Page 150 of The Pirate Queen

Grace sways in the saddle as they ride home, grateful it is but two miles. Whether pleased or disappointed with her performance, Finola doesn’t say.

The young O’Flaherty throws the first punch.

“For feck’s sake,” Richard says, pulling his horse to a stop. He squints at the sky, cursing the steady downpour, then dismounts. He takes Enbarr’s reins so that Grace can do the same. He walks both horses beneath the canopy of a broad oak tree and ties them to a low branch, then motions for her to take shelter beneath the limbs with him. This might take a while.

The track is muddy today, and the young O’Flaherty took advantage of it, grabbing a clump of stinking mud and throwing it at the back of Donal’s head the moment his horse passed.

Grace watched her brother sigh deeply, then drop his head for a moment. She knows he only wants to go home. But it’s best to get this over with quickly. For some reason, their weekly Latin lessons always bring out the worst in the young O’Flaherty.

She hates him. Hates these stupid fights that he insists on picking. Why must everything come to blows with him? It doesn’t matter to him that it’s autumn and that the downpour is frigid. She is soaked to the skin and infuriated by this petty bickering.

“Donal!” she yells, and two mud-splattered faces turn to her.

They stop their punching and brawling long enough to note that she is only lodging a complaint against their behavior, not offering encouragement to one or the other, before their fists start flying again.

This has become their weekly routine over the last year. Every Monday morning they go to the friary for their Latin lesson; then, on the way home, the Donals fight while Grace and Richard are forced to watch.

Rockfleet feels as familiar to her now as Clare. As much as Grace hates having to be here, she loves the place itself. Perhaps she loves this castle more than any that belong to her father. Sometimes, before she meets Richard in the cellar for one of their lessons, she goes up onto the ramparts and watches the sky change from black to pewter. She watches the bay and the water and the tide. She listens to the birds and to her own Sense—it has been years since she felt what she did that day her father took them into Clew Bay on a clear afternoon only to end up in the midst of a hellacious storm. She did not enjoy that feeling. But she does miss it.

“Your brother will have to end this if he wants to keep his name,” Richard tells her.

He’s sitting as close as he dares, his arm pressed against her for a little warmth. There is a large flat rock beneath the tree, so at least they aren’t in the mud. She shifts an inch closer and tries not to shiver. She doesn’t look at Richard’s face but suspects it’s stretched wide in a smile due to her proximity. They watch the Donals roll in the mud.

“He didn’t start this fight. Or any of the others, for that matter,” she argues.

“All the more reason for him to end it.”

“And how should he manage that?” she asks. “O’Flaherty won’t let up.”

“That’s because you keep calling him O’Flaherty. You do it to provoke him.”

“I do it,” she says, “because I already have a Donal.”

Richard turns to her and squints the rain out of his eyes. “A broken nose ought to do the job.”

“What?”

“That’s how your brother can end this. He breaks O’Flaherty’s nose and takes the name.”

“I don’t think Donal wants to do that.”

Yet she knows that he could do that and more. She thinks of the dead Portuguese sailor on board Niamh and has to shake the image from her mind. The young O’Flaherty doesn’t realize what restraint her brother shows during these weekly scuffles.

“All your brother wants to do is to sneak off and kiss my sister when no one is looking.”

“He hasn’t—”

“Caught ’em myself in the cellar yesterday, didn’t I. Don’t you ever wonder why he’s happy to volunteer for any chore that takes him near Nora?”

Anyone with eyes could see the way that Donal looks at Nora. Yet Grace hadn’t realized he’d found the courage to do anything about it.

“I don’t believe you,” she says, just to irritate him.

“I could demonstrate exactly what they were doing.” Richard waggles his eyebrows.

Grace smacks his chest, then winces when the back of her hand hits that insufferable chainmail shirt he insists on wearing every waking hour. He takes her hand in his and brushes his thumb across her fingers to soothe the pain. When Grace looks at him, his dark blue eyes are boring into hers. She looks away first.

Richard releases her hand after a long moment, then stretches his legs out in front of him. He taps the toe of his boot against her left ankle. He grunts in approval at the dull thud.