“But you have come to Us with all haste, have you not?” Elizabeth said coolly. He had kept her waiting for over an hour. “The cause is grave, dear Tom.”
He eyed her, pulling off one heavy glove after another and slapping his hard thighs. “Indeed. Is it true, my cousin, my queen? Have you tossed the Master of the Seas in the tower?”
“Only for a while.” Elizabeth spoke slowly, then, so that she might judge his reaction to her next words. “So that he might cool his raging lust for your little half sister, your dear mother Joan’s daughter—Katherine FitzGerald.”
Ormond started and then he swore.
7
The earl of Ormond finally smiled, grimly. “You would enjoy reminding me of the fact that my mother married that bastard FitzGerald.” He did not add what everyone knew, and had, at the time, delighted in—that Joan Butler, countess of Ormond, had married Gerald FitzGerald despite his having been twenty years her junior—and almost the same age as her own eldest son.
Elizabeth was serene. “Have you met your dear half sister, Tom?”
“Once, many years ago,” he growled. “And do you think I give a damn about FitzGerald’s brat—even if she be my half sister?”
“Oh, come, Tom, surely you do not want to see her innocence despoiled by someone like Liam O’Neill.”
Ormond’s gaze was flat.
“You really have no feeling for her? Do you know that she looks so much like Joan, although her hair is red, not blond. She is a tall beauty and she carries herself with pride despite her diminished station in life.”
“I care as much for her as I do for a country whore.”
Elizabeth sighed. “You must know that the girl claims to have been abducted by O’Neill.” Ormond did not react. “O’Neill has told us an absurd tale, one I find difficult to believe.” Elizabeth told her cousin about the dawn meeting at St. Leger House.
“God’s blood!” Ormond cried. “O’Neill and FitzGerald in conspiracy, this must be stopped!”
“I thought that might move you,” Elizabeth said, satisfied.
Butler’s jaw was tight. “Do you not know what will come about if Shane O’Neill’s son is allied with FitzGerald? Within months FitzGerald will escape and return to Ireland. By this time next year, he will undoubtedly be as strong as he ever was.”
The queen was grim. She glanced at Cecil, who was sitting in one of the room’s two chairs of state. “We have spoken of little else. But William is not convinced of such an alliance.”
Ormond inhaled. “Then he is wrong. FitzGerald is damnably clever, and he must have offered his daughter to O’Neill to sway him to his cause.”
“But the girl is worthless.”
Ormond was exasperated. “Come, coz, not to O’Neill.”
“What do you say?” Elizabeth demanded.
Ormond began to pace. “Liam is the bastard of Shane O’Neill—a man who died a traitor, his lands forfeit to the Crown. The pirate is rich, your spies know that, but as no man has ever infiltrated the pile of stone where he abides, no one knows the extent of his treasure stores. He is rich, but for what, for whom? He is without family. Without clan. The Irish distrust him. Yet he is hardly an Englishman. HeisIrish, cousin. ’Tis Irish blood flowing in his veins, no matter that Mary Stanley birthed him. To marry the FitzGerald girl would give him a family, a clan—a country. The FitzGerald girl would give him respectability, and his sons would have blue blood in their veins.” Ormond faced Cecil and Elizabeth. “I know that this is what the pirate wants. All basely born men want to be elevated through marriage and their sons. And I am sure that FitzGerald has sweetened the offer and promised him some future reward as well, undoubtedly the promise being some parcel of Desmond land.”
Elizabeth and Cecil exchanged glances. Cecil said, “As you have more to lose than anyone except the queen if FitzGerald regains his place in Ireland, you jump more quickly to conclusions that may not be right, Tom.”
Ormond cursed. “Even should FitzGerald return to Desmond, his land is destroyed, many of his kin dead—he will never again wield the kind of power he once had. I willnevershare the rule of Southern Ireland with him!” His expression was thunderous. “How my mother could have married such a curse upon the world—I know not,” he said harshly. He went to Elizabeth, ignoring Cecil, and gripped her hand. “No alliance must be allowed, my dearest cousin. FitzGerald will use O’Neill’s power on the seas most effectively. Not only to escape you. In winter he could starve out his cousin, FitzMaurice. That would please us all, of course, but once FitzMaurice is brought down, he could blockade your own royal ports—starve out your own royal troops. In no time at all you will be faced with Desmond’s power and defiance again.” Tom’s dark blue eyes flashed. “Or, God forbid, the two cousins could unite against us.”
Silence fell across the room. Elizabeth finally sat down. She was grim. For a long time she did not speak, unwilling to believe that Liam O’Neill moved against her. Surely it was not true. As William had said, there was no proof yet. “Mary Stanley was—is—my friend. When Catherine Parr died, I took her into my home—her and her small son. I pitied them both, mother and child—as everyone did. Most of us tried to hide it, but some did not. They both knew. They both knew they were different, that they were cases of charity.” She looked up. “I remember watching Liam playing alone in the gardens at Hatfield House, one early spring day. It was a day not unlike this one. Not yet warm, but not too gray, the sun pale and feeble. He was five or six. He was using a stick as if it were a sword—and so fierce was he, ’twas as if he fought the entire world.” She sighed. “He was so alone—so lonely. He was such a quiet boy. He never spoke unless spoken to, he never laughed. And the other children were so cruel to him, taunting him, calling him an Irish bastard to his face.”
“He is no little boy now,” Ormond said sharply. “Make no mistake of that. Do not let your old affections interfere with your good judgment, Bess. He is a dangerous man.”
The queen regarded him. “I can not dismiss the past as if it never existed. I do not know that he has committed treason yet. I believe he has some affection for me, too, some gratitude.”
“You must not think like this!” Ormond cried. “You must see him as he is! Not his handsome face, but his cold, barren heart!”
Elizabeth looked at her cousin. “Then perhaps I should not favor you, either, dear Tom, as we have a special history as well.”
“We are blood,” he reminded her. “And our cause is one. I am loyal to you—always.”
