Page 38 of The Pirate Queen

“Yes. He’s going to kill me, isn’t he?”

“Do you trust me?” Gráinne asks.

Richard stops short a dozen feet from her tent. He hadn’t intended to get this close. But. Well. His intentions mean nothing when it comes to her.

A voice responds, “Yes, Taoiseach.”

“You can’t call me that,” she snaps.

“Well, it’s the truth, isn’t it? He doesn’t lead us. You do. All he does is leave for months at a time and kill people.”

“Never say that again, Gutty. Not if you want to live. Now, come with me.”

Richard is standing there, trying to figure out how to back away, when Gráinne steps out of the tent dragging a young man by the arm. He looks to be sixteen. Maybe. No beard to speak of. Not much in the way of muscle either. He’s lean, like a sailor.

Her mouth falls open when she sees him. “Richard.”

“Gráinne.”

“You’re the brother!” the boy shouts.

She turns to him and puts her finger in his face. “You be quiet. Right now. Or I will hand you over to O’Flaherty myself. Understand?”

He nods.

Gráinne turns to Richard and he sees the panic in her eyes.

“I need your help,” she tells him.

He’s at her side immediately, a hand on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

She looks around the campsite, at the dark figures filing back in. “Sure, we can’t talk here. We need somewhere safe.”

Richard grabs her hand and pulls her into the shadows. “Come with us,” he orders the boy.

They skirt the edge of six variously sized tents, pause as a gaggle of O’Flaherty children run in front of them, and then they’re off again, headed west toward the Bourke encampment.

“Put your head down,” he tells Gráinne. “Pretend you’re with me.”

“I am with you,” she whispers and tries to pull her hand free.

He draws her closer. Releases her hand, but drapes his arm across her shoulder like it’s his right.

“You know what I mean,” he says.

Dusk is their friend. Drunken Irishmen, more so. No one notices that he has another man’s wife beneath his arm. The boy follows behind. They continue on like that for another three minutes until they reach the edge of the Bourke campsite, but even then he doesn’t draw them toward his own tent. He circles the edge until they reach a copse of hazelwood. The small leaves are burnished gold from flickering firelight.

Regretfully, he lifts his arm from Gráinne’s shoulder. “What happened?”

He thinks she’s going to cry. Or hit him. He’s seen that look in her eyes before and has an overwhelming urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her. If not for the boy standing there watching them, he just might do it, consequences be damned.

“I need you to take Gutty,” she says.

“What?”

He and the boy ask in unison. They look to each other, brows drawn, then back at her.

“You must take Gutty to my father. And you must do it now, or my husband is going to kill him. I cannot let that happen.”