The Virgin's War (23 page)

Walsingham knew how difficult that was for her. One of his lesser gifts was knowing when to be hard and when to be gentle. Now he offered a great kindness. “The mark of a true monarch, Your Majesty, is the ability to make wise decisions in the most difficult of times. You have always been unusually clear-sighted. Calais may be a luxury we cannot afford to keep. But its loss, if it comes, will not be in vain. I promise you that.”

She spared him one grateful glance, then moved on briskly. “Lord Exeter's reports from the South are consistent in their summary: our ships and sailors are prepared and spoiling for a fight. Drake has been importuning me to let him strike the Spanish ships in harbor at Lisbon.”

What Drake had actually written from Plymouth was more than importunate; it had verged on a lecture.
The advantage of time and place in all martial actions is half a victory; which being lost is irrecoverable…Wherefore, if Your Majesty will command me with those ships which are here already, and the rest follow with all possible expedition, I hold it, in my poor opinion, the surest and best course.

Walsingham had seen that letter, and all the same reports. “But the preparation of our troops on the ground is thin and uneven. If the Spanish are able to land troops—”

“They won't.”

“If they do?”

“Then I trust that my people will fight harder for their homes and families and freedom than Spanish soldiers will fight for either conquest or money.”

What protest could Walsingham make? They couldn't conjure an army from thin air. She had stouthearted, honest men who despised the thought of foreign invaders. She had excellent commanders. She had faith.

It would simply have to be enough.

On a Wednesday morning in April, Maisie—unusually—had no meetings to attend and decided to spend the day at home. Stephen had been out in the Western March with their men for the last two weeks, and it was a release of tension to not be keyed up at every moment waiting for their paths to cross. She sent Pieter Andries off to the warehouse in Leith for inventory, and took the opportunity to wash her hair and dry it before the fire in the reception chamber mostly used for guests. It was a lovely, old-fashioned room with painted walls and a box-beamed ceiling. For once, she discarded the piles of correspondence that always awaited her and chose instead a book of French poetry.

She should have known that such relaxation was a mistake. When the door to the chamber was flung open with enough force to strike the wall, she jumped from the settee on which she'd been curled up. Her book fell to the floor as she stared uncomprehending at Robert.

Her brother was more disheveled than she'd ever seen him, which was saying something. She'd long known him as a drunkard, but she'd never seen this particular light in his eyes. It made her uncomfortably aware that she was in dishabille—a brocade, silver-worked robe over her fine linen smock, not even any slippers. She would have felt considerably better armored in petticoat and kirtle, bodice and heavy sleeves.

“Robert,” she said warily. “May I help you?”

“Help me? Since when, dear sister, are you worried about helping me?” Though his voice was slurred, his movements were sharp.

“I will not speak to you when you are drunk. And I will not speak to you at all about business matters. If you have concerns about your allowance, you may take it up with the board.”

It was surprisingly difficult to feel authoritative in bare feet. Robert crossed the stretch of floor between them and studied her.

“Bitch.”

The insult was as vivid as a blow and rocked her back equally. “You'd better go, Robert,” she said evenly. “I will not listen to this.”

But as she attempted to move around him to the door—to summon the servants—his hand shot out and grabbed her by the arm. Hard.

“You're not going anywhere, little sister. Do you think I'm afraid of your feeble maids and clerks? They don't even know I'm here. I let myself in.”

“I think you are afraid of my husband. As you should be.”

“Your husband,” he spat, “is not in Edinburgh. And his only interest in you is in restoring his fortunes. I can pay him off as well as you can. But you…oh, I will make you pay for your insolence. Thinking you can order me around just because Grandfather was taken by your wit and your fawning. I am the oldest. This business belongs to me. You will not take it.”

“You are hurting me, Robert.”

“Good.” His grip moved to her shoulder, both hands now holding her caged before him. “I mean to hurt you. I mean to humiliate you. I should have done it years ago before you had time to become this…unnatural creature.”

