At the Queen's Summons (13 page)

The women collapsed in helpless giggles and the maid dropped her comb. Pippa picked it up, chuckling at her companions, and grew thoughtful as they chattered on.

As beautiful as he was, Richard de Lacey had a different sort of appeal for her. She felt drawn to him, but in a mysterious way that had nothing to do with the wanting she felt for Aidan O Donoghue.

There was something in the way Richard cocked his head, a certain crooked slant to his smile, and a gentle quality in his touch that tugged at her heart. It was not recognition she felt; it could not be. She had never seen him before in her life.

 

“What sort of boat race?” Pippa demanded, striding down through the gardens at Aidan's side.

“I'm not quite certain.” He watched her from the corner of his eye. “I believe it is a sculling race down the Thames.” She looked as fresh as a newly opened rose with the dew still clinging to its petals. How naturally she fit into this rarefied setting of aristocrats with their elaborate manners and games. The girl's gift for imitation served her well here. Her courtly graces seemed as seasoned as those of a woman trained from the cradle.

Today she wore a gown of lilac with all the sleeves and furnishings properly attached and fastened. Her hair was caught back in a coif beaded with gleaming onyx.

“I believe,” he explained, “that the race is held for a
winner's cup. You and the other ladies will watch at the finish line—that would be the watersteps.”

“I see.” She squinted at the beribboned string that stretched clear across the river.

“Did you get on with them?” he asked, then scowled. He was not supposed to care one way or the other.

“The other ladies?” She looked up, gave him a false smile and fluttered a pretend fan in her face. “Oh, la, sir, surely you know what deep joy I take in discussing fashion and rose breeding.”

He laughed. “They know no better. The Sassenach keep their women on a short leash.”

“A charming image. And are Irishwomen kept on a
long
leash?”

“Some would say, in Ireland, the woman wields the leash herself.”

She beamed. “That sounds much more sensible.”

“I take it they're all deeply smitten with Richard de Lacey.”

“Of course. We discussed him in exhaustive detail.” She pantomimed a fluttering fan. “The cleft in his chin, his perfectly turned calf, the tenor of his voice, the charm of his manners, all kept us in gossip fodder for half the night.”

A stab of feeling he refused to name invaded Aidan. “So you're smitten with him, too.”

She blew upward at a curl that had escaped her coif to dangle upon her brow. “I should be. It seems almost a sacrilege not to be.”

“But?” Undeniable hope kindled inside him.

“But…” A teasing light glinted in her eye. “I don't know, Your Potency. I'm not certain how to put this. I prefer my men to be tall, dark and Irish.” She laughed at his thunderstruck expression. “Richard de Lacey is too
perfect to render me smitten and swooning. Does that make sense to you?”

He held a smile in check. “Perfect sense. Being smitten is a serious and sometimes painful business.”

She caught her lip in her teeth and gazed at him with eyes so luminescent that he could see his own reflection.

“Aidan!” Donal Og called from the end of the garden. “Reel in your tongue and get down here.” His broad Gaelic rang like pagan music through the fussy arbors and knot gardens of Durham House. “The Sassenach sheep-swivers want a lesson in rowing.”

“My lord,” Pippa called as he turned to leave, “Richard said you would hate him because of his commission in Ireland. Is that true?”

Aidan paused, startled both by her question and by how much she pleased him. He was not accustomed to a woman's empathy, her understanding. “I do not hate him,” Aidan said, turning toward Donal Og. “Yet.”

He left her seated amid a few dozen spectators at the river landing, then went to hear the particulars of the race.

He was fast learning that the social games of the English had subtle and serious purposes. A man's status among his peers rose or fell with his prowess at sport. Most important of all, the queen herself was given a full report of each man's performance.

They rode a mile upriver to the contestants' boats. Donal Og settled eagerly into one. “It is like a curragh!” he declared, referring to the seagoing rowboats of the Irish.

“They will all drown like dogs in our wake,” Iago said with complete certainty.

As he saw the other teams settle into the boats, Aidan felt no need to disagree. Not one of these Sassenach
looked as if he had ever exerted himself into an actual sweat. They wore precious clothes and precious, smug expressions on their faces.

Strutting in front of their ranks, Iago put on his scariest I'm-a-savage look, with glowering eyes and protruding lips, muscles flexed until they bulged. The air of English superiority dissipated.

“I think they get the point,” Aidan said, smothering a laugh. Already he had decided what to do with the winner's cup. He would give it to the queen as a gift with all the others he had brought for her.

The hoary old bitch. She was beginning to try his patience.

Then the gorgeous Richard de Lacey appeared and Aidan felt his first stab of doubt. The charming young man had two extraordinary retainers in tow. They looked almost as exotic as Donal Og and Iago. Though not as tall as Aidan's companions, they were broad and powerfully built. One had cropped black hair, a black mustache and black eyes. He wore black boots, old-fashioned trews and a richly embroidered tunic with a sleeveless red jacket over it.

The other man had a mustache so wide that its stiffened tips extended past the width of his face in the shape of a stout set of bull's horns.

As these formidable challengers scrambled into their boat, Richard smiled and greeted all his rivals. He was a merry fellow indeed, and clearly it was not just the ladies who thought so.

Richard would need to bring more than charm to Ireland, Aidan thought. He had seen young men, Irish and English alike, made old in mere months by the rigors of privation during the endless, pointless campaigns.

Then Richard spoke to his companions, and an odd chill shot down Aidan's spine. It was a strange language
they spoke, guttural and nasal, so wholly foreign he could not pick out a single word of it.

“What are they?” Iago asked. “Demon men?”

“Prussian or Turkish?” Donal Og guessed.

