The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(87)
“That was only the dowry money you knew about,” Maisie replied calmly. “I am not a rich girl so much as I am a merchant’s girl. My brother thought he bought me off cheaply. That’s because he undervalues relationships. I have a loyal faction in my grandfather’s company, and my own factor in Dublin. My dowry money was twice what was reported to you—the remainder has been invested for me. One of those investments is a private company of European mercenaries.”
This time the silence was absolute. Ailis might have laughed, if there was any laughter left to her in this world. The men were staring at Maisie as though they’d never seen her before—and so they hadn’t. Till now she had been thought of in the same space as Liadan, young and cheerful, meant to be cosseted and otherwise ignored.
What fools they had all been.
Diarmid was the first to recover. “A company large enough to make a difference?”
“Two hundred, half of them mounted. Including their own cooks, physician, and engineer.”
“Where are they?”
“Dublin. Since the spring. Broken into smaller units to guard my business interests in shipping. The English authorities could hardly refuse us that, seeing as they cannot be trusted to guard their own interests.”
Diarmid laughed. “Can they get out of Dublin?”
Maisie merely looked at him with withering contempt. “They are already on their way here. Once again, in small units and as quietly as possible. A few will head here—the rest will be just within reach until the last minute. We don’t want to tip our hand.”
“?‘Our’ hand?” Diarmid asked bluntly. “What benefit do you derive from this?”
When Maisie spoke, it was with a voice of fire and threat. “You think vengeance is solely an Irish virtue? I rode back to Cahir with Liadan’s blood on my hands and in my hair. I will have vengeance for that.”
Ailis took charge once more. “So we are agreed to accept the offer of mercenaries?” She waited for each of them to assent. “There is one condition—Stephen Courtenay will command the mercenary company.”
She expected a fight. But again, perhaps her grief was useful to remind them that she was only a woman and of course would act from her emotions. In any case, only Diarmid spoke. “Is this your condition? Or hers?” He jerked his head at Maisie.
“It is ours, and it is absolute.”
Even a proud Irishman could swallow the distasteful when necessary. If using one Englishman would allow them to destroy Dane, so be it.
The meeting broke up, and only Maisie lingered. “Will you tell him?”
Ailis had not seen Stephen since he’d lowered her daughter’s body down from his horse a week ago. She wasn’t looking forward to seeing him now. “You can do it if you like.”
“He needs to see you.” Maisie hesitated, then added, “I think you will find him a compassionate listener. You should talk to him.”
“About what?” My blindness, my failure, my damned pride for which Liadan paid…
“You both need absolution,” Maisie said gently. “I think you will understand each other.”
Maisie left her then, and Ailis stood alone. Could Stephen absolve her? Did she want him to? He had sins of his own to count, sins against her as well as the clan…
But at the very least, he would have to be told about the mercenary force and Maisie’s requirement that he lead it. She would begin there and see what happened.
—
Stephen’s second imprisonment at the hands of Clan Kavanaugh was an entirely different experience than the first. Diarmid chained him, for one thing. No one ever talked to him, for another. But mostly, the hell of it all was inside his own skull. Rather than planning and practicing his cover, preparing to worm his way into the trust of a household he didn’t know, Stephen was mired in a familiar guilt. It was similar to the torture he’d passed through in the months after the prisoners’ slaughter. This time, though, there was no alcohol to dull it. Perhaps that was a good thing—but it didn’t feel like it in the darkest hours of the night.
As a ghost, Liadan was even more effective than Roisin had been. The child was a constant memory both waking and sleeping: her swift footsteps, her lightning smile, her ever-present curiosity and straightforward manner of speaking. The world was a poorer place without her in it, and if Stephen had hated Oliver Dane on Roisin’s behalf, he now loathed the man with an intensity that curdled his stomach.
He didn’t much care what the Kavanaughs did to him, just so long as they took out Dane first.
When the door opened, he expected the unsmiling Diarmid or one of the two guards who brought him food daily. But it was Ailis.
Stephen jerked to his feet, brought up short by the chains he’d forgotten he wore. He noted the pallor, the hollows carved in her cheeks, the dark rings around her eyes that spoke of sleepless nights and agonized days. All he wanted was to put his arms around her and pretend he could ease the grief.
Instead, he did the only thing he could. He apologized. “I am so sorry. I have failed you.”
“By not delivering my daughter as you promised? Or by lying to me in the first place?”
“For all of it. This is my fault.”
For a minute she looked as though she meant to agree, but then the edges of her face crumpled and she looked nearly as vulnerable in her distress as Liadan ever had. Stephen felt as though he were seeing Ailis as she might have looked when Dane had so casually used her in Kilmallock. He bit down hard on the surge of rage. This wasn’t about him.