That realization did nothing to improve his temper.
"An excellent point," he drawled, experiencing an entirely unjust satisfaction as Letty bristled at the insouciant response.
"Tell me," Letty demanded, "did you ever intend to marry my sister? Or were you going to carry her off and discard her when you tired of her?"
England was all very well and good, but some things were too much to be borne.
Geoff's hands closed into fists at his sides. He took a step closer, so close that the frill that edged her bodice brushed the folds of his cravat, and said, in the sort of implacable tone that preceded thrown gauntlets and swords at dawn, "I loved your sister."
"It didn't take you long to forget her."
"I—" Geoff broke off, hating the look of triumph on Letty's face at the telltale pause.
He hadn't forgotten Mary. He just hadn't thought about her much over the past week. The two were not the same thing. And whose fault was it that Mary had been driven from his mind? Not Miss Gilly Fairley's, certainly. Not even Napoleon Bonaparte's. It was all the fault of a stubborn woman with reddish hair, who persisted in turning up at the most inconvenient times and places and driving him utterly, bloody mad. Fine for her to twit him for forgetting Mary, when she was the one who had torn them apart. Geoff could feel his self-control beginning to fray, like a rope in the hands of a malicious child with a knife.
"At least I didn't steal my sister's betrothed," he snapped.
"You don't have a sister," flung back Letty.
"That," replied Geoff, a muscle beginning to tic dangerously in his cheek, "is not the point. The point is—" Geoff froze, arrested by a sound from outside the window.
"Ha!" retorted Letty triumphantly. "You don't even have a point, do you?"
"Shh!" Geoff flung up one hand to quiet her.
There it was again, a regular rhythmic tapping. With a muffled curse, Geoff whirled toward the window. Sure enough, there, just outside the glow cast onto the street by Mrs. Lanergan's brightly lit windows, a man with close-cropped dark hair was tapping his cane against the cobbles, deep in thought. And he was walking away.
"Don't you dare shush me!" Letty planted her hands on her hips. "I haven't even begun to tell you what I think of you."
"You'll have to begin again tomorrow," said Geoff, moving her rapidly aside. "We can finish our discussion then. Your servant, madam."
And with a bow so brief it was barely a nod, he was gone.
"What do you think you're—"
Letty bit off the angry words, partly because Lord Pinchingdale was already halfway across the room, but mostly because it was clear to the most intellectually challenged village idiot exactly what he was doing. He was leaving. Again.
How dared he run away just when she was winning the argument!
This time, she had had enough. She wasn't going to allow it. They were going to have it out here and now, or her name wasn't Letty Alsworthy…Alsdale…well, Letty.
Without pausing to grapple with the difficulties of identity, Letty wiggled and shoved her way through the crowd with a great deal less finesse than her perfidious husband. Mumbling, "Pardon me," and "I'm sorry," in a continuous monotone, she fought free of the crush, grabbing on to the handles of the drawing room doors with a huge gasp of relief.
Ha! She would show Geoffrey bloody Pinchingdale that he couldn't run away from her!
With a deep breath, she flung the portal wide and plunged into the hall—straight into a blue-and-scarlet mountain that grabbed her by the arms and wouldn't let her go.
Chapter Eleven
Why was it that whenever Letty Alsworthy turned up, everything went wrong?
Geoff swung himself down the front steps of Mrs. Lanergan's town house, landing lightly on the balls of his feet. Pausing, he peered down either side of the street. There was no sign of Emmet.
Geoff wished he could conclude that Emmet had just slipped around the back of the house, the better to conduct a clandestine meeting. Unfortunately, that theory was marred by the fact that when he had spotted him, Emmet had been heading away from the house. Unless it was merely a clever ploy to mislead pursuers, that could mean only one thing. The rendezvous was over. They'd come, they'd plotted, they'd left. And Geoff had missed it all. Every last syllable.
When he should have been scanning the room, he had been staring at his wife with Vaughn; when he should have been circulating through the crowd, he had been dragging his wife across the room; and when he should have been following Emmet to his rendezvous, he had been so busy slinging insults that Emmet and his contact could have had a revolutionary sing-along in the front hall and Geoff wouldn't have noticed. If it hadn't been for that rapping noise knocking him to his senses…
Over the throbbing of his thoughts, Geoff could still hear it, marking a measured rhythm against the cobblestone. Geoff stilled, willing it to be more than the pounding of his pulse or an aural illusion produced by his imagination. Holding his breath, he strained to listen. There it was again, a faint clicking in the distance. Emmet was still nearby.
Without wasting any more time, Geoff slipped off after the phantom thread of sound. It was coming not from the east, where Clanwilliam House and the Whaley mansion lorded it smugly over St. Stephen's Green, but from the west, the streets that led to the workers' districts just outside the bounds of the city proper. As he increased his pace, Geoff could just make out the dark form of Emmet ahead of him, taking the bend that led from Lower to Upper Kevin Street. Geoff didn't have high hopes that his pursuit of Emmet would lead to anything interesting—at least, anything more interesting than several new verses to "Lord Edward's Lament" and other fine examples of rebel song.
Geoff had followed Emmet along a similar route two nights before, down Thomas Street, through the White Bull Inn, and out a back door at that establishment, into a tiny yard that gave onto a nondescript house on Marshal Lane. Between dusk and dawn, Geoff had quietly searched the premises, taking note of the sacks of saltpeter in the cellar, ready to be mixed into gunpowder, the shrouded piles of muskets shoved beneath tables, the baskets of grenades hidden behind a false wall in the attic. And then there had been the pikes, thousands and thousands of pikes, stacked one on top of another in the loft, ready to be placed in the eager hands of volunteers.
There had been more pikes than guns. Geoff couldn't tell whether the profusion of pikes was a sign of lack of funds, since pikes could be manufactured easily and cheaply on the premises, with lumber provided by Miles Byrne from his brother's timber yard, or merely an indication that the more sophisticated weaponry was being hidden at another depot. Geoff knew there were others—he had searched two more the night before, one on South King Street, the other in the Double Inn on Winetavern Street, just opposite the majestic bulk of Christ Church. Both had been empty, only a trail of saltpeter and a lone grenade giving any indication of their prior purpose.
The weapons had to have gone somewhere. Into the hands of supporters? Geoff didn't think so, not without a firm date for a French landing. The United Irishmen weren't going to make the same mistake they had made back in '98, when a French force had landed a full month after the local population had already risen and been defeated. At least, they weren't going to make that same mistake without some help from him and Jane.
No, Emmet would want to make sure that his men didn't rise prematurely. If he had any sense—and he did—he would keep the armory concentrated in his own hands, to prevent an over-eager follower from sparking an abortive uprising. But where?