Page 28 of The Pirate Queen

Father and son push past them, and Eóin moves toward the stairs, pulling Grace behind him. Donal has already slipped ahead, eager to escape the confrontation. When Grace looks back to watch the Binghams leave, she finds the boy still standing there, only inches away, looking at her as he would some piece of manure stuck to his boot. Now that they are level on the floor, she sees that he is shorter than her. Thin like a reed and dark-headed as a raven. She meets his curious gaze and sees him draw back, assuming he will wander out after his father.

He spits directly in her eye.

She kicks his shin in response.

It happens before she can think, before she’s even made up her mind to do so. The hard toe of her leather boot connects directly with the long bone below his knee. The younger Richard buckles. Then he yelps in pain, hopping on one foot, hands wrapped around his leg.

Both fathers stop and turn. Grace uses the movement to sidle closer to Eóin’s leg, to wipe the spit out of her eye and school her face into innocence.

Fat tears of pain slide down the boy’s cheek and he looks ready to lunge for her.

“What a frail pup you have there, Bingham,” her father says, tugging her up the stairs and away from the Englishmen.

Once they’ve made it a full rotation, Eóin leans down and whispers in her ear, “Next time, put your boot in his bollocks.”

Grace hears shouting inside the office. The merchant’s agent is louder than her father, but she knows that isn’t a good sign. Eóin gets quiet when he’s angry. Noise and bluster mean he’s only playing. But silence means wrath beneath the surface. A rip current of temper.

She and Donal stand at the top of the landing, looking out on Galway City through the slender arrow loops in the castle wall. There is another floor above them, but they were instructed to remain here, not to wander.

“Keep an eye on your sister,” Eóin told Donal with a stern warning. “I’ll tan your hide otherwise.” Then he’d gone in to get paid and—by the sound of it—things haven’t gone well since.

Grace cannot hear much. But Bingham’s name comes up several times. As does her father’s favorite refrain.

“Fecking Galway,” he shouts. “Feck this fecking city!”

Then there’s a bit about liars and thieves and Englishmen before something slams against the door by her head. It startles her so badly that she trips over her own feet and stumbles backward toward the stairs. Donal barely catches her by the arm before she goes—arse over teakettle—down the steps.

Amber liquid pools out from under the door and spreads toward them. It reeks of sailor and taproom.

“ ’Tis only whiskey,” Donal says. “Not piss. Don’t worry.”

“I know what whiskey smells like.”

And what it tastes like, she thinks. Her mam mixes it with honey for her when she has the croup.

After another round of shouting, the door opens and their father storms out, shoving a bag of coins into his pocket.

He turns to face the agent. “Tell me why I have a better chance of stumbling upon Richard Bingham in your office than I do of stumbling upon my own wife in my own bed?”

A crock, once filled with whiskey, now lies broken beside the door. Her father stands in the puddle, unconcerned. The merchant’s agent stares at him. “I’ve entered into an agreement with Bingham. You know that already.”

“We had an agreement too.”

A shrug. “He gave me better terms.”

“And he’ll change them. You’ll be back begging before the end,” her father says. “Bingham is petty. And ruthless. He’ll slit your throat as soon as shake your hand.”

Grace thinks this agent might have been handsome once. When he was young. But now he looks the way all men look to her: old and tired. His longing gaze drops to the ruined whiskey.

“We all have our orders,” he says finally, and seems to droop a bit farther into his chair.

Something like a growl rumbles in her father’s chest. “O’Flaherty?”

“You aren’t the only Chief of the Name on this island. And the one I answer to wants Bingham’s business. He has wealthy friends in Dorset. And last I checked, you have no friends at all.”

Eóin’s answer is so low and tight with anger that Grace can barely hear the words. “You might be surprised to learn exactly who my friends are.”

Then he shuts the door to the merchant’s office and orders Grace and Donal to follow him. Once they’re down the stairs and past the guards, he takes her hand again, but it doesn’t feel tender this time. It feels like he doesn’t trust her to keep up. They step into the sun and Sivney falls in behind them. Eóin has promised them a day in Galway and Grace hopes that his anger won’t make him forget. But she doesn’t dare remind him as they stomp away from the tower.