Page 88 of The Pirate Queen

“I am no queen, Donal.”

He looks at her long and hard. “Are you not?” he asks.

She smacks his shoulder. “Don’t tease. I am too tired for games.”

Out and in again they swing. Up and down they kick their feet. Little clusters of people, all around the bonfire, most of them laughing and stumbling from their drink.

“That is why Da crafted the plan as he did,” she says. “He knew they would name you chieftain as long as they could be assured the fleet was safe. There is no law that says I cannot be captain.”

He frowns at her.

“What?” she asks.

“We both know that I am chieftain in name only, Gráinne. ’Tis you they will look to. You who will live on Clare and guard the bay.”

The song ends with a flourish and they take their bow, stepping away from each other.

Gráinne shakes her head. “You underestimate yourself.”

“We have never lied to each other,” he says. “Let’s not start now.”

There is a polite clearing of a throat; then his mother steps between them. She is older now, but still lovely, in a brittle kind of way.

“I have told you for years, son, this one lies as though it is her native tongue.”

“Mam,” he says, then flashes his sister an apologetic half smile.

“At least your father saw that in the end. Did the right thing.” Aisling smiles sweetly. “The question is, will you?”

Gráinne tenses but says nothing. They have not spoken since the day his mother carved that scar on her throat.

Donal lowers his voice and sets a hand on his mother’s arm. “This is not the time for your petty—”

Aisling motions toward the tower house but looks at Gráinne. “The moment that old bastard dies, I will see your mother turned into the dirt where she belongs.”

“You will do no such thing,” Donal snaps.

Heads turn.

People stare.

“Gráinne will reside here, as is her right.”

Aisling flinches. “I will not be subject to her.”

His mother cannot let it go. Not even now that he has gained the title she strived for his entire life. Perhaps it was never love for Donal that drove her, but hatred toward Eóin.

“Indeed you will not. You will come with me to Westport,” he says, then sighs. “Clare belongs to Gráinne.”

Eóin O’Malley, Chief of the Name, the twenty-ninth man to carry that mantle, dies in the night, holding his wife’s hand. Grace holds the other, and she feels him slip away. All night she has kept her thumb pressed against the inside of his wrist, counting the stuttering beats of his heart, and her breath catches when they cease. She prays for them to pick up once more so that she can tell him again that she loves him, that she forgives him.

But her father is gone.

Maeve, stretched out on the bed beside him, sobs quietly.

Donal is here too, but across the room, set away from them as always. His head drops.

Grace kisses her father’s brow, then her mother’s. She sets one hand on Donal’s shoulder and leaves the privy chamber.