Johnathan Kira smiled knowingly to himself, and pushing the servant back into the passageway he closed the library door behind him, saying as he did, "Good evening, Sir Christian."
His host looked up, startled, then jumped up from his chair where he had been reading a tract on the Bible. "Kira! What are you doing here? My loan is not yet due. I will pay you when it is."
"I have come for Aine Devers, Sir Christian," Johnathan Kira said without dissembling. "Give me the child to return to her family, and you and I will have no difficulty."
"I do not know what you mean," Sir Christian said, not looking directly at his uninvited guest.
"Ahh," Johnathan Kira replied, "you are going to be foolish. How lamentable. You are fortunate the maidservant is not dead, only injured, else you would hang for murder. If you had taken her child, there would have been far less of an outburst, for the little boy is a Catholic of two Irish parents. Aine Devers, no matter her religion, is the grandchild of a duke, and the niece of several wealthy noblemen, one of whom is the king's nephew. You cannot hope to get away with this particular kidnapping."
"Get out of my house!" Sir Christian blustered.
"Your house?" Johnathan Kira laughed darkly. "Until you pay us back, Sir Christian Denby, it is not your house. I am well within my right, Jew I may be, to call in the loan we have made you. If I do, what will you have then? A worthless title, a mountain of debts, and nothing else. Is your possession of this child worth all of that? How will you help your fellow Puritans to lobby against the king if I strip you of the small power you possess right now through us? Fetch the child at once, and give her to me. If you do not, I shall open the door of this house to the duke's men who have accompanied me this night. They will search, and they will find the child, whom I have already heard crying on an upper floor. Then the matter becomes a public one, and you, sir, are ruined. If, however, you give me the child now, the matter remains private, and we will not call your loan in for some time to come. I have said all I will on the matter. Bring me the child!"
"Devil's spawn!" snarled Sir Christian. "You dirty Jews are all the devil's own!" Then he pushed past Johnathan Kira, saying brusquely, "Follow me, and you shall have what you came for this night!"
With a small smile of triumph Johnathan Kira walked after his host who, going to the foot of the house stairs in the square entry foyer, called up to some nameless soul to bring the baby down to him. The order was quickly obeyed, and a serving woman came into view carrying Aine Devers.
Sir Christian took the baby roughly from the woman, and thrust her into Johnathan Kira's arms. "Here is the child who is now doomed to roast in eternal hellfire!" he spat at his antagonist.
"Thank you," Johnathan Kira said calmly. "And if you read your Bible correctly, Sir Christian, you would discover that we Jews are called God's chosen people. It is also a fact that Yushua of Nazareth, whom you call Jesus, was also a Jew. Good evening to you, sir." Johnathan Kira walked from the house with his prize, and handed her up to the Leslie captain. "Let us return to Queen's Malvern now," he said. Then he chucked the baby under the chin. "You have had quite an adventure, little one," he remarked. "Well, you are safe now, and on your way home to your mother, praise Yahweh!"
"Ma-ma!" Aine said forlornly. "Ma-ma."
He smiled a kindly smile at her, transforming his usually severe features. "Yes, Mistress Aine. You are going home to your mama."
They rode back through the spring twilight, the smells of newly turned earth, early blooming bushes, and flowers, cleansing the air and tickling their nostrils. Fortune was awaiting them at the door, and snatched her child down from the captain's arms, clutching Aine to her bosom, and sobbing softly.
"Ma-ma!" Aine's small voice was now happy.
"Aye, baby, I am your mama, and you are safe home." She kissed Aine's red head. Then her eyes went to Johnathan Kira. "Your son need only come aboard the Cardiff Rose with his personal supplies of food. Everything else he will need will be supplied for him, I promise you. You will transfer immediately one quarter of my funds to his care, Master Kira. And when we are settled in Mary's Land, another quarter is to be transferred. The other half I will leave here in England. You and your son will have my everlasting friendship for what you have done this night. But how?"
"Sir Christian inherited a tumbled-down house, my lady, with his title, but nothing more. He needed funds to restore the house, and invest in a venture that would make him independent enough that he might attract a wife with a good dowry. He came to the Kiras, and now he is in our debt. He had to decide whether he would lose everything he had gained this night, or return your child. Fortunately he chose wisely."
They walked back into the house. "Thank God you were here with us else I might never have regained my daughter without violence," Fortune said softly. She kissed the baby again, and handed her to Rohana to put to bed.
"Your serving woman?"
"She regained consciousness, and told us that Sir Christian and another man, probably his servant, had attacked her. The first blow they hit her with did not render her unconscious, and she saw them. She tried to scream, and they hit her a second time, but she recognized them," Fortune explained. "She will, with rest, be all right, thank God. I do not know how I would have told her Kevin if anything had happened to her. Come into the hall and have a goblet of wine. You can have it, can't you?"
"In my own cup," he chuckled.
"How long have our families been associated?" Fortune asked him curiously. "It has been many years, hasn't it?"
"Aye," he told her. "Your stepfather's revered ancestress, a great and powerful woman, made friends with my revered ancestress, Esther Kira. The two women aided each other in many ways, and through the influence of one, the other grew powerful and wealthy, too. That, I am told, is how it all began over a century ago. Then your mother's grandmother began dealing with us, and we found that she, too, was a woman of great intellect, honor, and ethics. That was over seventy years ago. Then parts of the two families intertwined in marriage, continuing to deal with the Kiras. It has, my lady, been a successful collaboration."
"May it continue to be so in the New World," Fortune told him sincerely with a smile.
"Amen," Johnathan Kira intoned. "Amen to that, my lady."
Chapter 17
Once again Fortune stood at the rail of the Cardiff Rose watching with interest as the landscape of her new homeland came into view. The beauty of it was so incredible that she almost wept. There was this strong feeling of belonging that she had never before experienced. Kieran had been right. This was home. It was unlike anything she had ever before seen. The bays through which they now sailed were huge. The waters very, very blue. Above her the sun shone in a cloudless sky. How different from their departure from England a month and a half ago.
The late spring day had been gray and rainy, and Fortune Lindley Devers had found herself suddenly afraid. She stood with her mother, and the only father she had ever known upon the ship's deck prior to their departure. Jasmine's eyes were red with evidence of weeping although she now seemed calm and in control of herself. Even James Leslie was unusually silent as he held Aine in his arms.
"We'll have to cast off soon, Cousin," Ualtar O'Flaherty said as he joined them. "The tide will shortly be with us." Then he moved away to give them the privacy they so obviously needed.