“They’re expecting new arrivals at the castle,” Burke said in Gaelic. Rory nodded.
“Set up a watch, eight-hour shifts. I want somebody overlooking the castle every minute of the day,” Burke ordered. “Any change that takes place might help us, and we have to know what’s going on in order to take advantage of it.”
“Right.” Rory turned to go.
“And Rory?”
Dunne turned back to him.
“Take the first shift yourself.”
“I will,” Rory said. He disappeared through the flap.
Burke followed him out with his eyes. Rory was a good lad, but Kevin missed his brother.
* * * *
Alex lay perfectly still in the trunk, afraid to move. Her fear was her undoing, because while she was still trying to work up her nerve, one of the seamen entered the cabin and attempted to shift the chest. She froze as he grunted with the effort and then, muttering to himself at the unexpected weight, hauled up the lid of her hiding place.
Alex cringed as he stared in shock at the stowaway. He remained speechless as she unfolded herself from the trunk, standing unsteadily before him.
“Cor, blimey!” he finally exclaimed, staring at her clothes, her hair. “Wot’s this?”
Alex was trying to think of something intelligent to say when her uncle strode through the door. Right behind him was Robert Devereaux, second earl of Essex.
Alex closed her eyes. She was in for it now, and no mistake.
The sailor jumped back in the presence of his superiors, unsure of what he should do and fearful that he would be blamed for this unexpected development.
Philip’s eyes widened as he took in the sight of his niece, hair shorn and dressed as a boy, standing before him on the deck of the ship when she was supposed to be devoting herself to prayer in a cloister. His face turned purple and seemed to swell as Alex contemplated throwing herself into the waves at the earliest opportunity.
“Well, well,” Essex said, stepping around Cummings and examining Alex from head to toe. He waved the sailor toward the door, and the boy fled gratefully.
“A most imaginative costume, I daresay,” Essex said. “I take it you know this young person, Stockton?”
Alex’s uncle found his voice and said in a hideously controlled tone, “My niece, Alexandra, my lord.”
“Your niece indeed!” Essex said, highly amused.
He moved closer and tipped up Alex’s chin with his hand. “Look at me, girl.”
Alex complied, forcing her eyes to meet his.
She could see immediately why Queen Elizabeth had forgiven Devereaux his parentage in light of his charms. He was the son of the queen’s cousin and former romantic rival, Lettice Knollys, the lady who had married Elizabeth’s one true love. But the old woman had overlooked the youthful transgressions of the mother and made the son her chosen cavalier, giving him command of this Irish expedition over others more experienced and qualified for it. Alex met his penetrating gaze, feeling his power entrance her as it had entranced their sovereign.
He was imperially tall, with gleaming russet hair and fine dark eyes. His whole being bespoke swagger and arrogance; it was said that he alone in the kingdom could refute the queen and live to tell the tale. His black velvet doublet was slashed with purple silk, his hose shot through with silver thread, and on his head he wore a hat trimmed with a jeweled band and topped with an ostrich feather. Like the queen’s pirate, Francis Drake, he wore a small gold hoop in his ear.
“Where have you been hiding this choice cub, Stockton?” he asked. With light fingers on her chin, he turned Alex’s head slightly and examined her face. “Why, even with her hair butchered, ‘tis plain she’ll soon be a beauty.”
Philip, furious but stymied by Devereaux’s admiration of his niece, said nothing.
“How old are you, lass?” Essex asked.
Alex looked at a point beyond his shoulder. “Seventeen,” she said.
“And what are you doing here, pray tell?” Essex inquired, obviously entertained.
Alex glanced at Philip, who glared back at her stonily.
“My uncle was going to leave me with the nuns at St. Mary’s whilst he was gone, and I . . .” She stopped.
“Could not bear the thought of it?” Essex suggested.
She nodded. “Yes, m’lord.”
“Quite right, too. To smother such a flower in a convent, even for a short time, ‘twould be a pity. How did you get on board?”
Alex swallowed.
