Meghan glanced back at Revelin to see a blank look on his face that might have been offense or bewilderment or even simple surprise.
In fact, it was the latter two, combined with a sudden realization that the wealth of emotion swirling through him was not composed solely of lust. He should have been shocked, embarrassed, and furious with Meghan for her hysterical behavior in front of a servant. But he did not feel anything like that. Her artless actions inspired a rush of protective tenderness within him underscored by an irrational spurt of anger that Mrs. Cambra’s presence prevented him from sweeping Meghan up and carrying her to the bed that stood so invitingly nearby. But this was his household and it was badly in need of authority.
In his best master-to-servant voice he said, “Dress and groom the girl decently. I shall require her presence below within the hour.”
Revelin discovered with relief that his feet still functioned to his command. They carried him out through the door without mishap. But in the hall, with the door closed safely behind him, he suddenly slumped against the wall, his breath coming in quick gasps.
He was in love—with Meghan!
“You grand fool!” he sputtered before laughter overcame him. How simple. How natural. How terrible.
Meghan, unaware of his conclusions, had squared off against Mrs. Cambra for the second time. “Ye’ll not be using them great shears on me. I’m nae a sheep!”
Mrs. Cambra opened and closed the long sewing shears she had pulled from her pocket. “Aye, a sheep ye look with that tangled head of filthy black wool. ’Tis the only way, lass. The beasties must come out!”
In one quick, economical gesture, Meghan picked up her skean from the mantel and held it menacingly. “We’ll see who carves which sheep!” she cried and lunged at the woman.
Horrified, Mrs. Cambra dropped her scissors with a scream that shook the rafters and ran for the door. The door opened under the assault of her considerable bulk and she was propelled into the hall’s opposite wall with a resounding crash.
Revelin pulled himself upright as Meghan reached the doorway. Holding her cover in one hand, she waved her weapon at the breathless older woman. “That for yer shearing! And do not come back till ye’ve learned something of manners!”
Revelin and Mrs. Cambra exchanged looks as the door was slammed shut on them.
“’Twas mild as a lamb she was ’ere this, I swear it!” Revelin offered before hilarity claimed him a second time. “Lord love us!” he sputtered between gales of laughter. “What have I brought upon myself?”
Sweating and puffing, Mrs. Cambra righted her cap once more. “There’s no proper feeling in them barbarous northmen! Ye’ll rue the day, I’m thinking, Sir Revelin!”
“Aye,” Revelin said as he sobered. “Mayhaps ’tis my just reward.”
*
Sir Henry Sidney sat behind the massive trestle table and studied his guest through narrowed lids. Ordinarily he would have kept a man of John Reade’s meager lineage and reputation cooling his heels for a fortnight before agreeing to see him. But the contents of the badly written missive he had been handed with his breakfast impelled him to grant the man an immediate interview.
Even so, Sir Henry was not above making the man stand while he completed his meal. As lord deputy of Ireland he was not merely the queen’s representative, he was fully empowered to administer to royal interests in matters both national and civil. He might be eaten with curiosity over Reade’s innuendoes concerning Shane O’Neill and Ulster, but Reade, as a commoner, could not be allowed to suspect it.
Sir Henry carefully dabbed his lips with a linen napkin, purposefully refolded it, and laid it aside before gesturing Reade forth with a languid hand.
“John Reade, late captain under the earl of Leicester?” he inquired in a bored drawl.
John stepped forth briskly. “That I am, my lord!”
Sir Henry slowed his approach with a lift of a hand and reached for the piece of parchment that lay beside his breakfast plate. He looked at it briefly and then back at the man. “I do not usually accept interviews on my morning off.” He paused to allow the full import of his statement to sink in. “What is so urgent that it could not wait until Parliament is next in session?”
John hated himself for the wince of anxiety that struck him. Sir Henry stood to gain much by the information he had come to impart, but the man made him feel his lack of courtly manners and relegated him to the position of petitioner. Yet he was a soldier, a campaigner, and not about to be quelled.
