Page 128 of The Pirate Queen

“She would rather go anywhere.” Donal smiles. Just a flicker of good humor. “I know her better than you might think.”

Maeve laughs.

“I am surprised to find you comfortable with such an arrangement,” he says.

“Nothing has been settled. And I never said I was at ease. I—” Maeve clears her throat. “Will you—”

“I will look after her. I promise,” he says, sparing her the difficulty of asking.

“Thank you. But make sure you know when to look away as well, Donal. Because Gráinne will have to choose one of them. No matter how she feels about them now.”

“They are fools.”

“They will be chieftains. And Eóin will settle for nothing less as a match for her.”

He may never again be able to speak this openly with Maeve, so he asks, “And for me? What will he require for my future?”

The hand that Maeve sets on his shoulder is neither kind nor cruel. “There is much about your future that has not yet been decided,” she says, then leaves him with a nod.

The serving girl lingers in the Great Hall. She has a gift for finding shadows and alcoves, for staying out of sight. Not that he has lost track of her once in the hours since they first sat down. He knows that she watched his performance, that she didn’t move from her place near the stairwell until the final note rang out. He can still feel her presence. Donal wonders what the girl’s name is and where she comes from and how she came to be a servant in this tower house. But he also wonders what Eóin will demand when it comes to the marriage of his son. Will their father be as particular with him as he is with Gráinne?

“Quit your roostering, O’Flaherty,” Richard Bourke snaps loud enough for others to hear. The young O’Flaherty has been hovering over Grace and she’s had to shift away more than once in the last hour. But she didn’t realize that Richard had taken notice.

The MacWilliam sits before the fire with Finola on his lap. He throws back his head and roars with laughter. “Too many cocks in the henhouse, eh, O’Malley?”

“What’s that you said about my cock?” the young O’Flaherty asks, standing and grabbing himself suggestively.

More drunken laughter.

Grace might not be the butt of this particular joke, but she still doesn’t enjoy being the focus. She is tired and uncomfortable and wants this day to end. She wonders, briefly, if it is possible to slip out in the night and hide in the hold of her father’s ship, if she might stow away to Spain. How long it would take to be discovered. Hours at most, probably.

“Your son is no better,” The O’Flaherty snorts, “strutting around in chainmail two sizes too big. Iron armor for little Richard. Perhaps we should just call him Iron Dick?”

It isn’t the insult that he intends it to be. The laughter is raucous now and the men swap endless jokes about dicks and cocks and roosters in general. Walter in particular pokes fun at his brother. Grace wants to cry. Not from the jesting, but from frustration and exhaustion. Her feet hurt. Her eyes feel dry and scratchy. And she wants to be excused. A shared glance with her mother offers no relief—only a shake of the head—so she sinks to the bench once more and leans her head against the wall.

“I could teach you to use a knife,” Richard Bourke says quietly, joining her on the bench, though not close enough to make her uncomfortable.

“What?”

He taps the side of his neck. “I’d hate to see your throat slit one day.” He shrugs. “ ’Tis too lovely for scars.”

“Then ’tis already too late.”

“One is fetching, two would be a tragedy.”

“A hard lesson learned with minimal bloodshed is no tragedy.”

“I cannot fathom what she meant to teach you.”

“That I am not as protected as I might believe.” Grace smiles. “And what makes you think I don’t already know how to use a knife? Maybe I learned my lesson well.”

“If you were comfortable with your blade, you wouldn’t keep it strapped to your thigh, under piles of skirts, where you cannot get to it. No”—he shakes his head—“you like having it with you, but don’t know how to use it.”

Grace gapes at him, then drops her hand to her left thigh. “How…”

“Because you do that”—he nods at her hand—“every time my brother makes you uncomfortable or when O’Flaherty shows his arse or when my da glances in your direction too long.”

She cannot fathom how he noticed this, and when she looks to his face, she’s greeted by a smile.