Mistress by Magick

by Laura Navarre

  Fear twisted her stomach like a knotted fist. With the amassed might of the Armada, reinforced by the steel spine of Parma’s fighting force, the Spanish would be unstoppable.

  To say nothing of the Hagas. Was Dunkirk where Mordred, too, would board his Fae army?

  In a desperate bid to master her panic, she gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles whitened.

  “I sailed from Lisbon with the Armada,” she said low. “I observed their weaponry and sailing formations, and used my ears when their lieutenants spoke of tactics. The Armada is comprised of some one hundred and thirty-odd ships. In the main, the fighting vessels are split between galleons, galleys and rowed galleasses—though I cannot believe a rowed ship will be a great asset if the Channel is unsettled.”

  As I intend it shall be, she thought darkly.

  Poignant regret squeezed her throat. Once again, she would wield her magick against Calyx.

  “As for Spain’s supply hulks, I believe there is a weakness there—”

  “Jayne,” he murmured. She broke off and looked at this somber young stranger who’d been her brother, who had not spoken her name since boarding. There he sat, long fingers steepled before his lips, a bemused expression on his bearded features.

  “I can scarcely believe it.” He shook his head. “Truly, you have grown into a very fine agent. I’ve read your coded reports, heard of your hair-raising exploits on our behalf at the French court. Sir Francis himself has commended the quality of your intelligence, though I’ve always felt privately you take too many risks.”

  There is no risk I would not take for the chance to win back my child! she thought fiercely. Still, the time was not yet ripe to say it.

  “I have done what I must, as we all do,” she said curtly. Even betrayed the man she loved. But she would not speak of love before the brother who’d condemned her for loving Dudley.

  “Danger is the nature of the game, as you know yourself, brother. About the Armada, then, shall I tell you what I have observed of her armaments?”

  “That is intelligence Sir Francis was able to purchase from our agents in Lisbon port.” Kin Carey leaned forward. “For all our tireless efforts, still we cannot say where the Spanish plan to land. Tell us that, Jayne, and you can name your reward.”

  Her heart beat swift and hard against her corset. Here was her moment, then, to take the plunge.

  “Has the Queen said so?” She kept her voice detached, the agent confirming facts before she acted.

  “Our cousin?” Confusion clouded her brother’s clear gaze. “She knows your identity, of course. She demands to know the source of all the intelligence we bring to her, so she can judge its credibility for herself.”

  “But you have ventured no effort, nor our father, to bring my cause before her?” Jayne smiled bitterly. “In ten long years, have you not found a spare moment? I wish I felt disappointed, Kin, because that would imply I retained a shred of faith in you and Father. But I gave that up years ago.”

  “Oh, sister.” Her brother’s pale brow creased with pain. “When she sent you away, the Queen was in a blind rage. We’re exceedingly fortunate she didn’t banish Father and me with you. She seemed to view your downfall as our collective failing. She told Father he should have kept his willful daughter under lock and key. She told me I should have spent less time gallivanting about the court, which was certainly true.”

  “And what did she tell Lord Robert?” Despite her resolve to keep her emotions well in hand, frustrated tears stung her eyes. “I am certain she told him nothing! After her initial fit of temper, she welcomed him back with open arms.”

  “You knew how she felt about him,” Kin said quietly. “All of Europe knew how she felt, how she still feels. Just because she has chosen to place no man over her does not mean she has chosen not to love. Whatever occurred that night at Clover Chase, you ought never to have gone to his bed.”

  She had thought she’d be better able to manage herself when this moment came. But the censure in her brother’s tone ignited a powder keg of smothered rage against the injustice done to her, against her family’s failure to defend her. It went off like a cannon, deafening her to the small voices of prudence and restraint.

  “Gone to his bed?” She thrust violently to her feet, sending the bench skidding across the deck. “He had me on the floor of our father’s hall. I didn’t set him drunk and seduce him. He raped me!”

  The ugly word tore her throat as it burst from her lips, fueled by a lifetime of helpless resentment.

