“I’ll kill him,” Niall said quietly.
“And what of your poor wife? Would you kill her also? What harm has that unfortunate creature done to either of us? You say shewas to be a nun, and from what you tell me she had a true vocation. Has she not been harmed as deeply as we?” Skye drew a deep breath and pulled away from him, her blue eyes intent. “Niall! Oh, Niall, my love! We are inescapably wed to other people. There is no hope for us. I love you, Niall, but when I return to Ballyhennessey I want never to set eyes on you again. I cannot see you and keep my love for you from the world. Dom is already suspicious. I want no trouble between the two of you, for he is foolish and apt to be treacherous. I am not so innocent as to beg that you forget me. We will not forget, either of us, but we must part.”
He pulled her back into his arms. “I cannot bear to lose you again,” he said brokenly.
“Oh, my love, you never really had me,” she answered sadly.
For a few minutes longer they clung to each other, unwilling for the bittersweet interlude to end. Then, kissing her tenderly, he laid her back against the pillows. “I’ll find other times during this visit when we can talk,” he said. “Promise me one thing, though. Promise me you’ll ask my help should youeverneed it. I will not rest easy if you do not give me your word, Skye, and swear to it. I’ll not have O’Flaherty mistreating you.”
“I do not fear Dom. As long as I play the beautiful and docile wife for him in public, his vanity is fed enough.” She would not tell him the truth, tell him of her husband’s degrading ways in their bed, for it would only infuriate Niall and there was nothing he could do about it. “Sit with me but a moment longer,” she begged. Smiling, he took her hand. She closed her eyes. Soon she was asleep. Gently drawing the featherbedding over her, he unbolted the door and slipped from the room.
Making his way back to the banquet hall, Niall dismissed his page for the night. Then, turning to seek his own quarters, he almost collided with a young squire. “Your pardon, my lord, but the MacWilliam would see you.” Niall nodded and immediately sought the old man’s rooms.
He found his father sitting up in bed, a nightcap upon his leonine head. His gouty foot was freshly bound, and he held a goblet in his hand. Niall bent and sniffed the cup. “I thought malmsey was bad for your foot,” he noted.
“That quack of a doctor tells me everything is bad for my foot. I suppose if I could still fuck he’d tell me that was bad for my foot also,” was the flinty retort. The MacWilliam paused. “I would say that the beauteous young Lady O’Flaherty is bad for more than your foot, Niall, my son.”
The two men eyed each other, and the MacWilliam sighed. “I was wrong to force you into marriage with the O’Neill lass. I can see O’Malley’s girl would have made you a better wife. Christ! Wed seven months, and already with child! And she carries the babe well. What a breeder! She’ll give O’Flaherty a houseful of sons, and still have a waist a man could span with his two hands. And what a beauty … that hair, and those Kerry-blue eyes, and those marvelous tits! Damme, I wish I weren’t so old!”
Niall laughed, but his father now continued in a more serious tone. “Keep away from her, Niall. O’Flaherty won’t wear the horns of a cuckold gracefully. He’d kill you if he catches you with his wife. I know you were with her in her bedchamber tonight while her husband lay drunk in the hall. Be careful, lad! You’re my only son, my heir, and I love you. Until you get a legitimate son, we’re not safe.”
“Rest easy, Father. Skye and I but talked. If we had done it in public the gossips would have had a field day.”
“Youtalked?!God’s nightshirt! If I were twenty years younger and alone with that beauty, it would not have been talking I’d have been doing!”
Again Niall laughed. “Come, Father, she’s six months gone with child.”
“There are ways, boy.”
“I know, and perhaps if the child were mine—but it’s not. Besides,” and here Niall eyed his father firmly, “finding out the trick that you and O’Malley played to separate us has made Skye very vulnerable. I would not hurt her further. I love her.”
“If she lost the babe then she’d be free of O’Flaherty,” said the old man slyly. “His wife, yes, but free to come to you … and she would. I’d recognize any bastards she gave you as my heirs, for I strongly doubt the O’Neill girl will ever conceive.”
“Don’t tempt me, Father. If you think Skye worthy to bear our heirs, then surely she is worthy of our name as well. You see her as nothing but a brood mare who will secure our immortality, but I love Skye. I have never wanted any woman but her for my wife.” He took a deep, ragged breath. “But O’Flaherty is strong and healthy. He will probably live forever. She and I have no hope.”
“His death could be arranged … but you’re too noble for your own good, Niall! Love has made you a weakling. If you don’t mean to claim the woman for your own, then keep away from her else her husband kills you in a fit of jealous rage,” growled the old man.
“Or I kill him,” mused Lord Burke quietly.
CHAPTER 6
SKYE’S SON, EWAN, WAS BORN IN EARLY SPRING. EIBHLIN HELPEDdeliver her new nephew, having come to the O’Flahertys’ immediately after Twelfth Night. Eibhlin was shocked by the poverty of the O’Flahertys’ tower house. Anne had, of course, repeated Skye’s descriptions of her home, but the nun had assumed that Skye’s bitter disappointment over her marriage caused her to exaggerate. Now she saw that everything Anne had reported was dismayingly true.
The masonry of the tower house was in poor repair and there were drafts everywhere. The floors were covered by nothing except dirty, much-used rushes. The few wall hangings were threadbare and virtually useless for warmth, let alone comfort. The furniture was sparse as well. Eibhlin was puzzled. She knew that her father and stepmother had sent a number of fine pieces along to Skye, but when she questioned her younger sister all she got was a mumbled answer about Gilly and Dom and their endless debts.
Having her sister with her made it a happy winter for Skye. Ewan’s birth was a relaxed and easy one, and Eibhlin left four weeks afterward. She returned within several months to aid her sister once again, for Skye’s second son, Murrough, was separated from his brother by but ten months.
Murrough made his entry into the world during a brutal midwinter storm. Fortunately this birth was also an easy one, for Eibhlin had other factors beside the baby to contend with. The strong winds had blown so hard that the floors of O’Flaherty House were covered with half an inch of snow in some places. It had blown through cracked walls and the sheepskin-covered windows. The fires had gone out several times, and Eibhlin had been hard-pressed to keep her sister and the newborn boy warm and dry. Eibhlin was angry. She was ashamed that her sister should live this way. Skye’s dowry gone to pay gaming debts, or for wine, or to buy gifts for the women Dom and his father amused themselves with. Eibhlin made herself a vow: Skye would have no more babes, especially so quickly, until Dom grew up and took his responsibilities seriously.
“Ten months between babes is too soon,” she scolded. “Now you must rest at least a year or two before conceiving again.”
“Tell Dom,” said Skye weakly. “He’ll be on me within themonth. Despite his whores, he harbors a constant lust for me. Besides, I thought I could not conceive as long as I nursed Ewan.”
“An old wives’ tale that has done more harm than you can imagine,” replied Eibhlin. “And I shall talk to Dom myself. Then I’ll give you the recipe for a potion that will prevent conception.”
“Eibhlin!” Skye was both amused and shocked. “And you a nun! How on earth do you know such things?”
“I have as much knowledge as a doctor,” replied Eibhlin. “More perhaps, since I have also learned midwifery and herbal medicine from the old ones. Doctors scorn these things, but they are wrong to do so. I can tell you several ways to prevent conception.”
