"Now," Geoff repeated flatly.
The message he had intercepted had been so clear. Emmet, Allen, Dowdall, Madden, and a number of the other rebel luminaries were engaged to dine at Kilmacud with Joe Alleyburne, for an evening of pleasant conversation and plotting. Geoff had eavesdropped on such events before; they tended to go on well into the night and involve the consumption of large quantities of claret.
Clearly, tonight was the exception.
There was no hope that Letty was wrong. Down at the other end of Hanover Alley, a small cluster of men was barely perceptible, no more than flecks on a painter's palette. Geoff would wager there weren't more than six of them—which still made three too many, even if Geoff counted Letty, which he would have preferred not to. There could be no doubt as to their identity. From the not so distant distance came a snatch of a ballad, low but unmistakable.
"And you did mean now," Geoff said grimly.
Why in the hell did rebel movements always have to express themselves in song? Geoff recognized it as "The Lament of Lord Edward Fitzgerald," a lugubrious little ditty that began "Why lie ye here so pale and cold, Edward, Edward? Why ye who were so brave and bold, Edward, Edward?" and went on along that vein for the whole of thirty-eight verses, including a glowing report of Lord Edward's childhood lessons and his preference for jammy tarts at tea ("Oh, ye who liked the raspberry, Edward, Edward"), before getting on to the usual bits about bloody blades, bared breasts, and women weeping.
They had clearly been singing for quite some time; Geoff caught a fragment that ran "And when his Greek translations were due, Edward, Edward, the blank verse came out pure and true, Edward, Edward. For in the glow of Hector's shield, Edward, Edward, you saw that Eire must never yield, Edward, Edward."
One could learn to hate that name after a few verses.
The little group at the end of Hanover Alley was growing more distinct. Six men, clearly in a state of high good spirits, even if there did seem to be a small disagreement about variant endings to the twenty-third verse.
In just a few yards they would be close enough to take an interest in what was going on in their own yard. And there was very little a man could do to explain away why he just happened to be holding a fuse in one hand and a match in the other.
A hen pecked curiously at Geoff's foot, clearly mistaking it for an outrй new form of feed. Rapping smartly on the wall, Geoff leaned over to speak into one of the knotholes.
"I am lighting the match," enunciated Geoff clearly. "Would you care to emerge?"
"Hmph," was all Miss Gwen said, but Geoff heard a thump that he devoutly hoped was the banging of the hidden door. For all her irritating qualities, he had no interest in immolating Miss Gwen. The blasted woman would probably come back to haunt him.
"May I help?" Letty asked, her eyes darting from the fuse to the rebels and back again.
She looked so absurdly small and vulnerable in her borrowed men's clothes. Geoff would have liked to send Letty packing, back to Jane's house, or, even better, all the way back to London. But he didn't have that luxury. Making a snap decision, Geoff held out the end of the fuse.
"Can you work a flint?"
Letty snapped to. "Of course!"
"Good. Take this." Geoff handed her the flint. Letty accepted the flint with a familiarity that boded well for her claim of competence. "The second you see Miss Gwen emerge, use it to light this." With his other hand, Geoff held out the fuse. Letty regarded the black-flecked length of twine dubiously. "Once it's lit, I want you to run, as fast as you can, down toward the church."
"What about you?"
Geoff's mouth quirked with wry humor. "With any luck, I'll be running, too."
Letty just looked at him, her blue eyes clouded with unasked questions.
Abandoning any pretense of levity, Geoff said somberly, "I'll hold them off as long as it takes to protect the fuse."
"I see," said Letty, and she did.
The need to take her into his arms was almost a physical ache. "If anything goes wrong, I want you to go straight to Jane. If anything goes wrong with Jane, go straight back to England. Understood?"
Letty nodded. Reluctantly.
Geoff could tell she was yearning to argue, and his chest swelled with an entirely unfamiliar range of emotions at her perspicacity and self-control. Nine out of ten women—nine out of ten men—would have wasted time in useless arguments. But not his Letty.
Unable to kiss her good-bye, since that really would arouse the rebels' suspicions, as well as other inconvenient organs, Geoff did the only thing he could. Under cover of the henhouse, he reached for her hand and squeezed. "I'm going to go drag Miss Gwen out of the house. The minute you see her, light the fuse."
Letty knew what she wanted to say. But since she couldn't, she went with the next best substitute, inadequate though it was.
"Be careful," she whispered, but the words were lost in a sudden burst of noise. Like an ill wish, Miss Gwen appeared, bursting forth from the back door with enough force to shake the door on its hinges. She seemed, for a moment, to hang in midair like an avenging Fury, her gray hair bristling and her parasol raised like a general's baton.
At the end of the alley, the rebels stood amazed, frozen from sheer shock.
Letty couldn't blame them.
Twisting the handle of her parasol, Miss Gwen drew out a thin sword from the shaft. In her left hand, she braced the open purple parasol like a shield. The silk fringe bobbed merrily in the fading sunlight.
"Fire away!" cried Miss Gwen. Thrusting her sword point high in the air, she charged the astounded band of rebels.
Letty didn't need to be asked twice. Dropping to her knees behind the henhouse, she struck the flint with hands that were surprisingly steady. The metal fit familiarly into her hand, an oddly domestic counterpoint to the scent of sulfur stinging her nose and the chicken dung muddying her pantaloons. Under Letty's efforts, the tinder caught, and lit. Her heart somewhere around her cravat, Letty thrust the powdercoated fuse into the small spark and waited for it to catch flame.
Nothing happened.
The fuse wasn't taking. The flame smoldered sullenly at the very tip before winking damply out.
Fighting her rising anxiety, Letty struck the flint again, willing the metal to spark. Just on the other side of the weathered wooden structure, Miss Gwen's shrill yips of triumph and tart asides mingled with masculine oaths and grunts. They seemed to be holding their own, but how long could two hold out against six?
If there was something wrong with the fuse…Merciful heavens, she didn't even know what a functioning fuse was supposed to look like, much less what one was supposed to do if one wouldn't work. Those little black flecks…she assumed they were supposed to be there, but who knew? And the ground was damp, a damp that might have worked into the twine, inhibiting the action of the flame.
Letty worked the flint with a burst of energy born of desperation, tipping the end of the fuse to catch the flame. If the fuse wouldn't take this time, she would just have to find something else. A long spar of wood torn from the chicken coop, perhaps, and thrust through one of the larger knotholes in the wall. It might work. If the fuse didn't light, it would have to work.
The tip of the fuse caught and smoked, smoldering uncertainly against the backdrop of the muddy earth. As though through a screen, Letty could hear the pounding of booted feet against packed dirt, shouted threats and imprecations, the harsh exhalations of hard-pressed lungs, all drawing steadily nearer. It couldn't have been more than seconds, but it felt like an eternity. Cupping her hands around the red tip, she blew gently on the flame, willing it into life.