The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(75)

She pulled away, her predatory eyes blazing. “Do you know what I hate most about Englishmen? It is not your arrogance, that self-righteous sense of superiority. It is not even your cruelty, for we can be just as cruel. It is that you’re so damned reasonable! Yes, reason says I should ransom Dane. Reason says I need the money. Reason says I should not risk English reprisals for killing him.

“But I am not reasonable. I am Irish, and a woman wronged. How often does a woman get the chance to answer the crimes against her? I have that chance—and I will not forsake it.”

She took his head between her hands, harder than affection would dictate. “If you love me, you will not ask it of me.”

Then she was gone, in a whirl of skirts and fury, and Stephen was left to wonder which principle he would land on: loyalty or love.

From behind him, footsteps sounded quick and soft. He jerked around and swore when he saw Peter Martin. How much had the man heard?

Enough, it seemed. “How are we going to get Dane out of here?” Martin asked.

Stephen had been waiting for this. Martin had kept away from him the last three days, which at least had given him time to consider his response. “I’m not risking my place here for Oliver Dane.”

“Isn’t this the very reason you’re here—to protect England’s interests?”

The two of them were speaking so softly it was barely words on their breath. “Dane doesn’t matter,” Stephen countered. “Not compared to the Spanish soldiers fighting with the Earl of Desmond. Dane threatens only this household—Desmond threatens all of England’s interests in southern Ireland.”

“And how much intelligence have you sent to Walsingham about Desmond’s actions?” Martin asked shrewdly.

“I don’t report to you.”

“So you won’t help me?”

“You want Dane released, find a way yourself.” Stephen could not afford to be attached to it, even if he knew it was wise. He was not prepared to give up his place in this household.

He and Martin parted without further words. Stephen braced himself for the storm that would follow when the spy either spirited Dane away or got caught in the act. He hoped not the latter—Martin might not keep his mouth shut if he were taken. But he told himself there was nothing more he could do.

The wait was not long. Just hours later, Stephen was awakened before dawn to the news that Oliver Dane had vanished.

And so had Liadan and Maisie.

—

Ailis had not expected to sleep at all that night. So when Diarmid woke her in the dark, it took precious minutes for what he was saying to penetrate her foggy mind. When she understood that not only was Oliver Dane gone, but the guard set outside his cell had his throat cut, Ailis came painfully awake. While Diarmid roused the men, Ailis went straight to Liadan’s chamber, driven by an instinct she was afraid to name.

The bed was empty, the linens thrown back as though in haste, and on the floor before the fireplace lay Father Byrne. Ailis knelt, but hardly needed to check. Like the guard, the priest’s throat had been cut nearly to the spine. Tossed on his limp body were the keys to Oliver Dane’s chains.

Within three minutes the household was roused and searching. Ailis forced herself to wait in the Great Hall, terrified that at any moment someone would bring her word of her daughter’s death. She paced the hall, afraid to stop moving because if she did, what she felt would break upon her, and she did not have time to give way to emotion. She would use it, instead, take all her rage and panic and distill it into a weapon with which to scorch her enemies. Wherever they might be.

The first to come was Stephen. He strode straight to her as though to take her in his arms, but Ailis could not allow any weakness. She stopped him with a statement. “Father Byrne is dead.”

“Was it Byrne who released Dane?”

“And got his throat cut for his mercy. A typically English gesture.”

The line of Stephen’s jaw tightened. “Is anyone else gone?” he asked abruptly.

“Besides my daughter? Only Maisie. Must I now suspect that quiet girl of collaborating with the English to kidnap my daughter?”

“Of course not. I’m relieved Maisie’s with her.”

“With her where?” Ailis cried. “How did they get outside the walls?”

Diarmid entered at that moment with the answer. “They got out through the postern gate. They must have crossed the river.”

“In what? We leave no boats outside the walls. Are you telling me Father Byrne went so far as to provide a boat for him?”

“Maybe not Byrne,” Diarmid said bluntly. “Peter Martin is missing as well.”

“Martin?” Her bewilderment swiftly hardened into outrage. “Bastard! Why couldn’t he just stay out of it?”

Fury swirled with her terror, so that Ailis didn’t know which way to turn. Before she could decide, a weeping Bridey pushed her way into the hall. “A note,” the old nurse wailed. “Dropped in the wee girl’s bedding.” Bridey held out the note she couldn’t read, then scuttled away.

Ailis moved faster than Diarmid and snatched it before he could. It was Dane’s writing, she knew it at once. It had been scrawled on one of Liadan’s translation sheets.

I will release her, but only to one negotiator. Send Lord Somerset to me, and you may have your bastard back.