“Speak up, lass.”
She might as well tell the truth. Nothing could make her position much worse at this point.
“I rode to London dressed as a boy and went down to the quay with a letter of mine uncle’s from the queen,” she said rapidly. “I had resealed it and I used it to get past the guard.”
“As clever as you are bonnie, I’ll warrant,” Essex said. “Proceed.”
“Then I hid in this empty arrow chest until I was discovered this morning.”
Essex burst out laughing. “God’s teeth, you have spirit! I like to see a woman with mettle. Your cub is to be admired, Stockton.”
Cummings’ expression conveyed that he disagreed heartily. “I will deal with her, my lord, in my own way,” he said. “You have my word on it.”
“Oh, no,” Essex said. “No punishment for this pretty child, I forbid it. We can ill afford to quell such courage when we find it.” He raised Alex’s hand to his lips and kissed the back of it, then turned it over and kissed the palm. Alex jumped as she felt the hot tip of his tongue sear her flesh.
“I am your servant, lass. Be mindful of it,” he said, and favored her with the devastating smile that had turned the most powerful woman in the world into a jealous harridan. He turned and walked to the low cabin door, then wheeled and faced her uncle.
“Heed me, Stockton. No hard duties for this filly. If I hear of it, I will be most displeased.” He strode out into the companionway, and the sound of his footsteps faded away.
Alex glanced at her uncle and, for the first time in her life, felt almost sorry for him. He was so clearly torn between his desire to retaliate for what she had done and his powerful need to ingratiate himself with the queen’s favorite. The latter impulse won, as she had known it would.
“I do not wish to see your face again for the rest of the voyage,” Philip said in a tense, modulated tone, careful to keep his voice down. “Stay in this cabin and out of the way of the sailors on the vessel. Meals will be brought to you, and I will see that you are supplied with tasks to be done. Everyone else on board has to work, and so shall you. Obey me in this or I will not be responsible for the consequences.”
He turned on his heel and stalked from the cabin. Alex waited until she was sure he was gone before sagging against the hull, grateful that she had survived the encounter.
Cummings was as good as his word. For the remainder of the journey, Alex did not encounter him. Mounds of needlework, sailors’ clothing and stockings, and even a rent sail, were deposited outside her door in the morning and picked up again at night. She sewed relentlessly in between bouts of seasickness that left her spent and shaken. By the time they docked, at dawn on the sixth day, no one was happier to make landfall than she was.
She sat in the cabin and listened to everyone else disembark, wondering if she was to be left on board while the rest of the travelers went to the castle. Then her uncle finally appeared, gesturing wordlessly for her to follow him. She picked up her small bundle and followed him up to the deck and then off the ship.
She would never forget her first sight of Ireland. It was early morning, and the mist was rising from the water, burning off to reveal a landscape so lush and flowery that it caused her to stop short and catch her breath. She had many times witnessed the astonishing miracle of an English spring, but this was new to her experience, a picture of Eden as Eve must have seen it. No wonder the natives clung to this place so tenaciously, she thought. It was truly lovely.
“Don’t
tarry, Alexandra,” her uncle said. “My patience is not to be tested.”
A procession wound through the distance ahead of them. She didn’t know how far it was to the castle and decided it was wiser not to ask.
To her surprise, she was led to a horse, which she mounted in silence. She cantered along in the rear of the caravan next to her uncle’s sorrel for several miles, until they topped a slight rise and she saw the castle nestled in the valley spread out at their feet.
“Inverary,” her uncle said briefly, as if it needed explanation. “We shall arrive before noon.”
Alex relaxed just a bit. This was practically the first remark he’d addressed to her since he had discovered her on the ship.
* * * *
“There’s a woman at the castle,” Rory announced.
Burke stared at him doubtfully. It was mid-afternoon, and Rory had just arrived back from his watch.
“I’m sure of it,” Rory insisted. “We saw about fifty people come off the ship. They were met by Carberry’s detachment with horses and taken to Inverary. A couple of hours later a woman was out walking on the leads.”