  “I tried to make him stop, Kinley! God in Heaven, I begged him to stop. He was out of his mind that night—and that was Elizabeth’s doing. He’d proposed to her again, and she toyed with him like a lapdog, just as she did for years.”

  She dragged in a breath, her chest heaving. “She would neither love him fully nor let him go, though she destroyed him in the doing. If Elizabeth wished to blame someone for what occurred that night, she should have blamed herself.”

  Her words dropped into a well of profound silence. She heard the rapid drum of blood against her eardrums, a silence marred only by her panting breath. Her limbs trembled until she feared her legs would fail her. She leaned into the table, anchored herself against it like a drifting vessel.

  Kin Carey stared up at her, riveted in place as though she’d bolted him to the bench. His mouth opened and closed as he blinked.

  “I—I didn’t realize.” He removed his cap and smoothed a hand over his cropped curls, as if to smooth his jumbled thoughts. “Truly, sister. I never thought—he was a gentleman, a friend of Father’s.”

  “He was a wreck that night, and the drink made it worse. I ought never to have entertained him alone.” She drew a shaking breath and fought for calm. “I have never pretended to be blameless, but I was a girl of five-and-ten. My grievance has always been that the punishment did not fit the crime. My condemnation, my exile, even my marriage to Antoine I could have survived, and did. But I can never forgive her for taking my boy.”

  On the last syllable, her voice broke. Blindly she thrust away and crossed to the window. Before her the white cliffs blazed against a blue summer sky. Sunlight danced on the white-capped waves. Somewhere beyond those cliffs, on the green moors of Kent, Ryder was growing to manhood in a Dudley house, his mother no more than a name to him. He probably idolized Lord Robert just as she’d done at his age.

  Heart aching, she lay a gentle hand against the sun-warmed glass.

  “That is my price, Kin,” she whispered into the fraught silence. “If Elizabeth wants to keep her throne and repel the Spanish, I want my boy back.”

  “Jayne.” His appalled tone stiffened her shoulders. “Your son...”

  “He has a name. Ryder. Unless Elizabeth has taken that as well.”

  “Jayne, you are not hearing me. The boy—Ryder—is Lord Robert’s ward. He dotes on the lad, takes pride in his small achievements. He taught your son to ride and hunt, which the lad does as well as his sire.”

  “Does he know?” She forced the words through an aching throat. “Does Ryder know he is Dudley’s son?”

  “Of course not!” Her brother sounded shocked. “He believes himself the Comte de Boulaine’s son, and Dudley says naught to disabuse him. What I’m trying to say, sister, is that Dudley will never agree to return him to France. For pity’s sake, you can hardly want that yourself. They’re slaughtering each other in the streets of Paris!”

  Jayne leaned her brow against the glass. “I hoped to remain here, Kin. Ryder is full-blooded English, just as we are...”

  She hesitated, thinking of their distant heritage from the Fair Folk, which Ryder too shared. But Kin had never embraced their Faerie blood. He showed none of her aptitude for magick. Now she suspected his excessive piety might frown upon their Faerie legacy—though Walsingham had always known. Elizabeth, part Fae herself, trusted her spymaster. For his part, Sir Francis was too much the pragmatist to spurn any tool that came to hand.

  Nay, she woul
d not mention the Fair Folk to Kin.

  “I hoped Father might agree to open the old dower house at Clover Chase,” she said instead. “Ryder and I could live quietly in the country. I have some modest investments with a banker in Milan, enough to live on if we’re prudent.”

  “That won’t seem like much of a life to the boy.” Kin’s sober reflection appeared at her shoulder. “With Dudley’s patronage, he could rise at court.”

  Jayne voiced a soft noise of disgust. “I doubt Lord Robert’s latest wife, our dear cousin Lettice Knollys, will think much of that plan. Nor will Elizabeth thank him for rubbing her nose in his old indiscretion. And the Tudor court has always been poison to me. Nay, Ryder is far better off living a wholesome country life with me, until I can send him to university for a gentleman’s education.”

  “The boy won’t want it. He’s a creature of the sea that rages against the cliffs below Dudley’s old house. He loves to fish and sail and swim. He told me once he wants to be a pirate when he’s grown.”