“Sorry I am to disturb your breakfasting, my lord Deputy. I might full well have waited with the matter, but as I know your opinion of the O’Neills, and seeing as how Shane O’Neill led you such a merry chase those last years…”
John noted with pleasure a flash of warning in the elder man’s pale eyes. He had skewered the man squarely with the mention of Shane’s numerous victories over the lord deputy and his troops. “It came to me that my information might be of benefit to you.”
Sir Henry stared mutely at his guest, then laid the parchment aside and drained his tea cup. “You have been a good and loyal soldier, I’m told, John Reade. If not for your uncertain temper you might well be fighting on the Continent with your compatriots rather than leading an expedition of surveyors beyond the Pale. I tend to overlook the matter of temper in most cases, being a soldier myself. But we’ve a queen on the throne who knows her own mind, and, as loyal subjects, we bow to her wishes—or suffer the consequences.
“As for Shane O’Neill—” he could not quell the distaste in his voice, the anger was too fresh, “as for the rebel and outlaw Shane O’Neill, I have nothing to say. Men loyal to the Crown brought his head in for bounty a year past. The matter is at an end.”
John was blinking rapidly by the end of Sir Henry’s speech, for he had been censured, pitied, threatened, and dismissed all in the space of a few sentences.
“But—but, my lord,” he began as Sir Henry rose from his chair. “My lord, hear me, for matters pertinent to the claimancy of Ulster are at stake.”
Sir Henry’s expression changed from indifference to distaste. “The matter of Ulster is being decided this very week by the Irish Parliament. The decision they will reach will coincide with the queen’s feeling on the matter. Shane O’Neill shall be attainted, his name and title as earl of Tyrone extinguished from the roll of Her Majesty’s nobility, and the lands of Ulster forfeited to the Crown to be redistributed as she sees fit.”
The first two had no bearing on John’s interests, but the third galvanized him. “Ulster is to be opened to private speculation?”
Sir Henry looked down his aristocratic nose at the burly soldier. “Something of the like. As to your interest in the outcome, I was not aware that you have claim to Irish ancestry or title.”
The slap at his antecedents did not sting John. He would have a claim once he married Meghan. “I may soon have a most reasonable and urgent claim to lands in Tyrone.”
Sir Henry hesitated. Common sense told him it was impossible for Reade to possess what he claimed. Yet, Ireland, as he had learned in his six years as lord deputy, was a land where the impossible occurred on a regular basis. He reseated himself. “Tell me more.”
At the end of Reade’s fantastic tale of kidnapping, pagan revelry, and the act of superstitious shamming that had saved the lives of his company, Sir Henry was torn between incredulity and an avid curiosity to lay eyes on the daughter of the man he had contested both on the battlefield and in the courts for nearly ten years.
In the end Shane had outfoxed himself and lost. Yet, Sir Henry had never forgotten the personal humiliation of the queen’s actions in 1562 during Shane’s visit to London. He had expected Shane to be clapped in irons and dumped in the Tower dungeon. Instead, the queen conceded to Shane official sanction within the realm of Tyrone.
Sir Henry reminded himself philosophically, as he had often in the years following that blow, that the queen was a woman, which had been Shane’s advantage. ’T
was the man’s brawny form and manly face ringed with black curls that had won Shane the victory.
But all that was past. The present needed and had his full attention.
Sir Henry’s penetrating gaze swept Reade. “You say you have brought Shane O’Neill’s daughter to Dublin. Why is she not here with you?”
John wet his lips. This was not the moment to be caught in a lie. “As I have said, Revelin Butler saved the girl’s life and extracted a pledge of some sort from her dying aunt that he be made her guardian. I do not know to what extent the pledge was forced or even if the pledge was in reality given. You may ask Sir Robin Neville, but he will tell you what he told me: his lack of understanding of the Irish tongue prevented him from knowing exactly what took place.”
Sir Henry nodded. He would certainly check Reade’s story. “The girl resides with Butler at present?”
John nodded. “However, as young Butler is not married and lives with no female relatives, I would like to see the girl removed to more—ah…”
“Appropriate surroundings,” Sir Henry offered.
