The Virgin's Spy (26 page)

As a ghost, Liadan was even more effective than Roisin had been. The child was a constant memory both waking and sleeping: her swift footsteps, her lightning smile, her ever-present curiosity and straightforward manner of speaking. The world was a poorer place without her in it, and if Stephen had hated Oliver Dane on Roisin's behalf, he now loathed the man with an intensity that curdled his stomach.

He didn't much care what the Kavanaughs did to him, just so long as they took out Dane first.

When the door opened, he expected the unsmiling Diarmid or one of the two guards who brought him food daily. But it was Ailis.

Stephen jerked to his feet, brought up short by the chains he'd forgotten he wore. He noted the pallor, the hollows carved in her cheeks, the dark rings around her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and agonized days. All he wanted was to put his arms around her and pretend he could ease the grief.

Instead, he did the only thing he could. He apologized. “I am so sorry. I have failed you.”

“By not delivering my daughter as you promised? Or by lying to me in the first place?”

“For all of it. This is my fault.”

For a minute she looked as though she meant to agree, but then the edges of her face crumpled and she looked nearly as vulnerable in her distress as Liadan ever had. Stephen felt as though he were seeing Ailis as she might have looked when Dane had so casually used her in Kilmallock. He bit down hard on the surge of rage. This wasn't about him.

“Oh, Stephen, there is fault and enough to go around. I have hardly had time to count your sins—my own are too pressing.”

“You have no fault here.”

“I have every fault! I command here, Stephen. My voice gives the orders. Father Byrne was my most loyal supporter for years. He might have argued with me—rarely—but he would not have acted against me. Not in secret.”

“Father Byrne let Dane go because Peter Martin came to him with a plan.” Stephen felt a stirring of unease. From far away, he thought he could see where Ailis was going, and he didn't want her to go there. He didn't want her to say it.

“Yes, Peter Martin acted for English interests. Father Byrne only ever acted in my interest. He let Dane go because I told him to.”

“What?”

“He came to me with Martin's plan. I nearly threw Martin into another cell to rot alongside Dane when I found out—but then I considered that if Dane escaped, I could hunt him down on the road and kill him in the dark. That would be legitimate. So I told Byrne to go along with the plan.”

“Why not tell someone?”

“Because you were both right! But I didn't want to admit it. I didn't want to back down. My pride…that was what killed my daughter. I should have known Dane would always win.”

“Not always, Ailis. Dane cannot win the coming fight. Liadan will be avenged.”

Ailis must have read his longing to touch her, for she came forward and unlocked his chains. The same chains from which Dane had been freed ten days ago. But once freed, Stephen was afraid to move. Afraid to do or say the wrong thing.

Ailis moved for him. She had never kissed him like this—desperate, hungry, as though trying to lose herself in him. The only thing to do was respond in kind. Until she began to untie his lacings.

“Ailis, stop. You're not thinking.”

“For the first time in days! I don't want to think, Stephen. I want to forget.”

“This isn't the way.” He felt himself a hypocrite even as he said it. Everything in him was shouting for her. He was shaking so hard it took force of will to hold himself apart. But the last time he'd let his desires dictate, Roisin had died.

“What is the way, Stephen? To lie your way into my bed? To make me believe that, just maybe, there was one Englishman in the world who didn't deserve an excruciating death? You owe me. This is my payment.”

He would have had to hurt her to stop it—and he didn't want to do either one. It was hard to tell which of them was more desperate. It broke Stephen's heart to see how thin she was as he removed skirts and shift, her collarbone and hip bones sharp beneath his hands. He laid her down gently on the pallet (clean, at least), and Ailis pulled him with her. There were tears mixed with gasps, and Stephen was fairly confident that, for a few moments at least, her grief was swamped by her body's joy.

She slept for an hour after, and Stephen watched her breathe. He imagined sleep had been hard to come by for her and hoped the pain of waking would be tempered rather than worsened by what had passed. He had no idea what would come next. Ailis might easily chain him up once more, or put him on trial. But he had an idea of his own, and when she finally stirred, he put it to her while her defenses were still low.

“You should hold me for ransom,” he said bluntly. “You will need money to take down Dane. Take it from the English.”

