The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(55)

Then they’d caught him, and James FitzMaurice had died either a traitor or a martyr, depending on which side of the impassable divide you stood. Ailis remembered FitzMaurice and his kind words to her after Kilmallock. For his sake—and because they could not do without Desmond at this juncture—she would support FitzGerald.

As for Stephen Wyatt, she was prepared to give him his head to some degree. With the Spanish finally on the move, her part in the plan was to wait for word from Askeaton. Diarmid and her men would ride if FitzGerald called for aid, but for now she would stay in Cahir. She would not stray too far from here, in such easy reach of Templemore and the man upon whom she had vowed vengeance a dozen years ago.

Only one man living knew the name of Liadan’s father. She had never even told Finian, despite her uncle’s shrewd guesses. Father Byrne alone knew her secret, for telling him carried with it the seal of the confessional and he would never divulge it. Ailis never talked about her months in Kilmallock as a fourteen-year-old Irish girl in an English-garrisoned town, for she had learned cunning and caution at the hands of the very man who had stolen her childhood. From him she had learned to school her expressions, not to flinch or show fear, to never admit weakness.

The English were enemies. He was the enemy. The object of long years of planning to bring him within her reach. Soon, very soon, thanks to the Spanish soldiers and the relief of Askeaton, the man at Templemore would have to move at a time and place of her choosing. And with Stephen Wyatt resident with the Kavanaughs, Ailis had a new plan to bring her enemy within reach.

She began to lay the groundwork that very evening, when she asked Stephen if he would join her to discuss his immediate future in Ireland. Diarmid made to follow her—and even Father Byrne moved slightly—but she waved them off. She was not afraid of this Englishman.

Actually, she found him far more engaging than was comfortable. Bastard son he might be, but he’d clearly been educated and had a quick sense of humour and a gentleness with Liadan that had not gone unnoticed. Ailis knew how to read the characters of men, and despite her native caution, she felt certain that Stephen Wyatt was not given to cruelty or attacks on women.

Stephen followed her to her chamber, which served for both sleeping and study, and took the proffered seat across the table from her. Stretched across it, as she usually had, was a map of Ireland. Dublin, Cork, Waterford, and Galway were lightly shaded, fading out around the cities to indicate the Pale, those areas under direct English control. Ailis hardly needed the map any longer, for she could see the details imprinted on her mind every time she closed her eyes. But this map had become something of a talisman. She had drawn this map—and others like it—herself over a number of years, and each hour spent with parchment and ink was a symbol of her control.

Ailis pointed to Askeaton, fifty miles northwest of Cahir. “You know the Earl of Desmond?”

“Not personally.”

“The English think he cannot hold at Askeaton any longer. We are expecting an English siege this summer, which would force Desmond to run for the hills as his cousin FitzMaurice did ten years ago. He could last some years in the wilderness, but that’s hardly likely to advance our cause and roll back English control. Desmond must hold Askeaton.”

“?‘Our’ cause?”

She met his eyes, a shifting greenish-gold fringed by dark, thick lashes. His hair was almost as black as hers. Though he’d had it cut since reaching Cahir, it was still unruly, and he’d not shaved his beard completely, letting it shadow the angles of his face and jaw. For the first time in her life, Ailis was swept by the desire to touch a man’s hair, to feel it slip between her fingers where it clung to his neck.

It was such a surprising sensation that she almost lost the thread of what she’d been saying. She cleared her throat and looked down at the map without seeing it. “I will never trust you wholly—I cannot afford to. But you have proved useful and I find I can believe in your need for revenge. In that, we are very similar.”

“Are we?”

His voice was neutral, but Ailis thought there was a suppressed energy to it. “You know that Liadan’s father is English—no doubt she told you herself. I have never tried to hide it. I was fourteen when Kilmallock fell to Humphrey Gilbert and the English. By the time FitzMaurice retook and burned the town, I was five months gone with child. I have not spoken of the man responsible, not all these years, because it is no one’s business but mine. Until now. Now, he is almost within my reach. There are plans within plans afoot in Munster just now—and one of those plans is my vengeance.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

Because you are surprisingly easy to talk to, because you are not Irish and not family, because even though you are English, you do not have that smug air of everything belonging to you, because I believe that you wept when the Roisin you spoke of was murdered…

“Because I believe you could be of use to me. I don’t intend to set you against your own countrymen in general. Too much risk of your native honour staying your hand or making you hesitate at the worst possible moment. But I think you might understand the nature of vengeance. And be willing to aid me in trapping one particular Englishman.”

He was silent a long time, those deep hazel eyes shaded as he considered. Finally, he raised his head. “Tell me who we’re trapping.”

With a tremulous breath and a sensation as though she were falling, Ailis spoke her enemy’s name. “Oliver Dane.”