  With a pang, she thought of Calyx. They called him a pirate, but he was more tender with the children and other dependents in his care than any man she’d ever known. In another life, if she’d been another woman—a woman he could trust—Calyx would have made the best stepfather and role model she could wish for her son.

  “I don’t care where we live,” she said, muffled, “so long as we’re far from Elizabeth’s orbit. But I want my son restored to me.”

  “The thing is,” Kin said carefully, “that is not something I am in any position to negotiate. Dudley’s wishes will trump any arrangement I might propose. You know this as well as I.”

  She wanted to rage at him that he was timid and spineless and always had been, too terrified of their royal cousin’s displeasure to defend his own sister. But that would serve no purpose. Kin Carey might be the same flawed vessel he’d always been. But at present, he was the only poor ally she had.

  She must take up the matter with Walsingham, if she could ever gain access to the great man. If moved to her defense, he would prove a far stronger advocate with the Queen than her brother.

  Faced with her silence, Kin shifted in discomfort.

  “For pity’s sake, sister, give me terms I have the power to accept! I can’t promise to restore Ryder to your custody, but I’ll do what I can to restore your access. I’ll arrange an audience for you with Lord Robert.”

  “I would rather have an audience with the Devil!”

  “I’ve no doubt it will distress you to see him, but Dudley is greatly changed from the man he was. The years have not been kind to him, and I do not believe his marriage with cousin Lettice is a happy one. They say he’s ailing—but he’s still Elizabeth’s favorite. She’s given him command over her land forces at Tilbury. True to form, she’ll be pleased with him afterward, no matter how meager his accomplishments in the field may be. If he advocates on your behalf...”

  I’ll get Walsingham to advocate on my behalf, she thought coldly. I would rather crawl on my knees over broken glass than beg Dudley for access to my own son.

  But she would say none of that to Kin.

  “If you cannot promise more than that for Ryder,” she said slowly, “I will find another way to win him back. But there is something else you can arrange for me.”

  “Indeed?” Her brother straightened, no doubt encouraged by this apparent sign of reasonableness on her part. “If it’s in my power to grant, you have only to name it.”

  Jayne stared at her reflection floating against the pale cliffs. As the scheme grew in her mind, color climbed in her cheeks and her pupils dilated. She’d thought of asking Walsingham for this as well, but she had to place her son first. Calyx himself would have understood that perfectly well.

  Now, though, the path stood clear before her. She lifted her chin and pivoted smoothly to face her brother.

  “I want amnesty,” she said.

  “For yourself?” he blinked. “Sir Francis anticipated this, of course. Given your service to England, he believes it will be no great trouble to arrange—”

  “Not for myself,” she said precisely. “There is a pirate in the Spanish fleet, a hired mercenary with an English mother. He has no personal loyalty to Philip and despises the Spanish faith. His name is Calyx de Zamorra. In exchange for the intelligence I carry, including the precise landing sites the Spanish fleet has chosen, I want amnesty from England for Calyx.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  July 1588

  Off the Plymouth coast

  Calyx strode into the officers’ galley and demanded, “What are our losses?”

  The swaying lantern cast shadows over the disheveled officers hunched around the table and their map of the English coast. The fishy reek of whale oil mingled with the sweat of unwashed bodies. The fleet had sailed from Corunna nine days ago—plenty long enough in the stifling heat to make men stink.

  From the head of the table, Naldo Luis de Nicanor glanced up with a frown. “I’ve just returned from council with Don Alonso and the senior command on the San Martin.”

  Tell me something I don’t know, you witless monkey. Calyx bit back the urge to say it aloud. That would be viewed as insubordination to the young Duque whom that dolt of an admiral had inexplicably given command of his ship. Nicanor, bristling with insecurity in his first command, would not hesitate to banish his predecessor from the room if Calyx offered the slightest excuse.

  And Calyx had no intention of being banished. That morning, peering through his spyglass, he’d sighted the land formation called the Lizard on the Cornish coast.