“Exactly, my lord. I call no disrespect upon Butler, but as a man who harbors some feelings in the matter, I—well…” John lowered his gaze as he thought appropriate for a man about to divulge his great love for a girl.
Sir Henry did not think much of the performance. Reade was not the sort of man to resort to mannered expressions and long-winded verse. That he was attempting to do so meant that he wanted something. “Tell me, Reade, does the girl feel the same?”
John blushed though not with romantic ardor. Meghan would not allow him to come within a yard of her, and yet he must make Sir Henry see her reluctance as natural. “She is shy, my lord, raised a country girl with little to recommend her but her beauty.”
“And her name,” Sir Henry mumbled too low for his guest to hear. “Do go on.”
“I cannot tell her feelings. As to the reason, I doubt she is quick enough to know what she should feel.”
“The girl’s a simpleton?”
“Oh no, merely untutored,” John hurriedly corrected. “She is unacquainted with the ways of the world. You, my lord, have dealt with the native Irish and know that many of them do not understand the simplest English customs. So it is with the girl. She clings to Butler as though he were blood kin. And her dress and manner, well, all but those of the weakest of moral fiber would construe her conduct as akin to a whore’s.”
Sir Henry blanched. “And Revelin Butler, does he possess the moral fiber of which you speak?”
John looked the man in the eye. “Can a man of Butler’s age and constitution be blamed for taking what was so baldly offered?”
Sir Henry was surprised to read the truth of Reade’s statement in the soldier’s eyes. Butler had made the girl his whore. Of course, it was to be expected. Faith knew, the moral degeneracy of the Irish was a constant plague upon the moral fiber of his countrymen. He reached for the bell that stood behind his plate and rang it sharply. “The girl will be removed from Butler’s household at once. As for your interest in her, we shall see.”
Reade licked his lips. Blasting Meghan free from Butler’s protection was only part of his plan. “My lord, I would ask your permission to call upon the girl.”
Sir Henry looked startled. “My permission? I have no intention of cosseting the girl under my roof. She will be found a room within the castle walls. As for your attentions, the girl has a tongue. She may ask for you as is her wont.”
John paled beneath his sunburn. “And if she prefers Butler’s company?”
Sir Henry frowned. He would not have the castle turned into a brothel, yet he could not prevent them from visiting in proper surroundings. “I must find a woman to act as companion to the girl. If she is as backward as you say, I may needs hire a bodyguard as well. Dublin teems with Her Majesty’s soldiers, and if the girl gives freely to a handsome face, she should be curbed.” He looked up under drawn brows. “If the girl is an O’Neill, she is a noble lady and will be treated as such.”
“If the girl were wed to an Englishman, my lord, she would be subject thereafter to his and her Majesty’s jurisdiction.”
So that was it! At last he had Reade’s measure. Sir Henry’s voice grew frigid. “Lest you forget the Crown’s full extent, the girl is already one of Her Majesty’s subjects. It is a lesson her father would not learn. As for marriage, I would put the matter aside for the present. Until the matter of Ulster is settled, she is a prize for no man who hopes to further himself with the Crown.”
John knew he had ventured too far and could have kicked himself. “As you say, my lord.” He bowed grandly. “But understand, what I feel for the girl is not bound up in the promise of dower lands.” No, he thought, what he felt and must be relieved of was a lust for her that was driving him mad, despite a strenuous night in Dublin’s most famous brothel. It had nothing to do with physical release, this clamoring, rapacious hunger for the girl. It was a need so great that he grew rigid at the mere thought of her. He would have her, again and again, until there was nothing left in his soul to be slaked by her body. But to do that, he must first get rid of the Butler lad.
Sir Henry thought rapidly. Reade must be removed from Dublin. A man of his stamp was bound to cause trouble, else.
“Sir Peter Carew, now the baron of Idrone, is in need of seasoned campaigners to put down a local uprising. An enterprising man could show himself to advantage there before petitioning the queen for favors.”
The light of understanding glowed in Reade’s eyes as he swept the lord deputy a bow and departed.
