1635: A Parcel of Rogues - eARC Read Online Free PDF Page B

furious denunciation had had more than one sergeant within earshot taking notes. Yeah, pissing off Vicky’s mum was a bad idea. Especially since it was such a reasonable request. He’d spent time taking his ease with those folks, seen them with cause to celebrate, and there was every reason to think that Vicky’s nuptials would be the kind of party that could be seen from space.
    “Yeah. I’d love to just marry you quiet-like.” Darryl noted that the internal critic that’d recoiled in horror at the thought of marriage now just sat in the corner muttering fine, not like I care whether you listen to me anyway . “But it’d be a shame to disappoint your folks.”
    She gave his arm a squeeze. “That’s why I want a private room at an inn. One with a window for you to come in through. Tradition’s important, y’see.”
    Darryl squeezed back. “Tradition be damned,” he growled, “if there ain’t no window, I got dynamite that’ll tend to that little detail right quick.”
    “I love it when you talk dirty, Darryl.”

Chapter 4
    The Tower of London
    “Is Finnegan here yet?” the earl of Cork asked Captain Holderness, the moment he entered the still-half-destroyed ruins of what had once been St. Thomas Tower.
    Startled, the captain looked up from his examination of the hole in the wall. What he hoped to find there, this many days after the explosion that had blown the hole, was a mystery.
    The captain glanced from Boyle to the corner behind him.
    “Here, y’lordship,” came a voice from that corner. “And a fine mess you have for me.”
    Boyle whirled round and addressed the man. “Behind me, by stealth, Finnegan—not lost your touch coming over the water?”
    Finnegan grinned, a world of villainy in the broad, charming smile. “Not hardly, not hardly at all, y’lordship.”
    Boyle grinned back. There was more than a little mockery in the title Finnegan gave him, but there was no cause for offense, if you knew him. The ruffian respected nobody who couldn’t get a knife to his throat to compel it. His father had been cut from the same cloth, albeit with less of a veneer of good taste and manners. Boyle had been driven out of his estates by the aftermath of the O’Neil rebellion, and when he got back in he’d made sure, through judicious use of such men as the Finnegans, that none of the seeds of rebellion lay dormant in his lands. It had the happy side-effect of keeping them busy away from stealing other mens’ horses and cattle, both popular pastimes in the wilder parts of Ireland. Paying for a little education and training for such men in their youth reaped dividends. Paying for a lot more education for their sons in turn, and hold out the prospect of an income for those lads that didn’t come from brute farming or thievery, and they’d rob the teeth out of the devil’s head for you. It was the kind of long-term thinking that Boyle liked, and excelled at.
    Rapid improvisation in response to events was not his strongest suit, he knew, but if a fellow had laid the groundwork and ensured he had a ready supply of the Finnegans of this world at hand, then surprises could be handled.
    “A fine mess, indeed, Finnegan. And knowing that such were about to be made, why, who could I send for across the water but you?” Boyle rubbed his hands against the briskness of the morning. “Have you not made some fine messes in your time? I’m sure you’ll be the right fellow to clear this one up.”
    “Ah, well, if that turns out the right thing, yer earlness, sure and I’ll see it done. If not, well, who could yez have sent for over the water but me? By the by, and sure it’s only idle curiosity, but who’s the langer, here? And what’s his part in this mess?”
    Finnegan tilted his head at Holderness as he spoke, and Boyle could see a look of concern on the man’s face as he tried to work out what he’d been called. Deciding that he didn’t need Finnegan killing a man in a duel to add to the day’s