She twisted in his grasp, but all she accomplished was to make him shake her until her head hurt. She opened her mouth to yell for the servants and Robert clamped a hand over her mouth.

All her life, Maisie had been taught by her grandfather that she was clever and talented and that her mind made her the equal of any man. It was a shock to be so forcibly reminded that, despite whatever talents she possessed, she was too small to effectively defend herself. She clawed and kicked but accomplished little except tearing open the ribbons that tied her robe. Robert in his rage backhanded her so that she fell, stunned, to the carpet.

Then he was on her, both hands circling her throat while his weight kept her pinned down. He's gone mad, she thought through the swimming of her head, followed instantly by, I'm going to die.

His weight was pulled off her so suddenly that she choked and was momentarily blinded by the release of pressure. Slowly, her vision cleared enough to recognize the man who had turned his own violence back on Robert.

Stephen had come home.

After more than two weeks on the border and riding two hundred miles in the last thirty-six hours, Stephen couldn't decide which he wanted most—a bath, food, or his wife.

My wife.
It was getting harder, keeping away from her. Every night they spent under the same roof he found himself severely tempted to take advantage of her good nature and claim he wanted children. He wanted to believe he refrained because he was a good man—but he knew it was mostly his pride. He did not want to be taken out of pity. He loved her too much for that to be endurable.

Still, his tiredness was lifted by pleasure when he turned his horse over to a groom in the open yard a block away from the house. He let himself in and, aware of his travel-stained clothing and almost two weeks' growth of beard, made for the stairs to clean up before seeking out Maisie. She was likely out in the city, in any case, tending to business.

He was three steps up the front stairs when he heard a crash from behind the closed door of the reception chamber. With a hand on his sword hilt, Stephen ran lightly down and opened the door, trying not to look too threatening in case it was simply a clumsy servant upsetting something breakable.

It took him a precious few seconds to comprehend the tableau before him. Two bodies on the floor, clearly struggling, a man's back stretched over a much smaller form with little bare feet…Stephen had already moved forward to intervene when he saw the spill of silver-gilt hair spread across the Ottoman carpet.

He stopped thinking then. He did not take time to draw his sword, but flung himself at the man and jerked him off so hard the assailant's feet left the ground. When he saw it was Robert Sinclair, his rage, if possible, intensified. He didn't need weapons. He'd learned to fight dirty from his brother-in-law Julien, and Stephen took vicious pleasure in hurting Robert now.

The man folded almost at once, and the only thing that stopped Stephen from beating him into unconsciousness was the desire to get him out of sight. With his fist clenched in Robert's filthy doublet, Stephen pulled him near enough to choke on the fumes of cheap wine.

“You have three days to leave Scotland. Take any ship you like to any port you choose…but if you ever set foot in this country again, I will kill you.”

The man might be vicious, but he had the instincts of an animal primed for survival. He knew Stephen meant it. Twisting Robert's arm behind his back, Stephen marched him across the parlour then out the front door. With a shove, he pushed him down the stairs and left him in a huddle on the ground.

Returning to the parlour, he hesitated over whether to summon a servant to help Maisie. She had gotten to her feet, looking more blank than he'd ever seen her. She caught his eye and read his indecision.

“Don't call anyone. Not yet. Please.”

He swallowed, and closed the door behind him. “Are you all right?”

Why did people ask that at such times? Of course she was not all right. From halfway across the room he could see the marks on her throat where bruises would blossom, a long scratch across one cheek. Her robe had been ripped open and the ribbons torn from their seams. It hung off one shoulder, the shift beneath grubby where her brother had put his hands.

Stephen swallowed again and had to force himself to stillness. If he let himself move, he didn't know what he might do.

Maisie moved, instead. And as she came nearer, he saw that the blankness was merely a thin mask over her fear. And fury. “Such a fool,” she said bitterly. “I should have known better. What was I thinking?”

“It is my fault,” he argued. “I should not have left you alone in Edinburgh. I just never dreamed…” His hand moved of its own accord and lightly touched the welt next to her eye. That was when Stephen realized she was shaking.