“What if your queen is not minded to pay to get you back? She is notoriously tightfisted, and if she's heard some version from Dane of your betrayal? Elizabeth won't fund her own soldiers in Ireland—she won't make the mistake of funding mine.”

“The queen doesn't come into it. You said it yourself—I'm heir to the wealthiest dukedom in England. My own lands of Somerset could bear a significant ransom, and I do not think my father would balk overly at paying in of himself. Set your terms, Ailis, and let me make what amends are possible.”

“I don't deny the thought of using English gold to pay troops to destroy Dane is enticing…but it's not needed. Maisie has anticipated us both. The girl secretly held back half her dowry and invested it through her own business factor. Her investments include a European-trained mercenary force. They are already making their way to Cahir to join us in attacking Blackcastle.”

Stephen stared at her blankly, then was seized by a desire to laugh. All those letters Maisie had written and received? He'd thought them nothing but the everyday outpourings of a young girl far from home. She had completely and thoroughly surprised him, and he thought his sisters would be impatient with him because of it. Hadn't he lived surrounded by clever women? And here he'd fallen into the simplest of errors—assuming that because she was young and female and not strikingly beautiful, that Maisie must also be useless.

“Well done, Mariota,” he murmured admiringly. “I'm glad of it, Ailis. You are planning to attack, then?”

She stirred and sat up, hair falling over her shoulders to veil her breasts. “
We
are planning to attack. Maisie has demanded you command the mercenaries and I have agreed.”

“Why?”

“Because I think the story you told me about Dane killing an Irish girl you cared for is more or less true. One can feign desire and friendship and love…but I've never found anyone who can effectively feign hatred. You hate him. And I need a commander in the field who hates him for his own sake and not merely for Liadan. It will make you reckless.”

“You make me reckless,” he whispered. When he kissed her, he could taste a desire equal to his and felt a ridiculously male pride that he'd succeeded in teaching her pleasure.

As she pulled him down, her body finally warm beneath his hands, Ailis whispered back, “I will break your heart, Englishman.”

Stephen didn't care.

D
ominic Courtenay had to be forcibly persuaded not to go to Ireland after his son. Kit had the distinct impression the queen threatened him to prevent it, though he couldn't imagine with what. Whatever their conversation, Dominic had refrained from sailing, though he'd ridden to Bristol with Kit and twenty-four of his own handpicked soldiers.

“You brought Stephen back once,” Dominic told him grimly. “Do it again, son.”

Shouldn't it be the other way round? Kit wondered. He'd always thought of himself as the irresponsible one, the one more likely to need rescuing by the impatient, ever-dutiful oldest son. But these past two years had begun to teach him that people were more complicated than could fit in a few chosen words of description.

He had Julien with him this time, and was glad of it. His brother-in-law had ten years' experience on him, and a physical presence that shouted competence and authority. Kit didn't mind at all taking direction from Julien—probably because they hadn't grown up together. Why were brothers so damned difficult? He almost asked that question aloud as they stood on deck watching the Irish coastline appear…before he remembered that Julien had killed his own brother.

Things could be worse.

But not much worse. Waterford was tense and hostile, refugees from Desmond's vengeful attacks huddled against the city walls. The small English party left as soon as they landed, into a landscape much worse than any Kit had seen before. His previous time in Ireland had all been spent between Dublin and Kilkenny, the strongest holds of the English Pale, and he was shocked speechless by the emptiness. As though the English were determined to destroy every living thing in Ireland. The only thing in abundance were hares, run wild in a place without people.

The Earl of Ormond had sent a dozen of his own men and a guide to bring the English party to Templemore. When they saw the Rock of Cashel in the distance, their party skirting it to the northeast, Kit wished he could simply swoop in and pluck his brother away. He knew Cahir Castle was not far…but it might as well have been a hundred miles. With fewer than forty men, they could not threaten even the smallest of Irish holds. They would have to go to Templemore.

The Earl of Ormond himself was at Blackcastle. He met the party as they rode through the gates, and quickly pulled Kit and Julien away with him. When they were behind closed doors, Ormond turned on them a face like thunder. “Oliver Dane is the most hardheaded man in Ireland—and that's saying something. He admits killing the Irish girl, but will not even consider negotiating.”

