At the Queen's Summons (23 page)

She peeked at the alley below. Many feet below. Many perilous, bone-crunching feet below.

“Too far to jump.” She dared to look up. “Uh-oh.”

“What is it?”

She stared speechless as the dawn light glinted off the curved ax head of a soldier's halberd. It swung down once, twice, thrice.

Pippa screamed. They plummeted, breaking apart, her skirts billowing. Her mind emptied in anticipation of the end. Instead, she struck something and stopped falling. She heard a grunt from Aidan.

They had landed in some sort of canvas awning. Before she could catch her breath, an ominous ripping sound began and they were plunging downward again.

This time, they had not far to fall. They landed in a tangle of canvas upon something soft and rather strangely warm. She apprised the situation through her dazed senses. Her nostrils flared, and she choked. She and Aidan lay atop a pile of manure in a cart.

Aidan muttered in Irish and bounded out of the cart, pulling her after him while the carter looked on, amazed. The canvas awning had shielded them from the worst of the muck.

They rushed along through the cloth sellers' booths and peddlers' carts. Slowly, gradually, they caught their breath, and Pippa conquered her shaking knees. Somehow she found the presence of mind to steal a roll of cheese.

“Eat,” she said. “It's not a whole roasted pig, but chew on that.”

He devoured the cheese in three bites. Pippa began to breathe more easily. But when they started toward the east exit of the square, two soldiers came toward them.

Aidan gave a short, lusty laugh. Instead of setting upon the soldiers, he took Pippa in his arms and kissed her, long and hard. She made a little whimper of surprise and then simply gave herself to him.

He kissed her until the soldiers had passed, apparently discounting them as a pair of eager lovers. Then, just as abruptly as he had grabbed her, he let her go and started hurrying again.

She almost stumbled as she tried to keep up. He acted completely unaffected by a kiss that had all but singed her eyelashes, damn him.

Shouts rang from the steeple walk. The men there,
black crows against the gentle pink sky, gesticulated wildly to their compatriots.

Pippa and Aidan ran through Fowler Street and turned back down toward the Thames. When at last they reached the Galley Key, both were nearing the end of their strength.

The lighterboat was gone. Gray rivers of fog swirled around their knees as they called to the ship's master. A tender broke away from the long galley and rowed silently toward them.

She squinted at the two men in the tender. She did not recognize them. Still, the contessa had assured her that the crew of the Venetian ship could be trusted.

She shivered. “It is goodbye again, my lord. You should have taken my word for it in the first place.”

One corner of his mouth lifted in a self-deprecating grin. “I needed a new set of clothing anyway. And of course—” he touched the tip of her nose “—it is fitting that our parting was as perilous as our meeting.”

“Our parting,” she whispered, despising the finality of it. “Ah, Aidan, I shall never forget you.”

“A touching sentiment,” said a melodious, accented voice. “You can tell her on the voyage.” Out of the mist stepped the contessa, wrapped in rich black silk velvet. Behind her stood an escort of Venetian bodyguards. “You're late,” she added. “The tide is up, and they were about to leave without you.”

The tender bumped gently into place. Aidan hesitated. “A moment, Your Ladyship—”

“You don't have a moment, and neither does Pippa,” snapped the contessa. “If you're caught now, I'll offer no more help. Now, get in, both of you.”

Pippa gasped. “I'm not going to Ireland!”

“You must.”

“My lady,” she whispered past the tears that burned in her throat, “you don't know what you're asking. I have a place at court now, and the queen—”

“She's asking you,” Aidan snapped, “to get in that boat before I hurl you in. The contessa is right. If you stay, you could be arrested for helping me escape.”

“But—”

“Your role in the flight of the O Donoghue Mór will be found out,” he declared. “Perhaps if the dodge had been quieter, we might have eluded attention. But you've been seen with me.”

The contessa handed something to Aidan. He pushed Pippa toward the boat. “You would be treated not as a prisoner of noble rank, but as a common traitor. Do you know the punishment for that?”

The contessa made a slashing gesture across her throat.

Pippa felt cold inside. What a fool she had been. She had bought his freedom at the price of her dreams.

