Claiming Her (Renegades & Outlaws) (49 page)

She let him into the queen’s antechamber and swiftly shut the door. He made his way across the room, a room he’d been in hundreds of times, for quiet games of chess and cards, and turned the handle to the inner chamber, intending to wait.

But there would be no waiting. The queen was already inside.

She sat on a small bench at her writing table, her head bent as she scribbled away. Back in the corner sat one of her ladies. When the door swung open, the queen looked up, startled, then got to her feet, pen in hand.
 

“God have mercy,” she whispered, then her lean, painted face flushed with color under the white paint. Her gaze swept over his bruised face and her hand reached out, as if to touch him, then retreated again, like a butterfly folding its wings. She rested her open hand over her heart and gave a soft laugh.
 

“But why am I surprised? Ever have you been my charming rogue. But I cannot be charmed, Aodh. Not anymore.”
 

He sat down at once in the nearest chair, to present as little threat as possible, and also, to a smaller degree, to ensure he did not topple over; perhaps he was the smallest bit weak.
 

The queen’s gaze drifted to the door. “How…where…”
 

“I vow I pose you no danger, my lady,” he assured her. “I wish only to talk.”

“Talk?” She laughed. “Oh, yes, the Irish are very good at talking. At lying. We had years to talk, and you never, ever told me you planned treachery.”

“I did not plan it, my lady. It sprang itself on me quite suddenly, when you refused what you had long promised.”

 
Her gaze hardened. “You were informed, quite clearly, of the reason for my decision.”

“Bertrand is able; the proceeds from the ironmongers are quite lucrative; you needed me close to hand.” His casual recitation of the reasons made her hand tighten. “Aye, I heard them all most clearly.”

“And none were good enough for you.”

“None were.”

Her gaze slid to his head as he pushed back his hood and she gave a little gasp.
 
“Your hair. What have you done?”

He said nothing. It was clear what he’d done, in half shaving it; he’d claimed Ireland.

She made a sound of impatience, then glanced at the lady-in-waiting who stood, shocked, in the background. “Leave us, Catherine.”

Catherine bent her head and hurried to the door. She cast Aodh a glance under lowered lids as she passed. Either in support, or because she was going to get the guards, he had no idea which.
 

Nothing for it now; it was all in Bess’s hands.

“And not a word,” the queen ordered sharply as Catherine opened the door.

She nodded, and as she passed out, she smiled at Aodh.

For a moment, the queen and he sat in silence. “How did you get away?” she finally asked.

“Friends.”

“Your Englishman?” said the queen. “And your Scotsman?”

He ducked his head. No need to mention Katarina.

Bess looked down at the pen still clutched in her hand. She turned it over in her fingers. “And the lady?” she said, her voice pitched to an idle tone.

“Katarina? What of her?”

“You are cleaved to her?”

“Entirely.”

“So swiftly.”

“From the moment I saw her. As it was the moment I saw you, my lady.”

“Do not flatter me,” she said shortly. “I well recall our first meeting. You were dripping in seaweed and laid your sword at my feet, silencing a crowd of nattering courtiers and self-important nobleman and the Spanish ambassador.”

“That it did,” he said, smiling faintly. Smiling hurt, so he stopped.

“Hm.” She made a little sound. “Then your meeting with her must have been quite a thing.”

“Quite.” He paused. “She punched me. Right here.” He ran his fingers along his jaw, then hissed and pulled his hand away. The queen’s eyebrows lifted. “Then she told me she held Rardove for you, and stole my dagger and laid it against my throat.”

The queen stared a moment, then drew up her chair, turned it to face him, and sat down. “Tell me everything.”
 

She leaned forward, her hands on her knees, and Aodh saw the child she must have been, the young woman, made illegitimate, her mother executed, her father raging mad at times, flailing and powerful. Imprisoned in the Tower when her maniacal sister took the throne, then against all odds, she took it herself, an unwanted pawn who’d somehow outstripped all their ambitions and become, quite simply, magnificent.
 

But through it all, she was also a woman who’d never been able to be fully a woman, else she’d have lost everything else.
 

He admired her deeply.
 

And she did love a good story.
 

So he, gesturing a silent query toward a flagon on a table, and being graced with a miniature, regal nod of assent, poured a drink, handed it to her, then retook his seat and told her all about how Katarina would have made her very proud, starting at the beginning.

When he was done, the queen was smiling, sitting back in her chair. “I
did
pick well for Rardove,” she said warmly.

“That you did. You could do so again, my lady.”

Ah, and there they came to it.

The queen eyed him closely, but her body was reclined in the chair more easily now, as it had been in years past, when it was just they two, and he had stories to tell, and treasure to deliver. “I have not seen Mistress Katarina for many a year,” the queen said, and he detected fondness in her words.
 

“She is a fierce and loyal mistress, Bess, out beyond the Pale. Not many could have done what she has done all these years. Do you know she held Rardove with ten men? Ten men and…” He tipped his head up and reflected a moment. “Approximately twenty-five women.”
 

Surprise brought the queen tipping forward in her chair.
 

“Householders, serving maids, even the hen girl. Katarina enlisted and trained them all.”

“Did she?” Elizabeth sat back and peered at the ceiling too, in much the same spot as Aodh had, a smile on her face. “Did she indeed?” For a moment, the room was quiet. The moon, bleached white and scratchy looking, bobbed into the corner of the tall window. Set against blue-black sky, it looked bright and cold.
 

“You must have made quite an impression on her, then.” The queen’s voice made him look back. “For her to have turned to you so utterly.”

She was no longer looking at the ceiling; she was staring directly at him, and the smile of a moment ago was gone. “She remains yours yet, Bess, I swear it.”
 