He pulled her into an embrace, meant only to comfort and ground her. To allow her to gather her considerable reserves of strength and then return to her preferred distance. The kind of comfort he had offered in Ireland after Liadan's death, the first time he had seen that flood of pale hair loose about her shoulders…

“Stephen,” she whispered.

He drew back just enough to see her face, and waited for whatever she meant to say or ask. He was stopped by the expression in her eyes.

And then she kissed him.

She couldn't have reached him if he hadn't bent down to meet her. For a few heartbeats he kept careful control, trying to discern the mixed motives behind her gesture. He would not take advantage of her. He had been down that road before, and it ended every time in blood and guilt.

“Stephen,” she kept saying, every time she freed her mouth enough to speak. “Stephen, please.”

With all his force of will, Stephen finally held her off from him just enough to ask, “Is this merely turmoil? Because, God help me, I would take you even if it were, but I could not bear for you to regret it after.”

“Regret?” She choked on a laugh, partly a sob. “I love you, Stephen. For so long. Did you not know that?”

He stared at her, almost as shocked as he'd been when he walked into the parlour. “Truly?”

“I would not burden you with it, for I knew you could never want me the same way. I am not Ailis. How could you content yourself with me after women like her?”

There were no more words after that, or at least no more than a few broken syllables. Why tell Maisie she was wrong when he could show her just how wrong? Stephen bent to kiss her in earnest now, and in their mutual eagerness they stumbled across the floor. There was a window with a deep ledge, and Stephen lifted her onto it the more easily to reach her.

Always before in his life, there had been a bed, even if only a pallet inside a tent. But neither of them had the patience to delay more than was absolutely necessary. He pushed the ruined robe down to her elbows, holding her there, and kissed everywhere he could reach. When she moved to free her arms, it was to pull them out of her brocade sleeves altogether so that there was only her gossamer shift covering her, the fabric outlining the body beneath so clearly that Stephen groaned with several years' worth of frustrated desire. He thought he managed to say her name.

Then her hands were at his waist, undoing buckles and laces and pulling him nearer, and his own hands found the hem of her shift and slid it up, and then he could not have composed a coherent thought if the entire world were on fire and he was needed to save it.

Afterward, they were both too deliciously boneless with pleasure to stay upright. He lifted her from the window ledge and slid down with his back to the wall, legs stretched out long. Maisie curled up next to him, her bright head resting on his chest.

“That,” she said dreamily, “was nothing at all like Finian.”

Indignation flared. “I should hope not,” he said. “Finian Kavanaugh was an old man.”

Her laughter rang like church bells across a once-frozen landscape. “You called me Maisie,” she added.

“Did I? I suppose at the moment I could not spare breath for the extra syllables. Mariota.” He kissed the top of her head, one hand winding a length of her thick hair around his palm. “Why did you never tell me? All these weeks of marriage, when we might have been doing
this
?”

“You never gave any sign that you would care to have me in your bed. Which,” she added with laughter, “I suppose you haven't as yet.”

“I kept my distance for your sake! Because one moment you were agreeing to marry me and the next you were matter-of-factly assuring me I was free to sleep with any other woman I liked as long as I was discreet. ‘I have no objection to bearing your children,' ” he quoted. “What the devil was I supposed to think?”

“Did you really suffer for it? I thought…from what I understand, men's desires are easily satisfied with almost any woman.”

“Are you asking me if I've been satisfying myself elsewhere? Because I have not. I have not done so since I left Ireland. And certainly not once I landed in Edinburgh last year and laid eyes on you again.”

“Why?”

He tried to think how to explain it. It hardly seemed the time to turn delicate now. “What you said about men and satisfaction…it is true enough that lust is a hunger that can be met rather easily. I have had my share of such careless encounters when I was younger. But desire? Desire is wound around and shot through with love, so that only the one desired can satisfy it. I had long since fallen in love with your mind and your heart, Mariota. Once I realized how much I desired your body as well, it was far too late for any other woman to suffice. Only you.