The Virgin's Spy (Tudor Legacy #2)(97)
Ormond took Dane with him, having pledged his word to the queen for the recalcitrant captain’s appearance at her bidding. Stephen followed Kit and Julien—not to court, but to a four-story brick house with high walls and open courtyard. There, he was met by the whole of his family and subjected to the sort of tactful, gentle conversation that ensured he did what they wanted—talk about Ireland.
He’d had time to rehearse the essentials and he delivered them in unsparing and unemotional terms. When he finished, it was Lucie who spoke first, with the devastating frankness she had developed during the years of estrangement from their father. “I’d like to think the queen will be moved by the girl’s death, but she tends to be parochial in her empathies. Liadan Kavanaugh was not English. I fear that will limit Elizabeth’s human regrets.”
“Then Elizabeth does not deserve her crown,” Stephen said curtly. “I can make her understand. I must.”
He saw his parents exchange looks and imagined a shared exasperation with their son’s self-righteousness. Stephen didn’t care. He was righteous because he was right. Elizabeth might be hampered by political and religious tensions, but how could any woman, especially a mother, not be moved by the cruel murder of another woman’s daughter?
The London household was rather cramped, but no one seemed prepared to leave until Stephen had his audience. The days dragged into weeks, and Stephen, forced to remain under a loose house arrest by royal command, began to go a little mad. Kit was preoccupied and serious, spending more hours in study and correspondence than he’d ever been known to do before. Pippa went daily between their leased house and Charterhouse, where Anabel set up residence a week after Stephen’s return.
Twenty-two days after reaching London, the summons finally arrived. Stephen appeared, as commanded, at the public gatehouse at Whitehall and presented himself with only Kit in attendance. Another caveat of the queen’s. He knew it must be killing his parents to remain behind.
They were escorted to a corridor Stephen knew well, where the familiar figures of Ormond and Dane waited. Ormond looked exasperated, Dane insolent.
“Ready to grovel?” Dane asked Stephen.
It was an effort of will to ignore him. Fortunately, the queen did not keep them waiting long. A page opened the door and they were ushered into her presence chamber. In the gilded, golden space, Elizabeth dominated on a throne set beneath her canopy of estate. She wore a delicate crown set with pearls and a gown so crusted with gold thread it almost had the look of decorative armor.
Usually, her presence chamber would contain anywhere from twenty to fifty people, but today there were only two guards at the door and Lord Burghley standing to her side. It seemed the rumours of Walsingham’s disgrace were true—Stephen wasn’t sure whether the intelligencer’s absence would help or hurt his cause.
Elizabeth did not waste time in pleasantries. “Tell me why I should refrain from locking both of you up for disturbing my peace in Ireland.” She spoke to the space between Stephen and Dane, who stood only an arm’s length apart before her. Ormond and Kit stood gratefully behind them.
“Your Majesty,” Stephen said with all the grace he’d learned at his mother’s knee, “I most willingly submit to whatever punishment you deem fit. I know I have proved a disappointment to my family and to your government. But please trust that it was not done from malice, only from righteous anger.”
Used to flattering speeches from men much better at making them, Elizabeth raised a single eyebrow. “It is not intentions that concern me, Lord Somerset, but actions. You appeared on the field in opposition to my own royal forces. Never mind locking you up—why should I not have you executed for that treason?”
With a voice all honeyed satisfaction, Oliver Dane interrupted. “Well might you ask such, Your Majesty, for great damage has been done to your cause in Ireland by the flagrant flouting of your authority by one so near to your throne. So public a betrayal should be punished just as publicly.”
From the look she turned on Dane, it was clear that Elizabeth found him distasteful. “And for your own crime, of killing an Irish child?”
His tone darkened, but he answered readily enough. “It was a regrettable incident. But the family has been compensated.”
“By Blackcastle, yes. So you consider the matter closed?”
“I do. Save for the matter of Lord Somerset’s involvement.”
“That matter is not your concern. It is ours.” Elizabeth pondered Dane for a moment. “I understand from my dear cousin Ormond that you are eager to return to Ireland.”
Stephen moved involuntarily, and felt Kit staring at him from behind, no doubt silently commanding him to hold his position and his tongue. With difficulty, he complied.
“Ireland has been my home for twenty-five years, Your Majesty,” Dane offered. “I have no remaining ties to England, save that of a subject. A role I believe I fill most profitably in Ireland.”
The queen wasn’t really going to listen to this, was she? Stephen shot a look at Burghley, who looked uncomfortable but resigned. The Lord Treasurer was a reasonable man—surely he would not allow Dane to return to the land and people he had ravaged and used for his own purposes all these years? How often had Stephen heard Dane in the field complaining about Elizabeth, using terms that she would have racked him for if she’d ever heard him? Dane didn’t care about Elizabeth’s rights—he wanted to be in Ireland for his own profit.