

“I could say the same thing to you, Eliza. Where will all your talk of independence go when you meet someone you could truly
love?” Anna took a lobster tart from a footman’s tray, munching on it thoughtfully before saying, “Someone dashing and smart,
not like Mount Clare. Someone handsome, too…”


Eliza laughed. “You have been reading too many romantic novels, Anna! I must lend you some more improving volumes.”

“Not if it’s going to make me sound like I’m reading from Fordyce’s Sermons. We have to make merry while we’re young—while we can.”


“So, you will leave sermons until you’re an old, gray widow like me?”

“Oh, Eliza dearest! Widow you may be; old and gray you are not. You can still find romance.” Anna pointed with her folded
fan at the dance floor. “What of Walter Fitzwilliam? He cuts a fine leg.”


“And he is a terrible drunk. He fell into the gutter on Sackville Street last week, they say.”

“That does not bode well for the bedchamber, then,” Anna muttered. “I have heard things about men who imbibe too freely. It,
er, disables certain vital parts.”


“Anna Blacknall!”

“There are benefits in reading novels, sister. Especially French ones. What of Lord Aldington…”


At that moment, the assembly room doors opened to admit a group of latecomers. As was becoming more frequent in Dublin, as
regiments newly arrived from London sought amusement, they were officers. Young ones, too, not old and portly colonels in
too-tight red tunics. These men seemed tall and strong, their bright gazes keen as they swept over the noisy throng.


“Well, now,” Anna said. “This is more like it.”

“Anna, I am hardly likely to take up with some newly arrived officer,” Eliza said.

“No one said you have to ‘take up’ with one! A dance would make a fine start.” Anna tapped her fan against her chin as she
examined the new arrivals. “What about that one there? He is quite a beauty, I must say, and even taller than you.”


Eliza couldn’t help laughing. It felt as if they were at a horse fair, and Anna was a shrewd Arab trader evaluating fillies.
“Which one?”


“That one, of course. He doesn’t appear a drunkard at all, does he?”

Eliza followed the pointing line of Anna’s fan to a man who was half turned away from them, greeting Mr. Neilsen, the Master
of Ceremonies. From that angle, he did seem a beauty, she had to admit. Very tall, with broad shoulders, a tight backside, and his long dark golden hair tied back
with a black ribbon. If only those fine shoulders weren’t encased in a red coat!


Green would suit them so much better.

Then he turned toward her, the flickering light of dozens of candles falling over the chiseled angles of his lean face.

Eliza gasped. She was surely imagining things! Anna’s romantic nonsense was infecting her senses.

She closed her eyes, gulping down the last of the champagne. When she looked again, though, nothing had changed. He was still
there. Bigger than life. Bigger even than the dreams that had come to her, unbidden, over the years.


Will Denton was back in Ireland. Major Denton, to judge by the decorations on his uniform. Time had carved his face into a hard, elegant sculpture, like a statue
of a Roman god colored bronze by a harsh West Indies sun.


From across the room, his eyes, those intense blue-green eyes she had imagined so often over the years, seemed to touch her
very heart. The noise and movement of the room all faded away, and she saw only him. For an instant, she was fifteen again,
so full of yearning and romantic hope.


Her hand tightened on the glass until it bit into her rings and dragged her back down to earth. To cold reality.

“Good heavens!” Anna exclaimed. “Isn’t that Viscount Moreton’s younger son? The one who’s been gone so long?”

“I believe so,” Eliza said hoarsely. Her throat felt so dry and tight. Where was that champagne when it was needed? “I’m surprised
you remember.”


“Oh, I never forget a face. Especially one like that. Was he not your friend back then?”

“I wouldn’t call him a friend. Just a neighbor and acquaintance.”

“Did you sneak out to go riding with all your acquaintances, then?”

Eliza shouldn’t be surprised, really. Despite her careless, party-loving facade, Anna had always been a shockingly sharp observer.
Which meant having her in Dublin, now of all times, was not very wise. “That was a long time ago.”


“The years have certainly been kind to our old neighbor. We should renew our acquaintance. It’s surely the polite thing to
do.”


Before Eliza could protest, Anna seized her by the hand and drew her across the room, through the knots of laughing people.
Will watched their approach, his expression utterly unreadable, as if he had become a Roman statue in truth. As she drew closer
to him, she suddenly recalled every minute they had spent together. Every single stolen kiss.


She tried to breathe, but her stays were too tight. Only Anna’s firm clasp on her arm held her fast, not allowing her to run
away. She had to keep moving forward, ever forward—toward Will, and the past that was suddenly all tangled up in the present.


Mr. Neilsen bowed to them as they drew near. “Lady Mount Clare, Lady Anna. May I present—”

“No need, Mr. Neilsen, for we are old friends! Are we not, Mr. Denton?” Anna said gaily. “Or should I say Major Denton, yes?”

“I am most pleased to meet with you again, Lady Anna,” Will answered. Eliza thought she saw a flashing glint in his eyes,
as if he would smile at them. But he merely bowed politely.


“I’m surprised you recognize me. Have I not grown much taller?” Anna said. “Yet my sister, Lady Mount Clare, has grown only
more beautiful. Would you not agree, Major?”


Will looked directly at Eliza, his gaze steady and as dark blue and unreadable as the deepest sea. Eliza clutched at her folded
fan, as if its carved ivory could keep her from drowning. “Most beautiful, of course—Lady Mount Clare. Then, you always were.
Lord Mount Clare is most fortunate.”


“He would be if he wasn’t dead!” Anna said brightly.

“Anna!” Eliza admonished.

Far from being repentant, Anna took Mr. Neilsen’s arm and smoothly led him away, saying, “Mr. Neilsen, there is something
I absolutely must ask you about next week’s reception…”


And Eliza was left quite alone with Will.

Well, alone in a room with dozens of other people—people who always watched each other’s behavior with the most avid interest.
Yet it felt as if there was only the two of them, cast round by a spell of glittering silence. All the years of her unsatisfactory
marriage, her work, everything, just… disappeared.


“You look well,” she said, finding her voice at last. “The islands must have agreed with you.”

That lurking smile touched the corner of his lips. A mere shadow, but it sufficed. “Can they agree with any man? The heat,
the hurricanes…”


“Those recalcitrant natives?”

“Them, too.”

“And now you are brought back to Ireland to subdue a different set of natives?”

Will laughed. She remembered well his old laugh, that merry, carefree sound that would burst forth like sunshine. Thi. . .