At the Queen's Summons (19 page)

“Without a word,” he reminded her, staring at the slim, pale column of her throat, the tops of her breasts where they pushed up from her bodice.

“This was all your idea,” she said. “You said I might find a way to discover who I am, where I came from.” Her eyes narrowed. “Or was that another of your lies?”

Her distrust cut at him like a blade. “I never—”

“You did,” she shot back before he could finish. “You asked me to be your mistress. You had me begging to be your lover, and then you denied me.” She fixed him with an insolent stare. “I tell you, my lord, I have had better days.
Much
better days. Such as the time I was set upon by dogs at the bear-baiting ring.”

“You were attacked by dogs at the bear-baiting ring?” He felt sick. He had seen the curs kenneled outside the ring at Southwark. Slavering, vicious beasts, they were.

“No,” she snapped, “but if I had been, it would have made for a better day than being cast off by you.”

Aidan swore in Gaelic. She had managed to singe his temper, and he was glad. It was the only way to keep his desire in check. “You're a fine performer indeed. Tell me, was the queen as gullible as I was when you came to beg a place in her household? If you had said your loyalty was for sale, I would not have worried so much.”

“The queen's offer tempts me far greater than yours,” she retorted. “I would have paid for yours in heartbreak.”

If her voice had stayed firm, he could have stood it. But it did not. Instead, her speech quavered with a bitter hurt that seared his soul. “Ah, Pippa. You were right to leave me. I can't give you what you need.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. He had a powerful urge to kiss her, to use mouth and tongue to change her expression from pain to pleasure. But he resisted.

“We should not quarrel. It serves nothing.” She drew away from him. He folded his arms to keep from pulling her back into his embrace.

“There is a dream I used to have of a dark-haired woman bending to kiss me,” Pippa said. “‘Mind Mama's brooch, darling,' she would say. ‘Don't prick your finger on it.'” Pippa plucked at the head of a rose. “I don't know if it's a flight of fancy or a true memory, but I do know that last night I dreamt it again. And I dreamt of a man's merry laughter, and a grandmother singing to me in a strange language.”

“Singing what?” he asked. “Do you recall the tune?”

“The song lingers still.” She sang, the words so unfamiliar they sounded like gibberish, but she seemed quite sure of herself. “I feel close to them here, Aidan. As if I might spy a face in the crowd and recognize it. Recognize
myself.”

For a long moment, he did not—could not—speak. What must it be like, not to know one's family? Aidan O Donoghue had known from the cradle who he was. It had brought him little pleasure and much pain, but at least he had known. Again he ached for her. The chance of finding her family was too painfully slim. She could walk right past her mother and not know it.

“I think I understand your hunger,” he said at last. “And I am Irish. I would never be so foolish as to underestimate the power of a dream.”

“Thank you for saying that,” she said. “All I want to know is that someone once loved me. And perhaps then I can believe someone could love me once again.”

Someone wants to love you,
a gradh,
Aidan thought, biting his tongue to keep from blurting out the words. The problem is, the wrong man wants to love you.

 

Wimberleigh House, the soaring Strand residence of Richard de Lacey, teemed with activity. The garden doors of the house had been flung wide open, and servants paraded down a path to the river, carrying parcels of all shapes and sizes to a commodious river barge.

And there was the low-bellied bastard Aidan was looking for.

“Lord Castleross!” From the river landing Richard waved in greeting.

Feeling grim as winter, Aidan stalked down to the landing where Richard stood amid parcels and barrels.

“You just missed making the acquaintance of my parents, the Earl and Countess of Wimberleigh,” Richard said. “They've taken themselves off to Hertfordshire. We did celebrate a grand farewell. My aunt Belinda set off colored fire and rockets, ah, that was a sight to see, and—”

“I'm certain it was.” Aidan wasted no time in idle talk. “Why didn't you tell me your commission was a post in Kerry?”

Richard's ears reddened. “In sooth, my lord, I did not know. I expected a post in Ireland, but my assignment to your domain came as a surprise to me.”

“But you accepted it,” Aidan said tautly. All during his wild ride through the streets of London, he had hoped the gossip he'd heard the night before was wrong.

Richard made no attempt to deny it. He planted his
feet wide. “The queen gave me no choice. No more than you had about coming to London.”

“Aye,” Aidan lashed out, “but I did not come here to butcher the citizens, steal their land, rape their women and raid their livestock.”

“And that is not my purpose in Ireland.” Richard cursed and flung his velvet hat to the ground. “I am being sent to keep the peace.”

“Ah, that is rich,” said Aidan. “Did you ever think, my young lordling, that if the Sassenach would stay out of Ireland, then we would be at peace?”

“If we were not there, the Irish would fight amongst themselves.”

“Then give us that freedom, man!” Aidan roared. “Let us destroy ourselves at our own discretion, with no help from you.” He flung out his arm in agitation. His fist hit a canvas-wrapped parcel, toppling it. There was a tearing sound, and the corner of a crate ripped through the parcel.

“God's teeth.” Richard bent to pull aside the wrapping. A large portrait of a lady, now pierced by the wooden crate, stared up at the gray morning sky.

“I'm sorry,” Aidan said brusquely. “'Twas an accident.”

The woman in the picture was remarkable—dark and serene with misty eyes the color of winter rain. “Your betrothed?” he asked, picking up the ruined painting.

“My mother, Countess Wimberleigh. God knows when I shall see her again.” Richard called out in a foreign tongue. The burly servant with the mustache hurried over and reached for the portrait.

