Pursing her lips, she drew herself up to her full height. “If ye think to be bringing whorish ways into this house, ye’ll be finding no help from me. I’ve laid eyes on Lady Burke and ’tis my loyalty she’ll be getting. A fine wife she’ll make for Sir Revelin.”
“’Tis glad I am to know I’ve your approval in my choice of bride.”
Neither of them had heard the knock at the door or its opening. The sound of Revelin’s voice came as a distinct shock. Mrs. Cambra spun about as her hand flew up to still her betraying tongue. Meghan, glad of an ally at last, fled past the woman and into Revelin’s arms.
“Ach! Revelin, ’tis glad I am to see ye!” Throwing her arms about his waist, she smiled her brightest smile. “’Tis fair hard, she is, burning me clothes and telling lies about me crawling with creatures!”
The thought that she was naked had not fully registered in Revelin’s mind when Meghan flung herself at him and he automatically embraced her. The shock of encountering the velvety texture of her skin as he wrapped his arms about her stilled whatever thoughts he had been about to put into words. In her agitation she was dancing about, rubbing her lovely body against him.
“Revelin, please! Ye must do something!” Meghan begged, unaware of the effect her actions were having on the two people in the room. She squeezed him against her, reveling in the strength of his bigger, harder body. “Do not let her burn me Beltane gown. Please! Ye must do something!”
“Do something,” Revelin repeated a little stupidly. Of course!
He must do something. But what? His mind was fully occupied with sensation. It recorded with bewildering detail the exact fullness of the naked buttock he had unconsciously cupped, the delicious pressure of wantonly soft breasts, and the exact shade of brilliant blue in her welcoming gaze.
“Harrumph!”
It was an inelegant sound, worthy of a reprimand from her master, but Revelin heard it like a trumpet’s blast in the midst of his failing defenses. He blinked. Only an instant had passed. Meghan was staring up expectedly at him. Mrs. Cambra…
Mrs. Cambra!
“What the devil’s going on?” Pleased with the strong, authoritative sound of his voice, Revelin repeated the question: “What the devil’s happening here?”
Mrs. Cambra recrossed her arms in the best English-servant fashion and inclined her head once toward the naked girl in her master’s arms. “That mad she is, Sir Revelin, standing there in nothing but what the good Lord give her! Begging your pardon, but ’tis not in me power to do a proper job with such as her.”
Revelin, who could think of no reasonable answer to that, remained silent. It suddenly dawned on the housekeeper that perhaps Sir Revelin was waiting for her to do something about the girl. She ran and grabbed a sheet from the bed.
“Let the poor man be!” she scolded as she wrapped Meghan in the linen and then pulled her out of Revelin’s arms. “Ach! None of that or ’tis a good slap ye’ll be getting,” she continued when Meghan began to struggle. “Just look at what ye’ve done. Mortally offended the gentleman what’s housing ye, ye have!”
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. ’Twas 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.”