“What Irish girl?” Kit asked.

Ormond grunted. “I don't suppose that was part of his report to England. He escaped the Kavanaughs with a child in tow—
his
child, he admits freely. And then he killed her. Elizabeth has no love for the Irish, but even she would hesitate at one of her captains stabbing a child to death in cold blood.”

“Tell me from the beginning,” Kit ground out.

It was a sordid, disturbing story. Kit and Julien eyed each other when Ormond was finished, then the Frenchman said what they were both thinking. “A man like that isn't going to want us to negotiate Stephen out of Irish hands.”

“No,” Ormond agreed. “He seems to have taken a distinct dislike to Stephen. Dane wants his blood.”

“Too bad. The queen wants Stephen alive,” Kit retorted. “She's furious with him, and will no doubt punish him—but she sent me here to bring my brother back to England in one piece.”

Ormond sighed. “I don't think negotiation is even a remote possibility. The Kavanaughs are preparing to move against Dane. It will be a disaster of the first order. I have no wish to raze their clan to the ground—we should be turning what English forces we have against Desmond, not wasting them in lesser squabbles. But if you want your brother, I suspect you'll have to pluck him from the battlefield. Before Dane can get to him.”

“How many men do you have?”

“Not enough. Dane clearly wants the advantage to lay with his own men so he can do what he wants. I've got thirty here. With the thirty-five you marched in with…it will not be easy.”

“Since when are siblings easy?” Kit asked. But despite his light words, he felt hollow. Was it really going to come to this—he and Stephen on opposing sides of a battle? But if he didn't fight, then nothing would keep Dane from killing Stephen.

Damn it, brother, Kit thought furiously. If this is about a woman, she had better have been well worth it. And if you really have gone over wholeheartedly to the Irish, then I hope Elizabeth claps you in prison until you come to your senses.

Once Stephen and Ailis emerged together from his cell, there was no repeat of their few, passionate hours. That was probably the only thing that saved Stephen's life—Diarmid would gladly have killed him if he'd had to endure an obvious love affair. As it was, Diarmid barely tolerated him, and that was purely for vengeance's sake. Ailis kept them apart—Diarmid was busy drilling his men while Stephen worked with Maisie's mercenary company.

They were mostly Flemish, with a few Italians and Germans thrown in. Stephen did not meet the company as a whole, for they had been prudently split into six smaller units to travel swiftly and anonymously and then camped within a day's ride in various directions around Cahir and Templemore. Stephen was kept busy riding back and forth, using every skill of leadership he'd learned from both his father and Julien to make sure the men would work with him.

When at Cahir, he spent time with Maisie, poring over her maps and notes and memories of Blackcastle. They also discussed what Dane was likely to do. Maisie was in agreement with Ailis that he would wait for the Kavanaughs to come to him. “It's his pattern,” she said. “Like a duel on a larger scale—when affronted, he will answer the challenge. We took him prisoner, he answered by killing Liadan. Now it's our move. But make no mistake, he will be waiting and prepared.”

“How did a Presbyterian-born, convent-educated, merchant Scots girl learn to read the mind of a villain like Dane?”

“It's not reading minds, it's simply a matter of looking at information in the right way. There are patterns in everything. One has only to order them.”

“I think you would like my sister Lucette.”

She tilted her head thoughtfully. “Is she the one who plays chess?”

“I don't—” He broke off, then laughed. “You caught that near-slip, did you?”

“You covered neatly. But by that point I was fairly certain of who you were, so I knew you had siblings. They must be worried about you.”

Stephen brushed it off, for he was not ready to deal with that emotionally charged subject. “What of your brother, Mariota?” Ever since Liadan's death, when she'd cried that only her grandfather had called her Mariota, Stephen had continued to do so. “Does he know what you're up to in Ireland?”

“Rob? He doesn't know what his own business partners are up to. Which works out well for me. If he thinks of me at all, which I doubt, I'm sure he imagines me spending my days sewing or some other feminine pursuit. He never did know me very well.”

Stephen hesitated, not wanting to insult her, but there was a favour he'd been wanting to ask and he didn't think anyone else in this household would help him. “But you do know how to sew?” he asked awkwardly.

She furrowed her brow. “You have some shirts that need mending?”

