The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(101)

There was another figure behind the lieutenant, so small and slight that a head could not be seen, only the edge of heavy skirts and a fur-trimmed cloak.

“Visitor,” the lieutenant said unnecessarily. The man looked slightly stunned, as though not certain how this had come about. Then the visitor stepped around him and Stephen felt a comparable shock himself.

Maisie. All five feet of her, the heart-shaped face and sea-coloured eyes unchanged, wearing velvet and silk, her abundance of light hair contained in a jeweled net, looking as at home and unflappable as she had wearing wool in an Irish household.

“Mariota,” Stephen said stupidly. “What the devil are you doing here?”

“The question,” she retorted tartly, “is what are you doing here?”

He refrained from answering until the lieutenant had withdrawn. Then he asked, “You know that Dane is dead?”

“Oh yes. It’s quite the story in London. How the most favoured son in the realm’s most favoured family committed violent murder not five hundred paces from the queen’s own presence. The betting is running high against you in the city that you’ll be beheaded by spring.”

“Plan to make some money, do you?”

“Make money? Yes, of course. But not by betting against you. I know you rather too well to take that risk.”

Belatedly, he pulled out a seat for her. He could not stop staring. He had never thought to see anyone from Cahir ever again. “How is…the household?”

How had he ever thought her bland and unremarkable? One simply had to know the tricks of her expression. There was a tilt to her chin and a pitying gleam in her eyes that told him she was not at all fooled by the vagueness of his question.

Not fooled, but prepared to humour him. “They know of Dane’s death. I was still with them when the news came. I left Cahir a week later. The day after the wedding.”

That wasn’t humouring him—that was eviscerating him. Stephen asked, even though he didn’t need to. “Wedding?”

“Ailis married Diarmid. As she always knew she must.”

“Is she—”

“Happy? I do not think happiness has ever been one of Ailis’s aims. She is contented with the gains they have made. She will never cease to mourn Liadan. Her marriage to Diarmid will ensure she remains in control of a significant power in the region. That has always been her aim.”

Stephen sat motionless, fighting the urge to jump up and pace. He didn’t want to show how strongly he’d been affected by the news.

As always, Maisie knew how to choose her moments. She rose. “The lieutenant allowed me only five minutes. There is one more piece of news I thought you might like.”

“That is?”

“Word reached London two days ago—a Spanish fleet of fifty ships has landed all along the south and west coasts of Ireland. There are more than five thousand soldiers on board, provisioned for a long stay. This is no quick feint to see what happens, no raiding party to simply aid the Irish. It is a statement: Spain wants Ireland and will spare little to achieve it. You may be sitting in this prison for some time, for I doubt your queen has much thought to spare for one prisoner just now. This is the first shot in the war to come.”

She didn’t wait for a response. From inside her cloak, she produced a letter, flimsy and well-traveled. “For you.”

Only when Maisie had gone did Stephen realize he hadn’t even said goodbye, or offered thanks. He didn’t know what her plans were or where she was going next. All he could do was stare at the thin letter, his name in painfully neat letters confronting him.

The sun had fully set before Stephen at last broke the wax and read the few words enclosed.

I told you I would break your heart, Englishman. I did not know that you would break mine in turn. On my part, the death of Oliver Dane is worth that price.

Ailis





—

On the last day of 1582, Elizabeth waited alone in her privy chamber at Hampton Court for Minuette to appear. By rights she should be at Whitehall, but in the wake of the disastrous news from Ireland, Elizabeth had wanted to retreat to her favourite palace. It had worked in a limited fashion—her headaches subsided to the point where she could work more than an hour at a time without having to retreat to vomit from the pain. But her fury still burned bright, so fierce that Burghley had only once dared to suggest she send for Walsingham. After her violent and, she admitted, profane response, he had not raised the subject again.

She heard the door open, the murmured “Lady Exeter” from the guard, then the closing of the door that meant she and Minuette were alone. As they had been so often for so long. In all her life, there was no one who knew Elizabeth the way her oldest friend did. Even those who had known and worked with her before she was queen—men like Walsingham and Burghley—did not know Elizabeth’s secrets in the same way.

She had guessed that Minuette would force her to speak first. From stubbornness as much as anything. Elizabeth obliged, keeping her back to the chamber, staring out at the Clock Court where once she had kept watch for Robert Dudley. “Here to beg my forgiveness?”

A weighted pause before Minuette said evenly, “You are not the first Tudor monarch to ask me that. The begging did me little good then—why would now be different?”

Elizabeth whirled. “I am not my brother!”