The contessa kissed both her cheeks and whispered, “Go with the O Donoghue Mór. It is better to run toward the future than cling to the past.”

Pippa turned to Aidan. He stood poised with one foot braced on the quay and the other in the service boat, his large hand held out for hers, his face utterly inscrutable.

The rising sun set fire to the sky behind him, and for a moment he looked as splendid as a painting on a church wall. His black hair drifted, a long ripple on the breeze. His eyes were penetrating, yet impenetrable.

“Come with me, Pippa,” he said at last. “I'll make it all right, I promise. Come with me to Ireland.”

I
t is only now, days later, that I am able to dry my tears and take pen in hand. Yea, I do grieve as any mother would, for my son has gone to war, but this is not the reason for my distress.

Oliver is like a madman, pacing the halls of Blackrose Priory and laying curses upon anyone who has the ill fortune to cross his path.

Neither of us can sleep at night; we have not been able to sleep since the message was delivered from London. Cruel trick or honest report; I know not which it is.

I know only that someone penned me a message, copying the inscription from the back of the Romanov brooch. That singular object was given to me by Oliver's stepmother, Juliana. I thought it had been lost forever.

The last time I saw the precious jewel, I had pinned it to the bodice of my beloved little daughter, just before I said farewell to her, not realizing I was never to see her again.

—Lark de Lacey,
Countess of Wimberleigh

A
idan sought shelter in an abandoned fortress by the sea. Dunloe Castle once housed the O Sullivan Mór, but he had died, like so many others, in Desmond's great war against the English.

The windy hall stood as bleak and empty as a plundered tomb. Aidan tried not to think about the slaughter that had occurred here as he awaited word of Ross Castle and thought about Pippa.

She had hated the voyage. She had spent the entire time in a cramped private berth, doubled over by seasickness and shivering with fright. He had expected her to perk up once she was on dry land, but she was more subdued than ever.

He went to a window and looked out, and his heart lifted. The rounded hills, greener than the green of England, wore sturdy necklaces of drystone tillage walls. Sheep and cattle grazed upon the verdant abundance, and cloud towers swept toward the heavens.

This was Ireland—a tragic beauty blithely unaware that she was doomed. The thought filled him with the sharp, sweet ache of loving something, knowing in his heart it was hopeless.

Hearing a footstep, he turned. Iago and Donal Og strode into the hall. “Has the news come yet?” asked his cousin.

“No.” He returned to the table and poured heather beer into cups for each of them. “If O Mahoney doesn't return by daybreak, I'll send someone after him.”

“Where is our guest?” Iago asked. “Is her sickness passed?”

“She went to walk out in the fields.” Aidan pinched the bridge of his nose. “Would that I could ease her melancholy.”

“Can you?” asked Donal Og.

“Yes and no.” Aidan drew out the letter the contessa had pressed into his hand at their parting. “The symbols on the back of Pippa's brooch are from the Russian language. The contessa found someone to translate the words. ‘Blood, vows and honor.'” He shivered, remembering Pippa's story of the dying Gypsy woman.

Donal Og stroked his beard. “Someone's motto?”

“It is the motto of a clan called Romanov, far across the seas. They are associated with a family we know well.” He took a sip of ale. “The de Lacey family.”

Iago and Donal Og exchanged a glance. “Richard de Lacey?”

Aidan set down his cup. “He could be her brother.”

“Diablo!”
whispered Iago. Donal Og gave a low whistle.

Aidan had worked it all out from the information gathered by the contessa. Years earlier, plague had stricken the de Lacey household, and Oliver de Lacey was not expected to live. His wife, fearing their only child would fall ill, too, had sent their tiny daughter on a voyage to the kingdom of Muscovy to stay with the kin of her grandmother.

“The ship was lost,” Aidan told his listeners. “No survivors were found.”

“You think there was a survivor,” Donal Og said.

“And that her name is Pippa,” Iago added.

He felt that odd lift of nervousness in his gut. “Philippa,” he said. “The lost child was named Philippa.”

Iago stroked his chin. “It is Pippa. It has to be.”

