The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(37)

Stephen could not imagine ever wanting to take any woman to bed again, and wondered if he’d been permanently scarred by the bloodshed. With his mother looking at him, now was not the time to worry about it.

And then his father asked the pertinent question, the one to which Stephen had taken far too long to turn his attention. “Who do you think set the gallowglass on your prisoners?”

For that was the operative point, was it not? Any Irish force, mercenary or not, might gladly have attacked an English force too far from its own lines. Killing English soldiers was what they did. But prisoners? Irish women and boys? Even in the dark, a gallowglass force was too well-trained not to at least have hesitated at the women. But they hadn’t. Indeed, in Stephen’s memory, it seemed they headed straight for the larger tents, as if they knew who was housed there.

But it was not his father he wanted to discuss the matter with. Not that his father couldn’t be helpful, but he was on his way shortly to Spain with Kit and Pippa. And Stephen knew this was his own matter to deal with. No more worrying about how he appeared to others. No more fears that he wouldn’t live up to expectations. Time to be his own man. Appropriate vengeance, Julien had advised. For that, he needed to be in Ireland.

So the morning after half of his family headed to Portsmouth, Stephen sat down for a private conversation with Francis Walsingham. Not in his role as Elizabeth’s Lord Secretary, but as the queen’s intelligencer. Long before Elizabeth had come to the throne, Walsingham had been her man, ensuring that she always had all the information necessary to run her kingdom and protect her life.

Stephen had worked peripherally and briefly for Walsingham in the spring and summer of 1580, dancing attendance on Mary Stuart while keeping eyes and ears open for any mention of the Nightingale Plot. He’d gained the Scots queen’s trust, and some of her secrets, but not enough to stop the plot in its tracks. Still, Walsingham seemed to think Stephen was worth cultivating, as he’d sent him to Ireland last summer with a watching brief to pay attention for any mention of the Kavanaugh clan.

When Stephen was shown into Walsingham’s study, neither man wasted time. “What can I do for you, Lord Somerset?” the Lord Secretary asked.

“Send me back to Ireland.”

“Her Majesty is always grateful for soldiers—”

“Not as a soldier.”

“Then in what role? Your name is rather…restrictive. What use could the Earl of Somerset be in Ireland if not fighting?”

“You have men of many names and identities and stories working for you—let me be one of those. Under any name you choose.”

Walsingham steepled his fingers, eyes that were as black as his clothes fixed and cautious. “To what end?”

“To the end of stopping the fighting in Ireland. If Philip and Mary gain serious hold there, Ireland will drown in blood. Even more than it already has. And Mary will never cease troubling the Spanish king to aid the rebels. I suspect that, for both of them, pride is at stake. And I know about the hundred missing Spanish troops from last summer.”

With a deep sigh, Walsingham leaned back in his chair. “Do you remember the name Kavanaugh?”

“I do. The splintered clan, one faction led by Finian Kavanaugh. With the aid of his unexpectedly canny niece, they have orchestrated several victories in Ireland.”

“Correct. Matters in that direction are somewhat…unsettled at present. Finian Kavanaugh died last month, leaving his clan under the tenuous hold of his niece. Finian also left an even younger widow—the only granddaughter of William Sinclair.”

Stephen cast through his mind. “Edinburgh. The merchant family.”

“The extraordinarily clever and influential and wealthy merchant family. William Sinclair’s estate at his death was valued at five times the queen’s personal wealth.”

Stephen blinked. “How much of it came to the girl? Wasn’t there some question about the settlements…” Lucie would know, or Pippa. That was always the sort of thing his sisters knew.

“Sinclair also left a single grandson, who is titular head of the merchant concerns. A young man of dubious reputation and worse financial sense. He’s being restrained as much as possible by the board of the company. But they couldn’t stop him auctioning off his sister to an Irish clan chief at a cut-rate price.”

“But now you fear some of that merchant wealth might find its way to the Kavanaughs. Is the girl pregnant?”

“Does not appear to be. But she has made no move to return to Scotland. Perhaps only because she is estranged from her brother, or would prefer to stay out of his hands and any plans for another bargain marriage. But perhaps not.”

Stephen pondered. “A household and clan headed by two women. Two young women. That’s where you want me?”

“You did well in Mary Stuart’s household.” Meaning Stephen had used his looks and his manners to ingratiate himself with the former Scots queen.

“Neither of these women are likely to be charmed by an Englishman. I can hide my name—I can’t hide my tongue or country of birth.”

Walsingham smiled, a singularly disconcerting sight. “There are ways around that. If you don’t mind a little pain?”

Stephen gave a wolfish grin in return. “I would expect no less of Ireland.”