“How do you know it was a woman?” Burke asked.
“She was wearing a skirt,” Rory said, gesturing in a circle around his hips to indicate hoops. “And a headdress, you know, with a veil. Unless the English are even stranger than we think they are, one of the new arrivals is female.”
Burke absorbed this information in silence. Since the death of Carberry’s wife two years before, the castle had been populated solely by men.
“Do you think the old fool got remarried?” Burke asked.
Rory shrugged. “Anything’s possible. I just thought you should know about it.”
“Watch her movements. Find out when we can snatch her.”
“Snatch her?”
“Think, man,” Burke said impatiently. “She’s got to be a wife, daughter, some kind of relative, or else what is she doing here in the back of the beyond, carted all the way from England? She’d be valuable as a hostage.”
Rory said nothing, watching Burke as he concluded, “It might just be we’ve found a way to get Aidan back.”
* * * *
Alex lifted the stiff linen coif off her neck and stared out through the castle window across the rolling Irish countryside. Her uncle had insisted that she be properly dressed as soon as they arrived, so Lord Carberry had given her his dead wife’s wardrobe, which had been folded into trunks for months. It was in the Spanish style, very much the vogue, with wide farthingales and high ruff collars. Despite having been packed with scented pomanders and pressed between silken covers, all of the clothes smelled musty. But Alex had done the best she could, not wishing to irritate her uncle further by prancing about in Luke’s leggings. Carberry had not commented on her presence or her ill-conceived hairdo. He acted as if she’d been expected and took command of the situation graciously, as only an English gentleman could do. Alex was content to fade into the background and to let her uncle attend to business. But the gorgeous countryside beckoned. After the close quarters of the ship, she yearned for a long, leisurely walk. The men, preoccupied with their plans for the Irish, seemed to have forgotten completely that she was in residence.
She would bide her time and escape the castle walls as soon as she could.
* * * *
Alex’s opportunity came several days later, when the guard assigned to her was at dinner and dusk was falling over the Inverary valley. Essex, her uncle, and Lord Carberry had ridden off at dawn and weren’t expected back until the morrow. Chafing at the bonds of her uncle’s orders, which restricted her to the keep, Alex changed into Luke’s clothes again and waited for her chance. When some local horsemen left the castle to return to the neighboring village of Carberry’s retainers, Alex quietly fell in with them and walked across the drawbridge. She was assumed to be one of the grooms and passed out of the gates unmolested.
Delighted with her success, she broke into a run, flinging her arms wide to embrace the soft mist and the falling night.
Her happiness was extremely short-lived. She had not come a quarter mile from the castle when she was seized roughly from behind and dragged into a thicket. She was bound and gagged as she struggled wildly, unable to make a sound loud enough to attract attention. A rough woven blindfold was tied round her eyes as she kicked helplessly. Her assailant then lifted her and tossed her across a horse as if she were a sack of meal. He climbed up behind her, taking off at a breakneck speed that set the animal’s hooves pounding beneath her.
The ride was short but wild and desperately fast. Alex barely had time to realize she’d been kidnapped before the rider stopped abruptly and hauled her off the horse. She stumbled and fell to her knees. She was trying to get her bearings when strong hands lifted her as if she were a straw puppet and set her on her feet.
The blindfold was removed, and she was staring up at a shaggy-haired giant dressed in a homespun tunic with a dagger thrust into his belt. He looked about thirty years in age, with wide shoulders and long, slim legs clad to the knee in hand-sewn boots. The top of her head barely reached his chest.
Alex almost fainted with fear. Why hadn’t she obeyed her uncle?
He might not be very kind to her, but at least he was of normal size and didn’t look as though he skinned his enemies with his bare hands. She had heard that the Irish painted themselves blue and went into battle naked; this one was dressed but otherwise looked capable of almost anything.
Burke examined Rory’s prize and then turned to his lieutenant.