With a laugh, Stephen said, “No. I was wondering if you would make me a banner and surcoat.”

“To march with? Are you sure about that? Queen Elizabeth might be able to overlook many things, but she can't overlook one of her earls raising his banner against another of her men.”

“I'm sure,” Stephen said grimly. “I want Dane to know who's coming for him.”

Four weeks after Liadan Kavanaugh's murder, her clan marched in force from Cahir Castle. They knew Dane's spies were watching, but they only had a third of the mercenary company with them at this point, dressed to blend in with the Irish so as not to raise alarms. The point was to let Dane think he knew what he was going to face. They took two days to cover the distance, spies of their own riding ahead to report on the English state of readiness.

“They're waiting for us,” was the consensus. “If they wanted, they could lock themselves behind the walls for a siege.”

“They won't,” Diarmid said confidently. It was one of the only things upon which he and Stephen agreed—Dane did not want a siege. Dane wanted to punish them for their pride, to crush them, to water the soil with their blood.

The second night, they camped two miles from Blackcastle. They had timed their arrival for the dark of the moon, and in that darkness the remaining men of Maisie's mercenary company made their way almost noiselessly to join them. Before dawn they were ready, and when the faintest hint of gray lit the eastern sky, they marched to claim their vengeance.

The sun had just slipped above the horizon when Blackcastle came into sight. Diarmid and Stephen rode ahead together to survey the field—which Maisie had drawn and mapped with a surprising degree of accuracy—and confirm their areas of command.

The two of them were watched by Dane's soldiers on the battlements, but the English did not waste arrows shooting at two men beyond their reach. This was a professional matter, at least for the common soldier. As Diarmid and Stephen made a last sweep of the field before falling back to issue final orders, the banners were lifted on the walls above them.

Dane's aggressive boar in red and gold, of course. And it was no great surprise to see the three gold cups quartered with the azure and gold crowns of Thomas Butler. They had known the Earl of Ormond was there, but their reports said with only a few dozen men at the most. In the miserable days of his stay at Kilkenny, Stephen had managed to grasp the fact that Ormond did not care for Oliver Dane. But he was a committed queen's man, so here he was.

There was one more banner, at the very end of the battlements, a flash of gold that caught Stephen's eye. He stilled, and Diarmid followed his stare. The wind stirred the fabric and it unfolded enough for careful eyes to see the red and blue torteaux that were echoed in quartered form on Stephen's banner.

“Shit!” Diarmid spat. “They've sent your father himself.”

Stephen knew it wasn't the fact that Dominic was his father that upset Diarmid—it was the fact that Dominic Courtenay was a better commander with one hand than any other man with two. His own stomach lurched in panic, but his eyes were quicker than his brain and had already caught the slight difference in the coat of arms.

“No,” he said flatly, turning his horse back toward their own men. “It's not my father. Did you not mark the bar of cadency that signifies younger sons? It's my brother, Kit.”

Damn it, Kit, what the hell are you doing here?
An Irish battlefield was no place for his little brother. How was he supposed to focus on Dane when part of him would be instinctively watching to make sure Kit wasn't hurt?

Only one thing to do—throw himself into the fighting so fast and furious that Dane would be swept down before anything else. Then he would have to get Kit somewhere safe, for he had no illusions about Diarmid's men. Maisie's mercenary company would follow his orders. But the Kavanaughs? They wanted English blood—and they wouldn't care whose they spilled. Being Stephen's brother would not be a shield for Kit; it might actually make him a target.

Stephen swallowed down the peculiar mix of nerves and excitement conjured by the battlefield and offered a silent prayer.
Let me kill Dane, and let Kit be safe.

Right up to the last moment, Kit hoped against hope that everyone was wrong and Stephen would not be with the Irish. When the alert went up shortly after dawn that the Kavanaugh forces were approaching, he dashed up to the battlements to scan the horizon for himself. The Irish were still too far to see clearly, but two of the men detached themselves from the rest and rode forward to survey the ground. They prudently stayed out of reach of arrows but were close enough for Kit to grind his jaw in frustration. He would have known Stephen anywhere, even if his brother wasn't flaunting a crudely done version of his coat of arms on a surcoat over half-armor.