Page 66 of The Pirate Queen

No one bothers to stop Grace when she moves forward and sets a hand on the old woman’s shoulder. “Why would you think that?”

Cook points a finger at the messenger. “Because he said you were.”

It takes effort, but Grace smiles. “Very much alive.”

Then Cook begins to tremble. It takes a full ten seconds before the tears sprout and a sob racks her body. It is spectacular to behold. She shudders, like something breaking.

“The children, Taoiseach. They are gone! All of them. My girls…” Several seconds of nonsensical bawling follow, and Grace reaches out to take the tray of rolls from her shaking hands. She hands them to Murray. “My girls. They got up as usual and when they went to get the children from their beds, they were gone! He took them. The bastard had to have taken them.” Her trembling hand points to the messenger. “No sooner had the sun risen than he killed your guard in the cellars and let Rory into the house with thirty men. The garrison was empty or they would have fought for you.”

Grace wraps Cook’s thin wrinkled hand in hers. She brings it to her chest to comfort the old woman, then leans close to whisper. “The children are safe,” she says. “The garrison went with me. I need you to trust me. Go back to the kitchens. Get your girls. I will call for you shortly.”

She watches as Cook retreats from the Great Hall, wiping swollen eyes on her apron and fleeing down the spiral staircase into the kitchen. Safe for now.

“Where did you send them?” Rory asks, sitting once more. “Young Eóin and Margaret and Merrick?”

“To my father,” Grace says. “And if you’ve an issue with it, you can take it up with The O’Malley. Though I warn you, he argues with a sword.”

“How?” he demands.

“The how is none of your fecking business. But it was the first thing I did when your brother arrived. Though, to be honest, if I’d known who he was, I’d have separated his head from his neck. Did he tell you that’s what The Joyce did to my husband? Or was that a lie too?”

The messenger snorts and downs the rest of his mead. “That was true enough.”

Connor must be several rounds in, because the cup tips over and falls when he sets it to the table. He blinks at it stupidly.

“You will bring them back to Bunowen immediately,” Rory demands. “ ’Tis my sworn duty to protect my cousin’s heirs.”

“You are not my husband nor my chieftain. You cannot give me orders. And my children are O’Malley heirs every bit as much as O’Flaherty.”

“You cannot keep them from me!”

“In case you have not figured it out yet, I do as I please.”

“And you wonder why your husband hated you?” Rory spits.

“Oh, I never wondered. He was always quite clear as to the reason.”

Rory taps his fingers on the table. “You do not trust me?”

She laughs. “You are sitting in my seat, Rory.”

“Taoiseach.”

Grace answers him with silence.

“I would protect my cousin’s heirs.”

“As you’ve no heirs of your own?” she asks.

“Yet.”

“Nor a wife to provide them? I am stunned that no woman will have you,” she says, voice dry as ash.

Rory is almost handsome—almost—when he smiles. But there is too much of her husband in the man, and it takes an effort for Grace to stop the shudder that wants to rattle through her body.

“I see your thoughts are in line with my own,” he tells her.

“I very much doubt that.”