Page 45 of The Pirate Queen

Hook notes her expression. Snorts. “Nowhere good, I see.”

“You will give her my love, though, won’t you? Margaret?”

“She misses you,” he says. “You should visit your daughter more often so I don’t have to hear the same stories over and over. I’m tired of ‘Hen’s Castle’ and ‘The Dark Lady of Doona’ and ‘Corsairs from Algeria.’ I’ll sleep better, myself, if I never again have to hear the story of how you stole Rockfleet Castle right out from under my uncle’s nose. These are the bedtime stories she tells our son! No fairy tales for my Richard. Nooo. And did you really kidnap a child from his own doorstep?”

“Of course not!” she argues. “I took him from the beach.”

Hook looks at her, scandalized. “Why would you brag about such things to your own daughter?”

“Perhaps I wanted her to consider her other paths for her life?” Grace says. “She was awfully young when you came courting.”

“I’m starting to think I saved her from a life of debauchery,” Hook laughs.

It smells of marsh now. Of low tide. Reed and salt. Thick mud and wet grass and the gentle rot of once-living things. She can fully inhale for the first time since July. Grace fills her lungs and tilts her face to the sky.

“There’s Gutty,” he says.

Hook points to a rowboat pulled to the river’s edge and the man who waits impatiently, bouncing on the balls of his feet. When Gutty sees them, he raises an arm in greeting, then pushes the boat a bit farther into the water so they can be gone the moment they’re on board.

Grace wants to hug Gutty, but doesn’t. She is always delighted to see him alive, always surprised he hasn’t gotten himself killed this time. Though only eight years younger than Grace, he will forever be a boy to her.

But he is not shy about grabbing her and pulling her tight.

“Gutty. I’m pleased to see you too.” She laughs.

“Captain.” He motions for her to get into the rowboat, then clears some emotion from his throat with a growl.

Grace moves to a narrow bench to make room for Hook, then lets them take up the oars.

“Thank you,” she says.

They both shrug but say nothing more.

There is no feeling in all the world like being on water. And once they are away from the riverbank, Grace lets herself relax. Finally. Somewhere in Dublin Castle, on top of that hill, Sir Richard Bingham is standing at a window cursing himself or God or whatever it is he actually believes in that he did not hang Grace when he had the chance. The Queen and her spymaster might have been angry to lose the carefully curated information that Grace has provided all these years, but it would have been too late.

They are quiet as they row toward Niamh. Quiet until the small rowboat bumps up against the smooth wood strakes and a rope ladder is tossed over the edge.

“I am glad my daughter married for love,” she tells Hook. “I am glad it was you.”

“And I am glad you let her.”

“You’d have done it anyway,” she laughs.

“Tá, we’d have run off and been handfast. But it would have been Margaret’s idea. I was afraid of you even then.”

“Then I expect that you will name the báb after me.”

“I’ve been told it will be Saoirse, in the event of a girl,” he says.

She is horrified. “After your ship?”

“The ship was named for my mam, as the báb will be.”

“And what has she done to earn such an honor?” Grace asks.

Hook winks at her but has the sense to shift away. “Stayed put and told proper fairy stories to our children.”

And that makes her laugh, because she is not the sort of granny to do either thing. “Be off with you, then.”