When Gods Die

She walked on, her sandaled toes kicking out the skirts of her gown with each step. She wondered who he would be, this new spymaster. Would he be a French émigré, like Pierrepont? Or perhaps an Englishman, someone who’d been unwise—or unlucky—enough to enable the French to gain an indestructible hold over him. Or maybe someone who’d become disaffected from his own country, who nourished a determined admiration for the French and what they were doing across the Channel.

Kat herself owed no allegiance to France. As much as the ideology of the Revolution appealed to her, its savagery and excesses repelled her. And in the end the French had betrayed their own ideology, surrendering all to a military dictator who seduced them with visions of world supremacy.

But she accepted that old maxim “My enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Kat’s enemy was England. It always had been, even before that misty morning in Dublin, when her world had been shattered by the tramp of soldiers’ boots and a woman’s screams and the shadows cast by two bodies swaying in the breeze.

She became aware of another visitor to the gardens, a tall man clad in fawn-colored doeskin breeches and a well-tailored olive coat, his figure lean but powerful. She recognized him, of course. His name was Aiden O’Connell, and he was the younger son of Lord Rathkeale of Tyrawley.

She felt herself stiffen. When the rest of the Irish were being hounded from their lands, the Tyrawley O’Connells had embraced both the conquering English and their religion. As a result, the O’Connells had not only kept their estates, but prospered.

Pausing beside the pond’s edge, she waited for him to walk up to her. He was a handsome man, with sparkling green eyes and two dimples that appeared often in his lean, tanned cheeks.

“Top o’ the morning to you,” he said cheerfully, dimples deepening. “Lovely gardens, don’t you think?”

She kept her gaze on the sun-spangled expanse of water before her. She found it difficult to believe that such a man could be Napoléon’s new spymaster in London, and she certainly had no desire to encourage his attentions if he were here simply by chance.

“Reminds me of some gardens I saw in Palestine once,” he said when she didn’t answer, “not far from Jerusalem. The cedars and sycamores were shining like silver and gold in the sunlight, so grand you’d swear they scraped the sky.”

She swung slowly to face him. He was older than he looked, she realized, probably more like thirty than twenty-five. And there was a sharp gleam of intelligence to his gaze that the beguiling effect of those dimples tended to disguise.

“I came here to meet you as a courtesy,” she said, although that wasn’t strictly true. She was here because she knew that if she hadn’t shown, he would simply have contacted her again. “I don’t want to do this. Not anymore.”

Aiden O’Connell’s smile widened, crinkling the skin beside his eyes. “It’s because of Lord Devlin, is it? I did wonder.”

She held his gaze but said nothing, and after a moment he looked away, across the smooth surface of the pond to where a duck waddled through the reeds, a row of ten ducklings strung out behind her. “Does he know about your affection for the French?”

“I have no affection for the French. It’s Ireland I work for.”

“I doubt he’d see the difference.”

Kat knew a spurt of anger fanned by fear. “Is that an observation or a threat?”

He threw her an amused glance. “An observation only, to be sure.”

“Because if it’s a threat, I’d like to remind you and your masters that I can do as much damage to them as they can to me. And that damage would not be contained by my death.”

He was no longer smiling. “The French are not my masters,” he said. “And I don’t think there is any danger of your premature death.”

She let the latter part of that statement go; her point had been made. It remained to be seen whether or not O’Connell—and the French—would take her threat seriously enough to leave her alone in the future. And it came to her in a rush of bitter realization that this was one danger that would always haunt her. One fear from which she’d never truly be free.

She studied the pleasant face of the man beside her. “Why do you do this?” she asked suddenly.

“For the same reason you do. Or should I say, for the same reason you did.”

“For Ireland?”

He raised one eyebrow. “You find that so difficult to believe?”

“From what I know of the O’Connells, yes.”

“We O’Connells, we’ve always believed that a man who beats his head against a stone wall is a fool.”

“Is that how you’d characterize the brave men and women who’ve fought and died for Ireland over the years? As just so many fools beating their heads against stone walls?”

His dimples peeped. “That’s right. The time for Ireland’s independence will come, but it won’t come until the English have been weakened. And it won’t be the Irish who’ll be weakening them. It’ll be someone else. Someone like the French. Or maybe the Prussians.”

“The Prussians and the English have been allies.”

“They’re not anymore.”