"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?

Moving as softly as his stiff boots would permit, Geoff slipped down Lower Kevin Street after Emmet, taking care to keep his pace slow and his stance relaxed, merely a gentleman out for an evening constitutional after a too crowded party. Someone who slunk along the sides of buildings, making a point of keeping to the shadows, was far more conspicuous than someone who blithely occupied the center of the street. Emmet either subscribed to the same theory or had no thoughts of pursuit. He moved easily and openly, his boots clicking firmly against the cobbles of the street. His half-shuttered lantern cast an uneven glow around him, swaying from side to side as he walked.

And why should he worry about being pursued? Geoff wondered bitterly. If his own performance at Mrs. Lanergan's was anything to go by, Emmet and the United Irishmen had nothing to worry about. He could only hope that Jane and Miss Gwen had been more alert and might have garnered some clue as to Emmet's mysterious contact. Even so, it galled him to have to rely upon others for a task he ought to have completed himself.

It was bloody lucky that Emmet was in the habit of tapping his cane against the ground when overtaken by thought, otherwise Geoff would probably still be standing in that thrice-damned window embrasure, pointlessly quarreling with his wife.

And losing, which only served to add insult to injury.

Geoff was almost relieved when a sharp turn from Emmet distracted his attention from an increasingly uncomfortable line of thought. One minute Emmet was in front of him, the next he had disappeared sideways, taking a sharp left down New Street. That was not the route to the Marshall Lane house. Geoff felt a familiar anticipation beginning to build. He strolled casually through the juncture of New Street and Patrick Street, straight through to Dean Street, ascertaining with a quick sideways flick of his eyes that Emmet was still there. Emmet was hurrying down New Street as though proximity to his goal gave new urgency to his steps.

The street was all the clue Geoff needed. Emmet had to be headed for a rendezvous with Miles Byrne, at Byrne's brother's timber yard. And if Emmet intended to inform Byrne of the latest word from the French…A triumphant smile spread across Geoff's face. Despite Letty's interference, the evening wasn't lost yet.

Clanking down heavily on his heels to make his footsteps echo, Geoff kept on going just far enough down Dean Street to allay any potential suspicions. Switching to the balls of his feet, he doubled back to New Street, keeping to the shadows cast by the narrow houses that crowded close together in this poorer section of town.

Emmet glanced nervously behind him before slipping into the garden of the house that neighbored the timber yard, pursing his lips in a low whistle. An answering signal must have been given, because Emmet abandoned his shadowed niche in the lee of the garden gate, hurrying into the timber yard.

Geoff ducked into a small alley, not even so much a proper alley as a glorified gutter, against the side of a high-gabled house as a man hurried out to meet Emmet, bounding over piles of lumber with the enthusiasm of the very young. Geoff settled himself more firmly into his niche, trying to breathe as little as possible. His alleyway was clearly more used to housing sewage than spies.

It was too dark to be sure, but Geoff thought he could guess who the second man was. Miles Byrne, only twenty-three, and already in treason up to his neck. His curling, light brown hair was less elegantly dressed than Emmet's, and his small mustache twitched with excitement as he called out something in a low tone. A third man, an unknown, scuttled through the shadows to join the group, moving more soberly than Byrne. He was older than Byrne, his hair streaked with white in the pale light cast by Emmet's lantern, and wore the distinctive dress of a car-man.

It was a well-chosen disguise, reflected Geoff, making a mental note to assign someone to infiltrate the ranks of Dublin's hackney drivers. What better guise could there be for a revolutionary than posing as the driver of a cab? One had an excuse for being at strange places at odd hours, not to mention the chance of overhearing key tidbits from passengers who tended to treat a driver as little more than an extension of his horse. It certainly trumped standing in a pile of sewage, thought Geoff ruefully, regarding the muck clinging to the sides of his boots.