“Wait a moment.” Aidan held up a hand and frowned at the picture. The countess wore a rather plain gown of dove gray. Her one ornament, a brooch, looked out of place pinned to her bodice.

His heart lurched. The ornament was large and
unusual, cruciform in shape, decked with a huge red stone encircled by twelve matched pearls.

He swallowed past a sudden dry heat in his throat. “When was this painted?”

Richard shrugged irritably. “Sometime in the first year of my parents' marriage, about twenty-five years ago.”

“Does your mother still wear that jewel?”

He frowned and shook his head. “I've never seen it.” He exchanged words with the foreign servant who then carried off the portrait.

“I'll pay to have it repaired.”

“Never mind,” said Richard. “My lord, I'm sorry to part with you on these terms. I would that we could—”

“How did you come to have Russian servants?” Aidan's mind was starting to pull together the fragments of an amazing puzzle.

“My family has ties to the kingdom of Muscovy. The Muscovy Trading Company was begun by my grandfather Stephen, Lord Lynley. He and my grandmother still live in Wiltshire.”

“Did she sing to you?”

Richard regarded him with a confused scowl. “Sing?”

“You know, ballads. Lullabies. In Russian.”

“I don't know. Perhaps. I don't remember.”

Aidan saw that he was rousing Richard's suspicions. He cut himself short and said, “I have no quarrel with you until you set foot on Irish soil. Then, it will be as if our brief friendship had never occurred.”

If Richard replied, Aidan did not hear him. He had sudden pressing business at Whitehall with the queen's fool.

 

Pippa pretended to be totally absorbed in the game of chess she was playing with Rosaria, the Contessa Cerni
glia. In reality, her attention was secretly trained on the travel-weary courier who claimed he had urgent news from Ireland.

The crowded room buzzed with activity. The courier, a man with long cheeks and sunken eyes and a clear tenor voice, pressed his hands on the petitioner's table in frustration. Pippa noticed that he was missing a finger on his left hand.

“What do you suppose his problem is?” asked the contessa.

Pippa smiled at her across the chessboard. “Who, my lady?”

The contessa's lips thinned. “You know very well who. You have been staring at him since he walked in. You have also been cheating at chess, but I like your company, so I'm letting it pass.”

Pippa stared at her. No one—
no one
—had ever caught her cheating.

The contessa laughed softly. “I am the daughter of the Venetian ambassador,” she reminded Pippa. “My father built his life around observing people, seeing what is in their minds by watching what they do, particularly with their hands and eyes. I learned all I know from him.”

“Sorry about the cheating,” said Pippa. “It is a habit with me.”

The blond contessa gave her a brilliant smile. “Never mind. Are you interested in learning the news from Ireland?” She nodded toward the courier, who was still arguing with a palace official. Leicester and his stepson, Essex, went to join in the discussion.

“Certainly not.”

“Of course you are.” The contessa rose from the table. “The news might concern your lover.”

“The O Donoghue Mór is not my—” Pippa clapped a
hand over her mouth, furious at herself for letting the contessa trick her into blurting out his name.

The cool, beautiful woman patted Pippa's arm. “I thought as much.” She led Pippa through the packed room, exchanging polite snippets of greeting with the courtiers they passed. “Now, what about the other one—is he a brother?”

“No, Donal Og is Aidan's cousin.”

“Donal Og.” The contessa's mouth stretched into a smile. “Has he a wife?”

“No, he—” Pippa stopped walking. “You're smitten with Donal Og!”

“Smitten is too chaste a word,
cara.”
The contessa winked and took her hand. “My feelings have progressed well past smitten.” When they drew close to the petition table, she paused and took out her fan, fluttering it in front of her face.

Pippa held back. “They'll see us,” she said. “They'll know we're trying to listen to them.”

Rosaria smiled. “Here is a basic truth about men. When their minds are not on lusty matters, women are invisible to them. They will not even notice us.”

It was true. The messenger spoke in low, agitated tones to Leicester and Essex and did not even pause for breath when Pippa and the contessa moved in close, pretending to have a whispered conversation behind their fans.

“…an emergency. The danger is barely under control,” he was saying. “His kinsmen kidnapped six Englishmen while they were on maneuvers. I fear they mean to kill the hostages.”

“Have the rebels made any specific demands?”

“None that I know of. I strongly suspect they will contact Lord Castleross and await his instructions. In
fact, a letter to a priest or monk called Revelin was seized at the port of Dingle.”

Pippa's blood froze.

“Then you know what we must do,” said Essex.

“Don't crane your neck so,” the contessa warned Pippa. “It is too obvious.”

“We must make certain the O Donoghue Mór does not receive word from—”

“Pippa!” The contessa's harsh whisper failed to stop Pippa's sudden departure. She raced to the end of the hall and fled past the ever-present gentleman pensioners flanking the doorway. Beyond the hall lay a sunlit passageway with tall, slender windows and a soaring arched ceiling.

Courtiers and petitioners milled around the area. Robed barristers, minor noblemen and the occasional hard-eyed Puritan could be seen. She rushed past them all with only one thought in mind. She had to find Aidan and warn him.

When she was halfway down the corridor, she saw a large man striding toward her, his midnight hair flowing out behind him.

Aidan.
It was as if her frantic thoughts had summoned him.

She lifted her skirts, heedless of the disapproving glares of the Puritans, and hurried on, skidding to a tottering halt when she reached him.

“My lord!” The sight of him was, as always, a shock to the senses. He possessed, in extravagant excess, every male charm conceived of by God in Her wisdom. Being away from him for a few days only made him that much more fascinating.

For a few seconds, she stared in rapture at his perfectly hewn Celtic features.