Page 4 of The Pirate Queen

His heart catches. Like a rusted key in an old lock. It has been many years since he’s lied to a woman. Since he made promises he had no intention of keeping. He’s not done so since he married Maeve. But a number of faces flash before his eyes—Aisling among them—and he flinches. He’s certain she can feel his body stiffen.

“What do you mean?”

“Gráinne believes what you tell her. You could say that if she flapped her arms fast enough she could fly to the moon, and that girl would repeat it to me later as fact. You should be telling her the truth, that girls can’t go to sea. That it’s bad luck, or the men would revolt, or the sea god Manannán would take every one of you to the depths, or whatever shite it is that you believe about those damned boats. Instead, you told her that her hair would get caught in the ropes. Why?”

He has thought of that braid every day since he left. The way it sank into the water and disappeared. When Gráinne ran back to the tower house, the knife was still gripped in her small fist. That whole first day at sea he’d imagined her tripping, falling on the blade.

He shrugs against Maeve’s body. “ ’Tis the way she looks at Niamh, isn’t it?”

“How does she look at that bloody boat?”

“Like she wants it.”

“And that angers you?” she asks.

Eóin is tired, or he wouldn’t say it. But a day at sea, then a day in fecking Galway, then another day at sea have left him exhausted and stupid. So the words tumble out and he cannot muster the strength to stop them.

“Donal doesn’t look at Niamh that way. He’s afraid of every boat he sets foot on.”

If his body had stiffened before, hers turns to stone. A boulder. A fortress. She might as well be the cliffs of Croaghaun, made of cold, jagged quartzite. Maeve turns to stone, then turns away.

Donal.

Eóin, you fool, you drab, he thinks.

Maeve hates talking about the boy.

But what is he to do?

Eóin was still young when he swived Donal’s mother on that knoll above the village. And she’d gone willingly enough, wanting to wear that green gown, to be clothed in nothing but grass. He learned early that the chieftain’s son doesn’t have to beg a girl. They all want the man, the title. They want to be Lady of the House. Aisling went without promises of any kind. But he cannot say he didn’t know what might happen. Of course he did. He’s been around barnyards his entire life. It’s just that—in the moment—he didn’t care. He was seventeen and she was lifting her skirts and that had been as far as his thoughts had gone. But now he has a son and a wife and a daughter. In that order. And it seems he cannot do right by any of them.

“Maeve?” he asks, urging her out of silence.

“I wish I’d known about him,” she says.

“Would it have changed your mind?”

“Wouldn’t have mattered, would it? The decision wasn’t mine. It was arranged between our fathers.”

“Tá. But do you regret it?”

“It would have been nice to know what I was coming here to manage.”

They’d arrived at Clare Island besotted with each other seven years ago. They’d married and consummated and had each been delighted by the good match made for them. Both clans strengthened, with the added bonus of attraction. He’d loved the sight of her naked and was pleased that she felt the same about him. The rest would grow from their union, he was certain of it. Then Aisling had walked into the tower house during their celebration, leading Donal by his chubby hand, and presented his son before an audience. To his new bride. Aisling drove a wedge that he still cannot pry loose.

He exhales a sigh onto Maeve’s bare shoulder. “I should have told you.”

Eóin ponders more of an apology, but what good would it do? Telling his wife he’s sorry won’t make Donal any less real. Nor will it give him the chance to go back and turn away when Aisling took his hand and led him toward that knoll. All of it happened years before he ever went to Liscannor or saw all that glorious red hair of Maeve’s. Her blue eyes. Her smile wide as the horizon.

“I did not realize I’d married a liar,” Maeve says, and she could not cut him more cleanly had she taken a knife to his throat.

“That isn’t fair,” he whispers.

“Isn’t it? You lied to me. And you lied to our daughter.”

“What would you have me do?” he asks, reaching for her, even as she scoots away.

“Make it right,” she says.