“Imagine.” Donal Og quaffed his ale in one swallow. “The ragamuffin's got noble blood. Have you told her yet?”

“No!” Aidan stood and prowled through the musty hall. “You're to say nothing. Nothing.”

“But it's her family. Her heart's desire. Surely, coz, it's a grand and wanton cruelty to withhold the information.”

“Call me cruel, then,” he snapped. “I'll say nothing until I am absolutely certain.”

“It all fits,” Iago said. “She looks like Richard—the hair of gold, the brilliant smile, the lack of reverence for her betters—”

“You didn't notice that until I told you what I learned,” Aidan pointed out. “I don't want her hurt. You say what insufferable snobs the English nobles were. The de Laceys accepted their loss more than two decades ago. What if they do not want the old wound reopened? What if they are ashamed that their daughter lived as a common street performer, a thief?”

Donal Og nodded, understanding dawning on his face. “What if they call her a pretender who stole that brooch?”

“Or what if,” Iago chimed in, “they decide to accept her, only to learn she is an outlaw for helping the O Donoghue Mór escape London Tower?”

Aidan looked from one to the other. “Now you see why I hesitate.”

Iago walked to the window and seated himself in the
embrasure, where weak sunlight trickled over him. “Ah, why do we bother so with this toilsome life?”

Donal Og snorted. “Is there another choice?”

Iago turned and gripped the edge of the embrasure. “Upon my soul, there is.”

Donal Og made a heart-thumping gesture with his hand on his chest. “The islands in the great western sea of the Caribbees.” He mimicked Iago's round-voweled accent and musical timbre. “Where the sun shines all day, where food falls from the trees, where the water is warm enough to swim in naked.”

“It is all true, you large Irish ogre. Ah, I am the first to admit there are a few problems—”

“Slavery, disease, the Inquisition—”

“But a man can live free if he is smart enough. There are uninhabited islands by the thousands. A man can make what he wants of his life. With
whom
he wants.”

“Ah, Serafina!” Donal Og pretended to swoon.

“No wonder you have no woman.” Iago curled his lip in a sneer. “You have the mind of a jackass. No, that is an insult to the jackass. The mind of a brick of peat.”

“A brick of peat
has
no mind,” Donal Og roared.

“Precisely,” said Iago.

As their conversation deteriorated into bickering, Aidan spied a movement on the slope leading down to the sea. A flash of gold, a flutter of brown skirts. For a moment he stood transfixed. The hills and the crashing sea were so vast. Pippa looked as vulnerable as an autumn leaf on the wind.

She found a sheep path leading down along a crumbling cliff. Below her, treacherous breakers bit at the shore. In one heart-seizing instant he remembered something else the contessa had told him about Oliver de Lacey.

In his youth, Wimberleigh had a reckless reputation. His moods swung from giddy to melancholy. Some—even his half brothers and sisters—swore he harbored an earnest wish to die.

Iago and Donal Og were too busy arguing to note how quickly Aidan left the hall.

 

A dark fascination with the sea drew Pippa. Now she felt strong enough to move close to the seething ocean, to witness the violence and drama of the battering waves.

She clambered down a path. The slope was pocked by large gray rocks around which grew clumps of grass and wildflowers. Ireland was surely the loveliest place she had ever seen. It was stark and wild and uncompromising—just like Aidan O Donoghue.

The path ended at a great cleft between two hills. Within the fissure, a fall of broken boulders and old driftwood tumbled into the roaring sea. She teetered on the edge, tasting the sharp salt air and feeling the wind rush over her like a great, sweeping, invisible caress. The boom of the waves exploding on the rocks below filled the air. Beads of spray touched her face and clung in her hair. Then, without warning, she was lost, swamped with memories. Uttering a low cry, she tumbled into the dream world inside her head.

Up and up and up she climbed, battling her way through the rushing water on each successive deck. She could no longer see Nurse nor hear her saying Hail Mary Hail Mary. The sailors were all gone. But for the dog, she was alone now.

She poked her head up through a square hatch and was out in the face-slapping rain with thunder shouting and a burning bolt of lightning turning night to day.