“No matter.” Aidan clamped his hands around the oars. “As far as
we
are concerned, they are defeated.”

A whistle pierced the air, and they were off. As Aidan had predicted, the Sassenach fell behind immediately. The only serious challenge was from Richard and his cohorts.

Setting his jaw, Aidan threw all of his strength into the race. He rowed with a vigor and rhythm that caused the sweat to pour down his face and arms. His hands blistered and the blisters burst, yet he did not slacken his pace.

He held one clear thought in his mind. Pippa watched from the finish line. He would be less than the O Donoghue Mór if he let her see him lose.

Yet some equally powerful thought was driving Richard de Lacey and his crew, for they too rowed at a furious rate; they were as grim and focused as Aidan and his companions.

Before long, he could hear the low roar of cheering. He blocked it out. He listened only to the thump and splash of the oars, the pounding of his heart, his own steady breathing.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Richard's boat draw even with his. Then, whipping his head around for a split second, he saw the banner of ribbons stretched across the finish line.

The strength that surged through him had deep roots. It was the stubborn ferocity of the ancient Celt that gripped and held him, then shot energy like fire through his limbs.

The last oar stroke flowed from his shoulders to the
tips of the oars, and on a surge of speed that drew gasps from the crowd, the boat shot forward. Aidan snatched down the banner. To loud huzzahs and a few anti-Irish boos, he held it aloft.

Richard's boat ran alongside his, and Richard inclined his head. “Well done, my lord of Castleross. I only regret I was not a more worthy opponent.”

“You were not so bad for a Sassenach,” said Donal Og, examining the raw blisters on his hands.

De Lacey's companions exchanged words in their incomprehensible tongue.

“By my soul, but I've worked up a sweat.” Aidan sluiced water over his neck and shoulders. Iago and Donal Og did the same.

The spectators were oddly quiet as the Irishmen drifted toward the river landing. Aidan did not realize why until he set aside his oars and looked up to see the crowd drawn to the very edge of the landing, the women pushing past the men to gape at the drenched savages. Even Pippa went to the brink, her soft eyes wide with interest.

It was more than any man's pride could resist. Aidan exchanged a sly glance with his cousin and then with Iago. All three of them managed to row with the maximum display of flexed muscles that drew murmurs from the ladies.

Unnoticed by Pippa, a grossly overdressed man—Lord Temple Newsome, Aidan recalled—came up behind her.

From a distance, Aidan could not see exactly where Newsome put his hand, but the outraged expression on Pippa's face gave him a good idea. She straightened up and, in the same motion, seized the gentleman by his left arm. In a move that would have done a seasoned wrestler
credit, she bent forward, jerking Temple Newsome up and over her head. Screaming, he flopped head over heels into the water.

“So
that
is how she kept her virtue all these years,” Donal Og said thoughtfully.

“I wondered that as well,” said Iago.

A barked oath burst from the back of the crowd. While Temple Newsome gasped and flailed, his manservant grabbed Pippa by the arm. She pulled away from him. The movement was too abrupt. Her arms made wide circles in the air as she toppled into the river.

For a moment, the skirts spread around her like a bell. “You bean-fed, braying ass,” she yelled in a coarse accent, then sank out of sight.

In a heartbeat of time, Aidan experienced a raw sense of panic and loss unlike anything he had ever felt. Neither losing his father in such a horrible manner nor Felicity's betrayal could even approach this sense of dread. He had not realized what having Pippa in his life had given him—until now, when he was in danger of losing her.

In one swift motion, he stood and dove cleanly into the water. He swam straight past the drowning Newsome, who grasped at him, and when he reached the spot where Pippa had gone under, he dove deep.

Sunlight shone through a blurry filter of silt and river weeds. He saw the vague outline of a waving arm. He grabbed at it; missed.
Hurry!
his mind screamed.
Hurry!
Not until this moment had the survival of another person mattered so much to him. With a strong, scissorslike kick, he surged to the surface, taking mere seconds to gulp air before diving again. A flow of skirts caught his eye. Knowing now the full meaning of wordless, heartfelt prayer, he reached for her. His hand closed around fabric. He tugged, the fabric rent, and she slipped away. He
surged toward her, and when he touched her hand—the hand of an Englishwoman, a stranger, a commoner, his heart nearly burst with gladness. He hauled her to the surface.

Pippa gagged and then coughed, spewing river water and vile oaths. He hooked his arm around her and took her to the watersteps. When he reached the shallows, he caught her around the waist and under her knees, sweeping her up into his arms. She clung to his neck and swallowed great gulps of air. He climbed the watersteps with care, for they were green and slimy.

“You're carrying me,” said Pippa.

“Aye.”

“I can't believe I needed saving.”

“Again,” he reminded her.

“Well, at least I am consistent.”

He reached the landing. The crowd moved back to give them a wide berth, and he set Pippa on her feet. He tried to pretend it was not happening, but he could not hide the truth from himself. He was trembling.

“Utterly hopeless,” she said.

He looked into her eyes, seeing anguish and hope and the thing he dreaded most—a love so sweet and clear that it pierced him like a sword thrust.

“We're both hopeless,” he said huskily, thinking of Ireland, of Felicity, of all the countless reasons he could not return her love.

Richard de Lacey stood in his boat. Aidan expected derision, but Richard began to clap his hands slowly. Others joined in, and applause rang across the river.

Shaking off her brush with disaster along with bits of river weed, Pippa immediately pulled away from him. She adopted her showman's stance, plucking her sodden, torn skirts and dipping in an elaborate curtsy. Lord
Temple Newsome struggled on hands and knees up the slippery watersteps.