When Reade had departed, Sir Henry penned a brief note to be delivered to the Butler home in Castle Street. He wanted the girl safely away from there. He did not care about the girl’s virtue—were she any other Gael, Revelin could plow her as long and well as he pleased—but Sir Henry could not afford for a Butler to form an alliance with an O’Neill, not while the Butlers threatened to defend their land with swords. If matters continued to deteriorate in Leinster, he could not be certain that the Butlers would not call for aid from the north. If Shane’s daughter was in Butler hands, the O’Neills might feel obligated to join them in rebellion.
Sir Henry sat back and pinched his eyes between thumb and forefinger. He had known Revelin since boyhood. The young man might be shocked when he learned the extent to which his uncles had been drawn into rebellion against the Crown’s colonist Peter Carew. Then again, Butler was hotheaded enough to ride off to join them. If that happened, the O’Neill girl must be safely confined in Dublin.
“Confound this Celtic blood!” Sir Henry exclaimed aloud. Ruthless they could be, cruel and hotheaded, but to the last man they were loyal to their own.
*
“Damn Reade for his presumption!” Revelin crumpled the parchment and threw it into the huge fire that blazed from the hearth in the salon. He had planned to attend Sir Henry Sidney in the morning, had in fact made the appointment. Now he was ordered to appear at Dublin Castle at nine o’clock in the morning with Meghan in tow.
“Reade is concerned for Meghan’s protection, is he?” Revelin’s laughter was bitter. Reade had shown no interest in Meghan’s welfare on the ride to Dublin. Reade must be planning to use Meghan to…to do what?
Revelin ran a hand through his newly shorn locks. While waiting to discover what miracles Mrs. Cambra would perform on Meghan’s appearance, he had turned himself over to the barber and tailor. When they had left him he felt like a new man. The suit of clothing he wore was a welcome change from the mud-splattered leather jerkin and hose of the last weeks, and he had been eager to see Meghan’s reaction. But all that was forgotten now.
He moved from the hearth to the long table that had been set with two places, but he did not really see the silver and gold place settings. Reade was up to something; in some way he thought he stood to gain by luring Meghan away from Revelin.
“Well, I’ll not step into the trap until I’ve learned a little more.”
&nb
sp; “Sir?”
Revelin signaled to the footman who had been waiting patiently at the door. “Who gave you the letter?”
“A member of the castle guard,” the man replied.
“Did he expect a reply?”
The footman smiled. “I told him you had given orders you were not to be disturbed. He didn’t like it, but there was naught he could do.”
“Good man.” At least his staff remained loyal. In these days of bribery and stealth, a loyal household was more valuable than lined pockets. “I don’t suppose you told him I would be out for the remainder of the day?”
“Had you told me to say so, I would have, sir.”
Revelin saw the man’s face fall. “You’ve nothing to charge yourself with, Owens. ’Tis my fault the missive came into my hands. If I had thought beforehand, I would not have opened it. If I disobey now, I stand in contempt of the lord deputy. On the other hand, I could not have disobeyed that which I had not seen.”
The footman looked at the fire. “I do not see anything, sir. The letter is fair to disappeared. Might have been a draft. ’Tis a fine windy day. A piece of parchment, left on a tabletop, ’tis not a certainty but what it was swept up the chimney and burnt to a crisp!”
A look of revelation came over Revelin’s features. “The very thing! An innocent man could stroll into Dublin Castle alone on the morrow with a free conscience.”
“That he could, sir.”
“Suddenly I’m famished. Inform Mrs. Cambra that dinner will be served immediately upon Mistress O’Neill’s arrival.”
The footman bowed smartly and left.
Revelin poured himself a glass of port, feeling again the excitement of the afternoon. He loved Meghan. Each time the thought struck him anew. His only serious experience with courting had been with Alison. Meghan was hardly the type to be wooed with sonnets, a minstrel’s tune, and scented gloves. What could he do or say to her that was proper for their short acquaintance?
He smiled wryly as he realized the absurdity of his concern. He had tumbled her on the banks of Lough Neagh without benefit of pledge or words of love. Why should he now wonder how to treat her?
Rose of the Mists Page 24
