Page 191 of The Pirate Queen

“You will let my son alone. And you will forget what you saw today. This is more important.”

“How so?”

“You still want that girl, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I can make that happen. But there’s something I need in return.”

O’Flaherty glares at his sister. “What?”

“I need you to remove an obstacle for me.”

“What is it?”

“Not what.” Finola lifts her glass and tips the remainder of its contents into her mouth. “Who. I want you to kill Walter so that Richard can become The MacWilliam.”

Richard stands in the shadows and reaches out for Gráinne as she passes. He catches her by the wrist, then clamps his other hand across her mouth when she cries out.

“ ’Tis only me,” he whispers.

“What are you doing?”

“We need to talk.”

She pulls her hand free of his grip. “I don’t want another lecture today.”

“Then come with me.”

A few steps bring them to the stairs and then they are going down and around and down some more. They pass the Great Hall and the kitchens and finally step into the cellar, which is far more crowded than the first time they met here. Boxes and crates and barrels stacked everywhere. Hams hanging from the ceiling and straw across the floor. He leads her to the back and takes both hands this time. Brushes his lips against her knuckles.

“I heard what my mother told you,” he says.

Gráinne’s face turns the color of his mother’s port. “I had no plans to seduce you!”

Richard pulls her tight against his body. He tucks his face into the crook of her neck. “I wish you had. I wish you had done everything my mother suggested. You’d have heard no complaints from me.” He laughs but there is little humor in it. “I can’t stand the thought of you married to my brother. Much less that fecking O’Flaherty.”

He has seen most every side of her. The laughter and the anger. Her silence and her wit. But Richard Bourke has never seen her cry until now. But the wave builds and builds as she pulls the air into her chest; then it crashes over him in a sob. He holds her and lets her weep.

“I don’t know what to do,” she says after some time.

It is a ludicrous idea, one that could end in violence—or even war—if he isn’t careful. But it came to him while he listened to his mother explain to the girl he loves that he is not a choice she gets to make.

“Marry me,” he tells her. “We can leave. Right now, if you like. You’ll not have to marry either of them if you are already married to me.”

Rain is falling softly on Rockfleet Castle when the O’Malley and O’Flaherty ships slide into the deep channel leading to the tower house. Eóin has beaten him in, but only just. They are stacked bow to stern, with Niamh in front. He can see O’Flaherty standing in the prow, tense as a bowstring.

“That’s odd,” Maeve says as the crew swirls around them drawing in the sails.

“I’d wager he expects to have a word.”

“About?”

Eóin raises one arched brow. “Our daughter.”

The ship called Scian Catha is in no real danger of ramming Niamh, though it is anchored closer than Eóin would prefer. He watches O’Flaherty’s crew steady the plank between boat and shore so that their captain can disembark.

“Tell The MacWilliam that I will be in shortly,” Eóin says, his hand on Maeve’s elbow as he helps her to the front steps of the tower house.