Claiming Her
Chapter One
1589
Whitehall, England
“I’M RESTORING THE RARDOVE title.”
The men of Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council lifted their heads in unison at the queen’s startling announcement.
Restoring the Irish barony was an unforeseen development.
More to the point, it had been attempted several times before, but never with any success. The Englishmen who’d been granted the honor invariably sailed over to Ireland, enraged the countryside, then died in alarmingly violent ways.
Simply put, Rardove could not be kept in Englishmen.
Which honed the point to an ever-sharper tip: why was the queen doing so now?
The Rardove title had been extinct for hundreds of years, since the thirteenth century, when the then-lord of Rardove quite lost his mind and tried to blow up half of Ireland by means of a legendary explosive dye—a ridiculous legend, that—but in the event of this madness, he had died without issue, quite violently too, at the hands of a vengeful Irishman and, the legend went on to say, a vengeful English merchant widow.
Life beyond the Pale certainly was a vicious thing, even in legend.
Elizabeth had tried restoring the title herself once, to one of her favorites. At first, it appeared to be a success, for Henri de Macie had not angered the Irish at all; indeed, he’d gone quite the opposite direction and fallen in love with one. Then married her. Then engaged in treason by defending her. The man had been overcome by passion, and entirely lost his head.
It had been placed on a pike outside London Bridge.
The Irish princess had fled, too frightened to face the queen’s wrath, leaving behind an eight-year-old dispossessed heiress. The title and lands had once again gone back to the Crown, but the queen had seen something in the young girl. She’d civilized her as best she could, then sent her back to Rardove under the protection of her stepbrother, the baron’s son from a previous marriage, a man intent on restoring his father’s titles and wresting the land back to England, once and for all.
He was dead within five years. Slipped off a cliff one spring morning. While engaged in combat with an Irishman.
The Council hardly batted an eye that time; such was the way with lords of Rardove.
The lady ruled there now, and had for the past seven years, holding the desolate castle in the name of the queen. She had done quite well, to the Council’s surprise. Not to the queen’s, though; Elizabeth had seen a bit of herself in the young woman she’d allowed to hold her Irish marchlands. By all accounts, it had been a wild success.
Until these recent rumors of treason.
Which might be quite the answer to the question, Why now?
But the potentially deepest puncture of this development was…whom would she grant it to?
Rardove encompassed vast, sweeping tracts of land. Wild land, rich land, lands of legend and rumor, beset by wet and wind and Irish warriors.
Surely she would not cede it to an…Irishman?
Surely not the one who intermittently showed up to serve on the Council, when he was not out fighting the Armada or capturing Spanish treasure fleets, or engaged in any of the other deeds of derring-do he did so well, that so captured the queen’s fancy?
Sooth, their sovereign had an unnatural affinity for male Celts.
Tall, with long hair and unfashionable clothing—Aodh Mac Con dressed more like a pirate than a gentleman—he was rumored to be pricked by paint all over his body like the heathens Raleigh had brought back from the New World.
But this Irishman was potentially even more dangerous than a savage, for he claimed he was the rightful heir of the exceedingly ancient line of Rardove, back further even than the English claim.
No. She would never do such a dangerous thing as give Ireland to an Irishman… Would she?
The men of Elizabeth’s Privy Council exchanged uneasy glances.
Cecil took the van. He cleared his throat and said casually, “And who is Your Majesty considering granting such a boon?”
She glanced up from the sheaf of papers she’d been examining. “I am not considering it, I am doing it. Bertrand of Bridge.” She returned to the papers.
The men exchanged another surprised glance. “Bertrand, your interrogator?”
She nodded. “There are questions of treason out there beyond the Pale, again. I want them settled, once and for all. First her parents, then her… It is passing sad, really. I believed in her, when you all spoke against her. But she reminded me of myself.” There was the faintest tremble to the pen. “Ah well. What must be, will be. Bertrand will question her. If she proves loyal, she may stay and wed him. If not…”
Silence fell.
“And…Aodh Mac Con?” someone ventured.
The queen paused over her paper, then set down her pen with a decisive click. “I will explain it to him. I will give him…I don’t know, a license for the wines. Or a monopoly on the nails. Or some such. He will be made whole. He will understand.”
It sounded as if she was asking them if this could be so.