“Does she? Ludthorpe tells me she seemed most enamored of you. Enough to wed you against my will. Enough to stand on the wall with weapons trained on my men.”

 
“She is loyal to you, my lady.” The message would be repeated however long it took to save her life.

The queen’s gaze drifted over his shoulder, and her voice took on a contemplative tone. “Methinks she is loyal to you, Aodh. For her to have come back to save you…twice.”

He scrambled to his feet and turned to see the door being pushed wide by a soldier. Katarina stood before him.

“I found her lurking, Your Majesty,” the soldier said with a shove.
 

Aodh surged forward an inch, but when Bess held up her hand, he stopped.
 

“I was not
lurking
,” Katy said, composed and indignant, and how she did both, he did not know. “I was coming to see my queen, and you were simply the fastest route.”

The queen waved the hand she’d held up. “Leave her to me.”

The soldier shifted a gimlet eye off Aodh, released Katarina’s arm, and backed out. He shut the door, and the three of them stood in silence.
 

“You should search her,” Aodh said lazily. “She is fond of weapons. All over.” He waved his hand at his own body, sweeping it up and down, chest to knees.

“Aodh!” Katarina whirled to him, shocked. “This is my
queen
!” She whirled back, dropped to a knee, and bent her head. “Your Majesty, I humbly beg your forgiveness for any and all errors I have made, and they are many. I have served you faithfully for all my life, until very, very recently, and for that, I would explain. Explain my actions, and my wherefores, and set it all before you, to decide as you see fit. And”—she bent her head farther—“if needed, beg you for my husband’s life.”

“Not your own?” the queen said drily.

Katarina shook her head at the ground. “No. And I do not beg for my own sake, Your Majesty. I beg it for your sake, and Ireland’s.
 

“Do you indeed?” The queen leaned down and with a slim finger, tipped Katarina’s face up. She looked her over a moment, then said briskly, “And what happened to
your
face? Do not tell me Bertrand again.”

 
“If I may not say Bertrand, my lady, I have naught to say.”

A hardening along the queen’s jaw. She made an impatient gesture. “Get up, get up, and tell me your story, give me your pleas.”

Katarina scrambled up, tossing Aodh a single, incomprehensible glance, which he was fairly certain was a silent plea. But he left this matter to Katy, for she had her own things to settle with the queen, and Bess would not thank him for interfering.

Katarina glanced over her shoulder at Aodh, but he was of no help. Accursed man. He stood lazily, one shoulder pressed against the wall, seemingly perfectly content to let her and the queen have their moment. But, she noticed his hand hung near the hilt of his sword, in all a pose of ease, but as always, Aodh was as relaxed as a predator.
 

“I don’t know what Aodh has been telling you…” she said warily, seeing as Aodh had just told the queen she was prickling with weapons.

“Much,” said the queen, and the dryness of her reply brought Katarina’s gaze back around.

“But I have always been loyal to you, my lady.”

“That appears to be precisely what is under debate.”

“I could not let it happen again, Your Majesty,” she said bluntly. “As it did to my father.”

The queen’s gaze narrowed on her, then turned away. Indeed, the queen turned entirely away and picked up a wine cup that sat atop a decorated wardrobe. The scene was a fresh and lively rendering of sheep and other creatures—nymphs?—cavorting in a green meadow. The queen’s hand rested atop the wardrobe, but her fingers curled tightly over the top, into the hair of the nymphs. “I have long regretted your father’s choices, Katarina. He was a good man.”

“Yes, he was, my lady.”

The queen’s face came a quarter turn in her direction. “His loss was…deeply felt.”

“Yes,” Katarina agreed, “it was.”

Elizabeth continued to stare out the window.

Katarina took a step toward her. “I am sorry for all that has come before, Your Majesty.”

The queen’s eyebrows winged up. “What have you to be sorry for in what has come before? Your guilt lies only what is now before us.”

“If you would but hear me out…”

The queen made a small sound but didn’t stop her. Katarina glanced toward Aodh. Pale-eyed and dark-haired, he smiled faintly and tilted his battered face in the direction of the queen.
Go, speak to her.

She closed her eyes and took another step closer to the woman who had been her father’s doom, who might well be Aodh’s doom. And her own.

 
“This has not gone at all how I planned, Your Majesty,” she said. “I have been chatelaine of Rardove for many years, at your goodwill and command, holding the line but never extending it, for I am not favored as you.”

Elizabeth’s thin eyebrows rose. “Favored?”
 

“You are beloved, my lady, as well you should be. Everyone bows before you, even Spain. Look to the recent Armada.”
 

The queen made an impatient gesture. “A storm favored me.” She turned back to the window. Moonlight made the tiny panes glow in thick, mottled green light. “I am not so foolish as to believe anything else.”

Then, for the first time, Aodh spoke, from his perch against the wall. “But it
did
favor you, Bess. You
are
favored. As great rulers must be to succeed.”

The queen waved her hand. “God’s grace, do not
you
begin to flatter me too, Aodh. The world is already turned on its head.”

“I do not flatter. And I do not lie.”

The queen’s mouth tipped up very slightly, very briefly.

Katarina went on. “But I
have
been favored in smaller ways, my lady, with more haunting gifts. Ireland is a wild and windswept place. I love it,” she said simply. “It is like a dart that has been laid in my heart. It is sharp and shines like steel, and if you tried to pluck it from me, I would die.”

The queen took all this in, then laughed. “I well know the feeling.”

“And I
know
Ireland too, by your leave. I have much experience in knowing what is needed beyond the Pale. And in my most humble opinion, Ireland needs…”