  When Don Alonso signaled for a council of war, Nicanor had rowed across—leaving Calyx behind. That was all the opening he needed to put his own plan into play.

  Idiota! He gritted his teeth and showed the Duque a silky smile.

  Nearby, Diego shot him a shuttered glance. He’d rowed across with Nicanor for the war council. And he knew what Calyx had been doing in their absence.

  “Our missing ships have reassembled,” Diego offered. “But that freak storm wreaked its share of mischief, si? Forty galleys gone astray, the Bazana wrecked, the crew of convicts aboard the Diana mutinied. The Santa Ana lost her foremast and is out of play.”

  “Lot of damage from a storm out of season,” Calyx murmured. Around the table, heads nodded and ominous looks were exchanged.

  His crew hadn’t cared for the change of command. The inexperienced Nicanor, glassy-eyed and swaying under an opium cloud, did little to win their confidence. Prowling the decks during the night watch, Calyx heard men muttering that the Arcángel had lost its luck along with its capitán. This spate of rough weather only added fuel to the flames.

  Of course, the freakish weather reminded him of Jayne. Not that he thought every rough wind was her doing. He’d simply thought of nothing else since the day he left her standing on the Corunna shore.

  He’d never meant to leave matters so unsettled between them. But he’d barely reached Don Alonso in time to prevent his reassignment to another galleon entirely—which would have spelled disaster for all his careful plans.

  It took hours to persuade the don to make him Nicanor’s primero. When Nicanor learned of it, the young Duque had been so furious he could have spit nails.

  By the time he sought Jayne at the castillo, she was nowhere to be found. His hasty search turned up nothing. Lady Jayne Boleyn, the Comtesse de Boulaine, had vanished as though he’d imagined her and their unforgettable nights in his bed.

  Even now, weeks later, her abrupt disappearance left him torn between foreboding, frustration and regret.

  Time enough to think about Jayne when he tossed in his bunk and burned for her. For now, he had a war to win.

  He braced one hip against the table. “The English Channel lies open. Our spies report Sir Francis Drake and the English navy are massing in Plymouth. With any luck, they don’t know we’re here.”

  And luck was his specialty. Calyx might have lost his command, but he still
meant to save his ship. For that, he needed to be much closer to the English coast.

  Smoothly Diego took his cue.

  “If we sail tonight, capitán, we can bottle up their little navy before they ever leave port.”

  “A surprise attack.” Nicanor grimaced. “De Recalde from the San Juan advocated the same strategy. Don Alonso called it cowardly, unsuited to this noble Enterprise—and quite unnecessary. Do not forget, God is on our side.”

  Calyx snorted. “In my experience, God helps those who help themselves. If I waited for God’s angels to swoop down from Heaven with flaming swords and fight my battles, I’d still be chained to an oar in a corsair’s galley.”

  “There is no place for blasphemy in this holy campaign,” the Duque said stiffly. “On this, too, I must remind you, the don has issued orders. There will be no swearing, gambling or blasphemy aboard any ship in this Armada, and the men are to pray twice daily.”

  “Si.” Calyx gritted his teeth. “But what of our battle strategy?”

  “We anchor tonight and sail into the Channel at first light—after Mass, of course.”

  Calyx barely contained an oath. Typically, Don Alonso was dithering. His lack of maritime experience was showing. De Recalde, an eminently capable captain, had probably rowed back to the San Juan cursing his commanding officer.

  “What of our battle formation? I discussed this in Corunna with Don Pedro de Flores—commander of the Andalusian squadron,” he added for Nicanor’s benefit. “If we divide the fleet for a flexible defense, placing the slower vessels in the center and the fighting ships fore and aft, then station the Arcángel in the fore—”

  “This too was discussed.” The Duque frowned. “I must say, Don Pedro is an exceedingly difficult man, with no respect for rank. He was overridden by his cousin, who seems not unreasonably to despise him.”

  Balling his fists, Calyx fought back his frustration. If that bastardo intended to maroon the Arcángel in the midst of the Spanish crescent, he would negate the advantages of speed and maneuverability that made the English race-built galleon so valuable.