Page 136 of The Pirate Queen

Richard shakes her shoulders gently and she holds her goblet out so as not to spill the mulled wine. He lowers his chin and places a soft kiss to her brow. “None of this is your fault. Not your fecking useless husband. Not his death or your father’s. Or the duty my father required of me. None of it. The only thing I blame you for is that, try as I might, I can’t love any woman but you.”

“Does Aoife know that?”

“Tá. Her husband died in a battle I led some years back. They loved each other but were poor and childless. I needed an heir and she needed a means of support. There is nothing between us but respect.”

“And Edmund.”

An expression of fierce protectiveness flashes across his face. “I do not regret him.”

“Nor should you. As I do not regret any of mine. I only wanted to know what she means to you.”

“Why?”

Grace takes another slow sip of her wine. “When Nora told me you were not married, I thought…”

It seems foolish to her now, this idea she has concocted these last few hours. She looks away and her face burns.

Richard bends closer and his nose brushes along her cheekbone, his lips brush against her ear and he asks, “Thought what?”

She shakes her head.

“Tell me.”

“You’ll laugh.”

“I won’t. I can promise that too, if you like. Though I’ll have to learn the Latin.”

They are so close now, close enough for their breath to mingle. So Grace presses her face against the cool chainmail vest that he always wears. It helps. She can no longer feel her face burn.

“I had thought we should be married,” she says.

Gráinne looks like she has ridden through a storm. Everything about her is wild: clothes, hair, eyes. Richard watches as she claps a hand over her mouth, as though she regrets her words. But now that he’s heard them, he considers it done.

“Then I say ’tis a good thing we have a priest downstairs and a room full of witnesses as well.”

Her mouth falls open.

Richard takes the goblet from her hand and sets it carefully on the desk. Then he winds their fingers together and brings her hand to his chest.

“I had not expected an immediate handfasting,” she jokes.

“Don’t tempt me,” he says, then shakes his head. “I want to do it properly.”

“I can’t believe you want to do it at all.”

“Did I not once ask you to run off with me so that we could be married? Then promise continually that I would wait for you? Your surprise offends me, Gráinne.”

This woman, this absolute meteor of a woman, laughs at him.

“It makes sense,” she says. “Strategically. Between us, we would control most of Connaught.”

“I could give a feck about strategy. Or Connaught. And I’ve already agreed, regardless.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know what you’re getting from this arrangement?”

“I’m getting you. That’s enough.”

“ ’Tis not so simple. There are children. Yours and mine. Lands and titles and ships. I have been married once—”