It stayed light only for an instant, but she saw the man
in the striped shirt who had been shouting about battening hatches and shortening sail. He lay all tangled in thick rope. His face was gray, his lips were black, and his eyes were wide-open like the eyes of the stag head that hung in Papa's hunting lodge.

She clung to a ladder while the dog scrabbled and lurched on long, skinny legs. The boat began to tilt and groan, riding up one side of a wave that was bigger than a mountain. Higher and higher they went, like the forward arc of her garden swing. The big boat hovered at the peak and seemed to freeze there, waiting, before it fell over.

Down and down and down, barrels crashing everywhere, toppling one against the other like ninepins. The lightning flashed again. In the distance a shape rose out of the sea like a great rock or perhaps one of the towers in the palace where her godmother lived.

She wished she could remember the name of her godmother, because she surely needed help now. But all she could recall was that the lady had blazing red hair, mean black eyes and a loud, bossy voice. Everyone called her Your Majesty.

Then she lost all thought. A big wooden barrel broke loose and rushed straight at her as if someone had hurled it—

The breath left her in a
whoosh
as she was flung to the ground. She had no voice to scream as a hard body covered her and pinned her against the grassy turf.

At last she regained her breath. “Jesus Christ on a frigging crutch!” she yelled. “What do you think you're doing?”

The O Donoghue Mór had his body pressed to hers. She could feel his heart beating rapidly against her chest. Somehow that pleased her. He had run all the way to see her.

“Well?” she asked, sounding more annoyed than she felt. She was still slightly dazed by the—What was it? A vision? A waking dream? A true memory? Then the images faded and dispersed.

Aidan lifted himself by bracing his hands on the grass on each side of her. This was, she realized with a heated thrill, the time-honored pose of lovers. She had seen it depicted in a book of disgusting sonnets Dove had stolen from a St. Paul's bookseller.

The wind caught at Aidan's ebony hair, and sunlight glinted in the single beaded strand. Ah, he
was
Ireland, in all its pain and splendor; like the land, he was rugged and beautiful, untamed and untameable. She had the most indecent urge to run her fingers through his hair.

“Do you often attack unsuspecting females?” she asked. “Is this some Irish ritual?”

“I thought you were getting too close to the edge. I wanted to stop you before you fell.”

“Or jumped?” she asked. “By my troth, Your Highness, why would I do such a thing as that?”

“You would not?”

“That is the act of a madwoman or a coward. Why would I want to die? Life is hard. Sometimes life hurts. But it's all so blessedly interesting that I should not like to miss any of it.”

He chuckled and then laughed outright. There was something deliciously intimate about the way his body vibrated against hers. She pressed her fists into the grass to keep from winding her arms around his neck. Part of her longed to give in to impulse, but another part held back, resisting, wary.

“Are you going to remove yourself sometime between now and eventide?”

“I have not decided. You are very soft in certain places.”

He placed his lips close to her ear. With a warm gust of breath, he said one of the sweetest things she had ever heard. “It is a rare thing indeed for a man to feel so perfectly comforted by a woman.”

She forced herself to scowl. “I know what you are doing.”

“Getting ready to kiss you?” His mouth hovered above hers.

Lord, but she wanted to draw his taste inside her. She used all of her willpower to say, “I don't think you should.”

He lowered his mouth and then, quite deliberately leaving her hunger unsated, he turned his head to nuzzle her neck.

“Why not?” he whispered.

“You're trying to make me forget how vexed I am with you.”

“Vexed? Why?”

She was stunned. “Because, you arrogant stuffed doublet, you gave me no choice. Do you think I
wanted
to come here?
Wanted
to be dragged along on that horrid ship for an endless sea voyage?” She scrambled out from under him and sat back on her heels.

“I thought you wanted to help me,” he said. “As I helped you, once upon a time.”

“That was once upon a time. All I wanted,” she said, “was the chance to earn the queen's favor.” To her shame, her voice cracked. “The queen was going to help me find my family. I broke you out of the damned Tower! All I wanted was for you to end your hunger strike, and you wouldn't give me that.”

“I could not,” he said. “I had to stay firm.”

“You could have given in just so the queen would reward me.”

“And if the escape had failed?”