The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(69)

“I think we all know it’s the other way round.”

“Enough!” Ailis ordered. She was still angry, but thoughtful with it. “Diarmid, since you seem determined to come to blows with Stephen, have at it. An hour from now in the courtyard. Blunted daggers and hand-to-hand. Pummel each other until your aggression is spent. If you win, Stephen remains at Cahir. Locked up. If he wins, he rides with you. Unless you don’t like your chances against him?”

Diarmid could hardly admit to that. And no doubt the thought of getting to hit Stephen mollified him enough to agree. “One hour it is.”

He shoved his way out of the room as if the door were a personal enemy. Stephen watched his furious retreat, and caught Maisie’s dry murmur next to him. “Who says that women are the dramatic sex?”

The courtyard fight was as vicious and drawn out as the two of them could make it. Diarmid was clearly surprised by Stephen’s unorthodox tactics, but the Irishman had been fighting unconventionally since he was fifteen and they were well matched. Stephen had cause more than once to silently bless Julien for training him to take a hit as well as give them out.

Stephen had gone into the fight planning to let Diarmid win, despite the fact that he did not relish being locked up while the men were gone. He hoped Ailis would be pliable on that point. Losing was certainly the sensible thing to do. But once in the thick of it, sensible flew out the window. All he knew was that here was a man who not only despised him, but underestimated him, and it gave Stephen enormous satisfaction to prove Diarmid wrong.

In the end, the damage they were doing to each other proved too much for Ailis to ignore. Her voice carried high and clear above the practice yard as she ordered them to stop.

Stephen bent over, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. His knuckles were split and bleeding and his mouth was already swelling. As he straightened, it gave him pleasure to note the damage he’d wrought in return to Diarmid’s face.

“Satisfied?” Ailis said drily to the two men. “We shall call it a draw. Stephen does not ride out with you, Diarmid, but nor is he locked up in the interim. He has proved himself and I trust him. That should be enough for every man here.”

And that smote Stephen with the sharpest pain yet. All his relief at avoiding Oliver Dane for now was swamped by the knowledge that he continued to betray Ailis with every day that he lied to her.

—

For three days the entirety of Cahir Castle lived on a knife’s edge of anticipation and fear. Ailis knew the word had spread from the council chamber, and when their two dozen best men—a third of their force—rode out armed to the teeth, there was a distinctly Irish fatality in the minds of those left behind. What if Dane didn’t come? What if he came but in greater force than he’d been cautioned to bring? What if, worst of all, he’d seen through their ruse and waited only to slaughter the Kavanaugh men?

Knowing how swiftly word would spread through the household—and the nature of Bridey, Liadan’s gossipy nurse—Ailis had summoned her daughter and told her herself who Oliver Dane was and why she was bringing him to Cahir. Liadan behaved as her mother had hoped: no tears, no curiosity except the most basic, and no arguments. She asked only one question.

“Will I see him?”

“For a moment. With me and whatever guards you choose. You will not need to speak to him or listen. And afterward, you will never need to think on him again.”

The only difference in Liadan was that she left that conversation thoughtful and a little subdued. It could not be helped. Maisie would see to it that the child had whatever comfort she required.

Ailis hardly slept the nights her men were gone. Without Diarmid in the household, she took to keeping Stephen with her most hours of the day. She wanted him at night, as well—wanted him in a manner she thought Oliver Dane had destroyed before it could bud—but Father Byrne was watching. She did not think the priest would challenge her, but she couldn’t risk it. Without the support of Byrne and Diarmid, Ailis knew she would have a difficult time keeping control. But once Oliver Dane had been dealt with? That success would give her a stature no one would dare challenge.

Stephen was excellent at reading her moods, or perhaps he was merely suffering the same agonies of waiting as she was. In the late morning of the fourth day, he suggested that she ride. “Perhaps you’ll meet them as they return,” he said.

“Come with me,” she said impulsively. They had not ridden alone together since their visit to the Rock of Cashel.

He hesitated, which surprised her. Ailis asked, “Do you not want to see Dane in our hands as much as I do? I know you were not lying about how much you hate him.”

Without answering the question, he smiled. “I’ll come.”

They raced their horses at the beginning—not long, not enough to tire them too early—before settling to a slower pace along the Suir River. As Ailis watched the play of silver water, she felt her nerves begin to settle. She had fantasized about this for so long it hardly felt real. No, not fantasized. Planned for. Worked toward. Sometimes she thought every decision she’d made in the last twelve years had been aimed solely at Oliver Dane. What would she do when it was over?

Impulsively, she repeated that last question to Stephen. He had a blunt answer. “What will you do? You will live, Ailis. In whatever manner you find best.”

She drew her horse level with his, at a walking pace that allowed them to look at each other. “I think I know the first thing I shall do when it is over. It will require you, I’m afraid. Though perhaps the activity will be to your liking as well.”