Katherine looked from her father to Liam, watching as they stared at one another in a strange silence now. She could not help but compare them. Gerald was not just thin and gaunt, but so pale, far paler than she’d ever seen him, and she did not think the pallor was due solely to his confinement. There were deep brackets around his mouth and eyes, as well, as if he perpetually scowled. Then he eased her aside with a grimace and moved stiffly to a chair. Katherine understood the heavy facial lines now—she realized that he limped and lived in pain.
Her gaze flickered back to the pirate. Liam O’Neill was powerfully built, strong and young. He was golden incolor, even his skin, from being perpetually out of doors and in the sun. He towered over Gerald and everyone else in the room. He exuded an undeniable presence, at once masterful and indomitable.
“Father—what happened to your leg?” Katherine asked.
He lowered himself awkwardly into the chair. “’Tis my damnable hip. It never healed as it should have after Affane. ’Twas a musket ball. Cold winter nights are the worst. This is not too bad.” He smiled slightly at her.
Katherine dropped to her knees before him. “Father—how can this be? All has been forfeit to the Crown? And you are exiled to such poverty? Is there no hope, no chance of justice?”
His black eyes blazed. He gripped the chair. “There is little hope, Katie, and none from the queen.”
Katherine sucked in her breath. Until this moment, she had hoped, deep inside herself, the way a child might, that it was all a pack of monstrous lies. Or that her powerful, invincible father would have a plan to undo the wrongs done to him. She told herself that she would not cry. Once Gerald FitzGerald, earl of Desmond, had been the most powerful lord in Ireland, like his father and his father’s father before him. He had been born to power, born to wealth, and born to the knowledge that forever he would wield it over Desmond and the other Irish lords. This was the grossest injustice Katherine had ever faced.
“Katie, my exile is no easy fate. I live for my return to Ireland. I think of naught else. But I do not want you to cry, darling. At least I am no prisoner in the Tower. Thanks to Eleanor.” He smiled at his wife. “Last year she came from Desmond and she moved heaven and earth to gain an audience with the queen, and finally convinced Elizabeth to remand me to Sir Warham Leger.” His glanced settled on Liam. “How did you get past my guards, O’Neill?”
Liam smiled. “Easily enough. They were preoccupied with dice and ale. Now they dream of drink and gaming.”
Katherine wiped her eyes with her fist.
“What do you with my girl, O’Neill? The two of you together, ’tis a surprising sight.”
Liam placed his hand on Katherine’s shoulder before she could speak. “Your daughter managed to talk herself out of the convent you had placed her in. I happened to seize the ship she traveled on. As she has no protector, I have taken up that role myself.”
Katherine jumped to her feet. “Father! He has seizedme!And he keeps me against my will! He wishes me to be…to be his mistress!”
Gerald shoved himself to his feet.
Katherine froze, realizing she should have kept silent a bit longer, glancing from one man to the other. They stared at one another like watchful rivals prepared to duel. Eleanor also watched the men, her eyes bright with interest.
Finally Gerald spoke. “How lucky for you, O’Neill, that my wayward daughter chose to run away from the nunnery in France and that I am exiled like this, in such poverty, unable to take action against you.”
“Yes.”
Katherine cried out. “But Father! Surely you can pay him some small ransom! And talk him out of his intent!”
“Be quiet, girl,” Gerald said.
Katherine backed up a step, finding it hard to breathe. But she could not keep quiet, she could not, not when her entire future was at stake. “Father, I must be freed. I cannot stay with the pirate—I wish to wed—surely my uncle can arrange some reasonable sum, and if not, surely you can come to some agreement with the pirate.”
Gerald’s expression softened slightly and he finally looked at her. “Katie—I have nothing but the clothing on my back and the air that I breathe. I cannot pay the pirate any sum, small or otherwise. And I cannot find a husband for you, not now. No respectable man would have you—none.”
She gasped. “But…”
“You argue with me?”
Katherine flinched slightly, then squared her shoulders, keeping her head high. “No,” she whispered.
Gerald sucked in his breath, trembling now. “I have NOTHING left! All was taken from me. Taken from meand given over to damned Englishmen. I have nothing, yet you complain that you have no husband!”
Katherine stared at her father through a haze of sudden tears.
“Desmond has been destroyed,” Eleanor added, her voice shrill. “Your father’s ambitious cousin FitzMaurice was quick to leap into the breach after Affane, to rouse the other Irish lords, to chase out the English. But dear God, he burned down all the countryside—and what he left intact, Sir Henry Sidney then burned and pillaged next! Today the Irish hide in the bogs and forests, kern and noble alike, men, women, and children, freezing and starving to death!” Eleanor wiped her eyes. “Desmond is destroyed, your father has lost everything, and you come to us thinking that we can find you a husband? Our problems are far too grave to bother with such nonsense.”
Katherine was stricken. She told herself that she was as selfish as her father and stepmother accused her of being. “I am sorry.”
“If only I knew what FitzMaurice does now,” Gerald cried vehemently. “Damn my cousin.”
“FitzMaurice was chased into Glen Aherlow by the new lord president of Munster,” Liam said. Everyone stared at him, Katherine included. “He lay low for the winter, but I expect him to emerge and renew his battles very soon.”
