Claiming Her

“I think she is trouble.”

“Only if we do not win her.”

“Bermingham has a hundred men at his command.”

Aodh pursed his lips, then gave George a final pat. “Well, then, let us see what he has to say.”

“I know what he has to say,” Ré said as they turned for the door.

“What?”

“He wants his wife back.”

Aodh stopped short. “Wife?” He thought a moment. “Do we have his wife?”

Ré nodded grimly. “Turns out we do. Cormac’s girl. The one we thought too fine to be a maidservant? She is too fine. She’s a baroness. And Katarina has been hiding her. For two years.”

*

KATARINA LEANED over the map Aodh had brought up, tracing the outlines of Bohemia in the sunlight pouring through the high window, thinking of how little she knew of Marco Polo’s travels, and how she must ask Aodh what he knew, when a key sounded in the lock.

She looked up. Aodh pushed the door wide. Tiny and rose-petal light, the vibration of a stringed instrument drifted in.

Aodh did not come into the room, just leaned his shoulder against the frame of the door and looked at her.

Uneasiness crept down her spine. “What is it?”

“‘Iron’ Piers Bermingham has come for a visit.”

She gasped.

“What do you think he wants?”

“Susanna.”

She flew to him. Curse the man, Bermingham, coming here, now. No doubt back from whatever campaign he and his awful, criminal brothers had launched on the borders of whatever unfortunate town or enemy had drawn their attention, or whatever unfortunate tavern was closest. He’d been gone for six months, and practically leaking beer and incomprehensible—and uninterested in his wife—for the twelvemonth prior to that.

But dear, sweet, vulnerable Susanna was, in the end, worth something to him. And now he had come for her.

“No, Aodh,” she pleaded, her face flushed. “You cannot send her back.”

“Why not?”

“He is cruel and brutal. She will not last a week.”

“She is his.”

She touched his tunic, felt the power of his chest beneath. “Aodh, please, you do not know Baron Athelrye.”

“I know him some.”

“Then you know what sort of man he is.”

“She is his.” The repetition was ominous.

“No. Aodh, no.” She tightened her fingers on his tunic. “She divorced him, under Brehon law. She was wed to him for a year, then divorced him. Per the law.”

His gaze fell to her hand on his tunic, then tracked back up. “That is not English law. Nor Catholic. He claims those rights.”