Page 160 of The Pirate Queen

“Where did you get that hair?” she asks, her voice a dry croak, then is startled by a gasp from the corner of the room.

One of the serving girls leaps from her spot beside the fire. “You’re awake!” she exclaims, then stumbles into a rambling explanation about how Grace has been home since sunrise and how the girls have bathed her and the báb and what’s his name and is she hungry and he seems to nurse just fine even if they have to hold his little head to her breast. On and on the girl goes, and Grace feels as if she must squint in order to hear her.

“Where is Richard?” Grace asks.

“On his way. Finn went for him the moment your ship was back.”

She doesn’t remember much after shooting the Algerian captain. A fitful sleep on the ship. Waking occasionally to reach for Tibbot. Flashes of Finn and Gutty. She has a clear memory of opening her eyes and seeing the baby at her breast, but she has no idea how he got there.

“Finn carried you in,” the girl tells her. “Gutty had the báb.” She blushes. “He’s a fine thing, that Gutty.”

It’s nearing sunset, she can tell by how the light slants through the window. Her stomach is growling. The serving girl hears it and jumps to her feet, says she’ll be back shortly with food.

Grace is weak and achy, and she can feel a strange hollowness in her core, as though she has been scooped out. But her mind is clear. She sits up and leans against the headboard, then draws her knees up carefully so that she can prop Tibbot against her legs. His small head lolls to the side. This, too, makes her laugh. All fingers and toes accounted for. Ears and button nose and little rosebud lips. He is already beautiful.

Grace draws him against her chest, tucks his soft head into the crook of her neck, and he assumes that position so common to babies: he tucks his knees in tight and curls himself into a ball so that his tiny rear sticks out. It fits entirely in the palm of her hand.

Her heart feels full, her breasts fuller. The only thing missing is Richard. That’s what she’s thinking when the bedchamber door is pushed back. She looks up, expecting to find her husband.

But sees his mother instead.

Finola Bourke walks into the room like it still belongs to her. But The MacWilliam passed Rockfleet to Richard when he came of age. Now Finola looks around the room with a sniff of disappointment.

“Some welcome,” she tells Grace, then throws back the curtain on the canopied bed. “Get up.”

It has been years since she’s spoken a word to Finola Bourke. But the two she finds now are easy enough. “Get out.”

“You don’t give me orders, girl,” the older woman snaps.

A moment later, a second set of hurried footsteps rushes into the room. The serving girl again. She’s blushing and apologizing at the interruption, trying to explain that Finola wouldn’t wait downstairs. But she’s carrying a tray of milk and toast, and Grace waves her over. Pats the bed so that she sets it on the blankets beside her.

“I do give orders in this castle,” Grace says. “Seeing as how I live here and you do not.”

“And why would I?” Finola demands. “The whole place is flooded with muck savages.”

“I take it you mean my men?”

“Clever girl, moving your followers in the moment you married my son.”

Grace sighs. Reaches for the wool blanket beside her and tugs it over her shoulders. Both to cover her bare breasts and to keep Tibbot out of sight a bit longer.

“What do you want?” Grace asks.

“The dignity of knowing I’m a granny again.”

“Oh, you’ll be long dead before this one learns to speak. No need to get attached.”

“I lived long enough to see you marry my son. Not that I was invited to the wedding.”

Grace is about to inform Finola that there was no wedding, only a contract signed in the next room, but stops herself at the last second. She owes this woman no explanation.

Finola wanders around the bedchamber, poking and prodding at things. Picking them up, turning them over. She pulls Grace’s compass from its place on the mantel. Sniffs it, then scrunches her nose.

“Put that back.”

“Is that dried blood on the lid?”

“Yes.”