“What the devil ails you, Rory?” he said in Gaelic, not bothering to conceal his disgust. “This is a boy !”
Chapter 2
Almost all (Celts) are of tall stature, fair and ruddy, terrible for the fierceness of their eyes, fond of quarreling and of overbearing insolence...
—Ammianus Marcellinus,
Historae
The rebel band gathered around to view the spectacle, and Alex stared at the ground, afraid to meet their eyes. They weren’t as big as the one who had spoken, but they were all rough hewn and similarly clad. The younger man, who was evidently her kidnapper, replied in the same coarse language, which Alex decided must be what her uncle called Erse. It sounded to her like fits of coughing.
“It’s the woman I told you about,” Rory said. “I’ve been watching her for five days straight, I ought to know. She’s just dressed like a boy, Burke.”
Rory reached for the neckline of Alex’s tunic to prove it, but a harsh command from the leader stopped him in his tracks. Rory’s hand fell away, and he looked chagrined.
Burke moved closer to Alex and stared down at her, his muscular arms crossed upon his massive chest. His eyes moved over her face, then her figure, and Alex felt her face grow hot as he determined her sex for himself. He didn’t touch her, but he didn’t have to; she felt his gaze burning through her clothes.
“Who are you?” he finally said in English.
Alex was startled at the sound of her native language, but she didn’t know how to reply.
Burke seized her roughly under her arms and lifted her off the ground, holding her up to his eye level. “I’ll ask you once more,” he said in his slightly accented English. “Who are you?”
His blue eyes blazed into hers. She noticed that his lashes were long and thick, an absurdly feminine touch in a man who fairly exuded masculinity. She was terrified, but she knew instinctively that, like his enemy Essex, this towering rebel would respect a show of courage.
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she replied defiantly, her voice sounding a lot stronger than she felt.
Burke set her down abruptly. “Right enough,” he said, circling her as a wolf would a felled deer. “But I don’t have to let you live, either.”
“You kidnapped me, didn’t you?” Alex said. “If you want to use me as a hostage, I’m not much good to you dead.”
“You’re not much good to me alive if I don’t know who the hel
l you are!”
“Then perhaps you should have determined that before your minion here trussed me up like a prize goose and carried me off !”
The large man’s expression darkened, and Alex wished instantly that she had held her tongue. When he bent from the waist to put his eyes on a level with hers, it was plain that he was furious. Alex shrank from him, conscious that he could snap her neck in two with a twist of his hands.
“Now you listen to me, Miss Fine English Lady,” he said. His accent was strangely like hers, that of the upper classes, but with a lilt that made it sound almost musical.
Alex stared back at him, willing her knees to stop shaking.
“I’ll not believe that the first female to arrive at the castle in two years is a charwoman, dressed up like the Spanish infanta and moving about the grounds with a guard. You have one second to answer my question!”
Alex hesitated an instant too long, and Burke turned from her sharply, barking an order in Gaelic to her kidnapper. The younger man advanced on her with his rope at the ready, and she realized she had to take her chances with the giant.
“Wait! I’ll tell you.”
The leader looked back at her expectantly.
“I’m Lady Alexandra Cummings, niece of Sir Philip Cummings, scion of Stockton House and my lord Essex’s man, special envoy from the queen to Lord Carberry,” she recited proudly.
The Irishmen exchanged glances.
“A pretty speech,” Burke said after a moment, “but what does it mean? Is your uncle kinsman to the queen?”
Alex nodded.
Rory looked at Burke hopefully. “Her hair is the same color as the English queen’s,” Rory said in English.
“Her hair is the same color as the queen’s wigs,” Burke said. “The old hag is as bald as an egg.”
Under other circumstances, Alex might have found this comment amusing. It was widely known that Elizabeth’s luxuriant red mane was a thing of the past.
“How are you kin to the queen?” Burke demanded.
“By marriage. My aunt, sister to my uncle and my late father, is wed to Henry Howard, the queen’s cousin.”
The Highwayman Page 2